Britain's Most Scandalous Queen

‘Who wants a girl with a personality?’ Historically, not the royals. Queen Caroline of Brunswick became Queen Consort of the United Kingdom in 1820, when her husband became King George IV. She was incredibly popular with the public, but unfortunately not so much with her husband, who had hated her from the start (the feeling was mutual). Today, Kate is joined by Ann Foster to tease apart all of the wild parties, pranks, adultery, accusations of adultery and actual mob violence involved in the life of this amazing woman. Ann is the author of 'Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Queen Without a Crown' and host of the podcast 'Vulgar History'. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click here to place your vote! Thank you! https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa This episode was edited by Tim Arstall. The producer was Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

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• 0:37Speaker 01

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• 1:19Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely Batwisters. It's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back once again to Batwister Sheets. Fancy seeing you round here. To be honest, I fully expected you. I know what you're after, you dirty little historical pervert. Ha ha. Well, like, I can talk, that's why I'm here too. But before we can go any further together, I do have to tell you, this is an adult podcast podcast about adult things, an adult way of living, adult subjects, news, adult too. Right, let's get on with it.

• 1:47Kate Lister?

  It's July the 19th, 1821, and we are in London town. It's the party of the summer and we are on the guest list. Well, I mean, obviously we are. What party is complete without us? But more importantly than that, we are with the Queen herself. And we've all been primping and preening all morning, getting ready to show our best selves off to the crowd. Oh, it's gonna be a fabulous day. Only, it doesn't quite go the way that we think that it will go. You'd think that the Queen would get in, wouldn't you? To the King's coronation? No, you haven't been to a coronation of George IV before. And his poor Queen, Queen Caroline, our mate. Well, we're gonna be telling what happened to her today.

• 2:54Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. Today, we're talking about the marriage of George IV and Queen Caroline of Brunswick. It was not a happy pairing. He was unfaithful from the start and he wanted a divorce almost instantly. So what better way to do that than to accuse her of cheating? The absolute cheek of it. But why did they hate each other so much? And they really, really, really did. How did they even end up married? How much fun were Queen Caroline's conga party lines? And, did she actually cheat? Did she really? I mean, I kind of hoped that she did. But did she? Well, today, I'm joined by the wonderful Anne Foster, author of Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Brunswick.

• 3:39Kate Lister?

  And she is gonna tell all. Have you got your fans at the ready? Well then, let's do this.

• 3:51Kate Lister?

  Well, hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Anne Foster. How are you doing?

• 3:57Speaker 02

  I'm so excited to be here.

• 3:59Kate Lister?

  Well, fancy seeing you round these parts. Now, for anyone who doesn't know you, you are not only the host of the wonderful podcast Vulgar History, but you have just written your very first book. How is it going? What's the title?

• 4:14Speaker 02

  So my book is called Rebel of the Regency, The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown. And it's been so fun to have a book out in the world and get to talk to people about her. And everybody always says, well, I never knew this. And I thought, yeah, no, no one ever knew this. This is why I wrote a book about it. And now everybody knows about it.

• 4:32Kate Lister?

  Caroline of Brunswick. I mean, there might be some people listening who are like, who? Pardon? What? I'm not, there might be, there might be out there.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  There might be one or two people, yeah.

• 4:41Kate Lister?

  So just for them, who, who's Caroline of Brunswick?

• 4:45Speaker 02

  So Caroline of Brunswick, she was the wife of George IV.

• 4:49Kate Lister?

  Boom, boom, boom.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  I know you've talked about him on this podcast.

• 4:52Kate Lister?

  He needs a sound effect, though, doesn't he? He needs like some kind of shithead sound effect whenever.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Some sort of like, yeah, some sort of like fart noise or something.

• 4:59Kate Lister?

  Yeah, like a Darth Vader thing or like a Jaws theme tune, but not as cool. Right, we'll get to him. Continue. Who was Caroline?

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah, no, you're right. It's kind of like the Darth Vader song, but done in kazoo's or something like that. Just kind of like.

• 5:11Kate Lister?

  That's perfect, yes.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, so George IV, he was the regent, like the Regency era, as it's known here, I think.

• 5:17Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  More often in Britain, you call it the Georgian era. But he was the regent from the Regency era. And to my great delight, no one's ever really heard of him either. So fantastic.

• 5:27Kate Lister?

  Oh, really? Interesting.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  I would say over here, there's so many King Georges, people kind of mix up which is which.

• 5:33Kate Lister?

  I see, I see, I see, yeah, okay.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Anyway, he was the crappy one. Anyway, so putting Caroline of Brunswick sort of in, in history, this is the era of like Jane Austen is out there writing books, Mary Shelley is writing books, Lord Byron is just terrorizing everybody. Like, that's the era in which she lives. And she's the Princess of Wales at this time. Very briefly, the queen. And she, she's kind of the Princess Diana of her time in the sense of the public loved her and the royal family hated her. And it was a real, that, that was kind of the tension of her life is just the royal family hated her, the public loved her. And eventually it just all came to a head with this sort of exciting trial. But we'll get to that.

• 6:14Kate Lister?

  So I don't know a huge amount about her. I mean, like, you know, I've said that there's lots of people who don't even know who, who she is. But what I know of her, she's kind of wrapped up in a, it's just a bit of a sad story. It's just like, oh, she married a dickhead and he hated her. That's what I kind of know about it. But in your book, you're claiming back quite a lot of autonomy for Caroline, aren't you? Why did you feel the need to do that? I mean, is what we know about her all wrong?

• 6:41Speaker 02

  I think what you know about her, what you just said, is correct. I think that there's definitely a lot of sadness to her story. But I hope to do, what I think I did with the book, is to really just like sit there with her in the moment. Like, you don't know how it's all gonna end. So she's a woman with great hopes and with great passion. You know, she didn't get married until she was 26 years old, which for that time period, and she was a princess. So she's from Braunschweig, AKA Brunswick, like, which was a duchy in what is now Germany. She's from this really prestigious family, but she didn't get married for a long time. And that was partially because there were rumors that she was insane, which were largely because her parents kept her trapped away. In my book, I compare her to like Rapunzel or something like they just didn't. Her mother didn't want her to be interacting out in the world too much.

• 7:24Kate Lister?

  Well, this doesn't sound good.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Oh, exactly. So it's like the beginning of a very sad fairy tale. So she's, and the reason her mother did this is because Celine was so, for all these lovable reasons, honestly, she was so opinionated. She liked to have fun so much, like she was very talkative, she was very energetic, and her mother just thought, oh, no, people, people aren't gonna like this. They're not gonna, they're not gonna wanna marry you if they see that you're this good time.

