The rest of the pretty romance touching George and Hannah is rather lumbering in its construction. The married lovers are said to have kept a little household of their own, and round the hearth thereof we are further told that there were not wanting successive young faces, adding to its happiness. But there came the moment when the dream was to disappear and the sleeper to awaken. We are told by the retailers of the story that Hannah Lightfoot was privately disposed of—not by bowl, prison, or dagger, but by espousing her to a gentle Strephon named Axford, who, for a pecuniary consideration, took Hannah to wife, and asked no impertinent questions. They lived, at least Hannah did, for a time, in Harper Street, Red Lion Square. The story is an indifferent one, but it has been so often alluded to that some notice of it seemed necessary in this place.
Something more than rumour asserts that the young King was attracted by the stately grace of Elizabeth Spencer, Countess of Pembroke, who is described as a living picture of majestic modesty. In after years, the King looked on the mother of the Napiers, and on the above-named countess, with a certain loving interest. In the intervals of his attacks of insanity, it is said that he used to dwell with impassioned accents on the former beauty of the majestic countess.
The King’s mother had been most averse to the Prussian connection. Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, is said to have done his best to further a union with a subject. The Princess-dowager of Wales and Lord Bute would have selected a princess of Saxe Gotha; but it was whispered that there was a constitutional infirmity in that family which rendered an alliance with it in no way desirable. Besides, George II. said he had had enough of that family already. A Colonel Græme was then despatched to Germany, and rumour invested him with the commission to visit the German courts, and if he could find among them a princess who was faultless in form, feature, and character, of sound health and highly accomplished, he was to report accordingly. Colonel Græme, love’s military messenger, happened to fall in at Pyrmont with the Princess-dowager of Strelitz and her two daughters. At the gay baths and salutary springs of Pyrmont very little etiquette was observed, even in those very ceremonious times, and great people went about less in masquerade and less strait-laced than they were wont to do at home, in the circle of their own courts. In this sort of negligé there was a charm which favoured the development of character, and under its influence the scrutinising colonel soon vicariously fell in love with the young Princess Charlotte, and at once made the report which led to the royal marriage that ensued.
There were persons who denied that this little romantic drama was ever played at all; but as the colonel was subsequently appointed to the mastership of St. Catherine’s Hospital, the prettiest bit of preferment possessed by a Queen-consort, other persons looked upon the appointment as the due acknowledgment of a princess grateful for favours received.
But, after all, the young King is positively declared to have chosen for himself. The King of Prussia at that time was a man much addicted to disregard the rights of his contemporaries, and among other outrages committed by his army, was the invasion, and almost desolating, of the little dominion of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, the ducal possession of the Princess Charlotte’s brother. This act inspired, it is said, the lady last-named to pen a letter to the monarch, which was as full of spirit as of logic, and not likely to have been written by so young a lady. The letter, however, was sufficiently spirited and conclusive to win reputation for the alleged writer. Its great charm was its simple and touching truthfulness, and the letter, whether forwarded to George by the Prussian king, or laid before him by his mother the princess-dowager, is said to have had such an influence on his mind, as to at once inspire him with feelings of admiration for the writer. After praising it, the King exclaimed to Lord Hertford: ‘This is the lady whom I shall select for my consort—here are lasting beauties—the man who has any mind may feast and not be satisfied. If the disposition of the princess but equals her refined sense, I shall be the happiest man, as I hope, with my people’s concurrence, to be the greatest monarch in Europe.’
The lady on whom this eulogy was uttered was Charlotte Sophia, the younger of the two daughters of Charles Louis, Duke of Mirow, by Albertina Elizabeth, a princess of the ducal house of Saxe Hilburghausen. The Duke of Mirow was the second son of the Duke of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, and was a lieutenant-general in the service of the Emperor of Germany when Charlotte Sophia was born, at Mirow, on the 16th of May 1744. Four sons and one other daughter were the issue of this marriage. The eldest son ultimately became Duke of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, and to the last-named place the Princess Charlotte Sophia (or Charlotte, as she was commonly called) and her family removed in 1751, on the death of the Duke Charles Louis.
At seven years of age she had for her instructress that verse-writing Madame de Grabow, whom the Germans fondly and foolishly compared with Sappho. The post of instructress was shared by many partners; but, finally, to the poetess succeeded a philosopher, Dr. Gentzner, who, from the time of his undertaking the office of tutor to that of the marriage of his ‘serene’ pupil, imparted to the latter a varied wisdom and knowledge, made up of Lutheran divinity, natural history, and mineralogy, Charlotte not only cultivated these branches of education with success, but others also. She was a very fair linguist, spoke French perhaps better than German, as was the fashion of her time and country, could converse in Italian, and knew something of English. Other accounts say that she did not begin to learn French till she knew she was to leave Mecklenburgh. Her style of drawing was above that of an ordinary amateur; she danced like a lady, and played like an artist. Better than all, she was a woman of good sense, she had the good fortune to be early taught the great truths of religion, and she had the good taste to shape her course by their requirements. She was not without faults, and she had a will of her own. In short, she was a woman; a woman of sense and spirit, but occasionally making mistakes like any of her sisters.
The letter which she is said to have addressed to the King of Prussia, and the alleged writing of which is said to have won for her a crown, has been often printed; but, well known as it is, it cannot well be omitted from pages professing to give, however imperfectly, as in the present case, some record of the supposed writer’s life: no one, however, will readily believe that a girl of sixteen was the actual author of such a document as the following: ‘May it please your Majesty ... I am at a loss whether I should congratulate or condole with you on your late victory over Marshal Daun, Nov. 3, 1760, since the same success which has covered you with laurels has overspread the country of Mecklenburgh with desolation. I know, Sire, that it seems unbecoming my sex, in this age of vicious refinement, to feel for one’s country, to lament the horrors of war, or wish for the return of peace. I know you may think it more properly my province to study the arts of pleasing, or to inspect subjects of a more domestic nature; but, however unbecoming it may be in me, I cannot resist the desire of interceding for this unhappy people.
‘It was but a very few years ago that this territory wore the most pleasing appearance; the country was cultivated, the peasants looked cheerful, and the towns abounded with riches and festivity. What an alteration at present from such a charming scene! I am not expert at description, nor can my fancy add any horrors to the picture; but, sure, even conquerors themselves would weep at the hideous prospects now before me. The whole country, my dear country, lies one frightful waste, presenting only objects to excite terror, pity, and despair. The business of the husbandman and the shepherd are quite discontinued. The husbandman and the shepherd are become soldiers themselves, and help to ravage the soil they formerly cultivated. The towns are inhabited only by old men, old women, and children; perhaps here and there a warrior, by wounds or loss of limbs rendered unfit for service, left at his door; his little children hang round him, ask a history of every wound, and grow themselves soldiers before they find strength for the field. But this were nothing, did we not feel the alternate insolence of either army, as it happens to advance or retreat in pursuing the operations of the campaign. It is impossible to express the confusion even those who call themselves our friends create; even those from whom we might expect redress oppress with new calamities. From your justice, therefore, it is we hope relief. To you even women and children may complain, whose humanity stoops to the meanest petition, and whose power is capable of repressing the greatest injustice.’
The very reputation of having written this letter won for its supposed author the crown of a Queen-consort. The members of the privy council, to whom the royal intention was first communicated, thought it almost a misalliance for a King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland to wed with a lady of such poor estate as the younger daughter of a very poor German prince. Had they been ethnologists, they might have augured well of a union between Saxon King and Sclavonic lady. The Sclave blood runs pure in Mecklenburgh.