[3] Howe’s Despatch. Hanover, 5th Feb., 1707. From this it must be seen clearly that the Prince was born on February 4th, not on February 5th, as it has been stated.
[4] Queen Anne.
[5] The Electress Sophia, her husband’s grandmother.
CHAPTER II.
The Falling in of a Great Legacy.
On the 18th of June, 1714, the Heiress of England, the Electress Sophia of Hanover, the aged mother of that Prince Elector, who afterwards became George the First of England, and granddaughter of James the First having dined in public with her son, that is to say having taken her big German mid-day meal in the presence of the Court, went forth on the arm of her granddaughter-in-law, the Electoral Princess Caroline, to take the summer air in the beautiful gardens of the Palace of Herrenhausen.
Much had occurred during the previous twenty-four hours to upset the “Heiress of Britain” as she was proud to be called, far too much worry for an old lady in her eighty-fourth year. Even at that advanced age the glamour of the English crown fascinated her. Perhaps it was the long drawn out hope of many years, the hope that possibly had been ever before her eyes since the flight of James the Second.
She had received a letter on the previous day written by the hand of Queen Anne herself in which that royal lady had distinctly told her in the most peremptory manner in answer to a supplication to that effect, that she objected to have any member of the Electoral family in her dominions during her lifetime.
This had been a crushing blow. The old Electress had schemed, and schemed as she imagined successfully, to establish her grandson George Augustus, the Electoral Prince, with his wife in England. This would have been a masterly stroke worthy of the universal reputation for policy of so grand an old lady, and would have been as it were the planting of one foot on the land she looked upon as her rightful heritage, but fate and Queen Anne decided differently. The latter had left no room for doubt about her intentions. Writing to her confidant Leibnitz, on the 17th June, the Electoral Princess Caroline said on the subject of this letter and others:
“We were in a state of uncertainty here until yesterday, when a courier arrived from the Queen with letters for the Electress, the Elector, and the Electoral Prince, of which I can only say that they are of a violence worthy of my Lord Bolingbroke.”[6]
It is perfectly certain that Queen Anne had made herself exceedingly objectionable as even a Queen can at times, and had not possibly stayed to choose her words. Be that as it may, she had succeeded in entirely upsetting the equanimity of her “good cousin” the Electress.