• 7:47Kate Lister?

  Sure, no, absolutely.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Who wants a girl with a good personality? Hide away. Don't let anyone know about you. Yeah, exactly. So she's, it's, she's just such a fun-loving person. And when I was researching my book, there's so many, you know, letters and diary entries and stuff showing how all she wanted to do as a teenager was just go to a ball, have a nice time. She was kind of boy crazy, but she wasn't really allowed to meet very many boys. So she wanted to have fun and she was just pushing against this all the time. And her mother just hid her away. When she was allowed to go to a ball, she had to sit in a corner and play cards with her governess. Like, it was just relatable. She's somebody who's trapped away and all she wants to do is leave her small town and go off and have adventures.

• 8:26Kate Lister?

  So this doesn't sound like a very healthy childhood. I mean, point me in the direction of a royal that had a healthy childhood, for fuck's sake. Do you know what I mean? But this one sounds particularly controlling, nasty, dominated by the mother.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. And so she, she's kind of kept away. And then suddenly, suddenly, miracle of miracles, when she's 26 years old, they get this letter from England saying-

• 8:49Kate Lister?

  Well, they were doing this until she was 26?

• 8:51Speaker 02

  26, yeah.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Distracted. And so what she's doing, actually, is she's just reading novels. Because this is, you've talked about this on your podcast before.

• 9:00Kate Lister?

  Not novel.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  There's so many sexy novels coming out in this era, right? You've got like Fanny Hill.

• 9:05Kate Lister?

  And they were sexy for the time. I mean, Fanny Hill, very, very sexy. But even like the, just your Gothic fiction ones that are now taught in, as like GCSE material in school. At the time, it was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God, these are seriously racy books here.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so I should mention one of the, actually where I start my book. And one of the more notorious things that she did as a teenager. At one point, she was fed up with not being allowed to go to the balls, not being able to do anything. And she hatches this scheme. I think that the sort of scheme you come up with when you're sort of a homeschool kid who reads a lot of novels, where you think it's a good idea, but it... So what she did is she pretends to be giving birth when she's 15 years old. She just, she gets, she gets stage makeup, like she puts makeup on, she like a fake bump. And she just pretends like, oh, and she's screaming and the, there's a ball happening at the time. And so the, the servants go and get her mother from downstairs at the ball. And she's just like, I'm having a baby. And her mother is thinking like, but I, I never let you see anyone.

• 10:03Kate Lister?

  What?

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Like, what, what is going on here?

• 10:05Kate Lister?

  Can you join those dots up for me? What on earth is going on there?

• 10:08Speaker 02

  What on earth is going on there is that she pretends she's having a baby. And then at the final minute, she's like, ha, ha, I'm not having a baby. And won't you think twice before keeping me from a ball, mother?

• 10:19Kate Lister?

  Oh, so she made a scene?

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. So she's just kinda...

• 10:22Kate Lister?

  An oldie but a goodie, a kind of, like, if you won't let me go, then I'm gonna, I'm gonna deliberately and publicly humiliate you and embarrass you.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 10:33Kate Lister?

  That's a move.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  No, it's a move. And it really shows throughout her whole life, what she likes to do. And she's backed into a corner, like she will make a scene. That is what her number one weapon of choice is. She just knows.

• 10:44Kate Lister?

  I like, I like it.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Exactly. She's got, this is the thing that people need to know. It's like, she's such a fun person. I loved reading about her and I love telling her story. There's so many just goofy things she does. She's, she's hilarious. Anyway, this does not work well. Her mother just doubles down her efforts to keep her trapped away.

• 11:00Kate Lister?

  Hmm.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  But eventually, she's 26 years old, and they suddenly, out of nowhere, seemingly got a letter from the Prince of Wales in England, saying like, oh, he's chosen you to be his wife. Can you come over to England and be Princess of Wales?

• 11:12Kate Lister?

  Wow. I mean, that's, that's a hell of a letter to arrive with just the, the normal circular, isn't it?

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, just surprised we've chosen you. And I should mention that he is her cousin, but

• 11:24Kate Lister?

  Always. Nobody's going to be surprised at that.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  No, the royal family at this time, like, who are your options of of wife? It's like, well, here's your family tree, like, please choose from here. And which one are you going to marry? So they're cousins and because her mother, this dominating force, is the is a princess of Great Britain. It's Princess Augusta. And so Caroline is just like, oh, my God, I get to leave. I get to go to England.

• 11:48Kate Lister?

  Yeah, I bet.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Leave not just my hometown, but leave this house I've been trapped in. I get to go there.

• 11:52Kate Lister?

  George, who? Who cares? Just get me out of here.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Exactly. She's like, sounds great. Don't care anything about it. I'm like, let's go, let's head over there.

• 11:59Kate Lister?

  Let's go.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  And so George sends sort of, he sends like an attache over to just kind of get her ready to travel. And, you know, she's been trained in English and things like that. But he chose her name pretty much at random. Basically, looking at the family tree, he was told, like, you need to marry a German princess.

• 12:18Kate Lister?

  George the Fourth. He was hugely in debt. He was famously, he liked to. Yeah, let's have a talk about George Boy, or Prinny, as you call him in the book. Because you have to imagine, like, 26 year old Caroline, who's just like chomping at the bit to be out of this suffocating regime. And she wants to party, she wants to have a good time. She's clearly quite a big personality. And you can see why she'd be dead excited. But what she probably doesn't know is who the person behind the letter is. So give us a rundown on George the Fourth.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  OK, so yes, Prinny, I call him in the book. First of all, whenever anyone, I think, this is what I recommend. If someone is writing a book about English history, if someone had a nickname in the time, go with it, because everybody has the same name. Everybody has the same name. So thank God, he was known as Prinny. So I call him that in the book. So he was a nightmare. He was.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Spending so much money, just constant house renovations, gambling, going down to the brothel, just drinking, like just everything you can imagine like a spoiled prince might be doing and he-

• 13:26Kate Lister?

  Like the worst spoiled prince.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  When all this stuff went down, I was just like, oh, this is, this is the heir of Prince. But, so he's just the worst. He has a string of mistresses, all of whom he abandons horribly. He actually, crucially, he fell in love with this Catholic widow named Maria Fitzherbert. And actually, they kind of got married.

• 13:45Kate Lister?

  Hello. How do you kind of get married?

• 13:48Speaker 02

  Well, because she's a Catholic and the heir to the throne is not allowed to marry a Catholic. So he, if he was gonna marry her, he'd have to get permission from the king and all these dispensations. And he just didn't do any of that. He just kinda yoinked a priest off the street into a bedroom and was just like, hey, marry us. And so it's, this is what I mean.

