Becoming Queen

by Kate Williams

This is the little known story of Princess Charlotte, daughter of George IV, her husband Prince Leopold, and also Queen Victoria. It reveals how Victoria’s reign was shaped by the sudden death of Charlotte and the subsequent royal marriages.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Historical, Royalty, Victorian, British Literature

480 pages, Hardcover

First published September 18, 2008

About the author

Hello! Thank you for visiting my page. It's a great privilege to be on here - and to say hi to readers. Thank you very much for all your support and interest in my books! My twitter account is @katewilliamsme and I have a facebook page for Kate Williams author, come and say hello! I'm always thrilled to hear from you and your thoughts about my work.

I grew up in a very modern house in a dormitory village in the Midlands- and as a consequence became completely obsessed by the past. When I was about six, we got a new washing machine - and I took the huge cardboard box, covered it in silver foil and told my little brother it was a time machine. I used to rumble it about and tell him 'Look! We're in Egypt in the time of the pyramids - but you can't get out!' So he had to listen to all the stories inside, my poor brother...


'One of Britain's best young historians', Independent.
'Historian Extraordinaire', The Today Programme, Radio 4
'Queen of historical fiction' and 'History at its best', Guardian
'Unforgettable', (the book, not me!), The Lady.
'Gripping, seductive', The Times


I'm still looking for that time machine - and still living in it, really as I am obsessed by history.

Thanks so much for coming with me in my time machine.....

My latest novel, Edge of the Fall, is about the DeWitt family in the 1920s as they try to make sense of their lives in the aftermath of the war. It's the Flapper Age - and everything is in flux. As Kirkus puts it, there is ' a beautiful socialite threatened by a stranger, a murder trial and a baby born out of wedlock' - 'strange disappearances, unexplained deaths, dramatic births and a juicy court case' Grazia


'Brilliant', Daily Mail
'Gripping from the first page', 'Thrilling' 'a must read', Grazia
'Imbued with a sharp awarenss of the devastating effects of war in any era, Williams' novel presents sympathetic characters who transcend history', Kirkus


My previous novel, The Storms of War, is the first in a trilogy about the de Witt family. The first explores their lives from 1914-1918, as the youngest girl, Celia, sees her perfect world crumble and change. I've wanted to write about the wars since I visited the trenches in France when I was ten on a school trip. I was fascinated by how small they were - and how men could ever live in such places. I really wanted to go into the lives of Germans - the Victorians couldn't get enough of them. Then - almost overnight - they were the enemy and people saw German spies everywhere and the newspapers demanded that all Germans in the country be imprisoned. At the beginning of the book, Rudolf and Verena have four children - and their lives will never be the same again.


'Quietly impressive...hard to put down....Gripping, thoughtful, heartbreaking and above all human', Kirkus (starred review)
'truly affecting...richly detailed, light of foot..tantalises with loose ends and disturbs with shocking shadows', Independent
'Fans of Dowton Abbey will love it, as do I', Alison Weir
'Vivid....fascinating,' Observer


My most recent history book was in 2013, Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon (UK) and 'Ambition and Desire: the Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte' (US). It has been optioned by Ecosse Films (Nowhere Boy, Mrs Brown) and they are working on the script now.

'I send you a thousand kisses, but send me none back because they set my soul on fire', wrote Napoleon to Josephine.


In 2012, my book about Elizabeth II, 'Young Elizabeth' was published, exploring the Princess's life before she became Queen - and how the abdication of Edward VIII changed her world. In 2011, I co-wrote The Ring and the Crown with Alison Weir, Tracy Borman and Sarah Gristwood about the history of royal weddings.

My previous novel,The Pleasures of Men, about Catherine Sorgeiul, a young woman in 1840 who terrifies herself with her obsession with a murderer, appeared in 2012. I began writing the book while living in Paris, one

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where I got the book: purchased online. Amazon? I've had it for a while.

This is, in a sense, a two-part book, and the blurb is pretty deceptive. Fortunately I do not remove stars for publisher shenanigans. From the blurb you'd think this book is all about Queen Victoria whereas in fact 100+ of the 346 pages of text are devoted to her far less well-known cousin Charlotte, daughter of George IV (better known as the Prince Regent) and, during her short lifetime, heir-presumptive to the British throne. If she had lived to become Queen, Victoria would probably be a minor footnote in history and we could be talking about the Charlottian age (OK, probably some variation on Carolingian). Charlotte and Leopold instead of Victoria and Albert; I would like to spend some time developing that idea. (Leopold, interestingly enough, eventually became the first King of the Belgians.)

