FOOTNOTES TO BOOK I, CHAPTER III:
[9] Leibniz to the Princess Caroline of Ansbach, Hanover, 18th March, 1705.
[10] Letter of Princess Caroline to Leibniz, Ansbach, 2nd April, 1705.
[11] Gay, in his Epistle to a Lady, also alludes to this incident:—
“The pomp of titles easy faith might shake,
She scorned an empire, for religion’s sake”
[12] Poley’s Despatch, Hanover, 9th June, 1705.
[13] Poley’s Despatch, Hanover, 19th June, 1705.
[14] The Queen of Prussia was not buried until six months after her death, and her funeral, as she had anticipated, was conducted on a scale of great magnificence. Von Breidow was an Ansbach official in the pay of Prussia.
[15] These documents (in German) are preserved in the Royal Archives at Hanover. They have never before been published.
[16] An account of this interview is given in a letter from the Count von Platen to the Elector of Hanover; Hanover, 9th July, 1705 (Hanover Archives.)
[17] Poley’s Despatch, Hanover, 21st July, 1705.
[18] Poley’s Despatch, Hanover, 28th July, 1705.
[19] Poley’s Despatch, 4th September, 1705.
CHAPTER IV.
THE COURT OF HANOVER. 1705–1706.
The Court of Hanover at the time of Caroline’s marriage was one of the principal courts of North Germany, not equal in importance to that of Berlin, or in splendour to that of Dresden, but second to no others. During the reign of the first Elector, Ernest Augustus, and his consort, the Electress Sophia, Hanover had gained materially in power and importance. The town became the resort of wealthy nobles, who had before divided their attentions between Hamburg and Brunswick. Handsome public buildings and new houses sprang up on every side, and outside the walls, especially towards Herrenhausen, the borders of the city were extending. Few of the houses were large, for the wealthy Hanoverian nobility resided for the most part at their castles in the country, and only came to the capital now and then for the carnival or the opera, which was one of the best in Germany, or to pay their respects to the Elector.
The Hanover of that day, after the model of German mediæval cities, was a town with walls and gates. The old town within the walls was composed of rough narrow streets, and timbered, gabled houses with high sloping roofs. Some of these old houses, such as Leibnizhaus, a sandstone building of the seventeenth century, still remain, and so do the old brick Markt Kirche, the Rathhaus, and other quaint buildings characteristic of mediæval Germany; they make it easy to conjure up the everyday life of the old Hanoverian burghers.
Caroline found that Hanover was a more important place than Ansbach, and everything was on a larger scale. For instance, it possessed three palaces instead of one, the small Alte Palais, since Sophie Dorothea’s disgrace seldom used, the Leine Schloss, a huge barrack of a palace on the banks of the Leine, and last, but not least, Herrenhausen, about two miles without the walls, approached by a magnificent double avenue of limes. The grounds of Herrenhausen were designed in imitation of Versailles, and, though the palace itself was plain and unpretending, the beauty of the place consisted in its great park, full of magnificent limes, elms, chestnuts and maples, and in its garden, one hundred and twenty acres in extent, laid out in the old French style with terraces, statues and fountains, and fenced about with maze-like hedges of clipped hornbeam. The Electress Sophia loved Herrenhausen greatly, though since her widowhood she had been relegated to one wing of it by her son the Elector. He would not permit her any share in the government of the electorate, and she had therefore ample time to devote herself to her philosophic studies. But she also employed her active mind in looking after her English affairs, in which she was deeply interested. The fact that she was in the direct line of the English succession attracted to Herrenhausen many English people of note, and it became a rallying-point of those who favoured the Hanoverian succession.