• 14:08Kate Lister?

  Oh, kind of married. Right.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Kind of married, but not, but kinda not married.

• 14:14Kate Lister?

  Not married enough for people to be able to not dispute this. There's a lot of wiggle room there, isn't there?

• 14:19Speaker 02

  There is. And also, it's a secret marriage. Because if, if Parliament found out that he had married a Catholic, he would be disinherited. He wouldn't be the next king anymore. So, he mostly married Maria Fitzherbert because she was Catholic and this is how he could get her to sleep with him, is pretty much what just happened.

• 14:35Kate Lister?

  Oh, he sounds delightful.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  He is the worst person. If you've ever been to Brighton, there's the, the Royal Pavilion there. Yeah, that's his house, that was. If you see just sort of the-

• 14:46Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  The lavishness, the sort of the decor, like this is just like his brain spewed out this kind of. But you can imagine how much he's spending on renovations. If he's like, my house has to have 450 gold dragons. We have witches' wet, Brighton has something like that. So he is spending money left, right and center. He's so in debt, shocking amounts. In my book, I did my best to sort of like take, you know, pounds from that time to US dollars today. And it's, you know, it's in the neighborhood.

• 15:14Kate Lister?

  Millions, squillions.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  It's millions. It's like tens of millions of dollars.

• 15:18Kate Lister?

  It's more money than any peasants like us could even dream of. It's that kind of money.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Exactly, and the people of that time, speaking of peasants, like this is a horrific time in English history. Like, you've got the worst crops ever, you've got these weird weather events are happening, you've got like the-

• 15:35Kate Lister?

  Hot on the heels of the French Revolution, by the way, which is like very much within living memory. It's like twenty-ish years before that, when they were lopping the heads off people for having too much. And there's this maniac, spending like the national debt of Spain on his wardrobe. And because that's what he's spending it on, right? It's on houses, decor, his wardrobe, mistresses, and he's just generally wandering around being irritating to everybody.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  There's a point at which both he and he has various brothers who are also pretty awful, they're cut off from almost every moneylender in Western Europe. Like, they're going to other countries to try and get- people know that they're not good for it.

• 16:14Kate Lister?

  I mean, how much do you have to be spending for like, you know, as a member of the royal family to be cut off?

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 16:20Kate Lister?

  From every moneylender? That's just an obscene amount of money.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  No, people need to understand how preposterous this is. And the only way he can see that he could get more money, and get an increase in his allowance, because he's obviously not going to get a job, is if he gets married to a German princess, Parliament will increase his allowance. So this is where he's just like, you know, throws a pin on a glove, on a mat. Okay, this one, sure. So he chooses her fairly randomly.

• 16:43Kate Lister?

  Why do they, why is this plan cooked up of like, we'll pay off your debts if you marry a German princess? Like, how's that going to help anybody for him to do that?

• 16:53Speaker 02

  It's mostly because there's no heir to the throne. So George III and Queen of Charlotte had a gazillion children. Like, you know, they kind of did what they were supposed to do, but none of these sons have gotten married. And they need, they need to start having a new generation of children. And the reason none of these sons have gotten married is because of what I said before, the king has to give permission. And they're like, well, what if I just live common law with this actress I just met?

• 17:18Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  And so they're just kind of getting their needs met without needing to be married. It's sort of a blackmail against Prince just saying like, please, for the love of God, just get married. Like, if you do.

• 17:28Kate Lister?

  I suppose it's like, it's not just to get married, it's that, will you please behave yourself?

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:34Kate Lister?

  Calm down, do the job that you're supposed to do. And if you remember as well, his dad's still around at this point, right? Like, his dad's unwell, but he's around.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah. George III is. He's kind of like, he has phases of, this is George III from like, the madness of King George, et cetera. So he has periods where he's ill and periods where he's better, but at this point, he's still basically with it. And he, he is such a frugal sort of person.

• 17:58Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  He just likes to tend his garden, you know, like, he and Queen Charlotte, they, they don't even put sugar in their tea. Like, they're so, just kind of like, in terms of royals, like, they're not spending money like Prince is. And they just want to get him in line and he chooses a wife. He's like, fine, I'll marry this random person. One of the reasons that he chose Caroline, and he was assisted in this choice by his mistress of the time. And his mistress of the time, who's Lady Jersey, she is a sort of figure who, she's so powerful. Prince loves a dominating woman in every respect of that. He loves like, sort of like, a full-figured, like, older woman who will absolutely dominate him. And so his mistress knows, she thinks, well, if he has to get married, it can't be somebody who's going to challenge me, the mistress.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  It has to be a very naive, sheltered, young Princess Diana type. And so they choose Caroline because she's been sequestered from the world. They think, oh, she'll be naive, she'll be easy to manipulate, like, she'll just kind of pop out some babies and that's it.

• 18:59Kate Lister?

  Oh, God, she has no idea what she's wandering into at all, does she?

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Not at all, not at all. Even though, sort of tantalizingly, somebody sends her an anonymous letter while she's preparing, where they just say, like, just so you know, Prince is a piece of shit, he has this mistress.

• 19:13Kate Lister?

  No.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's so many anonymous letters throughout. It was very thrilling to me. Every time one of those popped up.

• 19:20Kate Lister?

  Like, that sounds really modern, doesn't it? Of like, you know, like, I had to send his new girlfriend a DM on social media just to let her know. That's, that sounds very, very modern to me, like, getting that notification. And as always, you probably go, oh, no, I'm sorry, it's just somebody being horrible, but it's not.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  No, no, it was somebody looking out for her, absolutely.

• 19:39Kate Lister?

  Damn it.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  So of people who know about Caroline at Brunswick, from my research, one of the things that's known about her is there is still sort of a rumor that she did not bathe, that she was a smelly person.

• 19:50Kate Lister?

  I was gonna move on to that one, yeah. Where did that story come from?

• 19:54Speaker 02

  So this story comes from at this time where the attache comes over to Brunswick to prepare her to, you know, become Princess of Wales. And he realizes that she's feral, like she's been growing up kind of from society and like, no one has taught her basic hygiene because she's just been sort of like doing her. And also, it's like, who cares? Like, for me, you know, like during lockdown, it's like, was I washing my hair every day? No, it's like, who's gonna see me? I'm just in my house all the time. So gently, this man explains to her, like, well, here's the expectation in England of how often you should wash. And she's like, great. And from then on, she did. But

• 20:30Kate Lister?

