Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - The Real Queen Charlotte

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Queen Charlotte is back in the spotlight, thanks to the new Bridgerton spin-off series looking into her life and marriage to King George III.We know Bridgerton uses a lot of creative license when it comes to historical accuracy (just in case you didn't know, people in the Regency period did not dance to orchestral covers of Beyonce) so today Kate thought she'd get Betwixt the Sheets with historian, Catherine Curzon to find out who the real Queen Charlotte was.What was her early life like? How was her relationship like with her husband before and after his mental health problems? How did other members of high society view her?You can find out more about Catherine Curzon's work here.WARNING: There is adult content and explicit words in this episode.Senior producer: Charlotte Long. Producer: Stuart Beckwith. Mixed by Siobhan DaleBetwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? We'll sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles.

Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Lovely for tricksters, it's me, Kate Lister. I am here with your fair do's warning to warn you about the naughtiness that might be coming your way. Well, there's not very much of amay about it. It's definitely coming your way because I'm talking to Catherine Curzon again today

and she just brings out the worst in me. So, this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults in an adulty way about adultery things and you should be an adult too. We're definitely swearing, we're definitely veering into adult content. Actually, we do touch on mental health issues, so you might actually not want to listen to that one. And this is your chance to get out now,

while you still can, because fair do's, you have been warned. I am here with a public service announcement for all Bridgeton fans. Bridgeton viewers, Bridgeton fanatics. Bridgetonians, is that what we call you? I don't know, but Bridgeton stands. People in the Regency era did not dance to orchestral covers of Beyonce. But apart from that, everything that you see on Bridgeton and the new spin-off series, Queen Charlotte, is absolutely 100% historically accurate. It is a watertight account of life in Regency Britain.

That is absolutely not true. That is one giant, giant fib. But the series is based on real people, who lived real lives in real palaces. and definitely had a lot of real sex. That's true, definitely. Today, we are getting betwixt the Georgian sheets to find out the true story behind Queen Charlotte. Why do you look for a man?

Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning it up and pushing the fire. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, for beautiful time. Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie. Hello.

And welcome back to Betwixta Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society. With me, Kate Lister. Imagine the scene, Betwixters, it's dusk on a mild evening in 1761, and you're on the grounds of St James's Palace. And then pretty soon some posh people come along and move you on. Because what on earth are you doing on the grounds of St. James's Palace, you complete pleb? If you're not a pleb, if you're an aristocratically type of person, maybe you'd be attending a wedding in the Chapel Royal with a small congregation of other very posh

people. There would be an atmosphere of excitement in the air and people leaning over one another to try and get a glimpse of the young couple who are about to tie the knot. And who is it? Well, it's none other than King George III, marrying his new German bride, who is visibly shaking with nerves. Yep. Charlotte! She had just arrived off the ship from Germany that very day, just a few hours before the wedding. Her journey to England by ship with her brothers was treacherous. suffered from terrible seasickness. She lost so much weight during the expedition that her wedding dress didn't fit her anymore

by the time she arrived, and it's constantly slipping off her shoulders during the ceremony. But despite this very shaky start, this marriage would be a happy one for many years, which is a really rare occurrence in royal history. It's a marriage that would go on to see 15 children born with lots of entertainment and laughter at court.

But it wasn't to last. It all came to an abrupt halt after the king suffered from his first bout of mental illness. And around 200 years on, their relationship is back in the spotlight after Netflix dropped a series called Queen Charlotte, a Bridgeton story. Today, we are finding out who the real Queen Charlotte was. What kind of queen was she? What did she get up to in a spare time?

How did she cope with George's repeated bouts of mental illness? Who better to take us on this journey, but Regency expert Catherine Curzon, author of The Reuters, real Queen Charlotte. If you like this episode, you can go back to listen to Catherine debunking the real Bridgeton in an episode we did a few months ago. Honestly, she's so much fun. But today, we are focusing on Queen Charlotte. Wigs and Bridges at the ready. Let's do this. Welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Catherine Curzon. How are you? I'm good. I'm super

excited again. I'm like all pumped again now. I am eternally grateful to Netflix and their Bridgeton. and spin-offs because it means that I get to talk to you more and more and more on the podcast. Any excuse. Let's just do it. Long may it rain. Yeah, keep him coming. Right. And it must be good for you as a regency historian that everyone's focus is on that particular period of history and you can just swan in and go, well, did anyone ask for a regency historian? It is. And it's particularly because Queen Charlotte has been like forgotten that she's just been this kind of support act to George III. And you know, this kind of like long-suffering, lovely lady.

