George III's family

 The daughters of George III were 6 in number... and they had -by royal standards, sad and difficult lives in many ways.
 George III was married as a young man to Charlotte of Mecklenburg- Strelitz, a German princess. It was, in early years, quite a happy marriage and George was amazingly for a King, faithful to his wife. They had 15 children, and all of them lived to adulthood, except the 2 youngest boys, Alfred and Octavius. George was a very moral young man, who doesn’t seem to have indulged in pre-marital affairs, and he tried to do his best for his people. 

His court was rigid and formal but in private the Royal family lived a simple life. He got the nickname Farmer George, from his interest in agriculture. His sons were not nearly so proper or moral. From their young manhood, George was at odds with them over their lavish spending,  their drinking, and their sex lives. He attempted to control them by the Royal Marriages Act, which stated that they could not legally marry without royal permission. However as is well known, he became increasingly unstable. It is impossible to know whether it was a mental illness, or possibly the effects of the painful illness porphyria. Eventually he had to be confined and his eldest son, George IV, became Prince Regent. While he was still in control of his life, George III found that while he could refuse them permission to marry, he could not stop his sons from pursuing a wild lifestyle, and extravagant and selfish behaviour…
However he had control over his daughters' private lives, and he did not want the girls to marry. Charlotte, the eldest, the Princess Royal, managed to get herself married to Frederick, heir to the Duke of Wurttemberg – but she was already 31 when she got permission to wed. She moved to Germany, but her other sisters were left in a very difficult positon.
 George III was now mentally fragile and the court and family were afraid of his becoming upset. Queen Charlotte was also unwilling for them to leave, and she had become increasingly unhappy and ill tempered, since her husband’s decline.
 She was afraid of George, and avoided him. She was also very controlling and strict with her daughters. She was upset by the fact that the King in his confused state of mind was claiming that he was married to a lady of the court and not to his Queen.
 George was probably giving way to desires and fantasies that he would have managed to  suppress, when he was mentally stable. Because of the situation, the princesses ended up leading very sheltered lives, almost like nuns, having little society and no prospect of royal or other suitors. As a result, it was probably inevitable that rumours would arise of romances between them and the few men they met, i.e. the Court gentlemen. The second daughter, Princess Augusta, was rumoured to have fallen in love with an equerry, Sir Brent Spencer. There were rumours that Elizabeth had had a secret marriage or romance which led to a pregnancy. While George III was still King, it was impossible for the daughters to marry, legally. However after the Regency, the daughters had more freedom. The Prince Regent was fond of his sisters, and he was willing to give permission for them to marry, though it was too late for them to have children. Elizabeth married a German prince, at the age of 48. It is possible that some of them entered into marriages, either before or after their father’s descent into mania, which were not strictly legal, but gave them a religious ceremony and bond…
 The most persistent scandalous rumours have centred on the 5th daughter - Princess Sophia, who is believed to have had an illegitimate child..  It seems likely to be true... The father was almost certainly Thomas Garth, an equerry who was many years her senior and said to be a very plain man with a birth mark on his face.  However the daughters did not meet many men, the men of the Household were all they had to befriend and socialise with, so it is possible that she did fall in love with him.."just because he was there..."
In spite of the sadness and difficulties of their lives, the women seem to have made the best of things and achieved a degree of settlement and happiness.  Amelia died young, after an unhappy love affair.. Sophia lived till old age, occasionally seeing her son, who seems to have been a rather unsatisfactory character.  Mary made  a respectable if not very romantic marriage, after her brother became Regent.. marrying her cousin William Duke of Gloucester.   Elizabeth and the Princess Royal, Charlotte, seem to have been happy with their lives in Germany.... Sadly their marriages were too late in life for them to have children... so when Princess Charlotte, the Regent's daughter died, it was the Royal Dukes who had to rush into marriage, to provide a new heir to the throne.....