“I was very sorry,” she writes, “that the ill weather did not permit me to see Herrenhausen in all its beauty, but in spite of the snow I think the gardens very fine. I was particularly surprised at the vast number of orange trees, much larger than any I have ever seen in England, though this climate is certainly colder.”[11]
It appears from the account in Mr. Wilkins’ “Caroline the Illustrious,” that King George enjoyed himself immensely during this 1716 visit to Hanover, and that he found much pleasure in the society of the beautiful but unscrupulous Countess Platen, from whom he had been separated for two years. Lady Mary Montagu herself, too, was not without favour in His Majesty’s eyes. The King-Elector, however, had also brought with him the remainder of the harem, viz., Schulemburg and Kielmansegge, with the two Turks presumably to look after them.
Yet with all this trouble around him King George found life pleasurable. In the above account Lord Peterborough, who was in his suite, is represented as remarking of him that “he believed he had forgotten the accident which happened to him and his family on the 1st August, 1714.”
But time passed on, and the King returned once more to England, leaving his little nine-year-old grandson to the tender care, officially, of his brother Ernest Augustus and his governors, but unofficially to the society of such grooms and hangers-on of the palace who could throw themselves, to the boy’s ruin, in his way.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu to the Countess of Bristol, 25th November, 1716. Wilkins’ “Caroline.”
[10] A celebrated waxwork show in London at that time.
[11] Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu to the Lady Rich, Hanover, 1st December, 1716. From Wilkins’ “Caroline.”
CHAPTER IV.
In which England gets a New King and Queen.
George the First died on the 10th of June, 1727, while in a travelling carriage ascending a hill near Ippenburen on the road to Hanover, of a fit brought on by a too-free indulgence in melons. These he unfortunately ate on the previous night while supping at the house of a local nobleman, the Count de Twittel.