transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Have you ever gazed in wonder at the Great Pyramid? Have you marveled at the golden face of Tutankhamun? Or admired the delicate features of Queen Nefertiti? If you have, you'll probably like the History of Egypt podcast. Every week, we explore tales of this ancient culture. The History of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of Ancient Egypt.

Speaker 2:
[00:54] Hey, Nathan.

Speaker 3:
[00:55] Katy, it's time.

Speaker 2:
[00:58] It is time for another episode of Queens Podcast. How are you?

Speaker 3:
[01:06] Fantastic. How about you?

Speaker 2:
[01:08] Things are good. We were in the UK for two weeks. It was really nice. We went to Bath. I'd never been there before. And we did, I did just some really awesome nerding out at like the history of the Roman baths. And we went to this place called the Pump Room that does like this British tea with like the little, you know, the tray with all the little cakes and teas and stuff on it. And in that building, I guess it used to be some kind of hotel or something. There was a sign up that said Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein while living here.

Speaker 3:
[01:47] What? That is awesome.

Speaker 2:
[01:49] It was a really, really fun trip. I am happy to be home though. We are hashtag blessed to get to travel as much as we do. But no bed in the world is as comfortable as your own bed. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3:
[02:02] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And it helps whenever your dog is sleeping in it with you.

Speaker 2:
[02:08] And Bailey got sick while we were gone.

Speaker 3:
[02:10] Oh, no.

Speaker 2:
[02:11] She got pancreatitis while we were gone. And our friend had to bring her to the vet. And we've decided that she can give herself pancreatitis when she's not getting enough attention.

Speaker 3:
[02:21] Sounds about right.

Speaker 2:
[02:23] But everything's fine. Bailey is fine. Yeah, we think she can just somehow give herself pancreatitis for attention. But you know what? I think if Caroline of Brunswick could give herself pancreatitis for attention, she would have too.

Speaker 3:
[02:37] Oh, yes. I think that is a perfect segue, in fact. Is Bailey Carolina Brunswick reincarnated?

Speaker 2:
[02:46] Oh, maybe.

Speaker 3:
[02:50] Sweet Caroline.

Speaker 2:
[02:53] Bump, bump, bump.

Speaker 3:
[02:55] Like, someone can't sing that without the bump, bump, bumps.

Speaker 2:
[02:59] Exactly. Should we do a one-card pull for Carolina Brunswick before we get started?

Speaker 3:
[03:04] Why not?

Speaker 2:
[03:06] So, what vibe does Caroline of Brunswick want us to go into, you know, for telling her stories? Ooh, the Knight of Cups. Knight of Cups is, like, determined, and she was very hard-headed.

Speaker 3:
[03:22] It says, He represents the active, courageous pursuit of your desires and personal bliss, even if it feels vulnerable.

Speaker 2:
[03:29] Oh, you know what? It does make sense for Caroline, because this is a card for being, like, I've got a mission, and I'm going to do what I'm set out to do, which is she's very hard-headed. When she gets something in her head, that's what she's going to do, and she did pursue things, even if it made people uncomfortable and made her vulnerable, so it's actually a really good card for her. Love it. So, Nathan, who was Caroline of Brunswick?

Speaker 3:
[03:57] She's the tumultuous princess of Wales during the Regency era and a disputed Queen of England.

Speaker 2:
[04:05] Oh, love it. And do we have a drink to go with Ms. Caroline today?

Speaker 3:
[04:10] Yes, we do. I made another Nathan Original for this queen. So, I went to HEB, our grocery store here in Texas, and I saw these Royal Deco mandarins. They're only available for a certain amount of time during the year. So, I was like, Royal? Might as well. So, I juiced the entire Royal mandarin. I also took about a half a cup of water, boiled an eighth of a teaspoon of rosemary that I chopped up real fine, and then I took some mint leaves, put that in the water and steeped them for a while. So, we've got a little herbaceous love going on there.

Speaker 2:
[04:56] Herbaceous.

Speaker 3:
[04:59] So, I took an ounce of gin, an ounce of that herbaceous water, and then I topped it with all of the juice from that one mandarin, and then I splashed a little bit of soda water on top, and then did a little skoose of lime, and we a skoose. Yes, that's right, that's right, new word. I'm making them up as we go.

Speaker 2:
[05:25] It's an actual measurement, actually, a skoose. A skoose.

Speaker 3:
[05:30] And yeah, you just mix it all up.

Speaker 2:
[05:32] What's the name of this drink?

