CHAPTER V.
THE HEIRESS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 1706–1713.
Queen Anne’s invitation to the electoral family still tarried in the coming. Meanwhile the old Electress, despite her assurances to the Queen, was listening to the suggestions put forward by the English Whigs, through their emissaries in Hanover. Her favourite plan was, that though she herself, as heiress to the throne, could not visit England without an express invitation from the Queen, yet the Electoral Prince and Caroline might do so. She seems thus to have prompted her grandson to court popularity with the English at the expense of his father. The Elector placed little faith in Queen Anne, who he considered was merely playing him off against her brother, James. He had soon an opportunity of showing his displeasure publicly. An important event took place in the electoral family, which had a direct bearing upon the English succession; Caroline, on February 5th, 1707, more than a year after her marriage, gave birth to the much wished-for son and heir. Howe, the English envoy, writes: “This Court having for some time past almost despaired of the Princess Electoral being brought to bed, and most people apprehensive that her bigness, which has continued for so long, was rather an effect of a distemper than that she was with child, her Highness was taken ill last Friday at dinner, and last night, about seven o’clock, the Countess d’Eke, her lady of the bedchamber, sent me word that the Princess was delivered of a son.”[25]
Considering that, according to Act of Parliament, the infant now born was in the direct line of succession to the English crown, it was extraordinary that the English envoy should not have been present at the birth, or the event notified to him with proper ceremony; the more extraordinary when it is remembered that this was an age much given to inventing fables about the births of princes, and the lie that a surreptitious child had been introduced into the Queen Mary Beatrice’s bedchamber in a warming pan was largely relied upon by the Whigs to upset the Stuart dynasty.
THE ELECTRESS SOPHIA OF HANOVER.
This was not the only affront which the Elector put upon Queen Anne’s representative. The infant prince was christened a few days later in the Princess’s bedchamber, and given the name of Frederick Louis. The Electress Sophia was present at the ceremony, but no invitation was sent to the English envoy, nor was he allowed to see either the Princess or the infant until ten days later, and he writes home that he considers such proceedings “unaccountable”. After repeated representations, he was admitted to the Princess’s chamber, and writing home he mentions the fact, and says that he found “the women all admiring the largeness and strength of the child”. That these proceedings were directly due to the Elector may be gathered from the English envoy’s next despatch, which also shows that thus early there was bad feeling between the father and the son.
“Being at the Court,” he writes, “the other day, the Prince Electoral took me away from the rest of the company, and making great professions of duty to the Queen, he desired me that I would represent all things favourably on his side, and he was not the cause that matters were arranged at the Princess’s lying-in and the christening of the child with so little respect to the Queen, and so little regard to England. For my part I have taken no notice of it to any of them, but I think the whole proceeding has been very extraordinary. Wherever the fault is, I won’t pretend to judge.”[26]
There is little doubt that the Elector George had learned of the Electress Sophia’s and his son’s intrigues, and had determined to show his independence and his indifference to the English succession in this manner. He might have been more polite without any sacrifice of principle. But Queen Anne had to swallow the affront, and after the birth of Prince Frederick she was forced to create Prince George Augustus, Baron Tewkesbury, Viscount Northallerton, Earl of Milford Haven, Marquis and Duke of Cambridge, and to give him precedence over the whole peerage. The patent of the dukedom was sent over to the English envoy at Hanover, with instructions that he was to deliver it with ceremony. The Whigs had, however, reckoned without the Elector, who was jealous of these English honours to his son, and regarded them as a proof of his mother’s desire to oust him from the succession. When Howe notified to the Elector that the patent had arrived, and asked for an opportunity to deliver it in due form, the Elector did not condescend to reply, but sent his footman to bring it to the palace. The envoy very properly refused to deliver the Queen’s patent to such a messenger, and explained with some indignation that it was “the highest gift the Queen had to bestow”. To this representation no answer was returned, and Howe writes home complaining of the “delay and disrespect” with which the Queen’s gift was treated, and states that though he pressed repeatedly for a public audience, the Ministers could not decide upon giving him one, and he adds: “They would have me think it is the Elector’s jealousy of the Prince that would have it otherwise; the Electress is much concerned”.[27]
This difficulty continued for some time, but it was finally got over by the Electoral Prince receiving the patent privately from the English envoy, and the Prince, on the occasion of its presentation, made “many expressions of duty and gratitude for the great honour and favour the Queen had been pleased to show him. He also made many excuses, and desired me to represent that it was not his fault the receiving of the patent was not performed in the most respectful manner.”[28]
Anne again had to ignore the Elector’s affront, though she did not hesitate to quote it to the Whigs as an additional reason why she should not invite any member of the Hanoverian family to England, and, by way of marking her displeasure in a diplomatic manner, she recalled Howe, and replaced him by D’Alais, who was in every way his predecessor’s inferior; he could not speak or write the English language, and was the less likely to have any direct communication with the disaffected in England. Still Anne was compelled to disguise her dislike, and when Caroline gave birth to a daughter,[29] the Queen became godmother to the infant, who was named after her, though she contrived to distil a drop of bitterness into the cup by nominating the Duchess of Celle, who was hated by the Electress Sophia, to act as her proxy.