  That's interesting. Okay. I suppose that all, again, speaks to this weird secluded childhood that she's that she's had, right? Of just like, they just basically locked her in a tower and then tried to present her to somebody. And then they're wondering like, why she hasn't done her hair nicely?

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. It's like, of course she hasn't. I'll just say this

• 20:51Kate Lister?

  But she does.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:52Kate Lister?

  What we're saying is like, you know, that there was a moment where perhaps she wasn't as, you know, clean as she could have been. And but but she she did change that pretty quick.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Exactly. From then, from then on, no one ever, and a lot of people hated her throughout her life, no one ever again criticized her hygiene. So it was just this one

• 21:09Kate Lister?

  Interesting.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  It was this one moment, and then she was told about it, and then everything's fine. Which what's interesting is if you're looking for evidence of Caroline now, there's not a lot if you're going around London. But what there is, is she lived in a house for quite a while in Greenwich, and the house, like, it's been demolished. But what is still there is one wall, like a brick wall from that house. And she had this outdoor bathing area because she loved baths. And what there is, is this leftover plunge bath. It's sort of like a little steps down, like below ground. So it's like, the one thing that she's left behind is a bathtub. Like, if you want to know how often did this woman bathe? Like the only evidence.

• 21:47Kate Lister?

  Yeah, she like she seems to bathe a lot.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  She loved bath and good for her. She did actually, one of the reasons she loved a bath, everybody did then, you know, everyone's going to bath, you know, taking the waters, et cetera.

• 21:58Kate Lister?

  Yeah, it's very fashionable.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So she took to it. So that's, it's kind of, these are the two things. If someone's heard of Caroline Brunswick, they know that she maybe didn't take baths and she was maybe fat. Those are the two things people ever seem to know of her. Yeah.

• 22:13Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  And she was, and like, that's fine. But um, in that time, if you're thinking about the, the Regency era, if you think about any Jane Austen film or adaptation, you see like Anya Taylor Joy or Gwyneth Paltrow in these kind of long draping gowns, looking lovely, you know? But if you think about a more full figured woman wearing those dresses, like it's gonna cling, like the empire waistline. Like it looks a lot sexier if you've got a bust. And so she wore.

• 22:44Kate Lister?

  Was she, was she a big girl then? Or is it, cause, cause the thing is, is like, when you hear stuff like, you start at history and you hear sort of stories about how people are bigger, like I always think to myself, yeah, but that's like 18th century big. That's like, which to us would probably be, still be incredibly small. Is that like the thing of like, you know, the early 2000s when we were supposed to believe that like Brittany and Kate Winslet were overweight and now we look at them like, are you fucking kidding me? So when I hear stuff like that, of like Caroline Brunswick was like massive, I'm like, what, what does that mean? Like a UK size 10, probably.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  I would say she was like a short woman and she was a chesty woman. So I'm thinking like Nicola Coughlin.

• 23:18Kate Lister?

  Short and stacked. Okay, yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Is the vibe. I think this is the vibe. And if you picture Nicola Coughlin wearing a Jane Austen style dress, she would look absolutely gorgeous, but it would be a very, it would be a sexy, well, her in Bridgerton, right? Like it's a sexier look than like someone who's more thin. And this is like, oh my gosh, she has bosoms. People were shocked. Like, yeah, she is a human with a body. So she was fuller figured and she liked to show off her cleavage, as a lot of people with great tits like to do.

• 23:45Kate Lister?

  Okay. So she's, she's got a good rack and she's not scared of it.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  And she also loved her ankles. She liked to have a hemline that's just a little high enough to show off her little feet and ankles. And this is in terms of the fashion of this era, the Georgian era, those were the trends, like the it girls, like Emma Hamilton and people are dressing this way, but because she's the Princess of Wales, it's expected she'll dress so much more modestly. So she's dressed, she's trendy. And people are just saying like, it's shocking, it's shocking. Like, well, every woman walking down the street looks like this, but because she's the Princess of Wales and because she's very chesty, it's extra scandalous.

• 24:25Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Anne after this short break.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  In a world where swords were sharp.

• 24:39Speaker 04

  And hygiene was actually probably better than you think it is. Two fearless historians.

• 24:45Speaker 03

  Me, Matt Lewis.

• 24:46Speaker 04

  And me, Dr Eleanor Yanaga. Dive headfirst into the mud, blood, and very strange customs of the Middle Ages.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  So for plagues, crusades, and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme. Subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:19Kate Lister?

  Tell me about when she actually meets George, when this fated meeting takes place. Because like, she's in Germany, getting all excited. Now she's, you know, like having baths and stuff. And God knows what he's doing in the UK, surrounded by, you know, his actual wife and various other mistresses and just, and he can't have been excited about the prospect of this. So like, what happens when they actually meet?

• 25:40Speaker 02

  The meeting is, I called in my book, and I will say it again here, the worst first meeting between British royals since Henry VIII met Anne of Cleves.

• 25:49Kate Lister?

  I was just about to say, worse than Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves? Like, tell me what happened.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  I would say on par, maybe, with Henry VIII.

• 25:56Kate Lister?

  Holy moly.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Very similar, very similar. So Caroline Brunswick, she arrives in London and everyone's psyched. Everyone's so happy because they've had George III and Queen Charlotte have been king and queen. It's, you see it kind of today. Like, people love the young royals because you've had an elderly queen or an elderly king for so long. So Caroline comes to town, everyone's excited, like, there's going to be a royal wedding? Like, who's not excited about it? So she.

• 26:19Kate Lister?

  Yeah, we did, we did. Get excited about that.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  You know, there's crowds on the street watching her carriage, like arriving, like going to St. James Palace, which is where kind of all the, everything was happening there at that time. People are cheering her on the street and it's crucial to know that everybody, Prinny was so unpopular. He, like the tabloids had just kind of, they were just kind of becoming a thing. And they were always drawing caricatures of him and making fun of him for understandable reasons. He was horrible.

• 26:46Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  And doing all these things about, he, everyone hated him. So he arrived to meet her, passing, like he saw that the crowds were cheering. And he's just like, wait a minute, she's going to be more popular than me? I don't want, I just want a little wife to like tuck away and have some babies.

• 27:01Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  So he's, you know, his masculinity is threatened because people love her. He's also drunk constantly, like he is.

• 27:09Kate Lister?

  Yeah, you can look up what he drank in a day and it's, it's deranged. It's like bottles of sherry before breakfast. It's just a crazy amount of alcohol.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  He loved cherry, cherry liqueur. So he's, he's drunk, but just like whenever I mention him, like just know that he is. And he kind of staggers into the room and he looks, takes one look at her. And then he just says like, bring me a brandy and walks out of the room. He doesn't even say hello.

