During marriage festivals and court fêtes held to celebrate some step in greatness, Sophia Dorothea continued to vegetate in Ahlden. She was politically dead; and even in the domestic occurrences of her family, events in which a mother might be gracefully allowed to have a part, she enjoyed no share. The marriages of her children and the births of their children were not officially communicated to her. She was left to learn them through chance or the courtesy of individuals.
Her daughter was now the second Queen of Prussia, but the King cared not to exercise his influence in behalf of his unfortunate mother-in-law. Not that he was unconcerned with respect to her. His consort was heiress to property over which her mother had control, and Frederick was not tranquil of mind until this property had been secured as the indisputable inheritance of his wife. He was earnest enough in his correspondence with Sophia Dorothea until this consummation was arrived at; and when he held the writings which secured the succession of certain portions of the property of the duchess on his consort, he ceased to trouble himself further with any question connected with the unfortunate prisoner; except, indeed, that he forbade his wife to hold any further intercourse with her mother, by letter or otherwise.
Few and trivial are the incidents told of her long captivity. The latter had been embittered, in 1703, by the knowledge that Mademoiselle von der Schulenburg was the mother of another daughter, Margaret Gertrude, of whom the Elector was the father. This child was ten years younger than her sister, Petronilla Melusina, who subsequently figured at the Court of George II. as Countess of Walsingham, and who was the uncared-for wife of Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield.
Previous to the prohibition laid on his wife by the King of Prussia, an epistolary intercourse had been privately maintained between Sophia Dorothea and her daughter. Such intercourse had never received the King’s sanction; and when it came to his knowledge, at the period of the settlement of part of the maternal property on the daughter, he peremptorily ordered its cessation. It had been maintained chiefly by means of a Chevalier de Bar; Ludwig, a privy-councillor at Berlin; Frederick, a page of the Queen’s; and a bailiff of the castle of Ahlden. There were too many confederates in a matter so simple, and the whole of them betrayed the poor lady, for whom they professed to act. The most important agent was the chevalier: in him the duchess confided longest, and in his want of faith she was the last to believe. He had introduced himself to her by sending her presents of snuff, no unusual present to a lady in those days—though it is pretended that these gifts bore a peculiar signification, known only to the donor and the recipient. They probably had less meaning than the presents forwarded to the prisoner by her daughter, consisting now of her portrait, another time of a watch, or some other trinket, which served to pass a letter with it, in which were filial injunctions to the poor mother to be patient and resigned, and to put no trust in the Count de Bar.
The prisoner did not heed the counsel, but continued to confide in a man who was prodigal of promise, and traitorous of performance. Her hopes were fixed upon escaping, but they were foiled by the watchfulness of noble spies, who exultingly told her that her husband was a king. And it is asserted that she might have been a recognised queen if she would but have confessed that she had failed in obedience towards her husband. It is certain that a renewed, but it may not have been an honest, attempt at reconciliation was made just previous to the accession of George I., but the old reply fell from the prisoner’s lips:—‘If I am guilty, I am not worthy of him: if I am innocent, he is not worthy of me.’
The death of the Electress Sophia, in 1714, was followed very shortly after by the demise of Queen Anne. This event had taken all parties somewhat by surprise. They stood face to face, as it were, over the dying Queen. The Jacobites were longing for her to name her brother as her successor, whom they would have proclaimed at once at the head of the army. The Hanoverian party were feverish with fears and anticipations; but they had the regency dressed up and ready in the back ground, and Secretary Craggs, booted and spurred, was making such haste as could then be made on his road to Hanover, to summon King George. The Jacobite portion of the cabinet was individually bold in resolving what ought to be done, but they were, bodily, afraid of the responsibility of doing it. Each man of each faction had his king’s name ready upon his lips, awaiting only that the lethargy of the Queen should be succeeded by irretrievable death to give it joyful utterance. Anne died on the 1st of August 1714; the Jacobites drew a breath of hesitation; and in the meantime the active Whigs instantly proclaimed King George, gave Addison the mission of announcing the demise of one sovereign to another, who was that sovereign’s successor, and left the Jacobites to their vexation and their threatened redress.
