George III of Great Britain and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
Mother and son. Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, a German princess born in 1719, married Frederick, Prince of Wales, and gave birth to the future George III. The son never saw his father crowned: Frederick died a prince, and the crown skipped a generation. Besides George, Augusta's children were Augusta of Great Britain, Edward Duke of York, Elizabeth, William Henry and Henry — George III grew up the eldest of six.
How they met
Through a dynastic marriage rather than a choice: Augusta came to Britain from Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, a daughter of Frederick II, and became the wife of the heir to the throne. George was born in 1738, a few years into that marriage, and spent his whole childhood at a court where his mother was Princess of Wales with no prospect of becoming queen.
The core tension
An empty place where the father should be stands between them. Frederick, Prince of Wales, is the one person recorded on both sides — Augusta's husband, George's father — and it was his death that made one of them a king and the other the mother of a king rather than a king's wife. George III reigned long, patronised the arts and belonged to the Royal Society; Augusta remains in the record as exactly what she was: an heir's wife and a monarch's mother.
What connects them
- mother:Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
- child:George III of Great Britain