I'm not complaining about the time spent learning about Charlotte, because this lively soap-opera of a dual biography is exactly what I needed to understand a vital point in British history; the transition between the reign of the Hanoverians with their (not all at once--well, not always all at once) dull, incompetent, vice-ridden, hard-drinking, insane, eccentric, greedy and peculiar German princes and the new age of propriety and pantaloons we call the Victorian era. I had always thought of Victoria as the last of the Hanoverians but in fact she was never a Hanoverian ruler; under Salic Law a female could not inherit the Hanoverian title so it passed to Victoria's uncle the Duke of Cumberland. Even that's not as simple as it sounds, but that's another story... Suffice it to say that if Victoria had died before she ensured the succession so very effectively (nine children), the British and German succession would have got all mixed up again so thanks for all the childbearing, Ma'am. And George V got rid of all the British monarchy's German titles during World War I and renamed his family Windsor...

But I digress. The point is that the period between George III and Victoria wasn't an easy one for Britons longing for dynastic stability and Kate Williams has rightly fastened on it as a wonderful story, especially as two of the main players were young girls with parental issues. Charlotte's parents hated each other and the closer she got to the throne, the more they began to battle to get control of her. Victoria lost her father at an early age and fought throughout her teenage years to get out from under her power-hungry mother and her "special advisor" (ahem.)

The result is a fantastic soap-opera that would stand up to the Tudors any day and Kate Williams does a wonderful job with it, keeping the threads of the story in front of the reader so that I never lost track. She also covers the courtship and very early years of Victoria and Albert, which is a great story in itself. My appetite is whetted for much, much more about this period in British history, which also covers the century when Britain went from being a mostly rural, slightly backward (culturally speaking) society to the industrial and cultural superpower it was by the dawn of WWI. Suggestions for further reading are very welcome.

[Lady Wesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: please click on See Review to see the illustrations.

10 May 2015:
With the recent arrival of a new Princess Charlotte, I thought to add to my review of this wonderful biography of the last Princess Charlotte. Also, I ran across this illustration of the couple on their wedding day.

I've already written about her dress, but notice his attire. Regency fashion for gentlemen really was not forgiving of a less-than-perfect figure. (Rather like popular women's fashions today). Those breeches and stockings really are quite revealing. And surely, he didn't actually have such tiny feet. I've noticed small feet in other illustrations and think that must have reflected a trendy ideal that was accomplished most often by artistic license.

10 June 2013:
The so-called Regency Romance is a popular genre of historical romantic fiction. Usually the story is set roughly in the first twenty years of 19th century Great Britain, when the Prince of Wales served as regent for his insane father, King George III. They are populated by dukes and earls going to ton balls and Vauxhall Gardens. Occasionally, the Prince Regent, commonly called “Prinny,” makes a cameo appearance. Even his gang of drunken, dissolute brothers may show up.

One member of the royal family of whom I was completely unaware, however, was Prinny’s only child, Princess Charlotte of Wales. She was born in 1796 to Prinny and his wife, Princess Caroline of Brunswick. Although her parents adored her, they detested one another and used her as a weapon in their squabbles. She had a lonely childhood, surrounded by governesses and servants but few other children. She saw her parents rarely. Although it was apparent early on that she might become Queen of England, her education was desultory, and she was not a diligent student. She was vibrant and energetic, and remarkably sweet given how spoiled she was.

This was a politically perilous time in Great Britain and the large, profligate royal family was uniformly disdained. As Charlotte grew older, she became more popular with the masses while her spendthrift father became more hated. After he was named regent for his father, Prinny feared that upon George III’s death he might be skipped over in favor of his daughter. His solution was to virtually imprison her in a ramshackle mansion full of toadies and spies. Her mother is without power to help her and doesn’t seem very interested in doing so anyway. Occasionally, Charlotte was allowed to visit the sea at Weymouth, but other than that she never traveled outside of London and Windsor.

Charlotte, who was known to have Whiggish tendencies, became the hope of not just the masses but also those of the upper class who saw the desperate need for reform. She was only vaguely aware of her potential power, but when Prinny tried to marry her off to the unattractive Prince of Orange she finally rebelled. After a brief infatuation with a Prussian prince, known by all to be a worthless rake, she turned to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a strikingly handsome cavalry officer in the Russian army. He was no virgin hero, though, having once had a passionate affair with Napoleon’s stepdaugher, Hortense de Beauharnais. He was, however, strong, steady, disciplined and honorable – quite a contrast to Charlotte’s father and uncles.

Although she was stung by the Prussian prince’s rejection, she decided to marry Leopold, terming him as “the next best thing, which was a good tempered man with good sence, with whom I could have a reasonable hope of being less unhappy & comfortless than I have been in a single state.” (And ladies, take a look at this fellow and tell me if you wouldn't have settled for him too.)
Charlotte was desperate to escape from her father’s tyranny, and her father was eager to marry her off to a foreign prince and hopefully get her out of England for at least part of each year.

They were married on May 2, 1816, in a ceremony deliberately kept small by Prinny. Her dress, however, was said to have cost £10,000.

The newly wedded couple moved into their Surrey estate, Claremont House, and for the first time in her life Charlotte was independent and content. Just like in a romance novel, she and Leopold soon fell deeply in love, and before their first anniversary, they announced the expected birth of their first child.