The Electress Sophia was the widow of Ernest Augustus, first Elector of Hanover. She was a great princess in every sense of the word, and with her husband had raised Hanover from a petty dukedom to the rank of an electorate. She was the granddaughter of King James the First of England; the daughter of the Princess Elizabeth of England, Queen of Bohemia; the sister of Prince Rupert, who had fought for the royal cause throughout the great rebellion; the niece of Charles the First, and first cousin to Charles the Second and to James the Second, the old King who had lately died in exile at St. Germains.[20] By Act of Parliament the succession to the throne of England was vested in the Electress Sophia and the heirs male of her body being Protestant, and according to this Act the only life between her and the British crown was that of the reigning Queen, Anne, who was childless and in bad health. Sophia was inordinately proud of her English ancestry, and though she had never been in England, or had seen any of her English relatives since Charles the Second mounted the throne of his ancestors, she was much more English than German in her habits, tastes and inclinations. She had unbounded admiration for “her country,” as she called it, and its people; she spoke the language perfectly, and kept herself well acquainted with events in England. She even tried to understand the English Constitution, though here, it must be admitted, she was sometimes at fault. She had her mother’s soaring ambition: “I care not when I die,” said she, “if on my tomb it be written that I was Queen of England”. In her immediate circle she loved to be called “the Princess of Wales,” though, of course, she had no right to the title, and she frequently spoke of herself by the designation which was afterwards inscribed upon her tomb, “The heiress of Great Britain”.
When Caroline came to Hanover, this wonderful old princess, though over seventy years of age, was in full possession of her physical and mental faculties. Her step was firm, her bearing erect, and there was scarcely a wrinkle on her face, or a tooth out of her head. She read and corresponded widely, and spoke and wrote in five languages, each one perfectly. Notwithstanding her many sorrows (she had lost four sons and her dearly-loved daughter), vexations and deprivations, she maintained a cheerful and lively disposition, largely due to a perfect digestion, which even a course of solid German dinners—for she was a hearty eater and drinker—could not upset. One of her rules was never to eat nor walk alone, and she imputed her sound health largely to her love of company and outdoor exercise. Like her illustrious descendant, Queen Victoria, she never passed a day without spending many hours in the open air; she sometimes drove, but more often walked for two or three hours in the gardens of Herrenhausen, pacing up and down the interminable paths, and talking the whole time in French or English to her companions. In this way she gave audience to many Englishmen of note, from the great Marlborough downwards, and it is on record that she tired out many of them.
Her eldest son, George Louis (later George the First of England), who succeeded his father, Ernest Augustus, as Elector of Hanover in 1698, was in all respects different to his mother, who had inherited many characteristics of the Stuarts. He in no wise resembled them; he seemed to have harked back to some remote German ancestor, for, while his father, Ernest Augustus, was a handsome, genial, pleasure-loving prince, with a courtly air, and a genius for intrigue, the Elector George was ungraceful in person and gesture, reserved and uncouth in speech, and coarse and unrefined in taste. He was profligate, and penurious even in his profligacy. Unlike his mother, he had no learning, and unlike his father, he had no manners. On the other hand he was straightforward; he never told a lie, at least an unnecessary one; he had a horror of intrigue and double-dealing, and he had great personal courage, as he had proved on many a hard-fought field. His enemies said that he was absolutely devoid of human affection, but he had a sincere liking for his sister, Sophie Charlotte, Queen of Prussia, and a good deal of affection for his daughter, and what proved to be a lasting regard for his unlovely mistress, Ermengarda Melusina Schulemburg. The care he took that his son should make a love match also shows him to have possessed some heart. But few found this out; most were repelled by his harsh manner.
The Electress Sophia was not happy in her children; “none of them ever showed the respect they ought to have done,” writes her niece, Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans. Of all her seven children, only three were now living: George the Elector, who disliked her; Maximilian, a Jacobite and Roman Catholic, in exile and open rebellion against his brother; and Ernest Augustus, the youngest of them all. Of her grandson, George Augustus, we have already spoken, and he, too, frequently treated her with disrespect. There remained his sister, the Princess Sophie Dorothea, a young princess of beauty and promise, whose matrimonial prospects were engaging the attention of the old Electress.
Such was the electoral family of Hanover which Caroline had now joined. There was one other member of it, poor Sophie Dorothea of Celle, consort of the Elector, but she was thrust out of sight, divorced, disgraced, imprisoned, and now entering on the eleventh year of her dreary captivity in the castle of Ahlden, some twenty miles from Hanover. Caroline had doubtless heard of the black business in the old Leine Schloss that July night, 1694, when Königsmarck mysteriously disappeared coming from the Princess’s chamber, for the scandal had been discussed in every court in Europe. But there is nothing to show that she expressed any opinion on the guilt or innocence of her unhappy mother-in-law, whether she took her husband’s view, who regarded his mother as the victim of the Elector’s tyranny, or the view of the Electress Sophia, who could find no words bad enough to condemn her. Caroline was much too discreet to stir the embers of that old family feud, or to mention a name which was not so much as whispered at Herrenhausen. But one thing may be noted in her favour; she showed many courtesies to the imprisoned Princess’s mother, the aged Duchess of Celle, who, since her husband’s death, had been forced to quit the castle of Celle, and now lived in retirement at Wienhausen. The favour of George Augustus and Caroline protected the Duchess of Celle from open insult, but history is silent as to whether the Duchess attempted to act as a means of communication between them and her imprisoned daughter.
