The Truth About Bridgerton’s Meddling Mother D
in another life princess Augusta might have been the Queen of England instead she got one brutal plot twist she went through a horrific marriage only to watch as her husband’s sudden end destroyed all her dreams of a crown then she watched her son become king and descend into Madness yet after enduring these nightmares Augusta turned into a nightmare herself but we’ll get to that in a bit princess Augusta was born in 1719 in the small German principality of gotha when she was just 16 Augusta’s family married her off to Prince Frederick the son of the ruling King George II of Great Britain and the prince of Wales to boot Frederick was over a decade older than her and very experienced in debauchery he was Infamous for his gambling
drinking and womanize in when Augusta married Prince Frederick she had no idea who she was getting for a husband but it turns out his whole family situation was in shambles Frederick had been feuding with his parents King George II and queen Caroline of ansbach for years and had even set up a kind of rival Court in opposition to them Frederick had already started using Augusta as a pawn he began instructing her to annoy his mother Queen Caroline any way she could Augusta still being a teenager listened obediently and would do things like arrive late to the chapel so she had to rudely push past the queen consort to get to her seat Queen Caroline was no fool and she simply told her attendants to direct Augusta to another Chapel entrance so that they would avoid any run-ins Frederick then insisted Augusta
make a show of refusing to enter the church if Carol had already arrived within months of arriving at the palace Augusta was pregnant and in July of 1737 she went into labor little knowing that this miracle of life was going to turn into another Petty Way for her husband to get back at his parents as soon as she started feeling contractions Frederick insisted she travel by Carriage to the remote St james’ Palace why because he was insistent his mother and father would most certainly not be at the birth Frederick’s plan had been so sudden St James’s wasn’t ready to receive the Princess of Wales or the baby she was currently carrying as a result poor teenage Augusta had to give birth to a Royal heir a girl they named Augusta as well on a tablecloth relations between Augusta and
her in-laws had never really been great but the situation now took an enormous nose do in the wake of this Bandit birth the king and queen completely banished Augusta and her husband from their Court sending them to live on the outskirts of society in Lester house just months after Augusta’s midnight ride her Nemesis Queen Caroline felt deathly ill everyone knew the writing was on the wall and even Augusta’s Rascal Frederick tried to make up with his mother only the response was chilling the monarchs were still so angry at Augusta and Frederick both Caroline and King George II staunchly refused to see their son even during his mother’s Twilight hours but still the Royals Twisted the knife in further after Caroline passed away a few weeks later she made sure to ban Frederick from her funeral just a few
months after Caroline’s passing Augusta gave birth to a son the Future King George III and still things didn’t get easier for one George was born two months premature terrifying Augusta with the thought of his early demise for another King George II was still so miffed about everything that he barely paid any attention to her children even though Augusta would go on to have nine of them in 1751 Augusta was heavily pregnant and she got news that shook her to the core her husband Frederick who had previously seemed the picture of Health had died suddenly at their home he was only 44 years old and historians now believe the culprit was a brutally quick pulmonary embolism after finding out about her husband’s passing Augusta at first didn’t believe it she was as the doctor
put it brought reluctantly to the knowledge that Frederick was no more once Augusta accepted the tidings she suffered a horrific bout of insomnia and and their servants had to force her into bed at 6:00 in the morning for all that Frederick had been a legitimately awful husband to her for much of their marriage Augusta felt HonorBound to mourn him she also felt obligated to hide his darkest Secrets at 8 in the morning after his passing with Just 2 hours of fitful sleep she went into his room and burned all of his private letters she could find in the wake of Frederick’s death Augusta had an uphill climb ahead of her no longer the Princess of Wales but instead a dowager she now had eight children to care for and a ninth a girl she would name Caroline Matilda on the way soon after Frederick’s passing King George II sent what was probably a boilerplate letter
of condolence to Augusta about her loss her reply made every word count with all the humility she could muster she begged the king for Mercy forgiveness and most of all protection the king suddenly touched by her widowhood threw all his support behind her and even appointed her to act as Regent if he was away until her son George now the AA parent came of age without her no good husband dragging her down Augusta now held immense power at court for the first time in her life it began to go wrong almost immediately first Augusta kept a tight leash on all her children keeping them away from the public eye and being oddly secretive about their education soon after becoming a widow Augusta began to get very cozy with John Stewart The Earl of but rumors swirled that the pair were having an affair in
reality it’s unlikely that but and Augusta were having a relationship but his presence pointed to a more uncomfortable truth Augusta was using him to tutor the Future King George the third keeping the boy extremely secluded all the while by the time George came of age Augusta was fully out of control or rather she was fully in control of George she made practically every decision for her son including where he lived and more importantly who he married when George fell in love with a court lady his mother dissuaded him when George’s grandfather the king tried to make him a royal m match Augusta was there to Nix it in 1760 Augusta’s father-in-law King George II passed away without much warning at the age of 77 and suddenly