That's how she's been presented. It is, isn't it? So now people actually have heard of her. Yeah, it is. As if she's not really real. She's just this sort of like wet sock that just kind of hung around in the background, kneading her hands. When I think about it, and I never really thought about that much until Netflix went,

oh, she was a total fox. But she was played by Helen Mirren in the madness of King George, wasn't she? And when you think of it, you do think of her as this kind of like, oh, the poor love, your husband went round a twist. Yeah, exactly. And she's just this cipher character who's just kind of like they're, like I say, to sort of ring her hands and look worried and occasionally say meaningful things. So it's really good that Netflix has kind of come back to readjust this,

although they may, may have readjusted it a smidgey, smidge too far up. Because that's what we're talking about today. How accurate is the new series on Queen Charlotte? It's broadly accurate. what you can imagine it takes a lot of liberties. But I noticed this time out, they sort of open it with that, don't they, with a kind of stern voiceover, saying, you know, this is not a history lesson. I've done all these interviews about it and I always go into the same It's a Fantasia. Yep.

And now they've started saying that right up front. So it's kind of like, thanks for that. Now I can just go, watch the first 10 seconds. I am quite interested when series start doing things like that. It's like, what happened to necessitate them putting that warning there? Because it wasn't on the first one. Everyone on the Bridgeton team must just go, no, they'll know that this isn't true.

But something happened. We got carried away with it. Again, somebody's let the side down and misbehaved and now they're about to put a warning on it. It's not real history. Behave yourselves. This is why we can't have nice things. This is it.

This is because somebody somewhere has done or said something that's made Netflix go, no, we have to put a warning on it. Been written in some GCSE history answer somewhere. hasn't it? I actually bet you're right. Right, let's start with Queen Charlotte, because she's one of the kind of,

I don't honestly supporting cast of characters in our royal history, but she's definitely been overlooked until now, hasn't she? So who is she and what bits of the Netflix, they got right? She was the wife of George III. The Mad One. Yeah, the mother of George the Four. Yeah.

And Netflix have got right about her coming to England as a young woman and being very, very sort of out of place. And they've got right that she and George had a real romance. There's a marriage of love. And that she struggled to fit into some degree. And I think quite a lot of the rest of it is, again, this Bridgette's infantasia. But they've also got right that she was desperate for her kids to have some kids, to produce some airs.

And as an older woman, she was absolutely obsessed with court and protocol. So they've got the broad strokes of Queen Charlotte on the money. Now, in the Netflix, he's being played by a woman of colour, and there is some historians suggested and some evidence that the actual original Queen Charlotte may have been a person of colour as well. There is. I have to preface this by saying I'm not a genealogist. You don't sound very convinced. No, I'm not very convinced by this.

Now, I know that about 10 generations back in a family tree, there's a suggestion that there was a Portuguese woman. And this is where the theory has originated. But, I mean, from my perspective, I massively applaud Netflix for doing it, especially in this new series, they've really tried to explain, because, you know, obviously they got a lot of flack

for the diversity amongst the cast in. Outrageous. I mean, why would you want diversity? Just behave yourself, everybody. But that kind of thing that, you know, I'm sure we've all seen people saying, well, how can this be, you know, it's fine, they're dancing to Taylor Swift,

but this diversity has got to stop. So I do like that in the new series, they've actually started to address that about why the nobility is diverse. That's really nice. I think there's a bit more way to go. But I suspect we're going to see more of that because I assume there's going to be more spin-off series. But in reality, yeah, I mean, we don't have any record of, and there were multiple reports, because you can imagine when they were looking for a wife for the king, there are multiple reports of what she looks like. The kind of reports you would see of a racehorse or something, you know, describing,

her arms and her bosoms and her teeth and her this and her that. Oh, wow. Yeah, exactly. And there's nothing in there that would suggest that she wasn't Caucasian. I really liked that story and it's not quite right. It's not quite right. I'm by no means an expert on the woman who's furthered at the family tree. It's way out of my era.

But I get the impression that she sounds like she was quite character. So I kind of think what little I know about. I feel like there might even be a story there. and I don't know if much is known about her, but I feel like she sounds like she might be quite an interesting character in herself, what little I know. Maybe we need like 10 generations back prequel. Yeah, keep going, absolutely.

Okay, we're not quite sure if she was of mixed heritage or white, but probably, as you point out, somebody would have mentioned that in some of these very detailed descriptions of what she looks like when she's being, you know, basically advertised to the king. And the descriptions are absolutely in some ways brutal, descriptions. So, really? They describe everything. Like, they describe, like, her hair's a little bit too fine and their teeth aren't the best, but she's got great forearms. So they're not just a kind of,

like, she's nice looking kind of thing, or she's not. No. It does read basically like a livestock report sometimes. That's grim, isn't it? Who set up the marriage between her and George? Well, this is quite a good story because George's mother, who was very, very, I don't like to say dominiering, but Dominion. She wanted him to get married, but she wanted him to get married to someone that she would consider appropriate because she was very much the woman in George's life. Right. Okay. This sounds healthy. She didn't want to lose that influence. So basically, they set up a kind of list was drawn up of eligible princesses. And the woman had to be Protestant. She had to be royal and ideally she would be German. So they gave this list to George and he went through it and he crossed off,

loads of names and some of the reasons were amazing. He crossed one off because she was too interested in philosophy. And he was like, no, no, that's trouble waiting to happen. And given what we know happened to George, ironically, he crossed another one off because he'd heard that her dad was mad. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah.