Caroline’s bright and refined presence was sorely needed at the Hanoverian Court, which had changed for the worse since George had assumed the electoral diadem. Under the rule of the pleasure-loving Ernest Augustus and his cheerful spouse Sophia, their court had been one of the gayest in Germany, and splendid out of proportion to the importance of the electorate. The Elector George kept his court too; he maintained the opera and dined in public, after the manner of Louis the Fourteenth, but he was as penurious as Ernest Augustus had been extravagant, and he cut down every unnecessary penny. The Duchess of Orleans, who cordially disliked all the Hanoverian family except her aunt, the Electress Sophia, writes about this time: “It is not to be wondered at that the gaiety that used to be at Hanover has departed; the Elector is so cold that he turns everything into ice—his father and uncle were not like him”.
This was a prejudiced view, for the Court of Hanover was still gay, though its gaiety had lost in wit and gained in coarseness since the accession of the Elector George. A sample of its pleasures is afforded in the following description, written by Leibniz, of a fête given at Hanover a year or two before Caroline’s marriage.[21] The entertainment was modelled on Trimalchio’s banquet, and suggests a parallel with the grossest pleasures of Nero and imperial Rome. Leibniz writes:—
“A fête was given at this Court recently and represented the famous banquet described by Petronius.[22] The part of our modern Trimalchio was played by the Raugrave, and that of his wife, Fortunata, by Fräulein von Pöllnitz, who managed everything as did Fortunata of old in the house of her Trimalchio. Couches were arranged round the table for the guests. The trophies displayed of Trimalchio’s arms were composed of empty bottles, and there were very many devices, recording his fine qualities, especially his courage and wit. As the guests entered the banqueting hall, a slave called out, ‘Advance in order,’ as in ancient time, and they took their places on the couches set apart for them. Eumolpus (Mauro) recited verses in praise of the great Trimalchio, who presently arrived carried on a litter, and preceded by a chorus of singers and musicians, including huntsmen blowing horns, drummers and slaves, all making a great noise. As the procession advanced, Trimalchio’s praises were sung after the following fashion:—
À la cour comme à l’armée
On connait sa renommée;
Il ne craint point les bâtards,
Ni de Bacchus ni de Mars.
“After the procession had made several turns round the hall, Trimalchio was placed on his couch, and began to eat and drink, cordially inviting his guests to follow his example. His chief carver was called Monsieur Coupé, so that by calling out ‘Coupé’ he could name him, and at the same time command him to carve, like the carver Carpus in Petronius, to whom his master called Carpe, which means much the same as coupez. In imitation, too, a pea-hen was brought in sitting on her nest full of eggs, which Trimalchio first declared were half-hatched, but on examination proved to contain delicious ortolans. Little children carried in pies, and birds flew out from them, and were caught again by the fowlers. An ass was led in bearing a load of olives. Several other extraordinary dishes enlivened the banquet and surprised the spectators; everything was copied strictly from the Roman original. There was even a charger, with viands representing the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and Trimalchio gave utterance to some very amusing astrology. Fortunata had to be called several times before she would sit down to table—everything depended on her. Trimalchio being in an erudite mood, had the catalogue of his burlesque library brought to him, and, as the names of the books were read out, he quoted the finest passages, and criticised them. The only wine was Falerno, and Trimalchio, who naturally preferred Hungarian to any other, controlled himself out of respect to his guests. It is true, as regards his personal necessities, he put no constraint upon himself.... Finally, after moralising on happiness and the vanity of things in general, he sent for his will and read it aloud; in it he left orders how he was to be buried, and what monument was to be erected to his memory. He also announced what legacies he would leave, some of them very funny, and he freed his slaves, who during the reading of the will were grimacing and howling in lamentable fashion. During the banquet he granted full liberty to Bacchus, pretending to be proud of having even the gods in his power. Some of the slaves donned caps, the sign of liberty. When their master drank these same slaves imitated the noise of the cannon, or rather of Jove’s thunder....
