Leopold had spent most of his life as an officer in the Imperial Russian Army, leading his cavalry with distinction against Napoleon’s forces at the Battle of Kulm in 1813 and ending his career just two years later at the age of twenty-five as a lieutenant-general. Although German, he was actually a British subject, having married the Prince Regent’s only legitimate offspring, Princess Charlotte (1796–1817), in 1816, an alliance that brought him British citizenship and the rank of field-marshal in the British Army and, some time later, official membership in the British Royal Family with the
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