And he crossed others off because basically his mother didn't like him. She thought they were too slighty. And then they started to panic. And they were like, we need to add people to the list who are completely non-controversial. Right. And one of the courtiers happened to have, I think, his brother was in Germany and said, well, I've heard of this minor person. You won't have heard of her. She's not really that impressive.

Stick her name on the list. And that was her. And she was actually just about to go into a convent. And she'd started, you know, she'd done the sort of like early stages of that. And her mother had decided no one was going to marry her because she wasn't rich enough. They weren't very powerful. Didn't have much influence. And as George went down the list, he kind of said, oh, she's, I mean, it's not very nice,

but essentially she's a bit bland, is how he saw it. Wow. So she sounds perfect. Yeah. Was she royalty? Was she a royal? Was she like hanging around with royalty? Was she, are a stock?

No, she was royal blood, but she was very minor. Yeah, she was very, very minor. But one thing that we know later is that because she was actually more royal than George, despite being minor, because they were not a very powerful family. Right. But at dinner parties, she used to tell everyone how she was like the most royal. And because George had an illegitimate line up further up the line, basically, that she was more royal than he was because George the first wife had been born out of wedlock.

And she attracted some criticism from other nobles for that. I imagine she would, yes. Yeah, she was too snotty about it. And she acted sometimes like George was kind of like a bit of rough. to see we couldn't trace all the way back. That's a hell of a flex, isn't it? It's to like arrive in another country, marry their king and go, actually, I'm the most rob.

Like, I might not have the power that you do, and I might not have the money that you do, but look at my family tree. That self-confidence, that is something else, isn't it? It is, and I think that gets lost because people like to say that she was like really, or she's really me and timid. No.

I was going to say, she doesn't sound very bland, does she? She doesn't sound very delicate. Yeah, because he didn't want anyone political. She wasn't political at all. She didn't want to be in politics. She wasn't interested in it. But when she felt strongly about something, she felt strongly. She dug her heels in. So she's a German lady. Royal, but kind of not super, like if she was at the Royal Coronation, she might be a few seats back. Yeah, exactly. So they'd been raised kind of middle class. They got sort of chased out of their territories by Frederick the Great. Her dad looked to spend, so they were a tiny bit impoverished. So they're kind of like, you know those landed gentry where that. houses are falling down. Yes. They're a bit like that. Yeah. Okay. So she's got the blood, but no bank balance. So she's about to go into a convent. So how old is she when George goes, ah, this is the boring bride for me? She was 17 when she married it. So she was like 16, yeah. And before he did that, he sent an envoy off to sort of spy on her, basically. Nice. Nice. And the envoy watched her and her mom and her sister at, they were at a spa town. And he noticed

she liked to gamble. And when she lost, she would basically kick up a massive foot. So they were like, oh, I'm not sure. She's got a gambling problem. And he also noticed that the morning after a win, she disappeared for hours. But happy ending, when he followed her, she disappeared because she was distributing her winnings to the poor. So she was only angry when she lost. Yeah, because she couldn't distribute her winnings to the poor. So again, a big tick.

That reads to me, like she got busted, realized what was going on and bribed the person reporting back. brought him back. I actually love that. I love that. And the more they got these reports in England, his mum particularly was saying, you know, she didn't look very threatening because there was a woman in England

that George had kind of tipped his hat at. Okay. Who he liked. He had an interested party in England that his mum did not like at all. Right. So she wanted her out of the way and somebody unthreatening.

Okay. So Charlotte gets brought over from Germany, age 17, with a potential gambling problem, although she just likes to give money to the poor. In all of our royal history, there aren't many happy marriages, but they actually seem to have got on quite well, don't they, Charlotte and George? Yeah, they did.

That's one of the sad things about what actually happened eventually because, yeah, theirs was a really rare one, particularly with Georgian kings, that when they first met, you know, they were both, he was not much old, is a little bit old, a few years older, but he was really timid, she was quite shy. Her mother died just before she left, so she was orphaned. Oh, that's sad. So, you know, she came over as a teenager. She was only allowed to bring two friends. But in the end, she bought a third because she wouldn't travel without her hairdresser.