Speaker 3:
[05:33] It is the Devious Diva is what I call it.

Speaker 2:
[05:36] Devious Diva, I love it. All right, before we get into the story, we got some Patreon shout outs.

Speaker 3:
[05:45] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[05:46] Shout out to our new Patreon supporters, Becca, Jamie, Marla, Isabella, and Sophia.

Speaker 3:
[05:53] Also, shout out to Jessie, Serena, Andrea, Casey, and Emily.

Speaker 2:
[05:59] Yes. And thank you to all of our Patreon supporters and anybody listening, Patreon supporter or not. Thank you so much for tuning in. We love you.

Speaker 3:
[06:09] We love you. We love you. We love you.

Speaker 2:
[06:11] We love you. So, let's get started. Nathan, bring sweet Caroline into the world.

Speaker 3:
[06:19] I am so excited too, because we actually know her birthday.

Speaker 2:
[06:23] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[06:24] So, Caroline Amelia Elizabeth was born on May 17th, 1768 in the Duchy of Brunswick, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire. Never heard of it, ever heard of it. And because someone actually documented her time of birth, which is like another huge thing in astrology, we know all of her chart. Her big three are sun in Taurus, moon in Gemini, and then her rising sign is in Libra.

Speaker 2:
[06:56] And I actually think that kind of sums up Caroline pretty well. She's got the stubbornness of a Taurus, she's got the mouth of a Gemini, and the social instincts of a Libra, which is basically the perfect recipe for a royal chaos goblin.

Speaker 3:
[07:17] Yes! But before we get into all of that, let's talk about Caroline's upbringing. So her father, Carl Wilhelm, which when I first read this in my head, I said Val Kilmer. I don't know why.

Speaker 2:
[07:34] Carl Wilhelm? Val Kilmer?

Speaker 3:
[07:42] Brunswick, which is today is a city in Germany, but at the time was the center of its own small independent duchy. So Brunswick wasn't exactly a huge mover and shaker on the European stage, but it had enough clout to be relevant.

Speaker 2:
[07:59] Right. And her mother was Princess Augusta of Great Britain. So she's the sister to the King of England, King George III. And I feel like with the popularity of Hamilton and Bridgerton's Queen Charlotte spinoff, King George III is a little... I feel like a lot of people know who he is right now. Yes. Yeah. But if he went to school in the United States, you may just primarily know him as the guy who fumbled America.

Speaker 3:
[08:30] Right. So that's her parents, Carl and Augusta. They were in an arranged marriage and honestly kind of hated each other. So mama Augusta always kind of felt like she was being forced to marry down and didn't really find anything in Brunswick up to her standards. She boozy. And the British royal family was kind of the same. When Augusta and Carl Wilhelm came to visit England, King George and his wife Queen Charlotte were super snobby to them.

Speaker 2:
[09:05] Yeah. So I'm not surprised that Caroline's dad, Val Kilmer, wasn't exactly thrilled to be in this marriage either. Like he retaliated with this snub from Augusta's family by appointing an official royal mistress, which wasn't really a done thing in Germany like it was in France. So the mama would have been like, okay, outch, rude, you know.

Speaker 3:
[09:35] And between all this fighting in her parents' marriage, they did manage to have seven children, six of which that survived in a childhood. However, Caroline wasn't really raised to be particularly close to any of the other children.

Speaker 2:
[09:51] So Caroline's older sister and her, so the only other girl was the older sister. They don't seem to have been raised together or have ever had like any kind of super close relationship. I couldn't totally figure out why, but there's like a couple of guesses. One, like due to age, they were four years apart, which doesn't seem that much to us, but like you grow up a lot faster when you're a princess basically. So her sister being a bit older and she was betrothed at a really young age, it's totally possible that the sister just had like a different set of expectations, just a completely different kind of upbringing altogether, and so may have been raised in a different household.

Speaker 3:
[10:36] Yeah. Then the rest of her siblings were brothers, and this kind of reminded me of the Ann of Cleves episode.

Speaker 2:
[10:44] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[10:44] So if you remember, Ann of Cleves, who was also German, had an upbringing pretty devoid of males, even the ones in her family.

Speaker 2:
[10:55] Right.

Speaker 3:
[10:55] The only time she really saw men in her early life were her dad, uncles, brothers, and that wouldn't be on the day-to-day. That would be more like a special occasion. So it seems like 300 years or so later, they were kind of keeping up with that tradition of segregating the boys and the girls.

