It was of her son that George Louis used to say, in later years, ‘Il est fougueux, mais il a du cœur’—hot-headed but not heartless. George Augustus manifested this disposition very early in life. He was on one occasion hunting in the neighbourhood of Luisberg, not many miles from the scene of his mother’s imprisonment, when he made a sudden resolution to visit her, regardless of the strict prohibition against such a course laid on him by his father and the Hanoverian government. Laying spurs to his horse, he galloped at full speed from the field, and in the direction of Ahlden. His astonished suite, seeing the direction which he was following at so furious a rate, immediately suspected his design and became legally determined to frustrate it. They left pursuing the stag and took to chasing the prince. The heir-apparent led them far away over field and furrow, to the great detriment of the wind and persons of his pursuers; and he would have distanced the whole body of flying huntsmen, but that his steed was less fleet than those of two officers of the Electoral household, who kept close to the fugitive, and at last came up with him on the skirts of a wood adjacent to Ahlden. With mingled courtesy and firmness they represented to him that he could not be permitted to go further in a direction which was forbidden, as by so doing he would not only be treating the paternal command with contempt, but would be making them accomplices in his crime of disobedience. George Augustus, vexed and chafed, argued the matter with them, appealed to their affections and feelings, and endeavoured to convince them both as men and as ministers, as human beings and as mere official red-tapists, that he was authorised to continue his route to Ahlden by every law, earthly or divine.
The red-tapists, however, acknowledged no law under such circumstances but that of their Electoral lord and master, and that law they would not permit to be broken. Laying hold of the bridle of the prince’s steed, they turned its head homewards and rode away with George Augustus in a state of full discontent and strict arrest.
CHAPTER X.
THE SUCCESSION—DEATH OF THE ELECTRESS.
Marriage of Prince George to Princess Caroline of Anspach, and of his sister to the Crown Prince of Prussia—Honours conferred by Queen Anne on Prince George—Intention to bring over to England the Princess Sophia—Opposed by Queen Anne—Foundation of the kingdom of Prussia—The establishment of this Protestant kingdom promoted by the Jesuits—The Electress Sophia’s visit to Loo—The law granting taxes on births, deaths, and marriages—Complaint of Queen Anne against the Electress—Tom D’Urfey’s doggrel verses on her—Death of the Electress—Character of her.
The Elector, meditating on this sudden development of the domestic affections of his son, resolved to aid such development, not by giving him access to his mother, but by bestowing on him the hand of a consort. Caroline of Anspach was a very accomplished young lady, owing to the careful education which she received at the hands of the best-loved child of Sophia Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg, and the first, but short-lived, Queen of Prussia. If the instructress was able, the pupil was apt. She was quick, enquiring, intelligent, and studious. Her application was great, her perseverance unwearied, and her memory excellent. She learned quickly and retained largely, seldom forgetting anything worth remembrance; and was an equally good judge of books and individuals. Her perception of character has, perhaps, never been surpassed. She had no inclination for trivial subjects, nor affection for trivial people. She had a heart and mind only for philosophers and philosophy; but she was not the less a lively girl, or the more a pedant on that account. She delighted in lively conversation, and could admirably lead or direct it. Her knowledge of languages was equal to that of Sophia of Hanover, of whom she was also the equal in wit and in repartee. But therewith she was more tender, more gentle, more generous.
The marriage of George Augustus, Electoral Prince of Brunswick-Hanover, with Caroline, daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Anspach, was solemnised in the year 1705. The wife of George Augustus was of the same age as her husband. She had had the misfortune to lose her father when she was yet extremely young, and had been brought up at the Court of Berlin under the guardianship of Sophia Charlotte, the consort of Frederick of Prussia.
The sister of George Augustus, the only daughter of Sophia Dorothea, and bearing the same baptismal names as her mother, was also married during the captivity of the latter. Three remarkable Englishmen were present at the marriage of the daughter of Sophia Dorothea with the Prince Royal of Prussia. These were Lord Halifax, Sir John Vanbrugh, and Joseph Addison. Queen Anne, who had restored Halifax to a favour from which he had fallen, entrusted him to carry the bill for the naturalisation of the Electoral family and for the better security of the Protestant line of succession, and also the Order of the Garter for the Electoral Prince. On this mission, Addison was the invited companion of the patron whom he so choicely flattered. Vanbrugh was present in his official character of Clarencieux King-at-Arms, and performed the ceremony of investiture. The little Court of Hanover was joyfully splendid on this doubly festive occasion. The nuptials were celebrated with more accompanying gladness than ever followed them. The pomp was something uncommon in its way, and the bride must have been wearied of being married long before the stupendous solemnity had at length reached its slowly-arrived-at conclusion. She became Queen of Prussia in 1712.
Honours now fell thick upon the Electoral family, but Sophia Dorothea was not permitted to have any share therein. In 1706, Queen Anne created her son, George Augustus, Baron of Tewkesbury, Viscount Northallerton, Earl of Milford Haven, Marquis and Duke of Cambridge. With these honours it was also decreed that he should enjoy full precedence over the entire peerage.
There was a strong party in England whose most earnest desire it was that the Electress Sophia, in whose person the succession to the crown of Great Britain was settled, should repair to London—not permanently to reside there, but in order that during a brief visit she might receive the homage of the Protestant party. She was, however, reluctant to move from her books, philosophy, and cards, until she could be summoned as Queen. Failing here, an attempt was made to bring over George Louis, who was nothing loth to come; but the idea of a visit from him was to poor Queen Anne the uttermost abomination. Her Majesty had some grounds for her dislike to a visit from her old wooer. She was nervously in terror of a monster popular demonstration. Such a demonstration was publicly talked of; and the enemies of the house of Stuart, by way of instruction and warning to the Queen, whose Jacobite bearing towards her brother was matter of notoriety, had determined, in the event of George Louis visiting England, to give him an escort into London that should amount to the very significant number of some forty or fifty thousand men.
The journal of the lord-keeper, Cowper, states the official answer of the princess to all the invitations which had been agitated by the Hanoverian Tories during the year 1704 and the succeeding summer. ‘At the Queen’s Cabinet Council, Sunday, the 11th of November 1705, foreign letters read in her Majesty’s presence, the substance remarkable, that at Hanover was a person, agent to the discontented party here, to invite over the Princess Sophia and the Electoral Prince (afterwards George II.) into England, assuring them that a party here was ready to propose it. That the Princess Sophia had caused the same person to be acquainted, “that she judged the message came from such as were enemies to her family; that she would never hearken to such a proposal but when it came from the Queen of England herself;” and withal she had discouraged the attempt so much that it was believed nothing more could be said in it.’