“But in the midst of these festivities the Goddess of Discord cast down her apple. A quarrel forthwith arose between Trimalchio and Fortunata, whereupon he threw a goblet at her head, and there ensued a battle royal. At last peace was restored, and everything ended harmoniously. The procession, with the singers, dancers, horns, drums and other instruments of music, closed the banquet as it had been opened. And to say nothing of Fortunata, Trimalchio certainly surpassed himself.”
The fact that such a revel as this could take place under princely patronage shows the grossness of the age in general and Hanover in particular. But a good deal of the coarseness at the Hanoverian Court was due to the fact that it was, at this time, reigned over by mistresses who had not the saving grace of refinement. The Electress Sophia was old, and her taste for court entertainments had dulled, and even if it had not, the Elector was too jealous to permit her to take the lead. His daughter, Sophie Dorothea, was too young to have any influence. The advent of the Electoral Princess supplied the elements that were lacking, beauty and grace, and a sense of personal dignity and virtue.
GEORGE II. AND QUEEN CAROLINE AT THE TIME OF THEIR MARRIAGE.
Caroline was in every way fitted to queen it over a much larger court than Hanover. Like her adopted mother, the Queen of Prussia, Caroline’s intellect was lofty, and she scorned as “paltry” many of the things in which the princesses of her time were most interested. The minutiæ of court etiquette, scandal, dress, needlework and display did not appeal to her; some of these things were all very well as means to an end, but with Caroline emphatically they were not the end. Her natural inclination was all towards serious things; politics and the love of power were with her a passion. She had little opportunity of indulging her taste in this respect at Hanover, for the Elector gave no woman a chance of meddling in politics at his court, and her husband, the Electoral Prince, professed to be of the same mind. So Caroline had for years to conceal the qualities which later made her a stateswoman, and the consummate skill with which she did so proved her to be an actress and diplomatist of no mean order. She had more liberty to follow her literary and philosophical bent, for both the Elector and his son hated books, were indifferent to religion, and treated philosophers and their theories with open contempt; these questions were all very well for women and bookmen, but they could not be expected to occupy their lofty minds with such trifles. Caroline, therefore, and the Electress Sophia, who was even more learned than her daughter-in-law, were able to indulge their tastes in this respect with comparative freedom, and they enjoyed many hours discussing philosophy with Leibniz or arguing on religious questions with learned divines. They kept themselves well abreast of the intellectual thought of the time, and even tried in some small way to hold reunions at Herrenhausen, after the model of those at Charlottenburg, but in this Caroline had to exercise a good deal of discretion, for her husband, like the Elector, though grossly illiterate, was jealous lest his wife’s learning should seem to be superior to his own. Much of Caroline’s reading had to be done in secret, and the discussions in which she delighted were carried on in the privacy of the Electress Sophia’s apartments.
Within the first few years of her marriage Caroline found that she had need of all her philosophy, natural or acquired, whether derived from Leibniz or inherent in herself, to accommodate herself to the whims and humours of her fantastic little husband. She quickly discovered the faults and foibles of his character, she was soon made aware of his meanness, his shallowness and his petty vanity, of his absurd love of boasting, his fitful and choleric temper, and his incontinence. George Augustus had inherited the bad qualities of both his parents, and the good qualities of neither, for he had not his father’s straightforwardness, nor his mother’s generous impulses. He was a contemptible character, but his wife never manifested any contempt for him; her conduct indeed was a model of all that a wife’s should be—from the man’s point of view. The little prince would rail at her, contradict her, snub her, dash his wig on the ground, strut up and down the room, red and angry, shouting at the top of his voice, but, unlike her mother-in-law, Sophie Dorothea, Caroline never answered her husband; she was always submissive, always dutiful, always the patient Griselda. The result justified her wisdom. George Augustus became genuinely attached to his wife, and she preserved his affection and kept her influence over him. Shortly after her marriage she was attacked by small-pox; it did not seriously impair her beauty, but for many days her life was in danger. Her husband was beside himself with anxiety; he never left her chamber day or night, and caught the disease from her, thus risking his life for hers. Caroline never forgot this proof of his devotion. She was shrewd enough to see from the beginning, what so many wives in equal or less exalted positions fail to see, that her interests and her husband’s interests were identical, and that as he prospered she would prosper with him, and, on the other hand, everything which hurt him or his prospects would react on her too. She realised that she could only reach worldly greatness through him, and ambition coloured all her life. The rôle of the injured wife would do her no good, either in her husband’s eyes or in those of the world, so she never played the part, though in all truth he early gave her cause enough. Her life was witness of the love she bore him, a love that was quite unaccountable. From the first moment of her married life to the last, she was absolutely devoted to him; his friends were her friends and his enemies her enemies.