Speaker 2:
[11:16] But I think it's so interesting because I feel like in some of the Eastern stories we've told, that the boys and girls being raised completely separately was pretty normal. I feel like in the European histories, there was some segregation of the sexes, but not really. It seems like Germany is the only, with the Anne of Cleves and now with Carolina Brunswick is the only one where it's like, you were not raised with your brothers.

Speaker 3:
[11:43] I find that really interesting how it's just only Germany. Everybody else is like, it's fine.

Speaker 2:
[11:48] Let us know if we're missing something, but I was trying to think of any other ones in the English. Yeah, the girls would have had different upbringing, but they still would have seen their brothers all the time, and their uncles and stuff all the time, and same in France. Yeah, I just thought that was interesting. Anyway, that's a rabbit hole we didn't have time for. We won't spend a whole lot of time on this either, because also we just really don't have a whole lot of details. She had four brothers. Three of them were born with physical and mental disabilities.

Speaker 3:
[12:23] Inbreeding.

Speaker 2:
[12:24] Yeah, probably. Yeah. The eldest one did have a public life because he was the eldest son, but he was blind and he was just not mentally capable of running anything. I was reading about when her oldest brother got married, the wife was more expected to be a caregiver than a traditional wife role. So her one oldest brother was in the public life, but her two other brothers were completely hidden from the public due to their disabilities because history is a bag of dicks. A bag of dicks, you're not incredibly inclusive to everybody.

Speaker 3:
[13:07] Mm-hmm. And on top of her not being raised with her siblings in her day to day, it doesn't seem like she had any other kids of similar age that were put in her household. So man, it sounds pretty damn lonely.

Speaker 2:
[13:22] Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if she had like imaginary friends and stuff, you know?

Speaker 3:
[13:27] I would hope so.

Speaker 2:
[13:28] And on top of that, and I hate this, her parents kind of used her in their fights with each other.

Speaker 3:
[13:35] Oh no.

Speaker 2:
[13:37] Like if she got too chummy with her dad, her mom would gripe her out. Her dad would also like be like, make sure to tell your mom how much fun me and my mistress have been having. They just like used her as a reason to get back at each other or as like an avenue to get back at each other. That's so shitty.

Speaker 3:
[13:59] Hey, Queens Podcast official stance as children of divorce, don't fucking do that to your kids.

Speaker 2:
[14:06] Don't do that to your kids. I hope that just goes without saying, don't do that to your kids. Basically, we're looking at a little girl that is isolated from her peers made to adult way too young, like trying to regulate the emotions of her unstable parents. So this might cause a bunch of developmental issues, not picking up on social cues, a need to push boundaries, a deep need for validation and attention. Hey, maybe all this will come up again later.

Speaker 3:
[14:40] But no, for real, y'all, even for the time, that isolation that she grew up in and the segregation from the opposite sex, that was considered extreme for that time. And if the family was entertaining, she wasn't even allowed to be part of it. And they told her, governess, hey, keep her away from the windows so that nobody can see her.

Speaker 2:
[15:03] That's so weird.

Speaker 3:
[15:04] I know. And if she was even allowed to attend an event, she wouldn't be allowed to dance. She had to stay on the sidelines, like playing cards with all the old ladies. Like not, just not a great way to grow up.

Speaker 2:
[15:19] I just don't get this. Like, why? So Caroline didn't, also didn't have like the greatest education in the world. She honestly didn't show that much interest in any subject in school besides music. So they just really didn't push her on it. But she wasn't dumb. And she knew that she was missing out by, you know, having this really isolated life. And because of what we know about her later on in this story, we have to imagine that she made it very known from a young age that she hated being left out of a social life. And she super, super resented her parents for it as well.

Speaker 3:
[16:03] Hey, Katy, you want to hear a really over the top dramatic story?

Speaker 2:
[16:07] Always. 100% of the time, obviously, yes.

Speaker 3:
[16:11] One day, her parents are hosting a ball at the house. And Caroline wasn't allowed to attend. Go figure. She was 15, which is insane that they weren't letting her attend balls at that age, because that was the age that most kids were getting married at her age.

Speaker 2:
[16:28] And most of the other royal girls were getting married at 15, and she can't even go to a ball.