Sadly, there was no HEA. On November 5, 1817, after nearly three days of labor, she gave birth to a stillborn boy. The next day, Charlotte herself succumbed. The medical care she received was atrocious by today’s standards but probably the best available at the time.

The public’s grief was overwhelming; everyone, even the poorest beggars, wore some form of mourning and shops closed for two weeks. “Her death is one of the most serious misfortunes the country has ever met with,” said the Duke of Wellington. After Prinny and his six brothers, there simply was no heir to the throne. Of George III’s estimated fifty-six grandchildren, not one was legitimate.

Charlotte’s death set off an unseemly rush to the altar by several of Prinny’s brothers, including the relatively respectable lifelong military man, the Duke of Kent. Not coincidentally, he set out to court Prince Leopold’s widowed sister, Victoire. They married in 1818, and barely nine months later, the duchess gave birth to a girl, whom Prinny decreed would be named Alexandrina Victoria. Sadly, the duke died before his daughter was even a year old.

The story of Queen Victoria’s upbringing and marriage comprises the second half of this book. Those events are well known, and I won’t summarize them here. Suffice it to say that her widowed uncle, Prince Leopold, who later became King of the Belgians, remained close to his sister and niece, and young Victoria looked upon him almost as a father. For that reason, as well as for his own ambition, he spent years grooming his young nephew, Price Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, for the role that Leopold himself had hoped to assume – Prince Consort to the Queen of England.

If you’re interested in learning more about the regency period, I recommend this book. The writing is lively and not pedantic, even though the author holds a D. Phil. from Oxford. Neither George III nor Prinny come off looking very good here; they both were just awful parents. Moreover, Prinny, later George IV, and his brother, later William IV, were drunken, selfish kings who cared only for their own comfort and privilege. As with Charlotte, the public pinned their hopes on young Victoria, and this time their hearts were not broken.

[Gerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book that I had forgotten that I had read! However, there are no regrets for it is just as good second time around; Kate Williams writes superbly and has researched her subject brilliantly with the result that 'Becoming Queen' is a difficult book to put down. And it is a sad day when the end comes - even second time around!

As long as Princess Charlotte was alive, Victoria, the daughter of Edward and Victoria, the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, had no pretensions to becoming queen. Indeed, she was well down the list of possibles at one time.

Prince William, Duke of Clarence, later to be William IV, had married Adelaide, Princess of Saxe Meiningen and the couple were childless until December 1820 when the Princess gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth Georgina. Although six weeks premature Elizabeth appeared a healthy young girl and, looking well ahead, her proud parents proclaimed, 'She will be a worthy Queen if she does not have a brother.'

She did not have a brother, or a sister, and worse still she survived only until March 1821 when the extremely cold winter accounted for her death. Adelaide did become pregnant once more in 1822 but she miscarried in April of that year and the Duke declared, 'I am brokenhearted.' Meanwhile Victoria's life continued quietly in Kensington while, providing there were no further legitimate royal offsprings, Charlotte, the daughter of George IV and Caroline of Brunswick, was in line to be a future monarch.

George IV died in 1830 to be succeeded by William IV and, with no further children forthcoming, Princess Charlotte was groomed to become the next Queen. She was said to be 'a charming child' but was badly affected by the divisions between her parents. She married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and in 1817 the couple were expecting their first child. Sadly the child was stillborn and shortly afterwards the future Queen of England also passed away.

The nation was in mourning and the Duke of Wellington's view was 'Her death is one of the most serious misfortunes the country has ever met with.' This view was not shared by the ambitious Duchess of Kent who now knew that her daughter Victoria was unexpectedly next in line for the throne. With her henchman Sir John Conroy, who was to become the bane of Victoria's life, she schemed and planned her daughter's future.

But she had not anticipated Victoria's resolve to be independent and Kate Williams' in-depth analysis of the lead up to Victoria's becoming Queen and her subsequent early years in the role is a most riveting read.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliantly researched book! Great focus not only on the beginning years of Victoria's reign, but also Princess Charlotte's sadly sheltered life.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not the book that I expected it to be – it’s more in some ways but less in others.

The title, the image on the front cover, the words on the back cover – they all suggest that this is a book about the early years and the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria. And it is, but there’s a great deal of ground to cover before the story gets there, because this story goes much further back.

It tells the story of two young women who might have been Queen. Each was her presumptive to the British throne, each seemed likely to ascend to that throne, but only one of them did. And she was only born because the other did not.

It’s an amazing true story – or it might be truer to say a series of stories – very well told, in a style that is both chatty and informative. It’s clear that the storyteller knows and loves her subject, and that she is eager to share what she knows.

Princess Charlotte of Wales was born in 1796 to Prince George – later Prince Regent, later George IV – and his wife, Princess Caroline of Brunswick. Although her parents adored her, they detested one another and used her as a weapon in their squabbles. She had a lonely childhood, surrounded by governesses and servants but seeing few other children, and seeing her parents very rarely.

