Augusta of Hanover
Princess Augusta of Great Britain , full name Augusta Luise Friederike of Hanover (born July 31, jul. / 11. August 1737 greg. In London ; † 23. March 1813 ibid), was by birth Princess of Great Britain and Ireland (from the House of Hanover ) as well as through marriage to the Duchess of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and from 1780 to 1806 ruling Princess of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel .
After her marriage to the Brunswick Hereditary Prince Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand of Brunswick , she moved from London to Brunswick , but was distant from the ducal court. Her husband therefore had Richmond Castle built just for her south of the city gates , which Augusta used as his preferred residence from 1768.
After her husband died as a result of a severe injury sustained in the battle of Jena and Auerstedt against Napoleonic troops and Braunschweig was subsequently occupied by French troops, Augusta fled back to England and spent her last years with her daughter, the Princess of Wales Caroline , in London.
family
Augusta was born as the eldest daughter of the Prince of Wales , Friedrich Ludwig von Hannover , and his wife Augusta von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg in St James's Palace in London and was thus the first grandchild of the English royal couple Georg II and Caroline von Brandenburg- Ansbach . She was the first of eight children of the British heir to the throne and also the godmother of her youngest sister Caroline Mathilde . Because her father was in a constant quarrel with Augusta's grandfather, she had no opportunity to get to know her grandparents, let alone establish family relationships with them. Her parents avoided any contact with the court in Windsor , whereas the royal couple had announced that "any contact with their elders and his family was undesirable" .
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On January 16, 1764, Augusta married the Hereditary Prince of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand of Braunschweig, in the Chapel Royal . The marriage, which was made out of purely dynastic interests, maintained the courtly forms, but was characterized by mutual disinterest of the two. Even through her husband's two well-known mistresses , Maria Antonia von Branconi and Luise von Hertefeld, Augusta did not allow herself to react. The relationship with her children was just as unemotional. Only during the last years of her life in London did a very harmonious relationship develop with her daughter Caroline.
Augusta's indifference to the events in her immediate environment was interpreted by many of her contemporaries as arrogance and sometimes even culminated in defamatory rumors.
Her marriage to Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand had seven children:
- Augusta Caroline Friederike Luise (* 1764; † 1788), ⚭ 1780 Friedrich II. , Duke of Württemberg
- Karl George August (* 1766; † 1806) ⚭ 1790 Friederika Louise Wilhelmina of Orange
- Caroline Amalie (* 1768; † 1821) ⚭ 1795 George IV , King of Great Britain
- Georg Wilhelm Christian (* 1769; † 1811)
- August (1770--1822)
- Friedrich Wilhelm (* 1771; † 1815), Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and Prince of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel ⚭ 1802 Marie von Baden
- Amelie Karoline Dorothea Luise (* 1772; † 1773)
The firstborn Karl Georg August was almost blind, as were his two younger brothers Georg Wilhelm Christian and August, but he was not feeble-minded like them , only mentally retarded. Due to their physical and mental condition, however, the first three sons were out of the question to succeed their father. Only the youngest, Friedrich Wilhelm, was in full possession of his intellectual powers, although he had an irrepressible temperament that could hardly be put in check. However, Augusta's daughters showed no physical malformations or psychological abnormalities.
Life
Augusta von Hannover grew up in her parents' White House in Kew, where she and her brother Georg III. comprehensive and well-founded training. In addition to history and literature, foreign languages such as French and Italian were also on the schedule.
Augusta's parents had long thought about a marital relationship with the house of the Dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, but it was only from 1761 onwards that serious negotiations were carried out. The Hereditary Prince of the Principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, was chosen as a candidate for marriage. On the occasion of the marriage, the first-born of the Prince of Wales with a dowry of 30,000 was sterling and an annual annuity of £ 8,000 per year equipped; Money that the Brunswick principality could use because its state treasury was empty.
After the wedding ceremony in the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace, the bride and groom traveled together to Braunschweig and moved into their premises in the palace there on February 21, 1764 . Augusta didn't feel at home in the ducal residence, which in her eyes was a simple half-timbered building, because she was used to better things because of her origins.
When she was pregnant for the first time, she traveled to England to give birth to her child in familiar surroundings. But even after the birth of her daughter in December 1764, who, like her mother, was baptized Augusta, the princess stayed in England for the time being. Her husband meanwhile traveled back and forth between London and Braunschweig and in the meantime bought the Zuckerberg in the south of Braunschweig in order to have a castle built there that met Augusta's demands for living comfort and design. The builder Carl Christoph Wilhelm Fleischer was commissioned to erect the building . The castle was to be named Richmond in memory of Richmond upon Thames .
Augusta returned to Braunschweig after the birth of her first son, but was always in the shadow of her mother-in-law Philippine Charlotte von Prussia , who was the undisputed center of the Braunschweig court. When Richmond Castle was completed in 1768, Augusta moved there as quickly as possible and thus escaped the ducal court.
When the third son August 1770, like his two older brothers, was born with physical abnormalities, Augusta was publicly held responsible for the deformities of her male offspring. Because of the talk at court and the widespread rumors, her reputation among the population suffered enormously - especially since she once again remained inactive and did not take any measures to counter this talk.
After the early death of her last child, Amelie, Augusta withdrew completely from court life. This only changed again when her husband succeeded his father in 1773. The dowager Philippine Charlotte left the ducal residence, and Augusta often had to take on representative duties at the side of her husband. Nevertheless, she avoided the events at the Braunschweiger Hof as often as possible by retiring to Richmond Castle or visiting her youngest sister Caroline Mathilde , whose godmother she was, in Celle. There she wrote her will in 1773 unnoticed by her husband and his court.
After a serious head injury to Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand on October 14, 1806, which he suffered during the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt in the Fourth Coalition War , he died around a month later in November of the same year. Augusta fled to England from French troops occupying the Duchy of Brunswick. Your brother, King George III. , assigned her to the Ranger's House in Blackheath , which was in the immediate vicinity of the house of her daughter Caroline Amalie. The mother and daughter met frequently in the aftermath, and Augusta renamed the property Brunswick House .
She died of the effects of a flu-like illness in March 1813 and was buried in the royal tomb of St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.
literature
- William A. Beckett: Universal Biography. Isaac, London 1836.
- Elisabeth E. Kwan and Anna E. Röhrig: Women from the court of the Guelphs. MatrixMedia, Göttingen 2006, pp. 115-126, ISBN 3-932313-17-8 .
Web links
- Edda Dammmüller: August 11th, 1737 - birthday of Princess Augusta WDR ZeitZeichen (podcast).
References and comments
- ^ Friedrich's sister Anne had already given birth to two children; however, these were stillbirths.
- ↑ E. Kwan, A. Röhrig: Women from the court of the Welfs. P. 117
- ^ Norbert Steinau: Caroline Mathilde in the Electorate of Hanover 1772–1775 . In: Caroline Mathilde. From Copenhagen to Celle - The Short Life of a Queen . Celle 2001, pp. 127-154; P. 135f
- ^ William A. Beckett: Universal Biography.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Augusta of Hanover |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Augusta Friederike Luise von Hannover (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Princess of Great Britain, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 11, 1737 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 23, 1813 |
| Place of death | London |