Speaker 3:
[16:33] Caroline decided to get revenge and stuffed a pillow under her dress and told her maid, Oh, my God, I'm in labor. And she puts on this show of faking being in labor with screaming and panting. So the maids all rush down to get Caroline's parents, and then her parents rush up to her room. And everyone is making this huge fuss because how the fuck did this isolated girl that can't even get next to the window get pregnant? Her parents, they're like fully losing their mind. And she ends up pulling the pillow out from under her dress and drops the act and says, ha, I bet you'll think twice about not allowing me to attend the next ball.

Speaker 2:
[17:27] I love it. See, this is what I'm talking about. Chaos Goblin extraordinaire. So that is who we are dealing with.

Speaker 3:
[17:36] Yep, this is who we're dealing with. Chaotic, stubborn, and maybe a little bit crazy in all the right ways.

Speaker 2:
[17:44] So it does seem like sometime after this stunt, she was let out of the house a little bit more often, mainly to do charity work. Something that would actually like stick with her for the rest of her life. But she had a very warm spot for poor children and realized pretty early on, like, hey, I can actually help these people, which will play a really big part later in her life in our second episode on her.

Speaker 3:
[18:12] But during one of these charity outings, she may have been a man that she fell in love with and wanted to marry. We literally have no further detail on that besides that her dad said, no, because he's not royal enough.

Speaker 2:
[18:26] But because everything about her life is a scandal, there are other rumors floating around about a secret pregnancy at this time, which would have obviously been kept quiet by her family. But here's a side note. So I am reading Ann Foster's book on Caroline. No relation, though she has the podcast, Vulgar History, so I think most of our listeners are pretty familiar with her. In her book Rebel of the Regency about Caroline, it says every time that there's a pregnancy rumor or a fake pregnancy or something like that, take a drink because it happens so often in her life. So I guess if you want to, you can take two drinks now since we've done two stories.

Speaker 3:
[19:14] Yes. We have no idea if that's true about the boys she was in love with or the pregnancy, but we do know that Caroline was receiving her fair share of marriage proposals. Why not? Her family is well-respected. She was known to be really pretty with blonde curls. That being said, she was also still single at 26, which for her time and her status, that would have put her in the old maid category.

Speaker 2:
[19:46] Because history is the bag of dicks. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[19:51] She's passed her prime.

Speaker 2:
[19:54] And so there might be several reasons for this, why her parents had decided not to accept any of these marriage proposals. It's completely plausible that they were just holding out for this one very eligible bachelor who was still on the market to get married. And that was Caroline's first cousin, George, the Prince of Wales, over in Maryold, England.

Speaker 3:
[20:26] But wait, if Brunswick isn't necessarily that prestigious, then why are they holding their breasts for the British monarchy to reach out?

Speaker 2:
[20:35] Great question. At this time, it was illegal for someone of the British royal family to marry a Catholic. So this excludes a lot of the major players on like in the European royal families. France is Catholic, Spain is Catholic, Austria is Catholic. But all these little German principalities like Brunswick are Protestant. And the King is mama's brother. And you know how these royals love to keep it in the family.

Speaker 3:
[21:08] Oh, that's probably why some of your children had disabilities, mom of Caroline. Yeah. Anyway.

Speaker 2:
[21:17] Anyway.

Speaker 3:
[21:20] And it seems like the waiting paid off. Because in 1794, Great Britain sent an envoy to start negotiating a trothal, which means our girl is about to be just a heart beat away from being the next Queen of England.

Speaker 2:
[21:37] Okay. Why don't we take a quick break, go and top off our drinks, and then we'll come back and introduce you to her new fiance.

Speaker 3:
[21:48] It's going to be great.

Speaker 2:
[21:50] Don't Google it. Don't Google it. We'll be right back.

Speaker 3:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 3:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 3:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 2:
[23:55] And now we are back. And as promised, it's time to meet George, the Prince of Wales, Charlotte's newly betrothed, and a spoiler alert, you're gonna hate him. Gonna hate him.

Speaker 3:
[24:11] We're not gonna go into all the ins and outs and all the details of why this guy sucks, because that would be its whole own hour. Instead, we're just going to clue you in on the shitty reasons he decided to marry Caroline.

Speaker 2:
[24:26] Right. When Ann Foster came on the show, it's so funny, she told me about how, you know how even the shittiest people from history still somehow have fangirls? Richard III is a perfect example, even though he almost certainly killed his nephews, he still somehow has like apologist, which they're going to come from me now for saying that he killed his nephews. George, who would go on to be George IV, no fangirls.

Speaker 3:
[25:01] That bad.