And athough it was apparent early on that she might become Queen of England, she was given little education or preparation for the role she was expected to be called upon to play.

Charlotte was born into an age when the large, profligate royal family was poorly regarded by its subjects. But she was popular; the hope of not just the masses but also those of the upper class who saw the desperate need for reform. Her dissolute, spendthrift father hated that, and so he did his level best to keep her away from the public gaze, shut up in a grand mansion run by his own trusted servants. .

She grew up to be spoiled and wilful; but she also grew up to be vibrant, energetic, and very good at managing people.

When her father tried to marry her off to the unattractive and unappealing Prince of Orange she finally rebelled. Charlotte made some missteps, but eventually she turned to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who she described as “a good tempered man with good sence, with whom I could have a reasonable hope of being less unhappy & comfortless than I have been in a single state.”

Charlotte was eager to escape from her father’s tyranny, and her father was eager to marry her off to a foreign prince and hopefully get her out of England for at least part of each year.

The young couple were married on May 2, 1816, and then moved into their Surrey estate, Claremont House, where for the first time in her life Charlotte was secure and happy. Very soon she was expecting a child.

On November 5, 1817, after nearly three days of labour, Charlotte gave birth to a stillborn boy. The next day, she followed him to the grave.

Public grief was overwhelming. And after the Prince Regent and his six brothers, there was no heir to the throne. George III had ore than fifty grandchildren, but not one was legitimate.

Charlotte’s death set off an unseemly rush to the altar by several the of the sons of George III. Mistresses and morganic wives were cast aside. The Duke of Kent, a lifelong military man, set out to court Prince Leopold’s widowed sister, Victoire. They married in 1818, and barely nine months later, the duchess gave birth to a girl, who would be named Alexandrina Victoria.

The Duke died before his daughter was a year old.

Her mother kept her close, and kept her away from the world, determined that she would reign as her daughter’s regent.

William IV – her uncle who had come to the throne after the death of his George IV – steeled himself to live long enough for his niece to come of age, so that she could rule without a regent.

And her widowed uncle, Prince Leopold, who later became King of the Belgians, remained close to his sister and niece; and he spent years groomed his young nephew, Price Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, for the role that Leopold himself had hoped to assume – Prince Consort to the Queen of England.

That story rolls on until Victoria is a wife and mother and twenty-two years old – the age that Charlotte was when she died.

The telling of this whole extraordinary story is wonderful; it’s full of detail and it is clearly underpinned by a great deal of research.

I loved that it made history a very human story.

But I was disappointed that it didn’t highlight the parallels between Charlotte and Victoria, and that the author seemed more interested in comparisons with the present day. I was disappointed with that lack of analysis generally, and that momentum of the story overtook almost everything else.

I was left to do all of my own thinking, and I loved doing that but I couldn’t help thinking that I shouldn’t have had to do quite so muchwork.

And yet I was engaged from start to finish by a story I already knew; I had a lovely time reading, and I am eager to read more about many people and events that this books touched upon.

[David Eppenstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently found myself in our local independent bookstore in need of some new reading material. Alas the history section of this wonderful store is not very large, at least not as large as I would like. I have repeatedly suggested to the management that they could do away entirely with the children's section and devote the space to history. My suggestion has thus far gone unheeded. Well all I could find of interest was this little biography of Queen Victoria. I've never read a biography of this enormous figure and even though it was a paperback and I dislike paperbacks I bought it. At 373 pages I thought it might provide an overview to this queen's reign that lasted more than 60 years. What I discovered is that I need to read titles more carefully or at least take them more literally. "Becoming Queen Victoria" is not really a biography of the reign of this queen as the book ends in about 1842, 5 years into her reign. The book is actually more a full biography of Princess Charlotte the daughter of the prince regent, later George IV. The book devotes 140 of its 373 pages to the short life of this tragic princess whose death made Victoria's conception necessary.

I can understand an author wanting to give the reader the necessary background information needed to make the primary focus of the book understandable. In this case, however, the author seems to go more than a bit overboard. What the reader needed to understand could have been covered in a few pages but not 140. George III, our George of the American Revolution, had 13 children, 7 boys and 6 girls. Among all of these offspring only George Prince of Wales produced a single legitimate heir with a wife he detested and who detested him. This child was Princess Charlotte. The king's other sons produced numerous bastards but not a single legitimate heir. When poor Charlotte died shortly after delivering a stillborn child the monarchy was left without an heir. The middle aged besoted and debauched sons of George III who were all involved with mistresses were immediately placed in the position of having to run off and find princesses that would have them in order to produce an heir. The only one of these geezers that wasn't a drunk and a wastrel was the Duke of Kent and he won the race to produce an heir, Victoria. Now this is all you needed to know to understand Victoria's family but a bit more color would certainly be useful. The author provided and enormous amount of color about this dysfunctional family. In fact, after reading this book you will probably be amazed that any royal ever survived their childhood without become an psychological and emotional wreck. European nobility used children as tools in their adult games of power politics. Noble children were conceived, pledged in marriage as infants to people they might not have met until they walked down the aisle of their church; these kids were also kidnapped, imprisoned, held for ransom, and executed for being heirs to a throne or because their mere existence posed a threat to somebody sitting on a throne. And none of these kids may have had any idea why any of this was being done to them. Charlotte and Victoria didn't have it quite that bad but their childhoods would probably be labeled abusive and subject to court monitoring had they occurred today.