I respect that. So she bought her hairdresser with her. The lovely bit of that story is because obviously he's a man, they decided he had to get married before he came because otherwise it might look a bit. Nice, clever. So then he got married, but then they just left his wife in Germany for year. It's so fun of. She came over with her friends and her friends. hairdresser and yeah they got on really really well they'd had interesting that both were into their religious faith and they were into kind of the natural sciences and neither one of them liked to showy life so they both wanted this middle-class marriage set up and she didn't want to get into politics he didn't want us to get into politics so really in a way that most of the other georgian kings were not they were a really well-futed couple they had loads of kids didn't they're 15 so she was pregnant

or recovering from a birth but something back the first 22 years that were married. It's hard to imagine that, isn't it? It was just like literally birth after birth after birth after birth, like pretty much for some people it could be every year of their fertile years.

It's one of the things where you kind of go, someone said to me the other day, well, yeah, but she had nannies and she did have all that. She also had a vagina that these things were coming out of. Exactly. You have to physically carry and deliver all of those babies. Exactly. Once they're born, you've got all kinds of help,

but ultimately as you say, you know, it's your vagina, they're coming out. Fifteen people. Fifteen babies marching out your royal hoo-ha. What, are there any records of what her health was like? Because obviously childbirth is very dangerous. It's still very dangerous. Well, she was considered inordinately robust. Sturdy.

Basically because she managed to stay alive. Well done, Charlotte. Yes, she was sturdy, which was, again, seen as then they'd made a really good choice because she was good childbearing stuck. But she did find some of the pregnancies, as you would imagine, quite trying. You know, she found them exhausting, which there's got to be a point where just your body goes, do you know what, this is a lot. Yeah.

This is a heck of a lot. And then she had the other problem, because all her children seemed like they were going to survive, that people were kind of like, you know, like that's a bit lucky. And then two died in infancy, at which point one correspondent said, oh now she can call herself a mother. Fuck you. Fuck off. Because she's finally had a child die. Yeah. Like, oh my God. So delivering 15 babies, that's not qualification enough.

Oh, what a shitty thing to say. I know. So two of the babies died and did the rest make it to adulthood? They did. The two that died died, they lived through infancy, but they were very, very young. The rest made it to adulthood. But as they kind of went down the line, their health got weaker, if you like. Oh, okay. So the last child barely made it to adulthood, and she was kind of really weak for most of her life.

But the first ones, like the Prince Region, were politely put strapping. Right. And they kind of got, yeah, like a little bit less healthy as they went down the line. Now, whether that's because, obviously, Charlotte herself was put under the strain of all of those pregnancies, and also other strains in her life, because obviously, as she's pregnant as the years are going on,

she's dealing with George being unwell and her own having to hope with that. Yeah. But yeah, they did seem to start to decline. I'll be back with Catherine for more Queen Charlotte chat after this short break. From biblical fame to its fabled great walls, Babylon was home to kings, conquerors and wonders of the ancient world. But what do we actually know about this legendary city? And how much is still shrouded in mystery? Join me, Tristan Hughes, every Sunday throughout May on the ancients,

as we delve into the story of Babylon. We'll be covering topics varying from the King Nebuchadnezzar the Second and how he forged a massive Babylonian empire. We'll be exploring the mystery of the hanging gardens of Babylon, looking at world-renowned objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder, and also looking at Babylon in the aftermath of one of the most well-known conquerors in the whole of history. Babylon, after Alexander.

to the Great. That's all to come this May on the ancients every Sunday. So she's got all these kids. All right, she's got nannies, but holy shit, that's the lot to be dealing with, isn't it? And she's got a husband and things seem to start well, but he isn't a well bunny, is he, George III? He was not a well bunny, no. I know the Queen Charlotte series obviously has her, you know, she's a little bit suspicious of where he's going and what he's doing, and then she finds out he's trying to deal with his mental health. That's fictional. Right. Okay. That didn't happen. George actually, he had a couple of periods where he fell ill, but he recovered. But then he had a period of illness that kind of started with really bad

stomach pains. He'd already had one bad period in the 1760s, but he'd come through it. But this one, it was in 1788. And this was the kind of first real crisis of health that he'd had. And he had these terrible stomach pains, which we put down to stress, but this was the start of his first mental breakdown, or his first severe one, the one that nearly led to the early regency. Had there been any rumblings of this beforehand, like, looking back at his health, already always been, you know, like in fine fetal and a strapping lad? His mother considered that he was kind of a delicate boy. Sickly child.

Yeah, and he was also seen to be really sensitive. And his dad died when he was quite young. And he wrote at the time that he said that when he heard the news at his other died, that he felt like a pain in his heart. And he said he'd seen a workman fall to his death from some scaffolding, a cue. And that the pain he felt felt like that. And that was seen as being all like he was a bit sensitive. Because you were supposed to, obviously I'm not saying this,

but you'd be expected to just kind of saddle up, if you like, and grow up. So he'd always been seen as quite sensitive and dominated. And this is something that we see a lot, people said at the time, oh, you know, he does his mother tells him, like, if she could, she'd chain him up and all this. So he'd always had very delicate health as well. Like he was very interesting sort of farming and physical stuff like that, but he'd had brushes with ill health in childhood as well. Yeah. There was one point where it thought he might not even survive childhood. So a bit of a gentle soul, it seems. He was, yeah. When he's married

to Charlotte, before, like, you know, before the crisis that happens, was he like a philandering king? Or were they, was he shagging around or was he just quite a home bird? Unlike his predecessors and certainly his sons, no, he was completely dedicated. Wow. It's kind of sad to think that, like in the whole of royal history, I'm quite taken aback by that, that this was a king who didn't have loads of mistresses.