• 27:33Kate Lister?

  Jesus, wow, that's not good.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  That's, that's the first meeting of them. And Caroline, to her credit, like whether it's the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do, she always says what's on her mind. And she says like, oh, he's not, he's not as handsome as he was in his paintings. Is he always like this? And they have dinner together with the family and she just, when she feels that she's being disrespected, like she will stand up for herself. And so she does that at this dinner. It's a real sort of like Real Housewives sort of vibe. Like she will just, she will say what's on her mind. She'll say, so this dinner just cements in Prinny's mind, I hate this woman. And it's sometimes in her mind, like, I hate this man. But the marriage is happening. They can't call it off. They get married.

• 28:18Kate Lister?

  It's gonna happen now. It's a juggernaut in motion, isn't it?

• 28:22Speaker 02

  And but I mean, from this instant, they hate each other for the rest of their lives. And the the wedding itself is it's horrible. The wedding is horrible. He like, he's so drunk. He has to be carried down the aisle, basically.

• 28:35Kate Lister?

  Oh, lovely.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Two of his brothers, like drag

• 28:37Kate Lister?

  Brilliant.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  He's weeping. He's weeping as the wedding, like gazing off just behind Caroline is his mistress. And he's just like, oh, like staring at her like

• 28:46Kate Lister?

  Jeez, man. Oh, that's bad.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  It's terrible. But Caroline, she's got this gorgeous silver dress. There's a bunch of portraits of it. And then she goes and stands at the window. Everyone cheers. The public from minute one was just like, this is our girl. This is the people's princess and we will ride or die for her. She seems great. So they love her. They hate him. They they consummate their marriage. Caroline writes later that their their wedding night, he just collapsed in the fireplace.

• 29:16Kate Lister?

  But they did manage to do it because at least once, because they had a baby, right?

• 29:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So, well, and crucially, they consummate the marriage. They have a baby, so you can't end all it, right? Like, this marriage has happened.

• 29:27Kate Lister?

  It's it's on the books now.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  But yeah, by the time she has the baby, like nine months later, they're living in sep- well, I mean, living in separate households. A lot of royals did that anyway. But these two almost never see each other again. They they're complete, living completely separate lives. She has this daughter, Princess Charlotte. And she also, she's got such good instincts. She knows that the royal family hates her, like Prinny hates her. Queen Charlotte hates her.

• 29:50Kate Lister?

  Why do the rest of the royal family hate her? Because I can like, Prinny is just a law unto himself. He's just a prick. He didn't like anybody. And and he's just gonna and he's gonna resent her because he's being made to do this. And he wants to be with his actresses and and aristocrats. Why did the royal family hate her?

• 30:06Speaker 02

  I do want to mention that King George III loved her. He thought she was a great time. He he was right. The others, well, Prinny was so powerful. The thing is that he was the Prince of Wales. The king was, you know, elderly and having health problems. It's the sort of thing where Prinny hated her and everybody wanted to be in Prinny's good books. So they just kind of followed his lead and also ostracized her. So he was kind of not the king of the castle, but the most popular guy. Like, everyone just kind of did what he wanted. Which was to just isolate her psychologically. Like she had, she later wrote like the time period, the like postpartum time period. She's like this, I would never wish that upon anybody. Like if someone said, you can live your life again, she said, I wouldn't because that time period was so devastating for her. It was so awful.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  But at the same time, she just had this instinct. She knew the royal family hates her, but she goes outside and she's cheered. People love her. And so some part of her clearly realizes like, that's the power she has. The royal family at this point doesn't realize they need to court public opinion. They're still stuck in this kind of like Henry the eighth, like sort of vibe.

• 31:10Kate Lister?

  I'm starting to see the Diana comparisons.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  Very much. So the royal family is just kind of like, well, we're the king and queen. Like, we don't need to care what people think. But these newspapers have relentlessly been making fun of them. Caroline takes out her pram, baby Princess Charlotte. She goes for a walk and people go nuts. People love her. And she realizes, and she's even more sympathetic now that she's a mother. And people know that she's being mistreated because just like now, like courtiers and servants are like leaking stories to the newspapers. So everybody knows she's being treated horribly. Everybody's on her side and the royal family is like, well, we're the royal family. We don't need to have PR. We don't need to give our side. We're the royals. Like everyone is going to respect, no one does. Like, and like you said, the French Revolution so recently happened.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Working class people, poor people are set up and they want somebody to rally behind. And they see the royals hate her, so we're going to love her. She's going to become our figurehead because that will piss up the royals, basically.

• 32:08Kate Lister?

  Is it true that Prince banned her from his coronation? On what grounds?

• 32:13Speaker 02

  We're going to get to that.

• 32:14Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  But the coronation is quite a way off because they get married towards the late 1700s. And he is the regent for at least a decade after that. You know what? That'll be the grand finale. He's the regent for quite a while. The king is not doing well. Prince kind of takes over. He gets this control. And as soon as he gets this control, he has more power and he isolates Caroline even more, treats her even more cruelly. But this is where I feel like I want people to know, like, yes, she's in this terrible situation, but she is. Relentless. She is just like, wants to have a good time. She finagles, she's able to get her own household. So this is where she goes to live in Greenwich, in the remains of this house where there's a wall and a bathtub.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  And she's just throwing parties. She starts almost her own alternate, and I mean alternate, like alt, like cool, royal court, where she's inviting all the like writer, like Lord Byron is coming over, Sir Walter Scott, like people are going over to her house because it's a good time. She throws the best parties. There's stories of effective like conga lines breaking out. Like she's just like, it's the place to be. She's having such a good time, separate from Prinny.

• 33:24Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  So she's living this beautiful life in Greenwich. She starts growing vegetables. She sells them at market. Like she's, for the first time in her life, she's, if you say like ADHD coded, there's a lot of evidence for that. And it's like, she takes up so many hobbies. She starts doing like carving busts. She starts doing like decoupage, basically. She's just like, she loves a hobby. But she's having a nice time, like separate from Prinny, doing her own thing. But then when he becomes regent, he starts cracking down on how much fun she's having.

• 33:55Kate Lister?

  It's just vindictive and nasty, isn't it, that?