Caroline was soon called upon to take sides in the quarrel between the Electoral Prince and the Elector, which as the years went by became intensified in bitterness. As to the origin of this unnatural feud it is impossible to speak with certainty; some have found it in the elder George’s cruel treatment of his wife, Sophie Dorothea, which the son was said to have strongly resented. This may be partly true, for though the young Prince was only a boy when his mother was first imprisoned, he was old enough to have loved her, and he had sufficient understanding to sympathise with her wrongs, as her daughter did. Besides, he often visited his maternal grandparents at Celle, and though the old Duke was neutral, the Duchess warmly espoused her daughter’s cause, and hated George Louis and his mother, Sophia, who were her worst enemies. She may have instilled some of these sentiments into her grandson, for his treatment of his grandmother, the Electress Sophia, left much to be desired, though she was devoted to him, and always ready to plot with him against his father. All these currents of emotion, and cross-currents of jealousy and hatred were in full flood at the Hanoverian Court when Caroline arrived there, and she must have found it exceedingly difficult to steer a straight course among them. She at once decided to throw in her lot with her husband, and to make his cause hers. She soon, therefore, came to be viewed with disfavour by her father-in-law.
In all matters, except those which militated against her husband’s interests, Caroline endeavoured to please the Elector. George openly maintained three mistresses, and he expected that the Electoral Princess should receive them and treat them with courtesy. Caroline raised no difficulties on this score, and made the best of the peculiar circumstances she found around her. The subject is not a pleasant one, but it is impossible to give a true picture of the Hanoverian Court and ignore the existence of these women, for they influenced considerably the trend of affairs, and occupied positions only second to the princesses of the electoral family.
Of the Elector’s favourites, Ermengarda Melusina Schulemburg was the oldest, and the most accredited. She was descended from the elder branch of the ancient but impoverished house of Schulemburg; her father had held high office in the Court of Berlin, her brother found a similar place in the service of the Venetian Republic. Melusina having no dower and no great charm, except her youth, made her way to Hanover about 1690, in the hope of improving her fortunes, honourably or dishonourably as chance offered. Melusina attracted the attention of George Louis, Prince of Hanover, as he was then called. He made her an allowance, and procured for her a post at court as maid of honour (save the mark) to his mother, the Electress Sophia. Schulemburg’s appearance was the signal for furious quarrels between George Louis and his unhappy consort, who, though she detested her husband, was jealous of his amours. But her protests were useless, and only served to irritate the situation. After Sophie Dorothea’s divorce, Schulemburg lived with George Louis to all intents and purposes as his wife, and when he succeeded to the electorate, her position became the more influential. It was not easy to understand how she maintained her sway; it was certainly not by her person. She was very tall, and in her youth had some good looks of the passive German type, but as the years went by she lost the few pretexts to beauty that she possessed. Her figure became extremely thin, in consequence of small-pox she lost all her hair, and was not only marked on the face but wore an ugly wig. She sought to mend these defects by painting and ruddling her face, which only made them worse; her taste in dress was atrocious. Schulemburg was a stupid woman, with a narrow range of vision, and her dominant passion was avarice; but she was undoubtedly attached to her protector, and remained faithful to him—not that any one ever tempted her fidelity. She had an equable temper, and she was no mischief maker. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu says of her: “She was so much of his (George’s) own temper that I do not wonder at the engagement between them. She was duller than himself, and consequently did not find out that he was so.”