Not only was that accepted, but like the position of royal mistress at court was an official position. I mean, if you think about George II, actually, you know, taking a mistress because people started to nudge each other because he didn't have one. And, you know, that was seen as, like, shocking that he didn't have one. So he made up for that, you know, he used to come.

But yeah, George III, because he wanted George III to have this middle class, pious, faithful, like sort of faith-driven lifestyle. And I think as well that what we know about him is he was just kind of a really quiet guy. You know, he liked his books and he liked his gardening. And he liked to sort of sit and listen to music with his wife. It doesn't sound like a king, does it? No. It's like a nice retired gentleman.

Yeah, you know, like the sort of lusty. loins of his sons. No. He didn't have any of that. He was, as a young man even, he was like you'd think of, yeah, a nice, retired gentleman. Oh.

But then something happens to him, and it's been the subject of debate and conjecture for forever of, like, what happened to poor George. He clearly had some kind of breakdown and he couldn't rule as king. There's so much debate as to, like,

what was it? Was it bipolar disorder? Was it porphoria? I've heard people suggesting it was like a physical illness before. Was it, tell me what happens and what does it look like when he gets ill? Like, what are we talking? Like, is it tinfoil around the head time? Like, what are we talking about here?

Yeah, it's not far off that. I mean, it always started with a physical pain. It always started with that, like, terrible stomach pains now, whether they were actual stomach pains. But in terms of, like, layman's terms, it's what you would think of as he just went mad, kind of like overnight. So he starts literally rambling for hours and hours. hours and hours just doesn't take a breath and actually physically frothing at the mouth.

And then he'll come into dinner and on one occasion to pick up the adult prince of Wales, he threw him across the room. And this was this king who had never been the disciplinarian. That was Charlotte's job. He didn't really physically chastise his children. And suddenly his temper was like this violent, terrifying temper. He was sexually hugely inappropriate towards the household and this kind of thing. So it was what we would turn like a real Jacqueline Hyde.

It was like a switchflip. Came on overnight, it seems like he woke up sick almost. Yeah. That's how sudden this was. And he had a moment where just before he fell really ill, he'd been unwell. His doctors had said, you must cancel all your business, don't go into Parliament, stay in the countryside. But as so many others do, he was like, no, no, no, I have to keep going.

And he got more and more and more stressed. There was an occasion where he turned up to Parliament, and the ministers had to take him away and properly dress him because, you know, he looked like he kind of sets him to head. Yeah, yeah, he just looked kind of overnight, one night. Yeah, woke up. Really ill. Yeah, that really, really ill.

And he was certainly referred to as mad at the time, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. So we've got really inappropriate behaviour, sexually inappropriate behaviour, violent rage outbursts, alterations in personality. It sounds like, this is just Oprah training talking. This could be like a mania thing, like what we'd now call bipolar? That's what I wondered. Like, yeah, like you say, like, I'm totally the same as you, like Oprah training on this.

But he would go through that. And then he'd become really melancholy and he'd cry a lot. Okay. He'd have, like, manic peaks and troughs. And he really, really couldn't bear to be away from the Queen. But she was so frightened of him because they shared a bed in a bedroom, which was really unusual. She started locking the bedroom door. But he wouldn't leave her dressing room.

The room joined onto her bedroom because he wanted to know she was there. but she started waking up at the night and he'd just be standing by the bed staring at her. Oh, that's not nice. Yeah, so she got so scared of him that which she can understand, you know, and then there were other occasions when he sort of, on one occasion he burst in

and threw her on the bed and her attendants had to drag him off her. I think this is why in the story she gets a bit swamped because what was happening to him was so extreme. Yeah. And I think, you know, that I've heard from people

who have had spouses and loved ones who have suffered from mental body, that they themselves have said that sometimes you feel a bit that way, like as if you're completely on your own, but you have to deal with it. Because, you know, all the attention is on the person who's suffering. What did she do to cope with this? What treatment was there? Are the records of how she not treated him because she couldn't, but like, how does she try and help him? How does she help herself? Well, she tried to help him by they bought in some doctors before she bought in the famous, what they called the mad doctor, Francis Willis, who's the one you see in the Madness King George.