her son became King George III andless we forget Augusta was now mother to the king of England eventually Augusta handpicked the 17-year-old princess Charlotte of mecklinburg stret as her new daughter-in-law and indeed she was the one who both drafted and then accepted the marriage proposal but why Charlotte simply put since the teenage Charlotte was from a small German principality all very much like Augusta herself everyone thought she would be reserved and retiring enough not to play any political games but also like Augusta Charlotte would put up more of a fight than anybody guessed Augusta tried to show Charlotte who was the boss from the very moment the girl stepped on English soil to marry King George reportedly shortly after the wedding
George instructed Charlotte not to medal a directive that given everything we know about Augusta almost certainly came from Charlotte’s new mother-in-law even though Charlotte was Augusta’s Bridal pick she hardly took the girl under her Wing The Dowager kept Charlotte isolated from a great many people people in the English Court apparently citing propriety and etiquette rules and was reportedly mortified at Charlotte’s higher ranking over her whenever she was in the girl’s presence Augusta had eyes everywhere in the court and she put them to chilling use she set Charlotte up with attendance and ladies in Waiting that were loyal to her then got them to inform her on Charlotte’s every move just to make sure the girl was under her power as much as possible Augusta’s power kept growing and soon the British citizens took notice in 1762 she used her considerable
influence to turn her favorite the Earl of but into the Prime Minister of England in truth the public hated the Earl of but on his own merits but Augusta’s involvement with him made it that much worse as one commentator put it but was hated with a rage there have been few examples in English history in 1965 the worst news yet came to Augusta her son King George III suffered a bout of mental illness his first in what would be an increasingly disruptive disorder that may have been bipolar or pereria for days George experienced a fever and insomnia alongside obvious cognitive issues perhaps Augusta hoped this madness was just a one-off but but that doesn’t absolve her of what she did in the face of George’s burgeoning mental illness she and her Confidant the Earl
of be kept any whiff of his troubling condition from his wife Queen Charlotte by now Augusta was desperate to make sure her last child Caroline Matilda fell into line and had a marriage appropriate to her royal station in fact The Dowager had betrothed Caroline to the Future King Christian iith of denm Mark since the girl was 13 years old in 1766 she sealed the deal just after Christian took the throne for a little while Augusta might have thought that her daughter’s Royal marriage was a Triumph but it was truly a nightmare come to life King Christian was mentally ill and deeply uninterested in his wife and Augusta had to watch from afar as her daughter’s marriage devolved into Petty fights in front of the entire Dana Court upon hearing about the king and queen of Denmark’s latest spat which
involved Christian exiling one of Caroline Matilda’s favorite ladies Augusta decided she was the only one who could fix it accordingly she commanded that the king of Denmark reinstate the woman in question only to hear a resounding no from the Monarch arguably the most famous event surrounding princess Augusta resulted from an incident where where she visited Caroline Matilda after hearing some suspicious rumors surrounding the recent fall of the Danish Prime Minister Augusta wafted into where Caroline Matilda was staying assuming she’d give the girl a good talking to and this would all go away she got a supremely rude awakening Caroline Matilda met her mother in breaches a scandalous and defiant fashion choice at that time Augusta was
Furious for decades now princess Augusta had gotten exactly what she wanted whenever she wanted except not this time in response to her objections Caroline Matilda merely looked at her mother and snapped pray Madam allow me to govern my own kingdom as I please and as if this act of defiance wasn’t enough soon August had to face a much darker reality in 1772 austa came to a terrifying realization her health was failing her in fact she had throat cancer that would eventually kill her then in February of 1772 her daughter Caroline Matilda was arrested for engaging in an affair with a cordier this was no padillo and the
Danish court now had the girl imprisoned in cronenburg Castle Augusta’s last vestiges of strength left her when she heard about carolene Matilda’s Scandal for 10 days she subsisted only on cordales while she agonized over her daughter and slowly faded then on February 8th 1772 at the age of 52 she finally passed away by the end of the year the the king of Denmark forcibly divorced Caroline Matilda and placed her in Exile blackening her name for the rest of her life yet there was one final twist of fate Augusta mercifully missed in the end Augusta never lived to see the fall of her royal daughter or The Madness of her royal son over a decade after her passing King George III lapsed into another bout of mental illness making it clear that his issue
were here to stay he eventually passed in 1820 almost 50 years after his mother with very little of his sanity left all of Augusta’s Royal dreams were Now dust if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up we’d really appreciate it we also invite you to check out the companion article in the description below if you want to see even more videos on historical figures please subscribe to the channel
