Royal Wedding Recollections – Anne, Prince Royal & William IV, Prince of Orange

On 25 March 1734 (New Style), Anne, Princess Royal, married William IV, Prince of Orange, at St James’s Chapel. Anne was the daughter of George II, King of Great Britain and Caroline of Ansbach.

The marriage was meant to improve the relationship between the Dutch Republic and England, which had been bad since the War of the Spanish Succession. However, William was not seen as a good choice for Anne, and it was written that “whether she would go to bed with this piece of deformity in Holland, or die an ancient maid immured in her royal convent at St James’s […] [Anne] resolved to marry him.” ¹ Her mother later said, “The King left her,  too, absolutely at liberty to accept or reject it.” ¹

Anne and her father had a heart-to-heart, where they could be seen “walking in the garden at Richmond tete a tete… a considerable time, her hand constantly in his, he speaking with great earnestness and seeming affection, and she listening with great emotion and attention, the tears falling so fast all the while that her other hand went every moment to her cheek to wipe them away.” ¹ She later said told him that she would “marry him even if he were a baboon.” He responded with, “Well, then, there is baboon enough for you.” ¹

Anne had spent much time studying Dutch history and copying works by Titian and Van Dyck from the Royal Collection. Anne walked down the aisle in a wedding dress of stiff blue French silk embroidered with thread. It was lavishly trimmed with ruffles of fine lace and loops of diamonds. She wore her robe of state over it, and her six-foot-train was supported by eight peers’ daughters who were dressed in white and silver.

Around her neck was a magnificent diamond necklace, which had been a gift from her future husband. The ceremony was rather quick, and from Lord Hervey’s memoirs, we learned that the ceremony was “more like the mournful pomp of a sacrifice than the celebration of marriage and put one in mind rather of an Iphigenia leading to the altar than of a bride.” ² It seemed like a bad start to the marriage.³

Parliament voted for Anne to have a dowry of £80,000.

1. The First Iron Lady by Matthew Dennison p.306
2. John Hervey  2^nd Baron Hervey (1848) Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second: From His Accession to the Death of Queen Caroline, Volume 1 p. 271
3. Carolina of Orange-Nassau by Moniek Bloks p.4-5