• 33:58Speaker 02

  He's, all he does is he sees this fun-loving, sweet woman who all of her friends adore her. Like when I was researching, you find just writing from time after time, people meet her and a lot of them are initially startled. The same way you might be startled if you met like Dolly Parton, where you just, oh, oh, this person is serving up a lot of look. This is like, what is happening? And then you realize like, this is the sweetest person I've ever met. I will go to war for her. This happens time and time again. People just love her. But some of the people who love her are men and she, like in her childhood, she is boy crazy. So she flirts a lot. She loves to flirt with every man she meets. And then Prinny thinks, oh, this is evidence. Maybe I can divorce her on adultery grounds. So he tries to find evidence.

• 34:43Kate Lister?

  Part calling cattle black, I think.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  I mean, he's literally. Already married to someone else.

• 34:49Kate Lister?

  Right. Ridiculous thing to say.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  It's preposterous, yeah, because this is like, there's not no-fault divorce. So for him to get rid of her, he would need to prove that she was adulterous. And so he has, like, he puts spies in her household. He's paying off servants to try and get evidence. He never gets any evidence that she's having an affair with anybody. But she is behaving, she's wearing these dresses. She likes to show off her great tits. She's like flirting with men. She runs off with them privately into rooms. What's happening there, we don't know. But.

• 35:19Kate Lister?

  I kind of hope she was having an affair. I kind of hope she was.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  I, I really hope she was. But the evidence he eventually has is she likes to collect children. She, she likes to take in wards. Prinny is keeping her from her daughter. This is like the one weapon he has. And she's so maternal. She's so loving. She just starts taking in unfortunate children. Like, she's sort of, I do call it a child collection, and people did at the time, which a lot of people found strange. Like, why, why is she collecting children? But she kind of started a school. And then Prinny thought, oh, well, maybe these are her illegitimate children. And the thing is, she did make jokes, like, oh, this is, like, she would say, this is my child. And so.

• 35:57Kate Lister?

  Right, okay.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  She had this kind of dry sense of humor where she would say things sarcastically. And then the spies would write, like, oh, she just said that she, she had this child. It's like, she's making a joke. She's, come on. Anyway, so he does an investigation to try to prove that she had given birth to one of these children. It's called the delicate investigation. And eventually, the public finds out about it. And it all ends when the mother of this child shows up to say, actually, I'm the mother of this child. And here's the birth certificate.

• 36:25Kate Lister?

  Right, okay, well, there we go then. There we go. Shut up. Case closed. Next.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Basically, so at this point, things are so unpleasant for her. All she wants to do is just get away. And eventually, she's able to. And this is, this is, for me, my favorite part of her life story, where she just gets to fuck off to the Mediterranean and just have a nice time. She's paid off by the government to just leave England. And she's like, fine, I will leave. And, well, actually, they give her permission to go back to Braunschweig. She stays there for two weeks. And then she's just like, going to Italy, see you, chums. Like, she just.

• 37:00Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Heads off. And this is where she, she hooks up with this extremely handsome Italian. I'm called Pergami, who people describe his mustache was so elegant. He's like six foot something tall. She's this little, little tiny woman. There's caricatures of them both where it's just, he's handsome. And he just does everything for her. He kind of like runs her household. They go on, I call it sort of like a cruise around the Mediterranean. She's just visiting archaeological sites. That was such a trendy thing at the time, you know, Pompeii had just been discovered and things like that. So she's just visiting site after site with this man who was probably her lover and just like having the time of her life. Because if you remember this little girl and woman trapped in this house in Germany.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  All she was doing was travel and have adventures. And finally she gets to, and she's just like, and Prinny's paying for it all. And she's just like loving life.

• 37:54Kate Lister?

  Was she having an affair with the Italian?

• 37:56Speaker 02

  Almost definitely. I can't.

• 37:58Kate Lister?

  Almost definitely. Good. Excellent.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  I can't think that she wouldn't have been. There's so many examples of like they, they travel together, like they stay in the same room. Like when they're on a ship, they like put a tent on the deck and they're staying in the tent together, like.

• 38:12Kate Lister?

  Yeah, yeah, they're, they're having an affair. Yeah, definitely. I'm good for her, quite frankly.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Honestly, yes. Please, like she's married to Prinny for all this time. Like I want her to get sexual satisfaction from somewhere.

• 38:22Kate Lister?

  Yeah, get laid properly at least once, we hope.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Please, please. So she's having this amazing time in Italy. She's really obsessed with, this is around, just after Napoleon died. And so he'd been on the Isle of Elba and so she goes on a trip to Elba to like see Napoleon's house. And because she's a hilarious person, she runs inside and she wants to take a souvenir. She takes his billiards cue. Just as a, Napoleon's billiards cue. Like she's just a good time. Time of her life, honestly.

• 38:51Kate Lister?

  Does the coronation happen when she's in Italy, getting stuffed by an Italian?

• 38:56Speaker 02

  The coronation, so while she's in Italy, she gets word that the king has died. Prinny is now the king. And the way that succession works is that the instant that the previous monarch dies, the new person is the monarch and she is therefore the queen because she's his wife. He didn't manage to get rid of her. And so this, this is where he, he is determined that she will not be recognized as queen. She will not be queen. She will not get a crown. So he puts off the coronation just to make sure that she won't be at it.

• 39:29Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  And she, she hears about this and he says, the minute she steps foot back on British soil, he's like, I'm going to proceed with divorce hearing against her. And she's like, want to bet? Great. And so she comes back because she's like, I'm the queen. This is, this is happening. You can't stop me. This is, I'm your wife, much as we both hate it. So she comes back to England and he proceeds with, it's called a bill of pains and penalties. It's the sort of thing where a rich person wants to do something, but there's not a law that lets him do that. So he just kind of finds a law-

• 40:01Kate Lister?

  We're gonna make it up.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  Kinda lets him do that. So she's going to be tried in the House of Lords. Again, it's for adultery. Prinny is hoping that this will end the marriage, so she won't be queen. And then he can marry someone younger. At this point, their daughter, Princess Charlotte, has tragically died. She got married. She had, she died in childbirth. And this means there's no heir to the throne. Because they didn't have any other children. They all have a lot of illegitimate children, but there's no heir to the throne. So Prinny wants to dump Caroline, marry some young, fertile, new German princess and have a child. So this trial, he refuses to have the coronation until after this trial has happened, because he hopes it will go his way.

• 40:42Kate Lister?

  And he's putting her on trial for adultery, which I'm very pleased she was doing it, but she was definitely doing it.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  She, I think she was probably doing it, but like, what evidence do you have?

• 40:51Kate Lister?