The one that shouted it in, basically. Basically, yeah. Other doctors were brought in by the Prince of Wales. But the problem they had was because the Prince of Wales was starting to kind of think, oh, I could end up the region here. But he wanted to control the information that was coming out. So the Queen wasn't getting any updates on the King's health. They were all going to Prince of Wales.

And she started to get really upset. You know, she started in herself to physically, become unwell. So we know because Francis Bernie, who was one of her attendants and confidence, said that she weight just fell off her and her hair. You know, the classic her hair started to turn grey and drop out. And she said that she would just pace her apartments for hours and hours and hours just murmuring like what will become of us. She really loved him, didn't she? She really did love him. And I think particularly then that she had absolutely like no way of coping with this. So, you know, you're the queen. So you're about as isolated.

as it gets. She's an orphan. She's not been allowed to bring anyone she knows because she's had to form new friendship. And who do you go to? Because as well, all of the learned men, and I use that in speechmole that she tried to speak to whether they were government ministers or 10 courtiers, her own sons, just kind of went, it's okay. You look after the girls, you get for children, and you leave this with us and we'll tell you what you need to know. So really, you're just left, like in a limbo. And obviously because there was all this agitation going on about the possible regency,

if the king didn't recover, that's another layer of worry because she was thinking if the Prince of Wales is made regent and gets his hands on the money and the this and that, he's going to bankrupt us, he's not going to care about his dad. She and the Prince of Wales were either best friends

or worst enemy, there was no in between. And reading the papers of the time as the king health collapsed, she just becomes like a ghost. Like she's there on the sidelines, kind of trying to know what's happening and trying to hold it together. But God, I can't imagine.

And mental health, unfortunately, is still very stigmatised today in 2023. And when it comes to royalty and mental health, I don't think we need to look too far to see that people still aren't willing to have those discussions. People will still meet those discussions. You know, how dare Harry say that he's mental health suffered? You know, the right-wing press got really aggressive and shitty about that. Let alone when poor George and Charlotte were trying to deal with this. There must have been an added pressure that nobody can know what's happening here.

Yeah, because obviously at the time as well, they issued daily bulletins in the newspapers. Still mad. Still mad. Still totally mad. Yeah, that's what it's like. And when it's physical health, they'll say, past a bad night. And basically, day by day, count down someone. You know, we saw it with the late Queen. Twitter was updating every minute.

But it was done every day. But Charlotte was really protected that this not get out. And when it did, there were a couple of papers that published just mentioned. of it and she went absolutely berserk. She was threatening legal action. She was telling people to get the papers and burn them. Because I think on the one hand, she was worried about, you know, obviously there's always people jockeying for power. She had that worry. And on the other, as you say, the stigma of it, this was something that's not talked about, you know, even now, like you say it's stigmatized. And she just was like, I don't know how to cope with this. People shouldn't

know about this. Because if they know about this, they're going to start pointing the finger and trying to sort of like move the chess pieces how they want them. So what happens to them in the end? I mean, obviously, you know, they all die. Does judges have ever recovered to the point where they can live as a couple again? Or do they have to live? Yes. Oh, okay.

On that first time out, it recovered. Right. And it recovered within a year. So they were right on the edge of this kind of, there was going to be a vote on the Regency Bill and will it be the Prince of Wales. And suddenly he started to recover. Okay. And he sort of turned the corner very, very, very.

quickly. And all the doctors were told then, this is it, he's better. He's over it. It was workplace stress. He's fine. And there were medals were given out to celebrate. There were parties because Charlotte didn't actually invite her eldest sons to the celebration because she was like, you know, they could teach you a letter and you're not invite her. Twat. Yes. Looked as if it was all going to be all right. And then a little bit over a decade later, he relapsed. Yeah, he relapsed. And he just didn't recover. but this was the one that kind of became, if you like, the madness of King George. What's interesting is this is in the 1780s.

That's where we'd seen us start to gather her daughters particularly to her that she wanted to create, because as we say, it's our lonely life. So she thought, these people, I want female confidence that I can trust, if you like, not to, not literally, but not to sell the story. And who better than your own daughters? Yeah. Well, that's a fair assumption. Exactly.

So she starts to create our own little inner circle made up of her daughters. One of them managed to get out and get married in the interim in the recovery, but she was the only one that once George fell ill again, none of them were allowed to get married them until they're well into middle age. We're talking to the latter half of the Regency at this point. Right. A little bit controlling now. They were barely allowed out.

Okay. This isn't a great look for Charlotte. No, this is where I think she gets, again, she gets lost. this kind of like, oh, she was just this like, dewy-eyed caring, because she was a caring wife, but she was absolutely obsessed with keeping her daughters with her. It's gone a bit mother gondolly, hasn't it? Yes. This is where we have them referring to themselves as the winds and nunnery, and one of them writing a letter saying, you know, they should put us in a sack and drowners because

we're just like, useless old cats. Fuck. Yeah, they were massively unhappy, massively. I didn't know that. That's quite a statement, isn't it? That you, you know, obviously you don't need to be drowned as cats because you're a princess. There'll always be someone to marry. You don't even worry about that.

