Born in 1792, Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was chosen in 1818 to be the bride of William Henry, Duke of Clarence, later William IV, one of the unmarried sons of George III. He already had ten children by his mistress, the then recently-deceased actress Dorothy Jordan, and was almost twenty-seven years older than his wife-to-be. Although William and Adelaide's children would be either stillborn or else lived for no more than a few weeks, in personal terms the marriage proved a success. By the time they became King and Queen in 1830, the couple were devoted to each other. Adelaide had calmed her often excitable husband down, and brought about a marked improvement in his previously uncouth manners. Despite her strong Tory sympathies, which were shared by most of her in-laws and criticised by the contemporary press at the time of the Great Reform Bill, her influence proved all to the good. Throughout her life she was unfailingly generous to the family and to good causes alike. The King died in 1837, her later years were marked by ill-health and she died in 1849. This biography, first published in 1913, does full justice to the life of a woman whose character and strong sense of morality did much to help restore the somewhat tarnished image of the British monarchy during the Hanoverian era.Mary Frances Sandars (1864-1934) also published biographies of Mary II of England, Louis XVIII of France, Honoré de Balzac, and the Duc de Lauzun. Her life of Queen Adelaide remains her best-known work.