View source for Adelheid von Sachsen-Meiningen

Adelheid von Sachsen-Meiningen or Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (also Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen (cf. [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk])). Between 1830 and 1837 she was Queen Adelaide of Great Britain and Ireland.

Amelie Adelheid Luise Therese Caroline was born on August 13, 1792 in Meiningen, Thuringia. She was the first daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen, George and Eleanor. Her siblings were Ida, later Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and Bernhard, the heir to the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen.

Adelheid was very privileged as she enjoyed an excellent education. She took lessons in French, Italian, History and German Literature and was further educated in the Lutheran denomination.

On April 19, 1818 the engagement of Adelheid to William Duke of Clarence was announced, at the time Adelheid was already 26 years old, her fiancé 53. Their marriage took place on July 13, 1818 and only a few weeks later, Adelheid noticed that she was pregnant. Unfortunately, Adelheid suffered a premature birth, and on March 26, 1819 their first daughter Princess Charlotte Augusta died only hours after her birth. A few month after the death of her daughter, the young Duchess miscarried her second child, but on December 10, 1820 she gave birth to her daughter Elizabeth. However, only a few month later, Elizabeth died of a fever (cf. Panzer 233). Adelheid broke down and went to Germany in order to recover. The marriage of Adelheid and William remained childless.

When William’s brother,  the Duke of York, died in 1827, Adelheid’s husband was all of a sudden the next in the line of succession to the British throne and in 1830, when [[George IV]] died, William and Adelheid became King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 

Adelheid was a family-oriented Queen, who took care of her husband and exerted a posite influence on him, furthermore it was her commendable behaviour that added to her good reputation (cf. Panzer 235). A person called Greville, despite being one of her hardest critics, described her with the words "jeder Zoll eine Königin" (qtd. in Panzer 235).
However good her reputation was, Adelheid’s court was said to have been rather boring, she led a quiet and secluded life, loved embroidering, was involved in gardening and took care of the farm and dairy at Windsor.


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Sources
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Panzer, Marita A. ''Englands Königinnen''. Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2001.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=P199