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Up for sale the "Duke of Gloucester" Prince William Hand Written Letter Dated 1828 .
ES-9448
Prince William Frederick, Duke of
Gloucester and 1776 – 30 November 1834) was a great-grandson of King George II of Great
Britain and the nephew and son-in-law of King George III. He was the grandson of both Frederick, Prince of Wales (George
II's eldest son), and Edward Walpole. Prince William married Princess Mary, the fourth daughter of George II Prince William
Frederick was born on 15 January 1776 at Palazzo Teodoli in via del Corso, Rome. His father was Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, the
third son of the Prince of Wales. His
mother, Maria,
was the illegitimate daughter of Edward Walpole and granddaughter of Robert Walpole. As a great-grandson of George II he held the
title of Prince of Great Britain with
the style His Highness,
not His Royal Highness, at birth. The young prince was baptized at
Teodoli Palace, on 12 February 1776 by a Rev Salter. His godparents were his
father's cousin and cousin-in-law, the Duke and Duchess of
Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg; and the Duke of Gloucester's second
cousin, the Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach. During his stay in
Stockholm in 1802–1803, William's interest and rumoured affair with Aurora Wilhelmina Koskull attracted
a lot of attention, and he reportedly had plans to marry her. Queen
Charlotte recalled that William said of Koskull: "If she
was your daughter, I would marry her!" William was admitted to the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) in 1787,
and granted his MA in
1790. He set up his London home at 31 Upper Grosvenor Street, Mayfair. On 25 August 1805, Prince William's father
died, and he inherited the titles Duke of Gloucester and
Edinburgh and Earl of Connaught. From 1811 until his death William was Chancellor
of the University of Cambridge. He was offered the throne of Sweden in 1812 by some members of the Swedish
nobility, but the British government would not allow it; the
French marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was eventually selected to become
King Charles XIV John.