Exactly. But wow. So she's exerting quite a lot of control there. Yeah, she did. And she created, whether willingly or not, but she created little factions among the daughters. So she'd have favourites. Right. Okay.

Okay. So we're playing games now. Yeah. She'd kind of have one that was a favourite at one time, so the others would sort of not quite trust that one. And then when that one fell from favour, yeah, that one fell out of favour, she replaced her. But she got so paranoid about them, about how they were perceived, that she said it's not appropriate for you to go out and be seen out while your father's ill.

Well, he was ill for 20 years. And she got to a point where she wouldn't even let them visit their own brothers without chaperones. She doesn't sound very well herself, actually. This sounds like a quite narcissistic, paranoid behaviour now. That's exactly what I think. it all started to come to head. They started to have incredibly, like, not physically, but violent arguments. You know, there was, bibles were thrown at each other. And the thing that she did, which to me is, you know, classic narcissist, that when they upset her, when the rage didn't work, she just went silent. Until they sort of almost begged. They're like, please speak to us again. Like, please.

It's brutally effective the silent treatment. But that's like page one of the narcissist toxic parent handbook, that one, isn't it? Yeah, and she knew how affected that was because she mentioned, and it was Prince of Wales, said something about, she just won't speak to them kind of thing, and she knows, like there's nothing more powerful than that. Wow. Because their lives were isolated too, so, you know, the more silence, the worse. Some nasty mum territory, really. Yeah. So when she wasn't, like, obsessively controlling a daughter's life to the point where they wanted to be put in sacks and drowned. Nice. Like, what did she do? Like, what else? Like, for hobbies and stuff. She was absolutely mad about botany. She loved botany. Botany. Botany. I know you've been buttoned.

That would be lovely too, actually. She was crazy about botany and she designed gardens and foster gardens at Cue and Windsor and the royal households. And she was a bit of an expert on it. And some of her daughters, she sort of imparted that loved them. She was super into mineral, I'm going to pronounce it, mineral allergy. minerals basically as well. You know, like GEOC, she was super into that. Rocks, rocks.

And she loved, loved exotic animals. She had a little menagerie, yeah. And she had, there were a couple of stories I absolutely love. She had a zebra in this menagerie. And the zebra was super antisocial. And the upper classes were like, wouldn't it be great if we could use this zebra to create a kind of fleet of zebras to pull our coaches?

But anyone that went near it basically would like try and kill them. Dysfunctional zebras. Then she got these kangaroos, but the, well, the kangaroos proved so fecund, but they couldn't control the number of babies they were having. So they started giving kangaroos to nobility as gifts. And I just love this idea, you know, like when you get a gift, you don't want. Another fucking kangaroo that she's given. Yeah, I was just giving us another fucking kangaroo.

So they were, and her really big, and her really big, passion. She was like the charitable queen. Oh, okay. So if there was a charity, she was there and she had a real focus on women and girls that was like her charitable interest. Okay. Okay. All right. So we're deeming her a little bit. Yeah. But she raised a lot of money for what became Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital. She started, you probably will have heard, Queen Charlotte's Ball, you know, where they all kind of line up to say hello to her. She hated doing that. She said she felt like she was always in the way and that they just wanted to sort of like get to the dancing. But yes, her big thing was philanthropy and she filled hours and hours and she spent an absolute fortune on charities.

There was a point where people start to get a bit worried, like she's spending too much on charity. But obviously it's not like her son where they said he's spending too much on actresses. It's a difficult one to deal with that, in it from a PR relationship. You're being too generous. But we have stories of her like literally pulling a diamond out of something she was wearing and giving it to somebody. Oh. But because a little family, I think woodcutters or something, sheltered her during a rainstorm at Windsor, that then she sent them loads of food to say thanks. And then the wife came to Windsor to thank her and she sent more food.

So maybe that story then about her gambling to give money to the poor when she was young was true. I think, yeah, I think that it might be. I mean, there was a, you know, Caroline at Brunswick, the Prince of Wales. wife. There was a similar story with her, but the version of her was that she only wanted to go and see local peasants who had strapping men now. That's a woman I can identify with. It's all charitable. It's all charitable. That she'd say she'd been in with the children, but really there was like a strapping woodcutter. Well played. Well played. Wasn't Queen Charlotte pen pals with Marie Antoinette as well? She was, yeah, and they obviously had quite a lot in common. They both married really young.

they were both pretty sheltered, both married into, you know, kind of feels weird saying it about Britain now, but a superpower. Yes, she was, and she wrote to Marie Antoinette all through, you know, the terror and right up to the end. She sent her clothes and she sent gifts for the children. And I think Marie Antoinette's death, it must have been a bit of an eye owner for her, you know, to see someone else who had this, what looked like an immense, and, you know, there was an immense amount of privilege in these marriages. but to see how that could end.

