No forceps, said the male attendant. Then a princess died.

Princess Charlotte, the only child of George IV, the Prince of Wales, was 21 and a newlywed when she went into labor with her first child. She was much loved by the public, and her pregnancy had given rise to a lively betting market.

At 3 a.m. on Nov. 4, 1817, the chief ministers of the crown were summoned. The baby was unusually large, and became wedged in her pelvis. But Sir Richard Croft, the male attendant, who belonged to a noninterventionist school of thought, opted not to use forceps.

After 50 hours of labor, Charlotte delivered a nine-pound stillborn son. A few hours later, she complained of severe abdominal pain, and died of internal bleeding on Nov. 6 . Her death let loose a flood of grief that has since been compared to the outpouring at the funeral of Princess Diana.

Sir Richard, shunned by his colleagues after this disaster, later shot himself.

In the years that followed, leading obstetricians swung toward a greater degree of intervention, including allowing medicines to be administered to induce labor and more common use of forceps.

Cabinet ministers once attended royal births. Then others wanted in.

In 1688, Mary, the second wife of James II, who was Roman Catholic, announced the birth of a baby boy, confounding the widespread belief that she would not be able to bear healthy children. This came as a bitter disappointment to English Protestants.

At the time, there were persistent rumors that a newborn from another mother had been smuggled into Mary’s delivery room in a birthing pan. For two centuries after that, as insurance against malpractice, a phalanx of cabinet ministers and, in many cases, the archbishop of Canterbury attended royal births.

The custom was set aside by King George VI as his daughter Elizabeth II prepared to give birth to her first child. Elizabeth herself is reported to have approved the presence of the home secretary.