By George! It's a Jail Break!

Princess Charlotte, daughter of Prince George IV and Caroline of Brunswick, was ordered by her father to marry a man she could not tolerate. When she refused, her father replaced all her servants and brought her before a bishop. What is poor Charlotte to do?

Having resolved not to submit to her fathers demands, Charlotte did the only thing she could think to do. She ran away from home. Her own home no less. Leaving dad and the Bishop of Salisbury to wonder what had possessed her, Charlotte dashed to her room for a shawl and bonnet. From there it was a quick trip down the back stairs and across the courtyard to Charing Cross Road where she hired a hackney couch to take her mom’s house, Connaught Place.

Mom was at Blackheath for the day, so she sent a groom to fetch her home. She sent another groom to fetch Lord Brougham and a third to fetch her dinner. Charlotte was enjoying herself enormously. If she stopped to consider her situation, it didn’t bother her. Lord Brougham arrived, but before he had time to question Charlotte closely on what had happened, mother and Lady Charlotte Lindsey blew in. Dinner was announced shortly thereafter.

Just as Brougham was getting the full story, the first of many royal emissaries and advisers arrived from Carlton House. The Bishop, the Lord Chancellor, the Dukes of York and Sussex. They all told variations of the same message. “Charlotte, you are SO dead.” Charlotte wasn’t listening. She remained in high spirits throughout the evening. Mom was at her side the whole time, egging her on.

At length, The Bishop of Salisbury, who had gone back to Carlton House, returned with dad’s final message. “submit unconditionally.” This is what Charlotte feared most. Such submission would leave the door wide open to, in Charlotte’s view, a forced marriage. “They may wear me out by ill-treatment and may represent that I have changed my mind and consented.”

While the Princess talked with the Duke of Sussex, Lord Brougham joined them. The Duke had a legal point he wanted cleared up. “Pray Sir, supposing the Prince Regent, acting in the name and on behalf of His Majesty, were to send a sufficient force to break the doors of this house and carry away the Princess, would any resistance in such a case be lawful?”

“It would not.” Brougham replied.

The Duke turned to Charlotte. “Then my dear, you hear what the law is. I can only advise you to return with as much speed and as little noise as possible.” Brougham assured her repeatedly that her father could not force her to marry against her wishes. Charlotte was unconvinced. She felt that her only safe course of action would be to remain with her mother. Unfortunately for Charlotte, it was beginning to dawn on mom just how badly her daughter’s behavior was affecting her plans to leave the country. She said nothing, but she grew increasingly nervous as the evening wore on.

Princess Charlotte herself was growing less sure of her position. As well she should have, because it was a bad one. Brougham, no friend of the Prince Regent’s by any stretch of the imagination, advised her to return to either Warwick or Carlton House and take her medicine like a big girl. Dad could not force her to marry, but he could make her life very unpleasant if she insisted on following her current course. The discussion went on until dawn.

At that point. Brougham took Charlotte to the window overlooking Hyde Park.

“Look there madam. In a few hours all the streets and the park, now empty, will be crowded with tens of thousands. I have only to take you to that window, and show you to the multitude, and tell them of your grievances, and they will rise on your behalf.”

“And why should they not?” She asked.

“The commotion will be excessive. Carlton House will be attacked, perhaps pulled down; the soldiers will be ordered out, blood will be shed; and if your Royal Highness were to live a hundred years, it would never be forgotten that your running away from your fathers house was the cause of the mischief; and you may depend upon it, such is the English people’s horror of bloodshed, you will never get over it.”

The thought of other people being injured, perhaps killed, because of her actions sobered her considerably. She decided she had no choice but to submit. But not before having a document drawn up in which she declared that she was “firmly resolved” not to marry the Prince of Orange. If ever there was an announcement of such a marriage “it must be understood to be without her consent and against her will.”

Brougham drew up the document in his best legalese. He signed it as her legal representative. Mom, Lady Lindsey and the Duke of Sussex signed as witnesses. He made six copies, which they all signed. Each person getting their own copy and one for dad. Then, at five o’clock, Princess Charlotte surrendered herself at Carlton House with the Duke of York acting as escort.

From that point onward, everything went down the way the Prince Regent had planned. Charlotte went to Cranbourn Lodge. There she felt “quite hopeless and spiritless.” Not surprising, since she was watched like a prisoner on suicide watch. She was not permitted to send or receive letters. Her only permitted visitor was Margaret Mercer Elphinstone, a committed Whig, but also someone who had no use whatsoever for the Princess of Wales. In dad’s book, that’s all that mattered.

She was allowed to attend the Queen’s musical entertainments at Frogmore. Although “allowed” does not really explain it. She would have gladly skipped them, but she wasn’t allowed not to attend them. It was during this time that Charlotte received a message from mom. It was a message that caused Charlotte “much distress and agitation.” Miss Elphinstone said that she had never seen Charlotte so “deeply affected and apparently mortified.” The message was simply “Good luck with your dad. I’m outtahere! Maybe I’ll see you again, maybe I won’t. Either way, toodle-loo!”

As Brougham had pointed out to Charlotte, if her mother left the country with no plan of returning, a divorce was sure to follow. Dad would no doubt re-marry. Indeed, parliament would demand that he re-marry and produce an heir. The child of that union would be the new heir. Princess Charlotte would remain Princess Charlotte, but neither she nor any children she might have later would ever reach the throne.

Charlotte told Miss Elphinstone; “After all if a mother has not feeling for her child or children are they to teach it to her or can they expect to be listened to with any hopes of success?” The answer to that was, Nope!