  But prove it, prove it.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so they have this trial and this is where the, the people, this is the closest, I think, that England ever came to a French Revolution type moment. Because the people are showing up for her, like, they've loved her this whole time. They see that she's being wrong. They're like, she is our queen. If you go to the V and A, they have a souvenir jug there that's like Queen Caroline, like people. There's merch, like, everybody was supporting her. And one of the main avenues of support at this time is the first time in British history that women, working class women rallied together to do political action.

• 41:29Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  And this was, they got together, they all wore white as a sign of her innocence, which I feel like is kind of a precursor to the suffragettes a few decades later. But they took to the streets, they were, when she came back to town, people climbing onto roofs of houses, like people with carriages would pay so that people could sit on top of the carriage to watch her go by. Like, we're talking like 20,000 people are just cheering her coming into the city. Like, the public, who've always loved her, suddenly, this is where the royal family realizes, like, oh, this is actually a powerful weapon that she's been cultivating all these years. So she has the trial. It's a farce. Prinny has paid off all these Italian people to lie about what they saw, because he paid them. They'll

• 42:13Speaker 02

  say whatever. The people are rioting every night. Like, it's just, it's absolute chaos.

• 42:19Kate Lister?

  Wow, like, actual riots?

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Actual riots. There's the, there's not police, that doesn't, that wasn't invented yet, but they bring in the military. Some of, there's one military, like, some of them are like, there's mutinies happening because they support her instead of him. And you'll love this detail.

• 42:35Kate Lister?

  Jesus, Anne, wow.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  You'll love this detail. There's, there's evidence I found of sex workers were saying, like, if you don't support Caroline, we will not fuck you.

• 42:43Kate Lister?

  Oh, yes. Well done. Oh, I love that.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  They're on her side. Like, everyone is on her side. And this is the thing, this is why I was researching it. And I'm just like, this is, oh my gosh, like, like, literal riots, like, people are, like, trying to burn down Prinny's house. Like, it's everywhere.

• 43:02Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  And this is where, how close this gets to a full revolution-type moment is evidence because eventually the House of Lords does this vote. And the vote, it's, it's close. Like, there's not enough of a majority to pass or for it to fail. But the Prime Minister sees, like, if they annul this marriage, that they will probably, there will be a French Revolution moment. The public has been so cultivated. And this is, I should mention, a few years earlier, the Prime Minister, Spencer Percival, had been assassinated. Like, there's, this is in the air.

• 43:36Kate Lister?

  They're not fucking about.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  No, this is like, they're not, they're not, like, these are people who are prepared for violence. And so actually, Although Prinny's, like, the Bill of Pains and Penalties could have passed, he could have ended this marriage, the Prime Minister knew, like, the country will devolve into civil war because people love her so much. And so they just kind of tuck it away and they say inconclusive, no result, she's still the queen, don't worry about it. And then people, can you imagine the celebration when effectively she's declared innocent? Like, not just in London, but like you hear about, like, in Glasgow, like, all these places, people are just like, fireworks, effigies, like-

• 44:14Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  They go to the newspapers that supported her, they're cheering, they go to the newspapers that didn't support her, they try to burn them down. Like, people are just, I love the mob of this time are my favorite supporting characters in this book because they give no shit.

• 44:30Kate Lister?

  They're really riled up about this.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  This is the thing, I'm just like, wow, people don't know this story, but like, this was a serious, like, almost civil war. Like, they love her.

• 44:40Kate Lister?

  And I love the fact that she was definitely getting laid at the time. That she was just busted out, they're just like, no, totally, totally innocent, go ahead, mob.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, yeah, took completely innocent.

• 45:10Speaker 05

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• 45:41Speaker 03

  In a world where swords were sharp-

• 45:44Speaker 04

  And hygiene was actually probably better than you think it is. Two fearless historians-

• 45:49Speaker 03

  Me, Matt Lewis-

• 45:51Speaker 04

  And me, Dr. Eleanor Yanaga, dive headfirst into the mud, blood, and very strange customs of the Middle Ages.

• 45:58Speaker 03

  So for plagues, crusades, and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  So this all ends, she's still the queen, Mr. Prinny is discussed. And eventually, he's been king for at least a year now, and he's like, okay, I'm gonna have a coronation. His whole thing is, he's like, I want my coronation to be bigger than Napoleon's. I'm gonna... He's been spending all this money his whole life, he's like, this is gonna be a blowout. You're never gonna see... He gets this velvet robe with a train, and it's got gold stars on it. He's just like, you've never spent more money on a coronation in your life. And Caroline, not invited. So she sends various letters, saying, okay, so what time should I be there? Okay, so what's the dress code? I was thinking of wearing this dress...

• 46:59Kate Lister?

  What's the vibe?

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Just like, is there valet parking? Or what do we do? And she keeps getting letters back, just being like, no, you're not invited, you can't come. But at this point, she's got, some of Prinny's friends even are on her side now, and they're saying, well, I have a ticket, do you want me to give you my ticket? And she's like, no, I don't think you, but I'm gonna go as the queen, I don't want to just sit in the stands.

• 47:22Kate Lister?

  Yeah, I'm not a plus one.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  So then Prinny hires, he knows she's gonna try to crash this coronation. He hires knuckle boxers to be bouncers at the doors. Just because he knows she's gonna come. Which she does, in grand style. I believe she shows up, she's wearing purple...

• 47:42Kate Lister?

  Making a scene.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  She, yes, this is the thing, every time she is backed in a corner, she's gonna make a scene. So she shows up, she walks right to the, and there's crowds, you know? And she goes to the door, and she is not let in. So then, it's Westminster Abbey, right? There's like a thousand doors. So she goes to the one door, she's not let in. So then she kind of runs over to the next door, not let in. She gets in a carriage, goes around to the, and then, it looks so pathetic. Like, it looks sad, that she's not being let in. Eventually, she just kind of goes back home, in shame.

• 48:16Kate Lister?

  Fuck, wow, oof, dear.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  So this is, and Prinny has this coronation, and it's a huge hit. All the, it's a huge hit, it's the same way people would watch a royal wedding, or, I don't know, Charles' coronation. People would watch it and re-watch it. There's not TV yet, so every theater in London is putting on a play that's just reenacting his coronation.

• 48:35Kate Lister?

  Hmm.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Not her. But the actual coronation. And so she's just, at this point, she's had various health problems her whole life. This is part of where the, she takes the waters. She's bathing a lot for therapeutic reasons. She's got, we don't know, some sort of autoimmune condition, clearly. Like she has sort of like, when she came back from Italy to England in the first place, there's a lot of times they had to stop and pause because you're going in a carriage over the Alps. Like this is a pretty major, and if you have problems with arthritis and digestion and stuff. So she's had various health concerns. And shortly after the coronation, like a couple of weeks later, she takes to her bed. She's dying. She, of these various conditions.