Speaker 2:
[25:02] When he died, the newspapers in England at the time were literally like, no one's sad about this. No one has ever come to his rescue and been like, actually, so when we're saying this guy sucks, it's just facts.

Speaker 3:
[25:18] It's across the board.

Speaker 2:
[25:20] It's across the board.

Speaker 3:
[25:22] He sucks across the board.

Speaker 2:
[25:24] Okay. So the Prince of Wales and the future George IV, he was a bit of a brat, to put it kindly. He partied way too hard. He was, I want to say likely an alcoholic because we can't diagnose somebody from hundreds of years later, he was an alcoholic definitely. He had tons of mistresses and he was like super, super, really super in debt. His parents, George III and Queen Charlotte, were so embarrassed by him and they refused to give him any more money to supplement this lifestyle unless he got married.

Speaker 3:
[26:07] But to make things even messier, he was kinda already married.

Speaker 2:
[26:15] How can someone be kinda already married?

Speaker 3:
[26:18] Oh my God, I'm so glad you asked. So very long story short, years prior, George had fallen head over heels in love with a widow named Mariah Fitzherbert, a devout Catholic who refused to be his mistress. So he married her in secret in 1785, nine years prior, giving me reverse Anne Boleyn vibes.

Speaker 2:
[26:41] Right, it's kinda the same, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[26:44] Well, it's like, is that she's Catholic instead of Protestant. Yeah, instead of, yeah. Yes, but as we had already mentioned, it was illegal for a prince to marry a Catholic, and it was also illegal for someone in the line of succession to marry without the king's permission, so double illegal.

Speaker 2:
[27:04] Yes, Mariah FitzHurbert would be the love of George's life in the end. He'll actually die with a miniature portrait of her on a locket on his neck. They had to keep their relationship super secret, and they would always be on again, off again. Right now, at the time of his proposal to Caroline, they were off again, and right now, his mistress at court was this woman called Lady Jersey, and Lady Jersey fucking sucks. I don't remember if it made it into her episodes, but when we were researching for Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Jersey is mentioned in her biography that I read. She was also a short time mistress of the Duke of Devonshire, and she just rubbed it in Georgiana's face like every chance she got. So I have been hating on this woman for like the last five years, and so I was so bummed when I realized that I had to learn about her all over again. So yeah, I don't like Lady Jersey. She's not a girl's girl. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[28:22] So basically, Prince George was told he needed a legit marriage to get more money to fund his hard partying lifestyle, and he basically told his mistress, choose one, and he knew it would be a German princess, and he told her one frow is the same as another, which basically just means, I don't care, just find me a bride.

Speaker 2:
[28:45] Just find me a bride. So it's assumed Lady Jersey chose Caroline because she was like, oh, Caroline's going to be so sheltered. She's a bit on the older side, so she's going to be so grateful that she's not going, she's going to be easy to manipulate. Lady Jersey assumed that since she was so sheltered, Caroline wouldn't get in her way of still being the head bitch in charge at the prince's court. She is envisioning Caroline as this shrinking flower, quiet type of girl, and boy, howling, were they in for a surprise.

Speaker 3:
[29:25] Over on George's side, the prospects of this marriage aren't something he's overly excited about, but how did Caroline react to this proposal?

Speaker 2:
[29:34] Oh, she was pumped. She gets to escape her super isolated life, travel and see more of the world, meet new people, wear new gowns, and she gets to be the freaking princess of Wales. Hell yeah!

Speaker 3:
[29:50] And that being said, she was pragmatic about it being a love match. Her journal entries of the time seem to be pretty realistic. She's like, I've heard nice things about him, I hope we get along, but I doubt I'll ever be in love with him. I mean, her exact words were, I think I shall be happy, but I fear my love will not be enthusiastic.

Speaker 2:
[30:13] I mean, yeah, it's an arranged marriage. I saw her parents arrange marriage. Yeah. You know what, for a princess and an arranged marriage, I honestly think that is a healthy expectation to go in with.

Speaker 3:
[30:24] England sends over this diplomat named Lord Malmesbury to escort Caroline back to England, and pretty quickly he's like, I don't know how well she's going to fit in at this British court. The main red flag he noted was that this girl did not know when to shut the up. Or, as they put it more eloquently, he wrote, she has never done anything bad, but she is without judgment.

Speaker 2:
[30:55] Well, at the Queens Podcast, we love a mouthy bitch.

Speaker 3:
[30:58] Yes, girls, speak your mind. But at this day and time, the Princess of Wales was meant to have at least a little tact when speaking, which, rut row, Caroline has none of that.

