One can see them doing it, and the dry old Envoy—it is presumed he was a bachelor as he makes no mention of his wife—looking on, and as much at sea with regard to the “points” of a fine baby as a midwife would be at a horse show.
But this unusual secrecy about the birth—which was attributed to the child’s grandfather the Elector, afterwards George the First of England, who was not on the best of terms with Anne our reigning Queen—had another aspect. It was an age of suspicion, suspicion especially of substituted heirs, and the foolishness of not inviting the English Envoy to the birth according to custom, revolting as it would have been to a young modest wife, might have seriously prejudiced the child’s future had he not been born with, and had to struggle against, so many of those distinctive bad qualities so carefully nurtured and indulged by his father and grandfather. On a later occasion his father remarked to his mother a propos of these: “Mais vous voyez mes passions ma chère Caroline. Vous connaissez mes foiblesses.” Yes, that affectionate and long-suffering lady did know his “foiblesses” before she had been his wife very long. Thoroughly to appreciate the nest into which this unfortunate little Prince was born and christened, it is necessary to turn for a moment to the habits and customs of his father and grandfather.
Taking the latter first, the Elector and future King of England was in the habit of retaining without any concealment whatever a minimum of three mistresses. These ladies, this considerate old father-in-law expected his son’s wife to receive and treat with civility, and strange to say Caroline the Princess Electoral did it. Poor soul! She had much more than that to wink at on her own account before long owing to the before-mentioned “foiblesses” of her little husband.
The chief of her father-in-law the Elector’s little harem was a lady of the name of Schulemburg, of an ancient but poor family, who had occupied her exalted position almost from a very plain girlhood, and whose name became subsequently very well known in England.
The first George never distinguished himself as a seeker after beauty. The Schulemburg is described as a tall, thin person, quite bald, wearing a very ugly red wig, and with an uncomely face much marked with the smallpox. This disfigurement she endeavoured to cover with paint with shocking results.
The lady occupying the second position in the seraglio who bore the euphonic name of Kielmansegge, and was the separated wife of a Hamburg merchant, was of exactly opposite dimensions, bulking large with great unwieldiness, she, however, had no need to redden her cheeks, being gifted by Nature with a plenteous colour which she vainly endeavoured to assuage with layers of white powder.
The advent of this Ruler in public with either or both of these fascinating ladies under his immediate protection must have added considerably to his Electoral dignity.
The third of this honourable trio was, strange to say, a beautiful young woman, the Countess Platen, married to a man whose family seems to have provided courtesans for princes for generations, but it was so far to the Count Platen’s credit that when his wife openly became the Elector’s mistress he separated from her. This lady seems to have simply thrust herself into the old Elector’s arms, and appears for a time, at least, to have absorbed most of his superfluous elderly affection.
But about the time that little Prince Frederick Louis, the subject of these Memoirs, was about two years old, a little sister—Anne, named apparently after the Queen of England—having joined him in the nursery, a certain couple of adventurers—for they were nothing better—Henry Howard, third son of the Earl of Suffolk, with his pretty but unscrupulous wife Henrietta, made their appearance at the Court of Hanover. They had come, like many others from England, to throw in their lot with the Elector and his chances of becoming King of England, which at that time were none too sure, but still a good sporting chance.
Henry Howard and his wife had come like the others to better their fortunes, which apparently in their case had arrived at that stage when they could not well be much worse.