FOOTNOTES:
[6] The Electoral Princess Caroline to Leibnitz, Hanover, 17th June, 1714. From Wilkins’ “Caroline.”
[7] D’Alais’s Despatch. Hanover, 22nd June, 1714. Wilkins’ “Caroline.”
[8] Wilkins’ “Caroline.”
CHAPTER III.
The Prince at the Age of Nine.
The new King, George the First of England, having departed with his train, and a month after the Princess Caroline—soon to become Princess of Wales—following with all the other children, little Frederick Louis, then in his eighth year, was left alone at Herrenhausen under the guardianship of his great-uncle Ernest Augustus and controlled by various governors and tutors.
One can imagine the little lonely boy wandering through the deserted corridors of the Palace of Herrenhausen and picturing the figures of those dearest to him, those who had left him and whose faces he was not to see again for many a long year. In the early days of that separation one can picture the child in the orange walks of the beautiful grounds in the warm autumn time and looking and longing for his mother—she was a good and affectionate mother to him then—whose face he was not to see again for nearly fourteen years. During the next two years while the excitement of the Pretender’s invasion was passing in England, the little Prince lived the ordinary life of a child, but with the difference from ordinary children that he must have been an exceedingly lonely child. That he was without companions of his own age is quite certain from what followed. From his great-uncle it is unlikely that he received much sympathy, if that Prince partook of the nature of his brother the King-Elector George. But there was one left behind there who possibly showed him some kindness—although there is not a vestige of evidence to show that she did—and that was the beautiful Countess Platen, the mistress of the King who was left behind on account of the religion she professed, and because Bernstorff, the Hanoverian Prime Minister, was jealous of her influence over the King.
So for two years the little Prince lived his child’s life and nothing was recorded of him. Then we hear of him from two sources: from Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu, who visited Hanover in 1716, like many other English in the train of the King, and from his governor who reported upon his conduct to his mother about this time.
The former of these who could be trusted—for Lady Mary was no Court sycophant and lied to no one—writes as follows of Frederick:—
“Our young Prince, the Duke of Gloucester”—he had just received that title from his grandfather, but the patent never passed the Seal—“has all the accomplishments which it is possible to have at his age, with an air of sprightliness and understanding, and something so very engaging and easy in his behaviour that he needs not the advantage of his rank to appear charming. I had the honour of a long conversation with him last night before the King came in. His governor retired on purpose, as he told me afterwards that I might make some judgment of his genius by hearing him speak without constraint, and I was surprised by the quickness and politeness that appeared in everything that he said, joined to a person perfectly agreeable, and the fine fair hair of the Princess.”
So much for little Prince Frederick at the age of nine. It may be here explained that his mother Caroline, Princess of Wales, had beautiful fair hair and a lovely skin; she was said also to possess the finest bust in Europe.
But from the very favourable account of Lady Mary we have to turn to the other, that of his governor, and that is far from flattering. Indeed, in this record we shall be continually turning from good report to evil report, and from evil report back again to the good. It will be necessary later to draw a line and divide the makers of these reports into two distinct parties, the prejudiced and interested, the unprejudiced, those who had nothing to gain by vilifying him.
But on the occasion we refer to, the governor of the young Prince had a good deal to say; he spoke with feeling, as one who had suffered, and most probably he had: he reveals a very pitiable state of affairs.
His complaints were embodied in a letter to Prince Frederick’s mother, and were as follows; he was a precocious youth—it must be remembered he was only nine years old—he already gambled and drank.
The Princess of Wales, however, made light of the matter.
“Ah,” she answered, “I perceive that these are the tricks of a page.”
To which his irate governor responded:
“Plût à Dieu, madame,” he virtuously answered, “these are not the tricks of a page; these are the tricks of a lacquey and a rascal!”
It is pretty certain that young as the boy was his life was developing on the same lines as his father and grandfather, for which their bad example and the lonely state in which he lived was undoubtedly accountable.
George the First, however, when he visited Hanover in 1716 found no fault with his grandson. He appears to have been one of the few friends the boy had. He evidently approved of him in every way whether he knew of the child’s growing bad habits or not. He was especially pleased that he held courts and levees at Herrenhausen in his absence and as a mark of his general approval created the boy Duke of Gloucester, but as it has been already stated the patent never passed the Seal, probably because the title chosen had proved a very unlucky one in former cases.
A propos of this visit of King George to Hanover—the first since his accession to the English throne two years before—Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu writes:—
“This town is neither large nor handsome, but the palace capable of holding a greater Court than that of St. James’s. The King has had the kindness to appoint us a lodging in one part, without which we should be very ill-accommodated, for the vast number of English crowds the town so much it is very good luck to get one sorry room in a miserable tavern.... The King’s company of French comedians play here every night; they are very well dressed, and some of them not ill actors. His Majesty dines and sups constantly in public. The Court is very numerous, and its affability and goodness make it one of the most agreeable places in the world.”[9]
Lady Mary writes again to another friend:
“I have now got into the region of beauty. All the women have literally rosy cheeks, snowy foreheads and bosoms; jet eyebrows and scarlet lips, to which they generally add coal black hair. These perfections never leave them until the hour of their deaths, and have a very fine effect by candlelight. But I could wish them handsome with a little more variety. They resemble one of the beauties of Mrs. Salmon’s Court of Great Britain,[10] and are in as much danger of melting away by approaching too close to the fire, which they for that reason, carefully avoid, though it is now such excessive cold weather that I believe they suffer extremely by that piece of self-denial.”
This bit of satire apparently was directed at the Hanoverian ladies’ excessive fat.
But Lady Mary was charmed with Herrenhausen.
“I was very sorry,” she writes, “that the ill weather did not permit me to see Herrenhausen in all its beauty, but in spite of the snow I think the gardens very fine. I was particularly surprised at the vast number of orange trees, much larger than any I have ever seen in England, though this climate is certainly colder.”[11]
It appears from the account in Mr. Wilkins’ “Caroline the Illustrious,” that King George enjoyed himself immensely during this 1716 visit to Hanover, and that he found much pleasure in the society of the beautiful but unscrupulous Countess Platen, from whom he had been separated for two years. Lady Mary Montagu herself, too, was not without favour in His Majesty’s eyes. The King-Elector, however, had also brought with him the remainder of the harem, viz., Schulemburg and Kielmansegge, with the two Turks presumably to look after them.
Yet with all this trouble around him King George found life pleasurable. In the above account Lord Peterborough, who was in his suite, is represented as remarking of him that “he believed he had forgotten the accident which happened to him and his family on the 1st August, 1714.”
But time passed on, and the King returned once more to England, leaving his little nine-year-old grandson to the tender care, officially, of his brother Ernest Augustus and his governors, but unofficially to the society of such grooms and hangers-on of the palace who could throw themselves, to the boy’s ruin, in his way.