The English Government had arranged that the Prince of Orange, heir to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, should marry the Princess Charlotte, heiress to the throne of England; and their engagement had been announced to the States-General at The Hague in March, 1814. But this plan had fallen through from the causes with which everyone is familiar--the objections of the Princess Charlotte, who did not wish to leave England, and liked the Prince less the more she saw of him; her fancy for the impecunious Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, whom she afterwards married; and the intrigues of the Grand Duchess of Oldenburgh to break off the match, in order to bring about a marriage between her sister, the Grand Duchess Anna Paulowna and the Prince of Orange. The Prince was accordingly married to the Grand Duchess. His character--careless, pleasure-loving, and extravagant--made him very popular in Brussels, and he spent as much as possible of his time in his palace there, or at the château of Tervueren. He preferred the Belgians to his countrymen the Dutch, whose grave ways did not suit him. Soon after his marriage he sent a secret message to the Duke of Wellington, under whom he had served in the Peninsular War and during the Hundred Days, asking for the Duke's influence to obtain leave to fix his Court at Brussels. Wellington refused to interfere in a domestic question, and, in reply to the Prince's suggestion that his presence in Brussels might help to check discontent amongst the Belgians, said that he doubted the statements as to Belgian disaffection, _as many persons, and even nations, were interested in breaking the union of Holland and Belgium_. The King and Queen of the Netherlands had the greatest difficulty in persuading the Prince to visit them in Holland. The Communal Council of Brussels waited on them at The Hague with an address of congratulation on their accession. 'I don't know,' said the Queen, 'what you do to keep my son at Brussels; but he is so fond of you that we hardly ever see him here.' It would have been better for the stability of his throne if the King had spent more of his own time in Brussels, for signs of that discontent about which the Prince had written to Wellington soon began to appear, and he might, perhaps, have taken warning before it was too late, if he had known the truth.