So what is my beef with this book that I'm only giving it 3 stars? Well it is written and it is entertaining and informative but this is Queen Victoria for pete's sake and all we get is 5 years of her reign and a lot of family infighting and soap opera behavior and gossip. Don't get me wrong, there is a big market I'm sure for reading about the dirty laundry of past royals and I enjoyed it myself. However, this woman was the longest reigning monarch of the greatest country of the 19th century world during some of history's most significant events and absolutely none of that is mentioned. I like to read a little gossip and dirt in my history as it is certainly entertaining and comical at times but I still want the major historical events to be covered and dealt with. This book failed in that regard

[Negin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I adore Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and I know this sounds silly to say, but even talking about them brings me joy. Since I was a child growing up in Britain, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert have been my favourite monarchs. My teachers at school passed on their passion to me.

This is really two books and it’s very well-researched. The first part is about the life of Princess Charlotte, who was meant to be queen. Since she died in childbirth, her cousin Princess Victoria became queen instead. At first, I enjoyed learning about Princess Charlotte, since I really knew nothing much about her and her dysfunctional family. It started to get rather tedious until we finally get to Victoria. It took the author quite a while to get there and I found this to be more interesting, although the focus is mainly on her younger years and her early reign. Her later years and the ending are rushed.

The reason that I bought this book and chose to read it was because of Queen Victoria not Princess Charlotte, so I felt a bit cheated. This isn’t what I was looking for. I don’t mind some background on Princess Charlotte, but not pretty much half the entire book, or however long it was. I wanted a complete biography, not something that makes me want more, and not something that feels rushed towards the end.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read 2018

I pulled this out and gave parts of it a re-read for a paper I am writing on Kaiser Wilhelm for my German history class. It is interesting to note just how much Prince Albert's influence was still a part of the many royal families his children and grandchildren were in control of during the First World War. I do not believe that influence was always a good thing.

Original Review

I love books on Queen Victoria, mainly due to the fact that they really remove the myths about her. My four-star rating on this book, however, is due to all of the information on Princess Charlotte and finding out how her death and the life of Queen Victoria were linked. I really wonder now if Princess Charlotte hadn't died if the girl who would become Queen Victoria would have ever been born. Since none of George IV's brothers seemed inclined to marry or have legitimate children until disaster struck, and Princess Charlotte died in childbirth along with her son. I really enjoyed this book, I just wish that college classes had made it so I could read it faster, I did have to go back occasionally and reread passages due to having to take time away from the "fun" reading. If you're interested in British History or just the Monarchy I really recommend this book.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone who thinks it would be great to be a royal should go see "The King's Speech" and read this book. Take a "normal" dysfunctional family and toss a lot of money, power and jealousy into the mix and you get the childhoods of Princess Charlotte, Queen Victoria and King George VI. If you've ever known someone who was the pawn in their parents' divorce, you can imagine how much worse it would be when there is so much more at stake. Princess Charlotte's story is tragic--dying as she did shortly after finding happiness for the first time. Both stories (Charlotte's and Victoria's) are fascinating and make quite vivid the strange lives they lived as royals and heirs to the throne.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bio of Princess Charlotte who was heir to the throne of England and Victoria who took her spot in succession when she tragically dies at the young age of 22. The book follows Victoria through her birth to the same age of 22.

I have read a lot on Victoria, however my reading has never encompassed her childhood, which I knew was horrible. This book really brings that sad childhood to the forefront . She was verbally abused and used as a pawn by her power hungry mother and John Conroy, her adviser.

I enjoyed this book, however I think that some of the "gossip" of the age was presented as fact, and that annoyed me enough to cut a half star.

[Dee Kridel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most Biographies of Queen Victoria touch only lightly upon the sad and untimely death of Princess Charlotte, which moved Victoria into the position of Heir to the Throne as a teenager. In this highly readable retelling of the story of Victoria's ascension and early reign, neither Princess is idealized. They were both difficult young women, reflecting the stilted nature of their upbringing, yet both longing to live full lives and do their best for their country. Kate Williams doesn't sugar-coat it! What emerges is a picture of the real Charlotte, who was not the Saint she became to the country, and the real Victoria, not the face on the Postage Stamp. The author examines all of the factions and forces that attempted to influence the young Queen Victoria, from her beloved Uncle Leopold (Charlotte's Widower), her ambitious mother, her beloved Governess Lehzen to her dear Husband Albert and a succession of Prime Ministers. It was a delicious read. Lots of gossipy detail and great research. I highly recommend it!

