If George II. never in his later days named his mother, it was because the enemies of the dynasty pretended to trace in the features of the second George a likeness to Count Königsmark, his mother’s gallant cavalier! The Whigs had denied the legitimacy of the son of James II., and the Tories embraced with eagerness an opportunity to deny that of the heir of Brunswick.
The son of Sophia Dorothea was the pupil of his grandmother, Sophia of Hanover; and his boyhood did little credit to the system, or the acknowledged good sense of his instructress.
When the Earl of Macclesfield was at Hanover, in the year 1700, bearing with him that Act of Succession which secured a throne for the husband and son of Sophia Dorothea, that son, George Augustus, was not yet out of his ‘teens.’ He was of that age at which a prince is considered wise enough to rule kingdoms, but is yet incapable of governing himself. At that time he was said to ‘give the greatest hopes of himself that we, or any people on earth, could desire.’ He was not of proud stature, indeed—and Alexander was not six feet high; but Toland asserts, what is very hard to believe, that George possessed a winning countenance, and a manly aspect and deportment. In later years, he was rigid of feature, and walked as a man does who is stiff in the joints. He was, in the days of his youth, a graceful and easy speaker; that is, his phrases were well constructed, and he expressed them with facility. His complexion was fair, and his hair a light brown. Like his father, he spoke Latin fluently; and English much better than his father, but with a decided foreign accent, like William of Orange. As the utmost care was taken, according to Toland, to furnish him with such other accomplishments as are fit for a gentleman and a prince, it is a pity that he made so unprofitable a use of so desirable a provision. He was tolerably well-versed in history, but history to him was not philosophy teaching by example; for though, in his earlier years, panegyrists said of him, not only that his inclinations were virtuous, but that he was ‘wholly free from all vice,’ his life, subsequently, could not be so characterised, and the later practice marred the fair precedent. But let Toland limn the object of his love.
‘These acquired parts,’ he says, ‘with a generous disposition and a virtuous inclination, will deservedly render him the darling of our people, and probably grace the English throne with a most knowing prince.’ In the popular sense of the term, the last words cannot be denied; and yet he never knew how to obtain, or cared how to merit, his people’s love. ‘He learns English with inexpressible facility, and has not only learned of his grandmother to have a real esteem for Englishmen, but he likewise entertains a high notion of the wisdom, goodness, and power of the English government, concerning which I heard him, to my great satisfaction, ask several pertinent questions, and such as betokened no mean or common observation. I was surprised to find he understood so much of our affairs already; but his great vivacity will not let him be ignorant of anything. There is nothing more to be wished,’ says Toland, ‘but that he be proof against the temptations which accompany greatness, and defended from the poisonous infection of flatterers, who are the greatest bane of society, and commonly occasion the ruin of princes, if not in their lives, yet, at least, in their fame and reputation.’ It was under the temptations alluded to that George Augustus made shipwreck of his fame. His history, however, will be traced more fully hereafter. At present we will only consider the career and character of his sister.
The daughter of Sophia Dorothea, some years younger than her brother, was a promising girl when the Act of Succession opened a throne to her father, but not to her mother. She had in her youth sweetness of manners, fairness of features, and a soft and winning voice. Her fair brown hair, as in her mother’s case, heightened the grace and charms of a fair complexion; and her blue eyes were the admiration of the poets, and the inspiration even of those whom the gods had not made poetical. Her features, taken singly, were not without defect; but the expression which pervaded them was a good substitute for purely unintellectual beauty. The Electress Sophia was, if not her governess, the superintendent of her governesses; and the training, rigid and formal, failed in the development that was most to be desired. ‘In minding her discourse to others,’ says Toland, ‘and by what she was pleased to say to myself, she appears to have a more than ordinary share of good sense and wit. The whole town and court commend the easiness of her manners, and the evenness of her disposition; but, above all her other qualities, they highly extol her good humour, which is the most valuable endowment of either sex, and the foundation of most other virtues. Upon the whole, considering her personal merit and the dignity of her family, I heartily wish and hope to see her some day Queen of Sweden.’ This hearty wish was not to be realised. The younger Sophia Dorothea became the wife of a brute and the mother of a hero. The old paternal Seigneurie of ‘D’Olbreuse, dans le pays D’Aulnis,’ was raised to the dignity of a Countship in 1729. It became the property of Sophia Dorothea’s children, George II., King of England, and Sophia, Queen of Prussia. They, with some propriety—but probably under constraint of the law of France—made it over to the nearest French relative of Eleanora D’Olbreuse, Sophia Dorothea’s mother—Alexandre Prevost de Gayemont.
This would seem to be the end of a sad history. But the persecution of Sophia Dorothea did not terminate with her life.
A hundred and seven years after Sophia Dorothea had ended that unhappy life, her unhappy story was revived, and her memory was now made to suffer under calumny that had not been thought of in her life-time.
In the year 1833 a Swede, named Propst Wisselgren, contributed to No. 33 of the ‘Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes’ the copy of an alleged love-letter, the original of which existed, it was said, in Sophia Dorothea’s hand-writing, in the archives of the Count de la Gardie.
In the year 1836 Cramer, in his ‘Denkwürdigkeiten der Gräfin Maria Aurora von Königsmark,’ referred to this letter, and expressed his disbelief in its genuineness and authenticity.
Until 1847 the memory of Sophia Dorothea was left unassailed by any further attempt against it. In that year, however, further alleged autograph letters, not only of hers, but also others said to be written by Königsmark, appeared in the ‘Literarische Blätter für Unterhaltung.’ They were preceded by an introduction and explanations by the Swedish writer Palmblad, who had selected them, it was stated, from more than a hundred which were then in the possession of Count Stephen de la Gardie, of Löberod, in Schonen.