Though the Queen was successful, now on one pretext, now on another, in preventing the arrival of any member of the electoral family in England, the fact remained that the Hanoverian succession was the law of the land, and the Queen’s bad health made it likely that in all human probability that succession would not long be delayed. These considerations led many eminent Englishmen to cultivate good relations with the Court of Hanover, and caused many well-born adventurers, too, who had not been particularly successful at home, to journey to Herrenhausen with the object of ingratiating themselves with the electoral family against the time when they should come into their kingdom. Among these worldly pilgrims were the Howards, husband and wife. Henrietta Howard was the eldest daughter of a Norfolk baronet, Sir Henry Hobart, and had married, when quite young, Henry Howard, third son of the Earl of Suffolk, a spendthrift who possessed no patrimony, and probably married her because of her fortune of £6,000, a fair portion for a woman in that day. £4,000 of this sum was settled on Mrs. Howard, the rest her husband quickly got rid of. He was a good-looking young fellow, but dissipated and drunken, with no principles, and a violent temper. It soon became evident that he and his wife could not afford to live in England as befitted their station, and Howard’s character was so well known that he could not obtain any appointment at home; they therefore resolved to repair to Hanover, where living was much cheaper than in England, and throw in their fortunes with the electoral family.
Mrs. Howard, at the time of her arrival in Hanover, had pretensions to beauty; she was of medium height and a good figure, with pretty features and a pleasing expression. Her greatest beauty was her abundant light brown hair, as fine as spun silk. This she is said to have sacrificed, either to pay the expenses of the journey or to defray the cost of a dinner the Howards gave to certain influential Hanoverians after their arrival. They were often in great straits for money, even at Hanover. They took lodgings in the town, and duly paid their court to the “heiress of Great Britain” at Herrenhausen. The Electress Sophia was delighted with Mrs. Howard; she was English and well-born, which constituted a sure passport to her favour; she was pleasant and amiable, and, though not the prodigy of intellect some of her admirers subsequently declared her to be, she was well-informed and well-read, much more so than the Hanoverian ladies. She soon became a welcome guest in the apartments of the Electress Sophia and the Electoral Princess, where she could even simulate an interest in the philosophy of Leibniz. Mrs. Howard possessed in a consummate degree the artfulness which goes to make a successful courtier, and she knew exactly how far flattery should go.[30] Caroline grew to like her, and appointed her one of her dames du palais; she found in Mrs. Howard a companion naturally refined in speech and conduct, and thus a welcome change to the coarseness of many of the Hanoverian ladies.
But the Howards had not come all the way to Hanover to figure at the coteries of the Electress and the Electoral Princess. They sought more substantial rewards, and these they knew rested with the princes rather than the princesses of the electoral house. George Augustus, whose vanity led him to desire a reputation for gallantry, which had mainly rested on hearsay, was early attracted to Mrs. Howard, and before long spent many hours in her society. The acquaintance soon ripened into intimacy, and the lady found herself not only the servant of the Electoral Princess, but also the friend of the Electoral Prince. If we bear in mind the laxity of the manners and morals of courts in general at this time, and the Hanoverian Court in particular, it is puerile to regard this intimacy as “Platonic,” as some have described it. George Augustus was not of a nature to appreciate intellectual friendship between man and woman; and such friendships were not understood at the Court of Hanover, where Mrs. Howard, though not occupying the position of accredited mistress to the Electoral Prince, as Schulemburg did to the Elector (for she would probably have objected to such publicity), came to be universally so regarded. The fact that, despite her intimacy with George Augustus, she continued to be received by the Electress Sophia, and was still admitted to the society of the Electoral Princess, goes for nothing. Both Princesses were women of the world, and both had been reared in courts not conspicuous for their morality. The Electress Sophia had for years tolerated, nay more, had recognised and received the Countess Platen as the mistress of her husband, the late Elector, and Schulemburg as the mistress of her son, the present Elector. Her daughter, Sophie Charlotte, had followed the same policy towards the mistress of her husband, the King of Prussia, and Caroline, who had spent her childhood in the corrupt Court of Dresden, her girlhood at Berlin, and had married into the family of Hanover, was not likely to take a different line. If she had been tempted to do so, she had the fate of her unhappy mother-in-law before her eyes, who, largely in consequence of her lack of complaisance, was now dragging out her life in dreary Ahlden. At Hanover even the court chaplain would probably have found excuses for these irregularities; he would have pleaded that princes were not like other men, and as they were obliged to make marriages of policy, they were not amenable to the laws that govern meaner mortals. Caroline’s was not wholly a marriage of policy; there is abundant evidence to prove that she was attached to her husband, and he, so far as it was in his nature to be so, was devoted to her. But he must have been very tiresome sometimes, with his boasting and strutting, his silly vanity and absurd stories, his outbursts of temper and his utter inability to understand or sympathise with the higher side of her nature, and she was doubtless glad when he transferred some of his society to Mrs. Howard, provided always that Mrs. Howard kept her place. To do Mrs. Howard justice, she showed no desire to vaunt herself, or take advantage of the intimacy. She must indeed have been content with very small things, for the Electoral Prince, like his father, was mean; but had he been generous, he had at this time neither money to give nor patronage to bestow, the rewards were all in the future. The Electress Sophia was pleased rather than otherwise with her grandson’s intimacy with Mrs. Howard: “It will improve his English,” she is reported to have said. Regarding such affairs as inevitable she thought he could not have chosen better than this lady, who had a complaisant husband, and whose conduct to the world was a model of propriety, verging on prudishness.
