1817 AD., Great Britain, Princess Charlotte Death Medal, Bronze.

Great Britain, Princess Charlotte Death Medal, artist: Kempson and Son, 1817 AD.,
Æ (25 mm / 5,03 g),
Obv.: H. R. H. THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE , draped bust of Princes Charlotte right.
Rev.: BRITANNIA MOURNS HER PRINCESS DEAD. / DIED NOV. 6. 1817 / AGED 21. , a willow tree beside funerary urn on plinth.
BHM 944 .

Princess Charlotte of Wales died on November 6, 1817, after delivering a stillborn son. Daughter of the Prince Regent (later George IV), she would have followed him on the throne. Her death was the occasion for a great public mourning.
Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales (7 January 1796 – 6 November 1817) was the only child of the ill-fated marriage between George IV (at the time Prince of Wales) and Caroline of Brunswick. Had she lived, she would have been Queen of the United Kingdom.
She was born at Carlton House in London, her birth having been somewhat unlikely as George IV later claimed that he and his wife had sexual intercourse no more than three times in the whole of their unhappy marriage. By the time she was a few months old, Charlotte's parents were effectively separated, and her mother's time with her was severely restricted by her father.She grew into a headstrong and difficult teenager and fell out with her mother when Caroline decided to go into continental exile. Following an ill-fated attempt to wed her to Prince William of Orange (later William II of the Netherlands) which she broke off after he made a drunken exhibition of himself at Ascot races, she spent much of her time restricted to Cranbourne Lodge at Windsor, Berkshire from July 1814 to January 1816 while Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld lobbied the Prince Regent and the British Parliament for the right to court her.
Charlotte married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld on 2 May 1816, at Carlton House. Parliament had granted Leopold an annuity of £50,000, for his own life, to continue even if his wife died. Contemporary accounts describe their marriage as happy and contented, and they lived at Claremont, a wedding gift from the nation. Charlotte confided that her husband was “the perfection of a lover.”
After two miscarriages in the early months of their marriage, she conceived a third time in February 1817. Although she was healthy at the beginning of the pregnancy, medical staff took extra precautions; medical practice at the time was bloodletting and a strict diet that reduced her food intake, which only served to weaken Charlotte.
On the evening of 3 November, her water broke and labour commenced. After a 50-hour labour at Claremont House, she delivered a stillborn 9-pound son on 5 November 1817. The second stage of labour had lasted 24 hours.[1] Initially following delivery, Charlotte seemed to do well, but after several hours she became restless, had difficulty breathing, and her pulse grew fast and feeble. Five and a half hours after the delivery, she died, presumably from an undetected post-partum haemorrhage, on 6 November.
Prince Leopold wrote to Sir Thomas Lawrence:
“ Two generations gone — gone in a moment! I have felt for myself, but I have also felt for the prince regent. My Charlotte is gone from the country — it has lost her. She was a good, she was an admirable woman. None could know my Charlotte as I did know her. It was my study, my duty, to know her character, but it was also my delight. ”

The obstetrician, Sir Richard Croft, who had correctly diagnosed a transverse lie of the baby during labour but failed to use a forceps, was distraught. Three months later, he shot himself during another woman's childbirth. Thus, Charlotte's single pregnancy is known in medical history as “the triple obstetrical tragedy”.[1]
The Princess was buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor with her son at her feet. Her death was mourned nationally, on a scale similar to that which followed the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. On the other hand, in An Address to the People on The Death of the Princess Charlotte (1817), Percy Bysshe Shelley argued that while her death was very sad, the execution the following day of three men incited to lead the Pentrich Rising was the greater tragedy. Some commentators have replied that both sets of deaths were equally tragic.

Charlotte's death left the Prince of Wales without any direct heirs and meant that her paternal grandfather, George III, had no legitimate grandchildren from his twelve surviving children; most, if not all, of his daughters were either sterile or past childbearing. The death resulted in a mad dash towards matrimony by most of Charlotte's bachelor uncles; the marriage of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn to Leopold's sister Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld eventually produced the heir, Queen Victoria. Charlotte's father, even after the death of his wife, made no attempt to remarry or father any more children. Given his poor health by the time his estranged wife died in 1821, he may not have been capable of becoming a father again.

Prince Leopold, who would later become the first King of the Belgians, remarried, to Louise-Marie (1812-1850) of Orléans, and had three sons and a daughter. The girl was named Charlotte in honour of his first wife and would later become Empress Carlota of Mexico.