Speaker 2:
[31:11] Sweet Caroline has no filter.

Speaker 3:
[31:16] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[31:18] But that's okay. Caroline was super eager to learn from Momsbury. While they're getting ready to depart for her new home country, Caroline is buckled in, focused on her English lessons, and she took all of the advice, that her new teacher was giving her to heart. So these lessons were mainly like, be careful what you say and around who, be careful who you trust at court, don't get jealous. I like this. They told her, he's probably still going to have mistresses and stuff. So don't get jealous of the other women, and never ever insult Prince George's appearance.

Speaker 3:
[32:01] I'm sure that last one confused Caroline a little bit, because they had sent over a portrait of George, and there was nothing in the portrait that seemed anything but cute. She was like, what a weird thing for Mollsbury to say that, because I guess she had never seen the show Catfish. But we'll get back to that.

Speaker 2:
[32:22] Then after about five or six months of preparation on March 28th, 1795, Caroline and her crew took off for England. Can you imagine she, this is like her first time to leave Brunswick and at the age of 26. Can you imagine the first time you ever leave your hometown?

Speaker 3:
[32:42] Oh my God.

Speaker 2:
[32:42] At age 26. Caroline's mom was worried sick, but if Caroline had any anxieties about it herself, she didn't show it. She was just pumped, pumped, pumped, like, let's go, let's get this show on the road, come on.

Speaker 3:
[32:58] And after a few weeks of travel, they arrived in London on Easter Sunday, April 5th. She was not met with her fiance, but with the woman who was to be her quote unquote Lady of the Bedchamber, aka her constant companion, and who was this lovely lady welcoming her? None other than Lady Jersey.

Speaker 2:
[33:24] And Lady Jersey does nothing to beat her reputation as royal mean girl. Right off the bat, Lady Jersey starts bullying Caroline by telling her her outfit is ugly. We don't really go into it too much in this epi- or at all in this episode really, but Caroline was a fashion girly. So her showing up and Jersey being like, oh no, that's not the fashion here in England. Here, I brought you this dress that is like what is fashionable here in England.

Speaker 3:
[33:59] Was it really fashionable in England?

Speaker 2:
[34:02] No, it was like a super outdated, unflattering dress and what Caroline showed up in was way more in style.

Speaker 3:
[34:10] This fucking girl. I know. But whatever, Caroline then rides in style in beautiful carriage and as they approach the palace, she sees a crowd of people all waiting for her to arrive. When they see her carriage approach, the crowd loses its shit. I honestly don't think Caroline was expecting such a turnout, but she loved every minute of it.

Speaker 2:
[34:41] But let's talk about why everybody was so excited for her arrival. Well, first of all, everyone in the country knew George was George. They knew he was a mess. So Caroline's arrival is a much welcome change of pace for this hard-partying prince. Everyone's like, oh good, maybe he will calm down now. They're thinking maybe her arrival will be like a reset button to make him get his shit together, because that's how that works.

Speaker 3:
[35:14] Uh-huh, sure. Okay. And also the monarchy at this time was stale, which was actually kind of dangerous, because revolution was in the air. Hello. We had the American Revolution that had already succeeded, the Haitian Revolution, which was currently unfolding at the time. And France had just cut off their king's head during the French Revolution. So yeah, for those that supported the monarchy, a respectable royal marriage felt super important at this moment in time.

Speaker 2:
[35:49] So Caroline is rolling into the palace to this adoring public, which can you imagine? Put yourself in her shoes. You have been isolated for all these years, and now you're rolling up with your Libra rising, and there's just a crowd of people cheering your name. How would you react, Nathan?

Speaker 3:
[36:14] Oh, I would be ecstatic.

Speaker 2:
[36:18] You would be like, yes, yes, yes, hi.

Speaker 3:
[36:21] Hello, it's me. I have arrived.

Speaker 2:
[36:23] Yeah. But George, her fiance, is watching from within the palace, looking out the window, watching this.

Speaker 3:
[36:32] Like a creep.

Speaker 2:
[36:34] And he is pissed off because, hey, the crowd never cheers for me like that.

Speaker 3:
[36:40] Ruh-roh, that's not a great start to the relationship.

Speaker 2:
[36:44] No. So before we can discuss their totally awesome first time meeting each other, I think I need to replenish my beverage to get ready for that conversation. So let's take a quick break and then we'll introduce these two lovebirds.