• 49:17Kate Lister?

  Do you have any idea what of?

• 49:19Speaker 02

  It was probably some sort of stomach cancer, probably. It was some sort of intestinal thing, although it didn't help that at the time, medicine was crap. Like, it's just kind of like, well, the leeches aren't helping. Well, take this like laudanum, which is, you know, like opium.

• 49:33Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Which, and one of the side effects of any sort of opiate is that is constipated. So if you have already sort of digestive trouble and you're just taking constant opium, it's just adding to that and.

• 49:46Kate Lister?

  So when does she, when does she pass away and how old was she?

• 49:49Speaker 02

  She was 53 when she passed away and it was just a few weeks after the coronation. And she was, okay, as her biographer, devastating to me personally, but this is such a boss move. She knew she was dying. The doctors came and told her she was dying and she was just like, okay. And she tells her trusted servants, burn my papers. No one, no one can read these. It's too scandalous. This is where, get me a time machine.

• 50:11Kate Lister?

  Oh, I know. How often do we hear that as historians? The family came in and burnt the letters. They burnt the letters because they were too scandalous. And it's like, I totally understand it. Like if I knew I was dying, I would wipe my internet history like immediately. But give it 300 years, people will be like, no.

• 50:27Speaker 02

  And what's funny about Caroline too, is for a lot of her life, a weapon that she kind of had against Brittany, which she claimed that she had written her memoirs and she probably did. She had so many friends who were writers and she was always getting advice from them about how to write. She traveled around with a trunk that sat on it like the memoirs of the Princess of Wales. Like, so her life in her own words, I would kill to see.

• 50:47Kate Lister?

  Probably just to start page one, ha ha, I did shag the Italian.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. List of my lovers. All those guys back in Greenwich, I was fucking them too.

• 50:56Kate Lister?

  Absolutely having sex with them and all of their servants.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So she's, all of her papers are destroyed. And then, and then just sort of like is the perfect ending to this story of this woman who was adored. Her funeral, at this time, I don't know if you still do this, when somebody very major passes away, there's sort of a procession through the city.

• 51:16Kate Lister?

  Mm.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  And at this time, like, it's just on the heels of this trial where this riot were happening, people were dying. So the prime minister decides, like, we can't have a procession through town because there will be a riot.

• 51:30Kate Lister?

  A riot, yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  So they're like, okay, well, let's process kind of around the town because you have to get from her house and you have to get to the Thames, you have to get like to a barge because her remains are being sent back to Germany. And so they decide they're going to do this circuitous route, but people find out about it. And then they, the people, this mob, they find where the carriage is and they force them, like, to go back through the town. Like, they...

• 51:56Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  The funeral procession does devolve into a riot. Two people die and they...

• 52:02Kate Lister?

  Jesus, that is a riot, my god.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  The two people die because it's not the National Guard, but it's something like that of the time. You know, so the soldiers come and they're squaring off against these, like, working class people because that's who her fans are, that's, and they want to celebrate her life. They want to see this procession. There's this face-off, gosh, what's it called? What's the park that's like right by Buckingham Palace?

• 52:25Kate Lister?

  Hyde Park?

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Hyde Park, yes. So the procession is forced to go through Hyde Park and this, there's a big face-off between kind of her supporters and the army. Shots are fired and two, two men do in fact die.

• 52:38Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  In this, so it's just kind of like, of course, of course, her life, like, it's a scene. She's dead and she's still causing a scene and the people are just rioting, they love her. So they, they follow her coffin all the way down to, and then it sails down to, to Brandshagen. Honestly, even there, the people in Germany had been told, like, prepare, there might be riots. So they, they kind of enter her at like midnight because they're hoping that maybe it'll be too late for people there to riot. But they still do. The crowds show up there for her as well.

• 53:07Kate Lister?

  They snuck a riot and, jeez.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  People loved her. And this is what's really interesting to me is because she was, she was the main character, like, break the internet of her time. And then... Completely forgotten.

• 53:20Kate Lister?

  Well, as a final question then, and just to wrap this up, why has she been forgotten? Because this is a hell of a story.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I feel really fortunate to have been able to be a person to write this story and to bring it to people. And the way, I mean, why was she forgotten? I mean, the short answer is Queen Victoria. So after all this happens, Queen Victoria eventually becomes the queen. And she comes in after this, these decades of just chaos of all the various King Georges and just like the American Revolution, losing the colonies, all these things that happened. I think for a lot of people, the time period of like between George the first, George the fourth, it's kind of, what happened there really? I don't really know. And that's because Queen Victoria came in and she's like, let's pretend like the monarch has always been. Exactly. It's always been just like absolutely like moral role model type monarchs. And that's how it's always been. And let's just like talk the Georgian period away and

• 54:13Speaker 02

  kind of not talk about it. And she was like, she doesn't, Victoria didn't want people to remember Prinny. And if you remember Prinny, then you're going to remember Caroline. And if you remember Caroline, then you're going to remember these anti-monarchist riots. And that's the last thing Victoria wants people thinking about. So she really kind of whitewashed a lot of the recent royal history. And then that really set the tone for how people remembered history after that, because Victoria was around for so long. And so Caroline just kind of got, just swept away with all the rest of it, really.

• 54:44Kate Lister?

  Well, thank God you've written your book then. You have been an absolute treat to talk to. Give us the full title of the book again, so people can go and find it.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  Absolutely. So it's Rebel of the Regency, the scandalous saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown.

• 54:58Kate Lister?

  And if people want to find you on social media, what's your handle?

• 55:02Speaker 02

  So on social media, I do have a podcast called Vulgar History, and that's where all my social media is under. So just it's under Vulgar History Pod on Instagram and Threads and Blue Sky and all the places.

• 55:12Kate Lister?

  Well, thank you for coming. And thank you for telling us this amazing story. What an absolute hero Caroline was.

• 55:19Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I feel like especially, I'm like, you, your people, the British, you need to know about it. This is your history.

• 55:27Kate Lister?

  We need to know.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:29Kate Lister?

  Thank you so much. You've been wonderful.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 55:39Kate Lister?

  Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Anne for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along, wherever it is that you get your podcasts. Coming up, we have got a complicated love story, the medieval drama of Eloise and Abelard. And we're going to be finding out if the rumours were true, was Coco Chanel a Nazi? And if you'd like us to explore a subject, or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at [email protected]. This podcast was edited by Tim Astle and produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Join me again, Betwixt Sheets, History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.