page_title: Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick
section_title: Family
hierarchical_section_title: Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick / Family
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick (1735-1806), bust-length, in a military costume; and Portrait of his wife Princess Augusta of Great Britain (1737-1813), bust-length, in a *black dress with a white chemise
context_page_description: Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was the Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and a military leader. His titles are usually shortened to Duke of Brunswick in English-language sources.
  He succeeded his father as sovereign prince of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, one of the princely states of the Holy Roman Empire. The duke was a cultured and benevolent despot in the model of Frederick the Great, and was married to Princess Augusta, a sister of George III of Great Britain. He was also a recognized master of 18th century warfare, serving as a Field Marshal in the Prussian Army. During the Napoleonic Wars, he was mortally wounded by a musket ball at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806.
context_section_description: On 16 January 1764, Charles married Princess Augusta of Great Britain, eldest sister of King George III. The couple were second cousins to each other, being great-grandchildren of George I of Great Britain. As such, they were not related in a particularly close degree, yet there had been many bonds of marriage between the House of Brunswick-Bevern and the House of Hanover, themselves both branches of the House of Welf. Some commentators have pointed to inbreeding as a possible cause for the fact that many of the couple's children suffered from physical, mental or psychological disabilities. Indeed, the duke was once moved to describe his children to von Massenbach as "mostly cripples in mind and body."
  Shortly after they married, the prince had the Schloss Richmond built for his wife. It was in English architectural style and with an English landscape garden, to remind her of her home.
  The duke and his wife Augusta had four sons and three daughters. Three of their four sons suffered from major debilities. Their eldest son, Karl Georg August (1766–1806) was named heir apparent, but suffered from a significant learning disability and was regarded as "well-nigh imbecile." Nevertheless, he was married in 1790 to Frederika of Orange-Nassau, daughter of William V, Prince of Orange, a gentle, good-hearted woman who remained devoted to him to the end. He died childless at the age of 40 in 1806, shortly before his father. The second son, Georg Wilhelm Christian (1769–1811), suffered from an even more severe learning disability than his elder brother. He was declared incapacitated and was excluded from the succession. He never married. The couple's third son was August (1770–1822). He was blind and was also excluded from the succession. He also never married. The fourth son, Friedrich Wilhelm (1771 – 16 June 1815), was sound of mind and body. He eventually succeeded his father, married and sired two sons.
  Frederick and Augusta also had three daughters, two of whom reached adulthood. Neither of them was disabled, but both of them had similar, disastrous trajectories in life. Both of them were married to future kings, both made extreme failures of their marriages, both had extremely acrimonious relations with their husbands, and both were accused by them of similar faults: adultery, uncouth behavior, absence of dignity, falsehood and utter fecklessness. The elder daughter, Auguste Caroline Friederike (1764–1788), was the wife of the future king Frederick I of Württemberg and mother of the future William I of Württemberg. She separated from her husband and died in Russia from complications that arose while giving birth in secret to an illegitimate child. The younger daughter, Caroline of Brunswick, was married in 1795 to her first cousin, the future George IV of the United Kingdom, and bore him a daughter, the ill-fated Princess Charlotte of Wales. On two occasions (1806 and 1818–19), her husband made serious efforts to divorce her on grounds of adultery, forming commissions of inquiry to indict her, and after he became king, he in fact caused the House of Lords to pass a bill of divorce citing adultery with an Italian commoner. However, the bill was never introduced in the House of Commons and the divorce was never finalized. Caroline died three weeks after she was physically prevented from entering Westminster Abbey to participate in her husband's coronation.
  The future Queen of Sweden, Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp, described the ducal family thus:
  
  The Duchess is the sister to the King of England and a typical Englishwoman. She looked very simple, like a vicar's wife, has I am sure many admirable qualities, and is very respectable, but completely lacks manners. She makes the strangest questions without considering how difficult and unpleasant they can be.....The sons of the Ducal couple are somewhat peculiar. The (eldest) prince, chubby and fat, almost blind, strange and odd - if not to say an imbecile - attempts to imitate his father but only makes himself artificial and unpleasant. He talks continually, does no
caption: Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand II, Herzog von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1735–1806) and Princess Augusta of Great Britain
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