As the years went by Schulemburg’s ascendency was threatened by another and even less attractive lady, Kielmansegge, née Platen, whom the Elector had elevated to a similar position. Her mother, the Countess Platen, wife of the Prime Minister, had been for years mistress of his father, Ernest Augustus. She had destined her daughter for a similar position, but at first it seemed that her plans were foiled by the young countess contracting a passion for the son of a Hamburg merchant named Kielmansegge, whom she married under circumstances that gave rise to scandal. After her mother’s death she separated from her husband, returned to Hanover, and gave herself up to pleasure. She was exceedingly extravagant in her personal tastes, and soon squandered the sum of £40,000 left her by her mother. She was of a sociable disposition, and having many admirers was not disposed to be unkind to any. George Augustus, who hated her, declared that she intrigued with every man in Hanover, and this being reported to her, she sought an audience of the Electoral Princess, and denied the imputation, producing, as a proof of her virtue, a certificate of moral character signed by her husband, whom she had now deserted. Caroline laughed, and told her “it was indeed a bad reputation which rendered such a certificate necessary”. Kielmansegge was clever, and a good conversationalist, and she maintained her somewhat precarious hold over the Elector by amusing him. She had more wit and cunning than Schulemburg, but her morals were worse, and her appearance was equally unattractive, though in another way. Her wig was black, whereas Schulemburg’s was red, and she was of enormous and unwieldy bulk, whereas Schulemburg was lean to emaciation. Schulemburg had to heighten her charms by rouge; Kielmansegge, on the other hand, was naturally so highly coloured that she sought to tone down her complexion by copious dressings of powder; the effect in either case was equally unlovely. The Electress Sophia mocked at them both, and had nicknames for them both; Schulemburg she called “The tall malkin,” and used to ask the courtiers what her son could see in her. Kielmansegge she dubbed “The fat hen”.
There remained yet another of these ladies—the beautiful Countess Platen, a sister-in-law of Madame Kielmansegge, and wife of Count Platen the younger. The family of Platen seem to have formed a sort of hereditary hierarchy of shame. When the young countess first appeared at court after her marriage, in the height of her beauty, the Elector took little notice of her. And as the Elector’s favour was counted a great honour among the Hanoverian ladies, Countess Platen was deeply mortified at this ignoring of her charms. She determined on a bold stroke of policy—she sought an audience of his Highness, and with tears in her eyes besought him not to treat her so rudely. The astonished Elector declared that he was ignorant of having done anything of the kind, and added gallantly that she was the most beautiful woman at his court. “If that be true, sir,” replied the countess, weeping, “why do you pass all your time with Schulemburg, while I hardly receive the honour of a glance from you?” The gallant George promised to mend his manners, and soon came to visit her so frequently that her husband, objecting to the intimacy, separated from her, and left her wholly to the Elector. The Countess Platen was the best loved of all the Elector’s favourites, but, like Kielmansegge, she was not faithful to him. Among the Englishmen who came to Hanover about this time was the younger Craggs, son of James Craggs, a Whig place-hunter of the baser sort. According to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the elder Craggs had been at one time footman to the Duchess of Norfolk, and was employed by her in an intrigue she had with King James the Second. He acquitted himself with so much secrecy and discretion that the duchess recommended him to the Duke of Marlborough, who employed him for purposes of political and other intrigues. Thus, by trading on the secrets of the great and wealthy, Craggs at length acquired a fortune and entered parliament. His son James Craggs was an exceeding strong, good-looking youth, with great assurance and easy manners, though Lady Mary declares that “there was a coarseness in his face and shape that had more the air of a porter than a gentleman”. But coarseness was no drawback at the Court of Hanover, and the Countess Platen soon became enamoured of the well-favoured young Englishman, and introduced him to the notice of the Elector, who, ignorant or careless of the intrigue, showed him a good deal of favour, and promised him a good appointment if ever he became King of England. George amply redeemed this promise later, and young Craggs was one of the few Englishmen admitted to his private circle.
