Colonel Charles Hotham (25 April 1693 – 15 January 1738) was a special British envoy entrusted by George II with the task of negotiating a double marriage between the Hanover and Hohenzollern dynasties. The failure of this mission led to Crown Prince Frederick's attempt to flee to Paris, ultimately resulting in the Prince's arrest.
He was born the eldest son of Sir Charles Hotham, 4th Baronet of Scorborough, near Beverley, Yorkshire, MP for Scarborough and Beverley. He succeeded his father in 1723.
He was elected to Parliament as the Member of Parliament for Scarborough from 1723 to 1727 and for Beverley from 1729 to 1738.
He joined the British Army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. From 1732 to 1735 he was Colonel of the Royal Regiment of Ireland and from 1735 of the 1st Troop, Horse Grenadier Guards. On the accession of George II in 1727 he was appointed a Groom of the Bedchamber, a position he held until his death. The king sent him in 1730 on a confidential mission to arrange a double marriage between the heirs apparent and the Princesses Royal of England and Prussia.
Queen Sophia Dorothea had long cherished the prospect of marrying her daughter, Wilhelmina, to the Prince of Wales, and her son, the Crown Prince Frederick, to the British Princess Emily. Her husband, King Frederick William I of Prussia, saw the advantage of the union, but was torn between his desire to draw closer to Protestant England and his position as a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Charles VI.
The Austrians had for years heavily funded the efforts of General von Seckendorff to buy off Frederick William's closest associates and so influence the King towards a pro-Austrian and anti-British policy. [1] Colonel Hotham, who had been appointed a Groom of the Bedchamber in 1727 on the accession of George II, was empowered by the king with the authority to arrange for a double marriage between the two houses. He arrived in Prussia on 2 April 1730, armed with incriminating letters of Seckendorff's tactics.
The marriage talks, after some initial stumbling, held promise.[2] Frederick William approved wholly of the marriage of Wilhelmina to the Prince of Wales, and, while stating that the crown prince Frederick, at 18, was too young to marry, did let it be known that, within ten years, a marriage to a suitable English princess was acceptable. Then, on July 12, Hotham, in an attempt to strengthen his position by discrediting the Austrian contingent at court, produced letters incriminating Seckendorff and several of the King's associates. Frederick William flew into a rage at the tactic, threw the letter to the floor, and stalked out of the room.[3] Hotham took his treatment as an insult to the majesty of England, and immediately arranged for transport to take him back to England.
The Crown Prince had long contemplated fleeing Prussia to avoid the continual physical and emotional abuse of his father, but had held off on his plans so long as the double marriage prospect was viable.[4] With the collapse of the negotiations, he contrived, with his close friend Hans von Katte, to flee to Paris. The plan was discovered, and Frederick was thrown in jail, his father forcing him to watch the execution of his friend Katte from his cell window, an event which stood as a psychological milestone in the life of the future Frederick the Great.
He died in 1738. He had married Lady Gertrude Stanhope, the daughter of Philip Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Chesterfield and had 1 surviving son and 3 daughters. He was succeeded by Sir Charles Hotham, 6th Baronet.