Speaker 3:
[37:15] All right, we're back, and picture it. You're a sheltered princess in a brand new country, and you're about to meet your husband for the first time. How nervous do you think you'd be?

Speaker 2:
[37:28] I think I would probably be like, shitting my pants a little bit. Like that, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[37:35] Hope he likes me, hope this isn't a disaster.

Speaker 2:
[37:38] Yes, finally, after I'm sure what felt like forever, she's brought to the palace and Prince George enters the room. And to say sparks did not fly would be an understatement.

Speaker 3:
[37:57] First of all, George's portrait he had sent over was way too flattering. And secondly, when George walked into the room, he was visibly drunk.

Speaker 2:
[38:11] Have you ever showed up on a date and your date was drunk when you got there? Has that ever happened to you?

Speaker 3:
[38:17] Actually, it has not.

Speaker 2:
[38:18] That has happened to me once. And it's just not a good feeling.

Speaker 3:
[38:24] No.

Speaker 2:
[38:24] Like it's fine to like, oh, maybe you're nervous, have like a drink. Or if you arrive before the other person, get a beer while you wait. I remember it was the last, it was the second date that I went out with a guy and it was the last time I went out with them because it was just like, what? And so, put yourself in Caroline's shoes. It's not a date. It's the man you're about to marry in a couple of days.

Speaker 3:
[38:46] Mm-hmm. And George like staggers over to her, gives her this lackluster hug, and then just walks off without saying a single word to her. He then looks at Momsbury and says, get me a glass of brandy. And then he left the room.

Speaker 2:
[39:04] What, what, what, what are you supposed to do with that? As Caroline, what, what, what, what?

Speaker 3:
[39:10] Thanks, nice to meet you too.

Speaker 2:
[39:13] So we're not exactly dealing with Prince Charming here, is what you need to know.

Speaker 3:
[39:20] And hey, remember how Momsie had told, Momsie, like the wine. Let me try that again. Remember how Momsbury had told Caroline to, you know, watch her mouth? Well, right out of the gate, she's fallen flat there because she turns to him and goes, good God, is he always like that? He's very fat and not as handsome as his portrait.

Speaker 2:
[39:42] Oh, girl, you're not wrong, but what have we said about tact? Girlfriend.

Speaker 3:
[39:50] Either way, Caroline is really annoyed by this and she totally ignores everything Momsbury had taught her about how to act at court because that night was her welcoming dinner and she decided she was going to let everyone know exactly who she was by acting 100% herself. The whole night, she's just chatting with everyone at the table like they all have been friends for 100 years. She's bubbly, affectionate, cracking funny jokes. Again, totally our kind of gal, but not at all what was appropriate for a new member of the royal court.

Speaker 2:
[40:30] And Prince George is deeply embarrassed and says that she made a spectacle of herself and decides then and there that he hates this woman with a burning passion. And he will hold on to that decision for the rest of his life.

Speaker 3:
[40:50] Well, that sucks for both of them because there's no backing out now. Just a few days after this disastrous meeting is their wedding. So Caroline is ready to go and George is, well, George is drunk.

Speaker 2:
[41:07] Is drunk. Would it be safe to say that for the rest of the story, just assume George is drunk?

Speaker 3:
[41:15] I mean, there's a good 50-50 chance that he's going to be.

Speaker 2:
[41:18] Yeah. So, oh well. Let's talk about Caroline as a royal bride because the public was so excited for this royal wedding. Descriptions of what Caroline would be wearing were like running in the press. And she wore this beautiful silver gown, silver and white, which I thought was interesting because white wasn't the tradition yet. Yeah. She wore this gorgeous silver and white gown with tons of jewels. Some of those jewels were diamonds. Nathan, what was she dripping in?

Speaker 3:
[41:53] Dripping in jewels, eleganza.

Speaker 2:
[41:57] She would have been just a shimmery picture of perfection.

Speaker 3:
[42:02] Ooh. And Caroline, for her part, for the entire wedding ceremony, was a bubbly, happy bride. But like we said, George was drunk and like drunk, drunk.

Speaker 2:
[42:15] Drunk, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[42:16] And crying pretty much throughout the entire ceremony.

Speaker 2:
[42:21] Tears of joy?

Speaker 3:
[42:23] Yeah. Okay. No. The entire time, he had his eyes fixed on Lady Jersey.

Speaker 2:
[42:32] Oh, when the bishop asked if there was any reason these two should not be wed, he took the longest pause because remember, in the eyes of many, George is already married.