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before reading 'Becoming Queen Victoria' I had never read a biography about a royal family member. I found the background information of King George interesting because I had just finished reading The Founding Brothers and King George is mentioned for his 'crazy' behavior. The 'crazy' behavior made more sense after reading about his bout with mental illness. It was very well written and I enjoyed it, although I do wish there was a bit more about Victoria's reign in later years. I also thought it ended without tying up some loose ends. All in all I'm glad I was never born into a royal family!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written account of Princess Charlotte life and tragic death and of the early years of Queen Victoria's reign. The author has a wonderfully dry sense of humor. I just wish this would have gone into the later years of Victoria's reign, but of course that would have been outside the parameters of this book.

This was also my first Kindle download of a commercially published book. I found the book very easy to read on Kindle.

[Nya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book FASCINATING...... lots of shocking personal and political stuff I had no clue about before reading this book. it really helped me link the British timeline in my head a lot more too

[Ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a biographical double-feature covering the two legitimate grandchildren of George III -- Princess Charlotte and her cousin Victoria. We also get a sketch view of their spouses, aunts and uncles.

To start the story from the beginning. George III had many children. The sons were mostly terrible people; they spent their lives drinking, gambling, having mistresses and generally being entitled privileged social parasites. George didn't marry off his daughters, and they mostly moped around Windsor Castle. They weren't terrible people but through no fault of their own, had pretty unhappy lives.

Mostly the sons failed at fathering children. The one exception is that the Prince of Wales, the future George IV, had a daughter with Caroline of Brunswick. Their marriage was famously a train wreck and Charlotte, the daughter, had an unhappy childhood. She ultimately married Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and died tragically in childbirth. Leopold went on to be a social parasite and then king of the Belgians. (But I repeat myself.)

Meanwhile, at the buzzer, once it became clear that the succession was in peril, the Duke of Kent took a wife (Leopold's widowed sister Victoire) and managed to farther a child - Victoria. So Leopold, her cousin's husband, was also her uncle. Royalty is like that.

Victoria's father died when she was young and she was raised by her mother and her mother's conniving dishonest household comptroller, John Conroy. Conroy and the duchess had the startlingly melodramatic scheme to isolate Victoria from her family and persuade her she was incapable of decision making and that the two of them were indispensable for her. This blew up spectacularly once Victoria became queen.

Victoria as a teenager, including her first year or two as queen, was very much a teenaged girl. She had celebrity crushes. She liked clothes, and dancing, and parties. A difficulty with the dancing though is that she didn’t think she could waltz with her social inferiors. That meant she had about six eligible dance partners in Europe. Fortunately the tsarevich was on the list, visiting England, and a good lead. So she did get some dancing in.

The book has a few chapters about the courtship of Victoria and Albert. Her family, particularly Leopold, were pushing the match and she was at first resistant to that. And he was a bit nervous too since being a decorative spouse isn't that much fun. He was very much a nerd who didn't enjoy parties, or crowds, or the English. But she thought he was cute and did ultimately marry. The author frames this, with some reason, as a reversal of gender roles. She owned the house and had the job, he was there to look cute, keep her company and help make an heir. But in fact he was very shrewd, forward-thinking, and genuinely an excellent match.

One thing I learned is that 18th century medicine was super grim. Charlotte, and for that matter the Duke of Kent, might have lived if the doctors hadn't starved and bled them.

[Kate | FocusOnYourShelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars

Do you ever read a nonfiction book without reading the description because you think you know what it is about? Yeah that’s what i did, and was quite confused as to the focus on events long before the birth of Queen Victoria.

After i actually read the description and cleared up my earlier confusion, i really started the enjoy this book. I will admit my knowledge on Queen Charlotte and her children is limited to the Bridgerton spinoff Queen Charlotte. But it was surprising to see how there were certain parts, specifically relating to her children that had some truth to them.

Half of the book is focused on before Queen Victoria is even born; Queen Charlotte, her children and their inability to produce an heir. it then changes to the life of the heir presumptive Princess Charlotte, her youth and her short time as an adult. The book then switches to the desperation for a legitimate child to be born and the eventual birth of Victoria. The second half is focused on Victoria; her childhood, mother, relationships, and then eventually her early years as Queen.

Overall it was a very fascinating read that kept me engaged throughout.

[Meg (fairy.bookmother) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is a bit misleading as I expected this to be more about Victoria than her predecessors, but this was a book that is half about the politics and people leading up to Victoria's crowning and half (and a rushed half) about her ascension as queen. The Kindle file is 20% notes, which would be interesting to look through in a hardcopy rather than a digital file. Still, I enjoyed it and I liked reading about the kings and queens who could have been.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I now have a much better understanding of the Hanoverians and how Victoria came to the throne. The book also covered the first few years of Victoria's reign and her marriage to Albert. Very well-written and interesting.

[Zosi · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely well written and insightful book that really made me appreciate Queen Victoria a little bit more because she really didn’t have an easy childhood. I also really enjoyed how part of the book was written about Princess Charlotte, as I feel the two women complement each other very well. At once objective yet sympathetic.

[Gerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Williams presents a superb portrait of 18th and 19th century England with the emphasis on the royal line of succession and the tricky path that young Victoria trod to finally ascend the throne. That in itself was quite an achievement for she was quite some way down the pecking order at the time of her birth, her father being the Duke of Kent, the fourth son of the then reigning monarch George III.

With George III going mad and the public becoming disenchanted with him, his son the Prince of Wales was appointed Regent but his spendthrift ways did not particularly endear him to the populace either. However, after an illegal marriage to Maria Fitzherbert, he married Caroline of Brunswick and they did produce a grandchild for George III, Princess Charlotte, who was to be the only legitimate offspring and heir to the throne.

The marriage eventually failed but Charlotte remained the apple of her father's eye and she was groomed to become Queen. However, she died on 6 November 1817 after giving birth to a stillborn son. The line of succession suddenly changed with George IIIs other sons, William, Duke of Clarence, Frederick, Duke of York, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, and Edward, Duke of Kent, being thrust to the fore.

William lived in irregular but domestic bliss with Mrs Jordan, a famous London actress, Ernest had married Frederica, Princess of Prussia, who was to die childless in 1820, Ernest had married 37-year-old Princess Frederica and the couple had lost a daughter in childbirth and there was little sign of any other children thereafter while Edward had married Victoire, Princess of Leiningen, and their daughter, Princess Victoria, was born on 24 May 1819.

The Prince Regent, as George IV, duly took the throne on the death of his father in 1820 and on his death in 1830, his brother William became monarch as William IV. By this time all other leading contenders for the throne, including her father, had passed away and Princess Victoria was being feted as the future Queen.

Victoria passed an unhappy, or as she put it a 'melancholy', childhood and, although she loved her mother, she was more often than not at odds with her, particularly when her mother's close ally, and some said lover, Sir John Conroy was close at hand. But she was well aware of her destiny and undoubtedly from a young age prepared herself for it.

The moment came in 1837 when William IV died and from the very first moment that Victoria knew she was Queen, she imposed her will, particularly on her mother, who she declined to see on many occasions. She was instantly the monarch and in charge of all she surveyed, perhaps surprising for a girl of such tender years.

Obviously the thought of marriage was far from her thoughts but the matter had to be addressed and her cousins Albert and Ernest were invited over from Saxe-Coburg. After a couple of visits when Victoria found Ernest the more pleasing, she decided that it was Albert who would prove to be the better prospect. She, therefore, proposed to him and they were eventually married.

It was not all a bed of roses for the couple, even though they were madly in love for Albert wanted more power than Victoria was prepared to give him. There was eventually a compromise and their love affair continued until Albert's early demise. Queen Victoria, with her motto 'I hate to be idle', ruled until 1901, devoting herself to business and steering the monarchy through an increasingly pro-republican age.

Kate Williams admirably covers all the machinations of court life, the affairs, the political intrigue, and the endless conflict, all of which goes to presenting an original and intimate portrait of Victoria and the age in which she lived. An excellent and thoroughly well-researched read.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Victoria was born for the throne, that is, without it; she would never have come to be. The line of succession ended with the death Charlotte of Wales, the only legitimate child and heir, among King George III's 57 grandchildren. This set off a courtship scramble among the king's middle-aged and older sons. Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent (fourth in line for the throne) found a royal, protestant, German wife and produced an heir in record time.

The first 1/3 of the book is the story of Charlotte and these wastrel dukes, her uncles. Given the implied content of the title, you might feel a bit put out, but the story is fascinating.

The middle and longest part is how Victoria's mother and her special friend John Conroy tried to manipulate Victoria (and everyone else) so that they would rule as her regent. The shorter ending covers ascendance to the throne and the courtship and marriage to Albert.

Throughout, you see the sense of entitlement of the royals, all of them. Even Victoria's Uncle Leopold, the best of the lot, advises his nephew how to get money and position from Parliament. Although King of Belgium, he gets a pension from England of 10,000 pounds/year for his brief marriage to Charlotte. The royals (and hangers on like John Conroy) never give a thought as to where this money comes from, or why anything should be paid for them. While Leopold's pension is modest compared to those sought and often received by others, the average workman (who has work) is barely making 1,000 pounds a year.

This brisk interpretive biography fully informs what happens next. If you are planning to read A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death That Changed the British Monarchy read this book first. Not only does it come first in time sequence, it sets the stage. Between the these two recent Victoria volumes, for all the rhetoric and the memorials, it's fair to ask: did Victoria love Albert, or was it just part of the pageant?

Highly recommended for those interested in this period, and for a change of pace for Tudor readers.

[Plateresca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is sometimes mentioned as a book on Victoria, which is a bit deceptive since almost half of it is actually about Princess Charlotte.
It is well-researched and has loads of information, not all of which is easy to absorb (I'm thinking about a certain paragraph when somebody moves into a new house and we're presented with the whole history of the house - I didn't always feel the need to go into such detail).
And, after delving so deeply into everything that happened right before the Victorian reign, the ending seemed a bit rushed.
All that said, it's an interesting book.

