Disastrous abusive Royal Wedding of king George IV and Caroline of Brunswick|

Imagine crying and passing out on your wedding because you can't believe how ugly your wife is. We all love a groom who cries as his bride walks towards him, and when it's a royal groom, it's even better. However, some tears proved disastrous. Most, if not all, royal weddings throughout history were arranged. Some royal groom's tears were a public demonstration of his unhappiness in a marriage that hadn't even taken place yet. Hi, welcome back to History Rediscovered. Remember to support our channel, please subscribe. In today's episode, we discuss the disastrous, abusive royal wedding of King George IV and Carolina. Their marriage is known as the worst throughout history. The things that happened to this couple will shock you. George was born at St. James's Palace, London, on August 12th, 1762. He was the first child of King George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. As the eldest son of a British sovereign, he automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay at birth. At the age of 18, the Prince of Wales was given a separate establishment. He led an extravagant lifestyle that contributed to the fashions of the Regency era, and in dramatic contrast to his prosaic, scandal-free father, he threw himself with zest into a life of dissipation and wild extravagance involving heavy drinking and numerous mistresses and escapades. He was a witty conversationalist, drunk or sober, and showed good, but grossly expensive taste in decorating his palace. When the Prince of Wales turned 21 in 1783, he obtained a grant of £60,000, equivalent to £7,685,000 today from Parliament and an annual income of £50,000, equivalent to £6,404,000 today from his father. The money might seem a lot, but it was far too little for his wants. His stables alone cost £31,000 a year. This just shows that he led an extravagant lifestyle. He then established his residence in Carlton House, where he lived a profited life. Just at the age of 17, he had an affair with an actress, Mary Robinson, but it didn't last for so long. Soon after he reached the age of 21, the Prince became infatuated with Maria Fitzherbert. She was a commoner though a granddaughter of a baronet, six years his elder, twice widowed, and a Roman Catholic. Nevertheless, the Prince was determined to marry her. The couple went through a marriage ceremony on December 15, 1785 at her house in Park Street, Mayfair. This was in spite of the Act of Settlement 1701, which barred the spouse of a Catholic from succeeding to the throne, and the Royal Marriages Act 1772, which prohibited his marriage without the King's consent. Legally, the union was void, as the King's consent was not granted. For political reasons, the union remained secret and Fitzherbert promised not to reveal it. They were very happy together for eight years, but by then the Prince of Wales's debts continued to climb. The Prince was in debt to the tune of £630,000, a tremendous sum in those days. And his father refused to aid him unless he married his cousin Princess Caroline of Brunswick, born on May 17, 1768, the daughter of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbottle, and Princess Augusta Frederica of Wales, the daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son of George II, and Augusta of Saxgotha. She was christened with the names Caroline Amelia Elizabeth. Neither the Prince of Wales nor the Princess Caroline wanted the match, but they both agreed to it. Caroline was allegedly short, fat, ugly, and never changed her undergarments, and rarely washed. Her body odour was overwhelming. In order to clear his debt he had to make a tough decision to marry her. In 1794, Caroline and the Prince of Wales were engaged. They had never met, George had agreed to marry her because he was heavily in debt, and if he contracted a marriage with an eligible princess, Parliament would increase his allowance. King George IV was drunk and crying at the altar. In 1795, George IV married a German princess, Caroline of Brunswick. When George saw his bride for the first time, after embracing her, he retired to the far end of the room and said to the Earl of Malmesbury, he exclaimed, I am not well, pray, get me a glass of brandy. It went downhill from there. On their wedding day, George was so drunk that he couldn't stand on his own, and two dukes had to hold him up at the altar. He even wept openly during the ceremony. He continued to drink brandy for three days until the morning of the wedding. He regarded Caroline as unattractive and unhygienic, and told Malmesbury that he suspected that she was not a virgin when they married. At dinner that evening, the Prince was appalled by Caroline's garrulous nature and her jibes at the expense of Lady Jersey. She was upset and disappointed by George's obvious partiality for Lady. The Prince found Caroline so disgusting that he refused to live with her, and a year after their wedding he sent her a note tactfully informing her that she could do as she liked, as he would not be having relations with her again. Caroline took this to mean that she could do as she wished. Nevertheless, their only child Princess Charlotte was conceived, so he obviously managed to do what was required of him by his country. According to historians, his fiancée was also disappointed, exclaiming that the Prince was very fat and nothing like as handsome as his portrait. The wedding night was similarly disastrous. He spent much of it unconscious in the fire grate on the opposite side of the room from his new wife. Nonetheless, the marital bed was occupied at least once, but the couple formally separated after the birth of their child, Princess Charlotte, George's only legitimate child, at Carlton House on January 7th, 1796, nine months later. Just three days after Charlotte's birth, George abandoned Carolina and made out a new will. He left all his property to Maria Fitzherbert, my wife, while to Caroline he left one shilling. Rejected by her husband, she went to live at Blackheath, London, where her behavior became more than a little extreme. She was given to dancing around in front of her guests in a manner that was most indelicate, exposing most of her body. In 1806, rumors began to circulate that a four-year-old child in her entourage, William Austin, was her son. His father was said to be a footman. A royal commission was set up called the Delicate Investigation, but nothing could be proved against her. During the Delicate Investigation, Caroline was not permitted to see her daughter, and afterwards her visits were essentially restricted to once a week and only in the presence of Caroline's own mother, the Dowager Duchess of Brunswick. By the end of 1811, King George III had become permanently insane, and the Prince of Wales was appointed as regent. He restricted Caroline's access to Princess Charlotte further, and Caroline became more socially isolated as members of high society chose to patronize George's extravagant parties rather than hers. In January 1820, King George III died, and the prince became King George IV of the United Kingdom and Hanover, and so Caroline became Queen. The government in England offered Caroline £50,000 if she would stay out of the country, but she refused and came back, where she settled in Hammersmith to the intense embarrassment of all concerned. Lord Liverpool told Caroline that she should not go to the service, but she turned up anyway. George had Caroline turned away from the coronation at the doors of Westminster Abbey. He closed entry at both the doors to the East Cloister and the doors to the West Cloister. Caroline attempted to enter via Westminster Hall, where many guests were gathered before the service even began. A witness described how the Queen stood at the door fuming as bayonets were held under her chin until the Deputy Lord Chamberlain had the doors slammed right in her face. That night, Caroline fell ill and took a large dose of milk of magnesia and some drops of laudanum. During the following three weeks after George became King, her condition deteriorated and she suffered severe abdominal pain. Caroline died at Brandenburg House at 10.25pm on August 7th, 1821 at the age of 53. She expressed a wish to be buried in Germany and to have engraved on her coffin the inscription Caroline of Brunswick, the injured Queen of England. Her body was sent to Brunswick, where she was buried beside her father in Brunswick Cathedral on August 25th. Her physicians thought she had an intestinal obstruction, but she may have had cancer and there were rumors at the time that she had been poisoned.