In the meantime, these love-passages of young George William were productive of much unseemly mirth at Hanover, where the Bishop of Osnaburgh was keeping a not very decorous court. He was much more of a dragoon than a bishop, and indeed his flock were more to be pitied than his soldiers. The diocese of Osnaburgh was supplied with bishops by the most curious of rules; the rule was fixed at the period of the peace which followed the religious wars of Germany, and this rule was, that as Osnaburgh was very nearly divided as to the number of those who followed either church, it should have alternately a Protestant and a Romanist bishop. The result has been that Osnaburgh has had sad scapegraces for her prelates, but yet, in spite thereof, has maintained a religious respectability which might be envied by dioceses blessed with two diverse bishops at once, for ever anathematising the flocks of each other and their shepherds.
The Protestant Prince-Bishop of Osnaburgh made merry with his ladies at the wooing of his honest and single-minded brother, whom he wounded to the uttermost by scornfully speaking of Eleanora d’Olbreuse as the duke’s ‘Madame.’ It was a sorry and unmanly joke, for it lacked wit, and insulted a true-hearted woman. But it had the effect also of arousing a true-hearted man.
George William had now succeeded to the little dukedom of Zell, not indeed without difficulty, for as the ducal chair had become vacant while the next heir was absent, paying homage at Brussels to a lady rather than receiving it from his lieges in Zell, his younger brother, John Frederick, had played his lord-suzeraine a shabby trick, by seating himself in that chair, and fixing the ducal parcel-gilt coronet on his own brows.
George William having toppled down the usurper from his ill-earned elevation, and having bought off further treason by pensioning the traitor, returned to Brussels with a renewal of his former offer. He added weight thereto by the intimation, that if a morganatic marriage were consented to now, he had hopes, by the favour of the emperor, to consolidate it at a subsequent period by a legal public union, whereat Eleanora d’Olbreuse should be recognised Duchess of Zell, without chance of that proud title ever being disputed.
Thereupon a family council was holden. The poor father thought a morganatic marriage might be entered upon without ‘derogation;’ au reste, he left all to his daughter’s love, filial and otherwise. Eleanora did not disappoint either sire or suitor by her decision. She made the first happy by her obedience, her lover by her gentle concession; and she espoused the ardent duke, with the left hand, because her father advised it, her lover urged it, and the council and the suit were agreeable to the lady, who professed to be influenced by them to do that for which her own heart was guide and warrant.
The marriage was solemnised in the month of September, 1665, the bride being then in the twenty-sixth year of her age. With her new position, she assumed the name and style of Lady von Harburg, from an estate of the duke’s so called. The Bishop of Osnaburgh was merrier than ever at what he styled the mock marriage, and more unmanly than ever in the coarse jokes he flung at the Lady of Harburg. But even this marriage was not concluded without fresh concessions made by the duke to the bishop, in order to secure to the latter an undivided inheritance of Brunswick, Hanover, and Zell. His mirth was founded on the idea that he had provided for himself and his heirs, and left the children of his brother, should any be born, and these survive him, to nourish their left-handed dignity on the smallest possible means. The first heiress to such dignity, and to much heart-crushing and undeserved sorrow, soon appeared to gladden for a brief season, to sadden for long and weary years, the hearts of her parents. Sophia Dorothea was born on the 15th of September, 1666. Her birth was hailed with more than ordinary joy in the little court of her parents: at that of the bishop it was productive of some mirth and a few bad epigrams. The bishop had taken provident care that neither heir nor heiress should affect his succession to what should have been their own inheritance, and, simply looking upon Sophia Dorothea as a child whose existence did not menace a diminution of the prospective greatness of his house, he tolerated the same with an ineffable, gracious condescension.
CHAPTER II.
WIVES AND FAVOURITES.
A ducal household—Elevation in rank of the mother of Sophia Dorothea—Births and deaths—A lover for Sophia—The Bishop of Osnaburgh an imitator of the Grand Monarque—Two successful female adventurers at Osnaburgh.
Such a household as the one maintained in sober happiness and freedom from anxiety by the duke and his wife was a rare sight in German courts. The duke was broadly ridiculed because of his faithful affection for one who was worthy of all the truth and esteem which a true-hearted wife could claim. The only fault ever brought by the bitterest of the enemies of the wife of the Duke of Zell against that unexceptionable lady was, that she was over-fond of nominating natives of France to little places in her husband’s little court. Considering that the Germans, who looked upon her as an intruder, would not recognise her as having become naturalised by marriage, it is hardly to be wondered at that she gathered as much of France around her as she could assemble in another land.
Three other children were the fruit of this marriage, whose early deaths were deplored as so many calamities. Their mother lived long enough to deplore that Sophia Dorothea had survived them. The merits of the mother won, as they deserved to do, increase of esteem and affection on the part of the duke. His most natural wish was to raise her to a rank equal to his own, as far as a mere name could make assertion of such equality. It was thought a wonderful act of condescension on the part of the emperor, that he gave his imperial sanction to the elevation of the Lady of Harburg to the rank and title of Countess of Wilhelmsburg.