Speaker 3:
[42:49] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:50] So the bishop is just like, anybody, really? I think I read that he even took two breaks in the, to be like, okay, I'm gonna say it again. Is there any reason that these two shouldn't be married?

Speaker 3:
[43:09] And he like walks up to Lady Jersey, holds a microphone to her mouth.

Speaker 2:
[43:13] Like, have you met Mariah FitzHurbert? Do you know anybody?

Speaker 3:
[43:19] Do you have anything to say, Mariah?

Speaker 2:
[43:21] Well, then no one says anything. And so I guess after a while, the bishop was like, all right, fuck it. Yell her husband and wife now.

Speaker 3:
[43:31] And at their reception, Caroline went to the window in her gown so the large crowd of onlookers could see her and cheer. And she's just having the time of her life. While her husband proceeds to ignore her and get totally blackout drunk.

Speaker 2:
[43:50] Yeah. So does Caroline think this is normal behavior? Why is she so happy?

Speaker 3:
[43:59] No, I'm sure she doesn't think this is normal, but what was she supposed to do? Not enjoy all this admiration and attention? Like, come on. Yeah, right.

Speaker 2:
[44:10] Right. And as they move on after the reception to the honeymoon suite, Caroline wrote later that he passed out under the fireplace, and that's just where she left him for the whole night. But I'm not entirely sure if that's the truth, because nine months later, almost to the day their daughter was born, yeah, they had a baby. But that whole story about their baby and all of that will come in part two.

Speaker 3:
[44:37] But what is important to note is that as Caroline integrates herself into the British royal family, she's not really clicking, she's not jiving, the vibes are off. The more she and George get to know each other, the more they hate each other. And the more the queen gets to know her, the more she's annoyed with her. So basically, every single person is against her. But she has two important allies, and one of them is the king, so that's important, and the other is the general public.

Speaker 2:
[45:11] So remember, the king is her uncle, and he just thinks she is delightful. Like, he just... Maybe, like, I wonder if, like, something about her, like, maybe reminds him of his sister, like, growing up with his sister.

Speaker 3:
[45:26] Probably.

Speaker 2:
[45:27] Like, when they were children, or maybe she's just so different than everyone else at court, that he just finds it refreshing. Yeah, yeah. But either way, she and the king develop a really strong bond, which is very beneficial to Caroline. I mean, if you can get the king on your side, have the king on your side.

Speaker 3:
[45:49] Yeah. And when it comes to the general public, well, this is about the time of the rise of the tabloids. Gossip columns about the British royal family fly off the stands. And when word gets out that the prince and the majority of the royal family is shunning Caroline, the people are immediately more endeared to her. But the more the public is endeared to her, the more they don't care for Prince George. And so the more Prince George hates his wife.

Speaker 2:
[46:22] I honestly can't help but think about Princess Diana and Charles with that. Like, I tried really hard not to make that parallel, because I'm like, okay, not every unhappy royal couple is Charles and Diana. But that is so specific to how their relationship played out. The more the public fell in love with Diana, the more Prince Charles resented her. And he's like, I'm the special boy. No, you're not.

Speaker 3:
[46:56] I'm your special boy.

Speaker 2:
[46:57] I'm your special boy. But to put it back to George, he just does not understand why everyone loves this loud mouth that he was more or less forced to marry.

Speaker 3:
[47:10] Wait, but didn't we also just say Caroline got pregnant?

Speaker 2:
[47:14] Yep. It seems like the royal couple bumped butts at least once. And that's all it took to both of their relief. They don't have to do it again.

Speaker 3:
[47:25] I'm sure, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[47:26] And getting pregnant so fast also increased her popularity in England because, oh my god, there has not been a legitimate royal baby in years, y'all. And this baby would now be the next in the line of succession. And Caroline did that.

Speaker 3:
[47:45] So as Caroline's belly grows bigger, so does the public's love for her. And as the public's love for her grows deeper, so does her husband's hatred for her. And I think that's where we're gonna leave it for part one.

Speaker 2:
[48:01] Yes. All right. We will catch y'all in a couple of weeks with part two. Yeah. I'm sure they're gonna make, like, make friends. They're gonna kiss and make up, right, Nathan?

Speaker 3:
[48:11] Sure. Sure. If you say so.

Speaker 2:
[48:14] Don't Google it.

Speaker 3:
[48:15] All right.

Speaker 2:
[48:16] Bye, y'all.

Speaker 3:
[48:17] Bye.