THE ALTSTADT, HANOVER.
The King who had been at Hanover five months now made ready to return to England.[51] He had greatly enjoyed his visit to the Electorate, and had given several fêtes, including a farewell masquerade in the gardens of Herrenhausen, where the hedges of clipped hornbeam acted as screens and the grass as a carpet; the whole scene was illuminated by coloured lights.[52] The King followed at Hanover the same clockwork rule he had established in England. “Our life is as uniform as that of a monastery,” wrote one of the King’s English retinue who was lodged at the Leine Schloss. “Every morning at eleven and every evening at six we drive in the heat to Herrenhausen through an enormous linden avenue; and twice a day cover our coats and coaches with dust. In the King’s society there is never the least change. At table, and at cards, he sees always the same faces, and at the end of the game retires into his chamber. Twice a week there is a French theatre; the other days there is a play in the gallery. In this way, were the King always to stop in Hanover, one could take a ten years’ calendar of his proceedings, and settle beforehand what his time of business, meals, and pleasure would be.”
It was during this visit of George the Second to Hanover that his dispute with the King of Prussia came to a crisis. The King of England resented the King of Prussia’s connivance at his son Frederick’s disobedience, but he could hardly make that the ostensible pretext for a quarrel, so he raked up the old grievance of the Prussians having kidnapped some of his tall Hanoverians for the Potsdam regiment of guards, and so violent grew the altercation, and so insulting were the messages of the King of Prussia, that the choleric little George sent him word challenging him to single combat at any place he would name, and leaving him the choice of weapons. It would have been a boon to Europe in general, and to England and Prussia in particular, if these two royal combatants had met and killed one another as they threatened to do, but unfortunately such a desirable consummation was prevented by Lord Townshend, whose remonstrances resulted in a compromise being patched up between the illustrious cousins. In fact, so amicably were matters settled that pretended negotiations were again set on foot for the marriage of the Prince of Wales with Wilhelmina. The Prince professed himself most eager for the match, and wrote to Hotham, the special envoy at Berlin: “Please, dear Hotham, get my marriage settled, my impatience increases daily, for I am quite foolishly in love”. Wilhelmina, however, says that she did not credit these romantic sentiments, and she thought they were due rather to obstinacy than love. Her father was quite indifferent as to whether the Prince of Wales’s desire to wed his daughter proceeded from love or obstinacy; all he wished was that Wilhelmina should be taken off his hands, and given a suitable establishment. King George had the same feeling about Amelia, whom he still desired to marry to the Crown Prince. The King of Prussia’s answer to this was: “I will agree to my son’s marriage if he is made Regent of Hanover, and allowed to direct the management of the electorate till my death, and if provision is made for his maintenance”. These terms were, of course, impossible, and the matter came to an end.
The King quitted Hanover with regret, and commanded that everything should remain at Herrenhausen precisely the same as when he was there. The pomp and circumstance of the electoral court suffered no abatement in his absence; the splendid stables containing eight hundred horses were maintained at their full strength, and the chamberlains, court marshals, and others continued to receive their full salaries. The King appointed no regent over the electorate in his absence; his uncle, the Duke of York was dead, and his son, the Prince of Wales, was now in England, so he placed the government of the electorate in the hands of a council of regency, and as a substitute for his own most gracious presence at the levées the King’s portrait as Elector was placed upon the vacant throne in the state room at Herrenhausen. Every Saturday a levée was held as though the Elector (for they did not officially recognise the King of England at Hanover) had been there, and the courtiers assembled and made their bow to the picture on the chair of state just as though it had been the Elector himself. This absurd ceremony continued through George the Second’s reign, except when he was at Hanover.
The King landed at Margate on September 11th, and at once posted to London, where his Queen and Regent was eagerly expecting him. So anxious was she that when the outriders came on ahead to Kensington Palace to announce that the King was nearing London, the Queen set out on foot, accompanied by all her children, and walked from Kensington, through Hyde Park, down Piccadilly to St. James’s Park where she met the King’s coach. The King stopped, alighted, and heartily embraced his consort in the sight of all the people. Then he helped her back into the coach, when they drove off to Kensington together amid the cheers of the populace, followed by other coaches containing the King’s suite and the princes and princesses. The devotion which the Queen showed to the King and the evident affection he bore her are the best features (one might almost say the only good features), of the Court of England at this period. Peter Wentworth, who writes to his brother of this royal meeting, says: “The King is happily arrived.... You see I am got into the prints by the honour the Queen did me, alone of all her servants, to send me to meet the King. I was the only gentleman servant with her when she walked, Monday se’nnight, with all her royal children, from Kensington Gardens quite to the island of St. James’s Park. Passages there are better told than writ, which I design myself the honour to do very soon—though I find virtue retires no more to cottages and cells, but secure of public triumph and applause, she makes the British Court her imperial residence.”
The next day, at a meeting of the Privy Council, the Queen, kneeling, delivered her commission of regency back into the King’s hands, and rendered him an account of her stewardship.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER V:
[39] Daily Post, 5th July, 1729.
[40] Lord Townshend to Poyntz, 14th June, 1728.