Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

Hello and welcome to the show. This is the second in the series of our coverage of the life of Queen Charlotte.

In part one, we talked about her origins in a relatively obscure German Duchy, her arranged marriage to the young King George III of England.

There genuinely happy relationship there and cozy family life with their numerous children and the contrast between that calm existence for the royal family in itself and the turbulent world outside.

The year is 1782. Charlotte is 39 years old. This is the year Queen Charlotte sat for her famous Thomas Gainesboro portrait in which she has such a sweet and good natured expression will put it in the show notes.

So we have that to look back on, but I have to tell you a bit of personal tragedy. Now this all happened before the end of the American Revolution.

So there's a lot still happening in the world, but in the tiny world of the insular family, all the royal children had in their turns been inoculated against smallpox.

Lady Mary Wartley Montague, previous subject, had brought the original treatment called very elation back with her from Turkey. In fact, Lord Bute's wife had been the very first English person if you don't count Wales.

So people in Wales did it before, but England as an England itself. She at four was the very first English person to go through it with the smallpox procedure, though it had been of course widely practiced in the Middle East and across Asia.

Long before this well in 1782 little tiny Prince Alfred, their 14th child, the youngest at the time was inoculated against smallpox and afterward I'm sorry to say he succumbed to the illness.

It's still you know you still have a chance of getting smallpox from the preventative care until Edward Jenner's cowpox based vaccine comes along in the 1790s.

So he was the first of Charlotte's children to die. She has beat the odds until now to have all these children make it all this way is almost unheard of. His parents of course were grievously affected.

But six months afterward the two youngest children Sophia and Octavius were given their doses. Sophia was fine. Octavius was not.

Octavius followed his brother to the grave and the royal family and the country did not go into official mourning because mourning is not called for for children under seven. How's that for chilling?

And I read in a more recent so I don't know if the times they are changing with the infant mortality improving it. I read also that it was no official mourning for children under 14 unless they are the official heir to the throne.

So both of those things could be true but definitely the country did not go into mourning for either Octavius or Alfred however their loss was absolutely stamped on the hearts of both parents there is a painting that I'll put definitely on the Pinterest board called the apotheosis of Prince Octavius in which Alfred with an angel he's already in heaven is welcoming his brother Prince Octavius into the after world.

It's quite beautiful it was painted right after Octavius's death also right after Octavius's death about well not right after but about three months after Charlotte gave birth to her final child princess Amelia everyone called her Emily she was a favorite of the whole family.

She was a little fragile of health but was everyone's pride and joy just a little bit of happiness after the devastation the family had been through in the past year unlike the eldest sons especially the two oldest ones oh my goodness Georgia and Frederick the teenagers now we're not doing what their dad did you know and sticking close to home and being pious and quiet and they were not they were out gambler.

They were killing and not giving away their proceeds to the poor they were womanizing there was all kinds of rockets behavior from these two princes and they were giving royalty a bad reputation like the absolute worst versions of don't you know who my father is ultimately the Prince of Wales would run up millions of dollars of debt like tens of millions of modern dollars of debt please help his parents it is not good and only one of all of her sons ever even died.

I'm pretended to emulate the linear insular family life of his parents and that was the youngest son Adolfus Bridgeton the series the queen gets that right that part no one could seem to get a handle on them at all they were such a disappointment and you know I can parent from all the way up here but you know what might have contributed to this the boys were given their own households sometimes shared households but at the age of eight in in one case

five when he was separated from the nursery and given his own staff his own rooms his own protocol his own circuit of duties and studies and things and so I mean I know British people still send their sons away to school to boarding school at eight and so I guess it still happens but they left the bosom of the family as a living space before they were even 10 you know which their dad did not right yeah

I mean they came back every day I think they had to come back for dinner or the children's hour or something I mean they came they came yeah it was a compound they had so they were back and forth but they were pretty much in their own houses yeah also the elder daughters were at

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