To commemorate the 203rd anniversary of Princess Charlotte’s death I would like to quote an extract from extract from ‘Charlotte&Leopold’ by James Chambers
Just after midnight, Charlotte felt sick. Her pulse was racing and there was ringing in her ears. She vomited and brought up the camphor julep with the broth. Then she quietened for a few minutes and her pulse-rate lowered. And then she clutched her stomach and cried out, ‘Oh, what a pain! It is all here!’
Mrs Griffiths rushed into the dressing room and woke Sir Richard Croft. When he reached Charlotte moments later Croft found that she was very cold and breathing with difficulty, and she was bleeding again. But, although the accepted and often successful treatment for a post-partum haemorrhage such as this was the application of cold water, Croft decided to warm the patient up by applying hot water bottles and blankets to her abdomen. The bleeding continued.
Croft then sent a footman to bring Baillie and Sims. Baillie decided that what the Princess needed was a good dose of wine and brandy. While he was administering them, Croft went off in search of Stockmar.
Stockmar woke to find Croft holding his hand. The Princess was in danger. The Prince must be told.
Stockmar dressed and went to wake Leopold, but the Prince was so deeply asleep that it took time to wake him, and then he was so drowsy that he barely understood what was being said.
After about a quarter of an hour a footman came. Dr Baillie wanted Dr Stockmar to see the Princess. For a moment Stockmar hesitated. He was reluctant to get involved. Then he went.
When he entered the bedroom, Baillie was still trying to administer wine. The Princess was tossing from side to side, breathing heavily and obviously in great pain.
‘Here comes an old friend of yours’, said Baillie.
Charlotte stretched out her left hand, grabbed Stockmar’s and pressed it ‘vehemently’. ‘They have made me tipsy’, she said.
While he held her hand, Stockmar surreptitiously took her pulse. ‘It was very quick; the beats now full, now weak, now intermittent.’
After another quarter of an hour there was a rattle in Charlotte’s throat. Stockmar went off to get Leopold. But as he crossed the breakfast room he heard Charlotte shouting beyond the closed door behind him: ‘Stocky! Stocky!’
Stockmar went back. Charlotte did not see him. She turned on her face, drew up her knees to her chest and fell silent. Stockmar took her cold hand and searched for a pulse. There was none. ‘The flower of Brunswick’ had faded. ‘The Daughter of England’ was dead.
Stockmar went to break the news to Leopold but, when at last he had woken him, he did it, by his own admission, ‘in no very definite words’.
Leopold was still very drowsy. As he and Stockmar made their way to the bedroom, he sank into a chair in the breakfast room. He still thought Charlotte was alive. He asked Stockmar to go in and see how she was. Stockmar humoured him and went. Then he was blunt. ‘I came back and told him it was all over.’
Leopold went into the bedroom and knelt by the bed. He took Charlotte’s cold hands in his and kissed them – ‘those beautiful hands which at last while she was talking to others seemed always to be reaching out for mine’.
For a while he stayed there. Then Lieutenant-General the Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, who had sat impassive in the saddle through half a dozen military engagements, who had led a cavalry charge in one of the largest and longest battles in the history of Europe, stood up, turned, put his arms round Stockmar and whispered, ‘I am now quite desolate. Promise me to stay with me always.’
Princess Charlotte of Wales 