Henry Dawe after George Dawe.

Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg KG. KGCB [&] Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte of Saxe Coburg &c &c &c

16 x 22 inches

With an increasingly elderly and ailing monarch and a widely mistrusted and ridiculed Prince Regent, the country's hopes and dreams were pinned upon the teenage Princess Charlotte, the only legitimate heir to the throne. Her parents, the Prince of Wales and Caroline of Brunswick, had formed a mutual hatred of each other even before their ill-fated and arranged marriage so it was little wonder that Charlotte's head was turned by the dashing Leopold, fresh from military success against Napoleon. Here we see him aged 27, a year after their immensely successful marriage; handsome, debonaire and perceived by many as the future king of England. Sadly, the couple's happiness was catastrophically short lived for within the year Charlotte and her baby were to die in childbirth, leaving Leopold devastated with grief and a nation in deep mourning. Leopold, now a British citizen, was deeply loved by his adopted country but ultimately his destiny lay overseas; in 1831 he ascended the throne of Belgium and ruled as King Leopold I until his death in 1865.