And I think particularly when the Prince of Wales, then Prince Regent, became super unpopular and there was a lot of radical stirring. She must have thought back to that and thought, no, this has happened before we need to tread carefully. Because that's quite a big deal to see your pen pal. Like, you know, it's part of history now, and we go, oh, they executed the royal family.

But, like, imagine, like, the shock of that that sent around the world. Like, imagine if we decided to execute the royal family today. It's hugely shocking. And if you were a queen, you know, suddenly perhaps that throne doesn't seem quite sustainable. Perhaps I will give more money to charity and I will look after the poor a bit more than I am doing perhaps. Yeah.

And I think as well that she must have had a little bit of it that thought, oh God, you know, I'm glad we do live this kind of quiet life. You know, they had huge wealth and privilege, but in royal terms, they didn't flaunt it too much. I think well played. What happens to Charlotte? So her poor husband becomes incredibly poorly,

like to the point where it's like, right, he just doesn't recover. What happens to her? Is there any chance that her son, George, looked after her and that she had a nice retirement? He did. Oh, we did. Oh, okay.

He did. Because as I say, they were either at Dagger's Drawn or best friends, but as the years went on, they became very, very close. They were super close. They were kind of each other's confidants, you know. And as the daughter started to get married, which again, George started to broker the marriages, because he was someone that they would say he could talk his mother around.

Yeah. So they started to leave and get married. And she started to basically mellow. I think as she realized, you know, things were slipping away. She was becoming a, and Bridgeton do this really well with her in the old-fashioned dress. She was becoming a bit of a relic of a different era. Okay. And she was being like past.

She was, you know, like the old queen. So she had her retirement and she was okay. She was very happy when Princess Charlotte of Wales was born. She loved having a grandad. Obviously she died. I think with Queen Charlotte, the feeling that I got, when I was writing a biography is that there was a melancholy about her, if you like. But even when she was happy, there was always a melancholy because she was always,

she was kind of a widow, but her husband was still alive. But she did kind of mend her bridges with her children. The one sad thing about her death is that she was at Q, she was very unwell. And she was absolutely frantic to go to Windsor. She wanted to be with George when she died. But she was too and well to go. So eventually she had to sort of, I guess, come to turn through that. And we know that she died very, very peacefully with her children around her.

But yeah, there's this inescapable melancholy to her life because she was the one that looks like in terms of her marriage that she had a crack at a really happy one. Yeah, that is something that's quite sad about all this is that, and I'm a bit cruel as well because you could count really happy royal marriages on one hand, couldn't you. This seemed like it really was. And if it hadn't been happy, if it had been a setup, you know, that they really couldn't stand each other. Him going bananas would probably have been like, brilliant, you crack on. Yeah, I'm going to go over here then. I'm going to do a bit of royal touring and wear my crown. But that's not what happened.

It's not. And she just really dedicated herself to being the sort of keeper of his legacy, if you like. But she was his official guardian. She kept an eye on the doctors. And she blamed herself for Francis Willis and how George was so frightened at this doctor when I was treated. And yeah, it's just this absolute, sort of inescapable cloud of melancholy that follows that marriage round.

And, you know, I sort of wish she'd go. And at the end, this happened is really happy. But at the end, she died. peacefully, which I guess that's something. Yeah. Yeah. Catherine, you have just been amazing to talk to today. And my final question to you is, if, and if they haven't done it already, they should do, if Netflix phone you up to be the historical consultant for the new Queen Charlotte series, what advice would you give to them? What would you like to see more of or less of?

I know it's all a fantasy. I know that. Yes. I want to see them represent the relationship with their daughters properly because it was an incredibly complex relationship of dependency and codependency. We have one that claimed that she wanted and, you know, she said my mother wants me to die and all this kind of thing. And there's so much nuance to it that I hope that they don't just do it as kind of like we've all seen it before. You know, like Kat Slater type thing on Easton. Just like mother and daughters at all. So that's what I'd like to see. I hope that they do it with the nuance that it deserves because there's way more to this than just women shouting at each Brilliant. Catherine, and if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

They can find me on Twitter as Catherine Curzon or Madam Guilford or just search for frocking fabulous and you'll find me there. Fabulous. And give us the title of the book? It's the real Queen Charlotte. Oh, thank you so much for talking to me today. I've thoroughly enjoyed myself. What all right way to spend it after me. Thank you so much to Catherine for coming on the podcast again. I love talking to you. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like review. and subscribe wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you have any ideas for future episodes,

or if you just want to say hi, you can now get in touch with us and our address is betwixt at historyhit.com. Join me again, Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast includes music from Epidemic Sounds.