Madame Guillotine

There was no Duchess of Cambridge for over a hundred years until the Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel married Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge on the 1st of June 1818 at Buckingham Palace. Adolphus was the tenth child and seventh son of George III and Queen Charlotte and as such had no real chance of becoming King and so had settled into the same indolent life of womanising, drinking and accumulating debts as the rest of his siblings. However, the sudden death in 1817 of his niece, Princess Charlotte, who was astonishingly the only legitimate grandchild and heir of George III, made them all spring into action and begin scouring the courts of Europe in search of suitably fecund and Protestant brides.

Not much is known about Augusta – the impression gained is of a quiet, modest woman with none of the scandalous eccentricities or extravagances of her in laws. Then again, unlike most of her husband’s family she managed to produce three children – Prince George (who inherited his father’s title of Duke of Cambridge and was the last Duke before Prince William), Princess Adelaide and Princess Mary (who was to be mother of George V’s Queen Mary and so ancestress of the present Royals) and a lasting legacy.