Caroline, at any rate, accepted the situation with philosophy. She knew her husband’s weaknesses and made allowance for them. She had greater things to occupy her mind than his domestic irregularities, for, though outwardly indifferent to the English succession, she was in reality keenly concerned about it. She did not dare to show her interest too prominently, for the Electoral Prince had his own views on the subservience of women generally, and wives in particular, and was jealous of his wife taking any public part in politics, lest it should be said that she governed him, as in fact she did. To better qualify herself for her future position, Caroline took into her service a girl from England, but born in Hanover, named Brandshagen, who read and talked English with her daily. It is a pity that she did not engage a native-born Englishwoman while she was about it, as such a teacher might have corrected the future Queen’s English, which was impaired by a marked German accent until the end of her life.
Queen Anne showed her interest in Caroline, or at least her knowledge of her existence, by frequently sending her “her compliments” through the English envoy, and, a little tardily, she sent over a present to Hanover for her godchild, the Princess Anne, and a letter full of good wishes.
Within the next few years Caroline gave birth to two more daughters, Amelia and Caroline.[31] The Queen of England sent neither gifts nor letters on the occasion of their birth, nor took any notice of them. For the state of political parties had now changed in England, and with the change the need of conciliating the Hanoverian family had receded into the background.
The popular feeling expressed at the time of Sacheverell’s trial had shown the Queen that the nation was weary of the Whigs, and when the new Parliament met in November, 1710, it was found that the Tory party largely predominated, and sweeping changes were made in the Ministry. Harley, Earl of Oxford, became Lord Treasurer, and stood highest in the Queen’s confidence; St. John, shortly afterwards created Viscount Bolingbroke, became Secretary of State; and the Duke of Ormonde, a noted Jacobite, was appointed to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. Anne had broken at last with the imperious Duchess of Marlborough, and had taken a new favourite, one Abigail Hill, afterwards Lady Masham, whose interest was all for the Tories. Marlborough still retained command of the army, but resigned all the places held by his duchess, and absented himself from court.
It is difficult to follow Anne’s mind at this time, or the tortuous policy of her Ministers with regard to the Hanoverian succession, since one act contradicted another, and one utterance was at variance with the next. There must have been some hard lying on both sides, and there was certainly no standard of political honour, morality or truth. The Queen’s health was bad, and her life uncertain, and the policy of most of her Ministers was dictated by the wish to stand well with both claimants to the throne, so that they might be on the safe side whatever happened. Such, at least, was the policy of Oxford, who was personally in favour of the Hanoverian succession, yet corresponded with Marshal Berwick for the restoration of the Stuart dynasty, on condition of Anne retaining the crown for life, and due security being given for religious and political freedom. Marlborough, on the other hand, while corresponding with St. Germains, did not scruple to approach the Electress Sophia with assurances of absolute devotion, and to denounce Oxford and Bolingbroke as traitors desirous of placing James on the throne of England. Marlborough frequently visited Hanover, and in return for his support, and also because he favoured the continuance of the war between the Allies and France, the Elector upheld Marlborough’s command of the English army in Flanders.
England, however, was weary of the war, which had been dragging on for years, and had cost her thousands of men and millions of money, without her having any direct interest in it, however advantageous its prosecution might be to the Elector of Hanover and others. The Tory Ministry, upon reflection, determined to withdraw England from the Allies, and to make peace with France, partly, no doubt, because this policy would be the means of breaking the power of Marlborough. The death of the Emperor Joseph, which occurred in 1711, furnished an excuse for England to reconsider her position and to begin negotiations for peace. Queen Anne addressed a personal letter to the Electress Sophia, and sent it by Lord Rivers, praying her to use her influence to promote the peace of Europe. But the Electress was much hurt by the Queen’s behaviour, and the fact that, after all these years of effort, neither she nor any member of her House had yet been invited to England, and she replied very coldly. The interests of Hanover were all in favour of the prosecution of the war, and of England continuing her share, or more than her share, of the burden, so the Elector departed from his usual policy of abstention in English affairs, to oppose both the Queen and her Ministers. He even went so far as to instruct his envoy, Bothmar, who had come over to London with Marlborough, to present a memorial against the peace. This was regarded as an unwarrantable interference on the part of a foreign prince with English affairs, and both the Queen and the House of Commons were extremely indignant. The House of Lords, which had a Whig majority, supported Marlborough and the Elector, but the Queen, to overcome their opposition, created twelve new peers, and, supported by popular feeling, triumphed all along the line. Bothmar was denounced by Bolingbroke as a “most inveterate party man,” and the Queen insisted on his recall. Marlborough was dismissed from all his employments, and retired to Antwerp in disgrace. England withdrew from the Allies, and the Peace of Utrecht was signed, after protracted negotiations, on March 31st, 1713. There is no need to enter here into the question of its merits or demerits; it will suffice to say that the peace was undoubtedly popular in England, and, when proclaimed, was hailed by the people with demonstrations of joy.