Since the passing of the Act of Succession in 1700 under King William, and Lord Macclesfield’s mission to Hanover in 1701, when he presented a copy of the Act to the Electress Sophia, and since the recognition by Anne of the status quo on her accession in 1702, the English prospects of the electoral family had sensibly improved, and the Hanoverian succession had quitted the region of abstract theories to enter the realm of practical politics. The time-servers in England showed their sensible appreciation of this by turning their attention from St. Germains to Hanover. Marlborough, the arch time-server of them all, was at Hanover at the end of 1704, and Prince Ernest Augustus, the youngest son of the Electress Sophia, had fought under him in one of his campaigns. Marlborough was said at one time to have entertained the project of marrying his third daughter to the Electoral Prince as a return for his powerful aid to the electoral family, but the scheme fell through, if it were ever seriously considered. It might have been, for Marlborough’s support was very valuable. Party feeling ran very high in England, and there was a strong Jacobite faction which heavily discounted the prospects of the Hanoverian succession. At the beginning of her reign, Anne, apprehensive that the Jacobites might become too powerful and shake her position on the throne, to which her title was none too sure, leant, or appeared to lean, in the direction of Hanover. The question was complicated, too, by the fact that the Scottish Parliament had rejected the Bill for the Hanoverian succession with every mark of contempt, and had passed a measure which seemed to settle the succession of the Scottish crown upon the Duke of Hamilton. At least, it excluded the House of Hanover as aliens, and for a time there was the anomaly that though the Electress Sophia might have succeeded to the throne of England, she could not have worn the crown of Scotland, and the kingdoms would again have become divided. It was largely to end these complications that the Act of Union between England and Scotland was brought forward, and one of its most important clauses was that the succession of the crown of Scotland, like that of England, should be vested in the Electress Sophia, and her heirs, being Protestant, a clause which was hotly debated. An Act was also passed to naturalise the electoral family.
Elated by these successes, the next move of the Whigs was to suggest to the Electress Sophia that she should come over to England on a visit, in order that the people might see “the heiress of Great Britain,” and so strengthen their affection to her person. If she could not come, they suggested that her son or her grandson should take her place. The Electress Sophia would gladly have visited England with the Electoral Prince and the Electoral Princess, but she was far too shrewd to make the journey at the bidding of a faction, and, while expressing her willingness, she stipulated that the invitation must come from the Queen herself. That invitation was never given, for Anne had a positive horror of seeing her Hanoverian successors in England during her lifetime. She declared that their presence would be like exposing her coffin to her view before she was dead. The electoral family were very well to use as pawns to check the moves of the Jacobites, but to see them in London would be more unpleasant to her than the arrival of James himself. The Whigs, despite the Queen’s opposition, were determined to bring them over if possible, and they talked of giving the old Electress, should she come, an escort into London of fifty thousand men, as a warning to the Queen, whose leanings towards her brother they suspected, not to play fast and loose with the Protestant succession. The Whig agent at Hanover was instructed to sound the Elector, but, to his credit be it said, George would have nothing whatever to do with the scheme. He hated intrigues of all kinds, and cared very little about the English succession, except as an influence to help his beloved electorate. He felt that he could never be sure of England, and he was too practical to miss the substance for the shadow.
Hanover was certainly a substantial possession. It became the fashion later in England to deride it as an unimportant electorate, and George as a petty German prince. But for years before George the First ascended the throne of England, Hanover had been gradually increasing in influence, and was a factor to be reckoned with in the great political issues of western and northern Europe. William of Orange recognised its importance, Louis the Fourteenth made frequent overtures to it, and the Emperor sought to conciliate it.[23] By the death of his uncle, the Duke of Celle, George became the ruler of all the Brunswick-Lüneburg dominions, and gained considerably in wealth and influence. He had not his mother’s ambition, and he was loath to imperil his prosperous and loyal electorate and an assured position for an insecure title to a throne beset with dangers and difficulties. He shared with Europe the belief that the English were a fickle and revolutionary people. Within living memory they had risen in rebellion, beheaded their king and established a republic. Then they had forsaken the republic and restored the monarchy. In the following reign they had had a revolution, driven their king into exile, and brought over a Dutch prince to reign over them. Undoubtedly they were not to be trusted, and what they might do in the future no one could say.
