The first PEOPLE'S PRINCESS

Nearly 200 years before Diana, the press obsessed over the life and untimely death of another popular royal

Back in 1817, the death of a young Princess of Wales prompted scenes of tears and mass mourning that would be repeated outside  Kensington Palace 180 years later.

Princess Charlotte Augusta was the Royal Family’s future hope, a woman with a common touch loved by many and followed obsessively by the newspapers of the day. Her death, at the age of 21, sparked a succession crisis that was only settled by the birth of her baby cousin, Victoria.

Charlotte’s father, Prince George of Wales (later King George IV), was unpopular with the British people. He enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle and only agreed to marry his cousin, Caroline of Brunswick, with the promise of money. Princess Charlotte, their only child, was born nine months after the marriage, but by the time of her birth her parents had already separated.