Lord Berkley was sent with the fleet to Orange Polder, in Holland, there to bring over the new King; but Craggs had not only taken a very long time to carry his invitation to the monarch, but the husband of Sophia, when he received it, showed no hot haste to take advantage thereof. The Earl of Dorset was despatched over to press his immediate coming, on the ground of the affectionate impatience of his new subjects. The King was no more moved thereby than he was by the first announcement of Lord Clarendon, the English ambassador, at Hanover. On the night of the 5th of August that envoy had received an express, announcing the demise of the Queen. At two o’clock in the morning he hastened with what he supposed the joyful intelligence to Herrnhausen, and caused George Louis to be aroused, that he might be the first to salute him as King. The new monarch yawned, expressed himself vexed, and went to sleep again as calmly as any serene highness. In the morning some one delicately hinted, as if to encourage the husband of Sophia Dorothea in staying where he was, that the presbyterian party in England was a dangerous regicidal party. ‘Not so,’ said George, who seemed to be satisfied that there was no peril in the new greatness; ‘not so; I have nothing to fear from the king-killers; they are all on my side.’ But still he tarried; one day decreeing the abolition of the excise, the next ordering, like King Arthur in Fielding’s tragedy, all the insolvent debtors to be released from prison. While thus engaged, London was busy with various pleasant occupations.
On the 3rd of August the late Queen was opened; and on the following day her bowels were buried, with as much ceremony as they deserved, in Westminster Abbey. The day subsequent to this ceremony, the Duke of Marlborough, who had been in voluntary exile abroad, and whose office in command of the imperial armies had been held for a short time, and not discreditably, by George Louis, made a triumphant entry into London. The triumph, however, was marred by the sudden breaking down of his coach at Temple-Bar—an accident ominous of his not again rising to power. The Lords and Commons then sent renewed assurances of loyalty to Hanover, and renewed prayers that the lord there would doff his electoral cap, and come and try his kingly crown. To quicken this, the lower house, on the 10th, voted him the same revenues the late Queen had enjoyed—excepting those arising from the Duchy of Cornwall, which were, by law, invested in the Prince of Wales. On the 13th Craggs arrived in town to herald the King’s coming; and on the 14th the Hanoverian party were delighted to hear that on the Pretender repairing from Lorraine to Versailles, to implore of Louis to acknowledge him publicly as king, the French monarch had pleaded, in bar, his engagements with the House of Hanover, and that thereon the Pretender had returned dispirited to Lorraine. On the 24th of the month the late Queen’s body was privately buried in Westminster Abbey, by order of her successor, who appeared to have a dread of finding the old lady of his young love yet upon the earth. This order was followed by another, which ejected from their places many officials who had hoped to retain them—and chief of these was Bolingbroke. London then became excited at hearing that the King had arrived at the Hague on the 5th of September. It was calculated that the nearer he got to his kingdom the more accelerated would be his speed; but George was not to be hurried. Madame Kielmansegge, who shared what was called his regard with Mademoiselle von der Schulenburg, had been retarded in her departure from Hanover by the heaviness of her debts. The daughter of the Countess von Platen would not have been worthy of her mother had she suffered herself to be long detained by such a trifle. She, accordingly, gave her creditors the slip, set off to Holland, and was received with a heavy sort of delight by the King. The exemplary couple tarried above a week at the Hague; and, on the 16th of September George and his retinue set sail for England. Between that day and the day of his arrival at Greenwich, the heads of the Regency were busy in issuing decrees:—now it was for the prohibition of fireworks on the day of his Majesty’s entry; next against the admission of unprivileged carriages into Greenwich Park on the King’s arrival; and, lastly, one promising one hundred thousand pounds to any loyal subject who might be lucky enough to catch the Pretender in England, and who would bring him a prisoner to London.
On the 18th of September the King landed at Greenwich; and on the two following days, while he sojourned there, he was waited on by various officials, who went smiling to the foot of the throne, and came away frowning at the cold treatment they received there. They who thought themselves the most secure endured the most disgraceful falls, especially the Duke of Ormond, who, as captain-general, had been three parts inclined to proclaim the Pretender. He repaired in gorgeous array to do homage to King George; but the King would only receive his staff of office, and would not see the ex-bearer of it; who returned home with one dignity the less, and for George one enemy the more.
The public entry into London on the 20th was splendid, and so was the court holden at St. James’s on the following day. A lively incident, however, marked the proceedings of this first court. Colonel Chudleigh, in the crowd, branded Mr. Allworth, M.P. for New Windsor, as a Jacobite; whereupon they both left the palace, went in a coach to Marylebone Fields, and there fought a duel, in which Mr. Allworth was killed on the spot. This was the first libation of blood offered to the King.