At the time of Caroline’s marriage the English prospects of the electoral family were bright. Though the visit to England was for the moment postponed, Anne was compelled to temporise, for the Whigs carried everything before them. Poley the English envoy was recalled, and Howe, who was in favour with the Whigs, was sent over to Hanover in his place. The Electress was given to think that the invitation would shortly come, and Caroline thought the same. All things English were in high favour at Hanover at this time. Howe celebrated the Queen’s birthday by a dance, which was honoured not only by George Augustus and Caroline, but also by the Electress Sophia. Howe writes:—
“The Queen’s birthday happening to be upon the Wednesday, I thought it proper to keep it the next day, and accordingly I invited ten or twelve couples of young people to dance at night. The Electoral Prince and Princess with the Margrave, her brother, and the young Princess of Hanover hearing of it, told me the night before that they would come and dance. Half an hour before the ball began, they brought me word that the Electress was also coming. The Electress gave the Queen’s health at supper, and stayed till two o’clock.”[24]
The same year the bells at Hanover rang out to celebrate the wedding of Princess Sophie Dorothea with her first cousin, Frederick William, Crown Prince of Prussia. This marriage was one after the Electress Sophia’s own heart, and it at once gratified her ambition and appealed to her affections. The young Princess had a good deal of beauty, an equable temper, and a fair share of the family obstinacy; she had something of her mother’s charm, but not much of her grandmother’s commanding intellect. The Electress Sophia had busied herself for some time with matrimonial schemes on Sophie Dorothea’s behalf. There had been a project for marrying her to the King of Sweden, but it fell through, and though it had been known for a long time that Frederick William loved his pretty Hanoverian cousin, there were obstacles in the way, notably the opposition of the King of Prussia, who had no desire to draw the bonds between Prussia and Hanover any closer. He was angry at having been outwitted in the matter of the Electoral Prince’s marriage to the Princess of Ansbach. After the Queen of Prussia’s death, the King busied himself to find a suitable bride for his son, but Frederick William rejected one matrimonial project after another, and obstinately declared that he would wed his cousin, Sophie Dorothea, and none other. Knowing the violence of his temper, and the impossibility of reasoning with him, his father had to give way, which he did with the better grace as he was anxious to secure the future of the dynasty. The marriage was celebrated at Hanover in 1706. The King of Prussia seized the opportunity to gratify his love of pageantry, and the festivities were prolonged for many days.
They were graced, too, by the presence of a special embassy from England, with Lords Halifax and Dorset at its head. Queen Anne had been compelled by the Whig administration to send them over to Hanover to present to the Electress Sophia a copy of the recent Act of Parliament naturalising the electoral family in England. The mission was a very welcome one to the old Electress, and she gave the English lords a formal audience at Herrenhausen, when after delivering his credentials Lord Halifax proceeded to address her in a set speech. In the middle of the address, the Electress started up from her chair, and backing to the wall remained fixed against it until the ceremony ended. Lord Halifax was much mystified by this unusual proceeding, and eventually discovered that the Electress had in her room a portrait of her cousin, James, her rival to the throne. She suddenly remembered it was there, and fearing the Whig lords (Halifax was a noted Whig leader) would suspect her of Jacobitism if they saw it, she adopted this means of hiding it. It was the fashion among the Whigs to call James the “Pretender,” and to pretend to doubt his legitimacy, but the Electress Sophia knew that he was as truly the son of James the Second as George was her own, and though she was eager to wear the crown of England, she would not stoop to such a subterfuge to gain it, preferring to base her claim on the broader and surer ground of the will of the people, and the interests of the Protestant religion.
Lord Halifax was accompanied on this mission by Sir John Vanburgh in his official capacity of Clarenceux King of Arms, who invested the Electoral Prince with the insignia of the Garter. Another and more famous Englishman, Joseph Addison, came with Halifax as secretary to the mission. It was on this occasion Addison first saw Caroline, his future benefactress, and he expressed himself enthusiastically concerning her beauty and talents.
The presence of the English mission added in no small degree to the brilliance of the wedding festivities, which after tedious ceremonial at last came to an end, and the bride and bridegroom departed for Berlin. It was not a peaceful domestic outlook for Sophie Dorothea, nor did it prove so; but she and her husband were sincerely attached to one another, and despite many violent quarrels and much provocation on either side, they managed to live together until their union was broken by death. Seven years after his marriage, by the death of his father, Frederick William ascended the throne, and Sophie Dorothea became the second Queen of Prussia. But what will cause her name to be remembered throughout all generations is that she was the mother of Frederick the Great.