"Edward also insisted on uniformity of the appearance of sentries. All sentries were ordered to don or remove greatcoats at the command of the orderly officer, and not merely when they felt too cold or too hot. At daylight every day each member of a guard or a picket had to wash, untie his hair, comb it, tie it afresh, and brush his clothes to the satisfaction of the orderly officer."58

"You send a man out to control a garrison all but in a state of open mutiny. You tell him to terminate such a disgraceful state of things. You assure him of the unqualified support of Government in his undertaking. He goes out. He finds matters infinitely worse than they were represented. The impending outbreak occurs. He quells it thoroughly. By way of reward you disgrace him! If you want to deter an officer from doing his duty, or desire to encourage a mutinous soldier, your tactics are admirable. They cannot fail to attain such a result. Edward may well complain. He was neither officer, nor man, if he were silent."60

As already observed, it was in 1816 that Prince Edward and Julie took up residence at Brussels. They may well have made that move years earlier but travel to Europe before 1815, the year that the war came to an end, was not possible. There at Brussels the pair seemed to have been very happy. McKenzie Porter:

"With their small diner-parties, music whist, and occasional visits to the theatre, Edward and Julie were content. Edward's seven thousand pounds a year sufficed for their needs; the knowledge that his creditors were being steadily paid off was heartening; the Gallic air of Brussels proved a tonic to their spirits; and the assurance of a long peace seemed to promise them a restful middle age. Indeed Edward and Julie might have spent the remainder of their days in Brussels but for a calamity that, in the moment of their greatest bliss, tore them cruelly apart."67

It was but a few weeks after the death of Princess Charlotte that Edward and Julie were at breakfast in their home at Brussels -- we will let Robert Fulford tell of it:

"... the Duke tossed her over the paper to read, while he opened his letters. Suddenly he was disturbed by hearing a gasp and a gurgle. For a few moments he thought that Madame was going to die: but, when she had sufficiently recovered, she pointed to the paper, where it said that it had become essential for the succession that the Duke of Kent should marry."68

On the 24th of March, Prince Edward was in London, alone. The ministers of government had already selected a Princess for Edward to marry: Her Serene Highness, Mary Louisa Victoria, widow of the late Prince of Leiningen. The appropriate representations were made, and, on the 29th of May, 1818 the pair were married; first in Germany then a second ceremony in England to become The Duke and Duchess of Kent. They returned to Germany, and, before the year was out it was determined that the Princess was pregnant. They had made it across to England but weeks before, when, on May 24th, 1819, the Princess Alexandria Victoria was born and the House of Brunswick was saved. Prince Edward spent but the first few months with his little one, for, on January 3rd, 1820, he died at Woolbrook Cottage, near Sidmouth on the south coast of Devon. "A neglected cold, terminating in inflammation of the lungs." "Blisters, bleedings, cuppings and leeches were tried, and the invalid lost a hundred and twenty ounces of blood."71 A day before he died, Edward had made his will, directing that everything was to go to the Duchess of Kent and the Duke of Kent's seven month old child, Princess Victoria.72