BUT the audiobook narrated by Carole Boyd, unfortunately, is horrifying. In a preview, the narrator does speak like a normal person, but that's not what happens for the most part of the book. She's being increasingly affected. Every time she's reading the lines written by somebody of a German descent she does a most awkward German accent impersonation. Half of the time she's reading the lines written by a woman she wails, - it's most embarrassing if somebody comes into your room when you're listening to something like that. It really was a challenge to get to the end of this.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting account of the early life of Queen Victoria and also of her cousin, Princess Charlotte, whose untimely death in childbirth in 1817 left a big gap in the royal succession. It is an intriguing fact that at her death, King George III, though the proud father of 6 grown up sons and 5 daughters, had an astonishing 56 grandchildren - none of whom was legitimate! This sent all her feckless uncles scurrying to find wives in a desparate attempt to beget the next heir to the throne. The result, Victoria, was born less than two years later.
I picked up this book after seeing the new film, Young Victoria, on a recent trip to England. It presents us with a very different image of Victoria than the perennial pictures of a fat old woman in black looking distinctly 'unamused'!!! Give it a go, I think you'd be surprised!

[Carolyn Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched and engaging dual biography of the young Queen Victoria and her tragic cousin Princess Charlotte. The book captures a period of transition between the decadent regency period and the Victorian era, where the royal family presented a respectable, domestic image. Both Charlotte and Victoria had strong personalities and were determined to preserve their independence in an era when women were usually advised to be passive and defer to others. They captured the popular imagination as heiresses to the throne. I agree with the Kate Williams that the public image of both princesses set precedents for the modern monarchy. An excellent audiobook, well read by Carole Boyd.

[Bloodorange · Rating 4 out of 5]

I imagine this might be tedious to some, but I did enjoy the subject matter and the research. a) I was quite surprised the very, very public washing of dirty linen by the then Prince Regent and his wife. b) The descriptions - and effects - of bloodletting were rather shocking; no wonder the 19th century was the time of vampirophobia.

[Neeuqdrazil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a double biography of the life of Princess Charlotte (the only legitimate child of the Prince Regent) and the life of Queen Victoria up to and slightly beyond her ascension to the throne.

Charlotte died young, in childbirth, and her death set off a rush of royal weddings, trying to produce a legitimate heir (none of George III's children had married or produced legitimate heirs, although there were dozens of Fitzes running around.) Victoria was the first (and only surviving) child of this wedding boom.

There are interesting comparisons to be made between the childhoods of Charlotte and Victoria. Charlotte was raised by staff, with little to no contact with either of her parents (she was a pawn in their battles), while Victoria, whose father died before she turned 1, was the sole focus of her mother's life (with the aim of becoming Regent, as it looked as though Victoria would inherit before her 18th birthday.)

The book itself is well written, with copious references. There are a few typos (missing capitals, etc.), but I suspect that has more to do with the ebook edition than anything else.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting account of Princess Charlotte and Queen Victoria and how they shaped English public sentiment. I had no prior knowledge of either woman, which might have helped the reading a little bit, as the book seems to assume some prior knowledge. However I enjoyed the first hand source quotes from letters as well as Queen Victoria’s private journal.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Becoming Queen Victoria is a popular history of a transition in the British Monarchy, From the decadent sons of George III to the monarchy standing in as a symbol of middle-class virtue and family life. While Victoria is widely known, and her story popularly told, this work spends considerable text showing the significance of the tragic life of Princess Charlotte. The hopes of the monarchy and the public at large invested in Charlotte and her short-lived child are shown to really have significant cultural and political implications.

This book covers about 60 years or so of British life, and during the lives of four monarchs, the post-war aftermath of the Napoleonic conflicts, and the reworking of European politics. As an institution, the monarch wanted to survive a period of tremendous social upheaval, where so many governments and nations had been overthrown. Yet the five oldest sons of George III were largely absent from real civic leadership and moral authority, within their families.

That Victoria, the only daughter of an older prince, who abandoned his longtime mistress for a noble wife, would be the one to change so much by her and her husband's example was not a sure thing. But because the long Victorian era has taken on a massive role in British identity and around the world, it is assumed that things were just destined to be a certain way.

Williams structured this book in a way that draws the reader in the crisis, the ultimately tragic solution, the frustrating intermission and the final conclusion. This work speaks to some of how British identity changed and was challenged in a difficult time and rapidly changing era.

[Annette Varcoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of the events in the history of the British Monarchy that led to Queen Victoria....

[Sage · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed how the author intertwined the lives of Charlotte and Victoria - the parallels were striking. Although, through no fault of Kate Williams, sometimes I got a little tripped up on who was who and where and what time, and had to refer often to the (handy dandy!) family tree at the front of the book.