Rebel of the Regency: Princess Auguste of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

In which a young woman does exactly what she's supposed to and things do not go well

I’m currently in the edit stage of Rebel of the Regency, a new biography of England’s uncrowned Queen, Caroline of Brunswick (coming at you in early 2026 from Hanover Square Press! Stay tuned for pre-order info!!). If you don’t know who Caroline is, here’s my primer on her scandalous life.

As I was researching this book, I became intrigued by her even-lesser-known sister, Princess Auguste. The small amount of info available on her from Wikipedia offered a messy telenovela of a life story, and I wanted to know more. To my delight, a biography of Auguste came out in 2021¹. Not only did I learn more about the Princess’s life, but this book also provided information for me about what it was like growing up in the Brunswick castle, which I could use for my biography of Caroline.

Princess Auguste was named Augusta Caroline Friederika Luise of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. In her personal correspondence, she signed her name as Auguste, and her first language was French, so that’s what we’ll call her here. In my book this also helps to slightly differentiate her from her mother, Augusta.

Portrait of Princess Auguste of Brunswick, by an unknown painter

Auguste was the eldest child born to Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, and his wife, Princess Augusta of Great Britain. This couple eventually had five surviving children, three boys and two girls (the younger daughter was Caroline of Brunswick).

While Caroline lived by her own rules and was a wild child, her older sister Auguste was extremely rule-following. I went into my research assuming these two would have been close due to their four-year age difference, but in fact, these two were never close. Likely, it was this personality difference that kept them from bonding very much, as Caroline flung herself from drama to drama and Auguste carefully did everything expected of her.

Both girls grew up in the wake of their parents’ unhappy marriage. Their father, as was expected of men in his role, had various mistresses. Their mother, raised in a conservative religious family, was always miserable about this. Their parents lived in separate households, and their model of arranged marriage likely set Auguste up to expect something similarly unhappy for herself.