Inside The Extraordinary Lives Of King George III's 15 Children

Born in September 1780 as the couple's ninth son, young Prince Alfred passed away at Windsor Castle in August 1782 at under two years old after complications from variolation against smallpox.

Named Octavius as the eighth son, the lively four-year-old died of smallpox inoculation complications in May 1783 just nine months after Prince Alfred, haunting King George III during his later bouts of illness.

Born shortly after Octavius's death in 1783, Princess Amelia was her father's cherished youngest child whose painful death from tuberculosis and erysipelas in 1810 triggered King George III's final descent into Regency.

Isolated within her mother's strict household known as the Nunnery, Princess Sophia faced decades of court gossip over an alleged secret child in 1800 before living quietly alongside the young Princess Victoria.

After dutifully nursing Princess Amelia through her final illness, Princess Mary married her cousin Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester, at age forty and lived until 1857 as Queen Victoria's favorite aunt.

A gifted painter and architectural designer, Princess Elizabeth finally left the sheltered English court in 1818 to marry Frederick VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, remodeling Bad Homburg Palace in Germany.

Forbidden by her father from marrying foreign suitors, Princess Augusta Sophia remained unmarried at Clarence House and Frogmore, secretly corresponding with her Irish Guard admirer Sir Brent Spencer.

As the fourth child and eldest daughter, Charlotte married hereditary Prince Frederick of Württemberg in 1797 and navigated the Napoleonic Wars with diplomatic skill when Napoleon elevated Württemberg to a kingdom.

Serving for two decades as Viceroy of Hanover on behalf of his brothers, Prince Adolphus married Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel in 1818 and became the great-grandfather of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II.

An abolitionist, scholar, and President of the Royal Society, the Duke of Sussex had two marriages annulled by the Crown for lacking royal consent and requested burial in a public cemetery at Kensal Green.

Scarred at the Battle of Tournai in 1794, the arch-conservative Duke of Cumberland became King of Hanover in 1837 because Hanoverian law barred women from succeeding when Victoria took the British throne.

A strict military commander in Gibraltar and North America, Prince Edward married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld during the 1818 succession race, dying of pneumonia just eight months after his daughter's birth.

After serving as a teenage midshipman in the Royal Navy and raising ten children with actress Dorothea Jordan, William reigned from 1830 to 1837 and signed the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

Elected Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück at just six months old, Frederick reformed British military training and founded the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, though he died heavily in debt in 1827 without an heir.

Born in 1762, George IV ruled as Prince Regent from 1811 and as King from 1820 to 1830, patronizing Regency architecture while clashing bitterly with his estranged wife, Caroline of Brunswick.

Away from the ceremonial formality of St James's Palace, King George III and Queen Charlotte raised their growing brood at Kew Palace, teaching the princes botany, agriculture, astronomy, and languages.

Despite King George III having twelve surviving adult children in 1817, Princess Charlotte of Wales was his sole legitimate grandchild; her death in childbirth at twenty-one forced her unmarried uncles to wed urgently.

Born at Kensington Palace in May 1819 as the result of the royal marriage race, Alexandrina Victoria succeeded her uncle William IV at age eighteen and reigned for sixty-three years.

Arriving from Mecklenburg-Strelitz at age seventeen to wed George III on the day they met, Queen Charlotte guided the royal family for fifty-seven years while fiercely sheltering her six daughters.

Unlike his Hanoverian predecessors who feuded with their heirs, young George III treasured domestic life with his fifteen children before recurrent porphyria-like mental illness confined him to Windsor Castle.