MASTER NEGA TIVE NO . 92 -8061 MICROFILMED 1 992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK „_ , . ^ as part of the foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" ■KT . rT,x^. Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material . . . Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR : DORAN, JOHN TITLE: LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND OF THE .. PLACE: NEW YORK DA TE : 1855 Master Negative # COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Restrictions on Use: Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record "•pI'TtT- j WlW I'T"! '"1 I ttma ■ I . " t ■ W m ■ > » '• * ii ' i i| » 942 D726 Doran, John, 1807-1878. \ Lives of the queens of England of the house of Han- ; over. By Dr. Doran ... London, B, BQntloy ,,1855, L Gt Brit — Queens. 8. Hanover, House of. Library of Congress u ft-2678 DA4S3JMD7 ^~ . i. '!!' * -.^~.lS^SSf^9r9gvtmmm0r^!W'9T'. TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: FILM SIZE: 3.^'. IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA (U^ /IB ; IIB ^ ^ DATE FILMED: ^Jl2j32^— INITIALS LlSrS //y HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. CT c Association for information and image IManagement 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 12 3 4 l.ll Ml! Mlllllllllllllll|llll|llll J 6 liiiii 8 Inches 9 10 11 12 13 "■" ■ "" 14 15 mm iliiiiliiiiliiiil 1.0 1^ 1 2.8 2.5 L£ J— ^ Ui |J1 Hill 9 9 I.I 1^ 1 LS, 1.4 2.0 1.8 1.6 1.25 TTTJT 5 m MfiNUFRCTURED TO flllM STRNDfiRDS BY RPPLIED IMRGE, INC. Columbia ©nibemtp intfjeCitpofiJetDl^orb MHRARY * Works by Dr. Do ran, uniform with LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND." I. Just Published, HABITS AND MEN, OR REMNANTS OF RECORD, TOUCHING THE MAKERS OF BOTH. 1 Tol. Price $1. II. TABLE TRAITS : WITH SOMETHING ON THEM. In One Vol. I'^roo Pric« $1 'JJ PUBLISHED BY J. S. REDFIELD, NEW YORK. QUEENS OF ENGLAND OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER BY DR. DORAN, AUTHOR OP "HABIT* AND M E .V ," "TABLE T B A I T 8 ," ET IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. L REDFIELD NO. 34 BEEK.M AN-STREET, NEW YORK 1855 I «t«%^ i# 9^ \ ^ t •* |v 1 u INTRODUCTION. In the reign of George II. there lived a Win.hir- .1 Methue,, who had a passion for r^ttThf ! ^J'"'"'' "^""J P»"l .in.e. Queen CaroUne loved to tl.;^^: o'n hL :X.?''!, "■"!," "' "" h.n, what he had la« been reading " May U^leL r"""^ ^'""^ Paul..., have hcen reading a poof boo "on a p^^^ ^ t^"" '"'. queens of Enrrland " 4« far r,« »k« r. .. , suDject,— the kings and p.rhap..bef„t.nd.ohat:„: r'r^^^^^^^^^ Mcthuen'8 words to Carolme If »„? w --^ catalogued in Paul characterizing, it win p::^,; be thZC::?:" 7','"" k"""' ""=' writer, who were sometime' the wTne«es of a^T ,k" "' """'"" scene, they describe. Whatever therT? f " ""* '^" '"• ""> found, and I have no part the 1 I " ' f,T"l: " " °°'^ "-"« •« ^^ "emen, who nightly rttendeH^iab eTartt 'whirhr b "" "'" ''r" ^"- «elve», they took their wittiest slave, t/ T ' *'"« "'""'* """n- ;he.aughtrandappi:ur::rm;re;trp":^tt:r^^^^^ I could find an eye-witness, I have allowed him to snell 7 ^^^""" some length, for I question if one could „a„™elatn '"""'""^"y »' that is. more truly.-than Ulysses himself "'^'"'' ''"' '*"*'•- It IS hardly necessaiy for me to add that I have nn. „-.k . of alarm at my own boldness, taken up a ttme "lich kast" """' '"""^ treated by MUs Strickland, and, in th'e " QTelnl before th! r" '""'""^ "Ptntedly, by Mrs. Matthew Hall. When I th^k of^ie el T'"' "" the volumes of the latter, and the pictorial pr«etsi„„ tf I ^"'"'*' " those of the former lady, and comnare with ^^ "^ "" 'P"''- " and incidents, I am reminded ofTh S ti nTairtoT """"•.-«"»'"• and the well-read monk whom be had taken goss.pmg knight '» tell, by turns the histlrlTf '"""""" ^-" ' """"i y™ both ^riK : . ^ °^ y°"' ""™ "at ve land. You sir Pri... j •cnbe It wiselv and well • »l,;i. . • i, . . ' "' J^nest, de- H« and leave' a to^JftatrTtrJ^^r '^iZ.'X:: "" "- much .„ be told of the royal ladies whose names arVrn^2d „„ .hi " of these volumes ; and should the long-desired but nM . ! ''^" INTRODUCTION. Cphc„, ana ,0 able a co.n.entato, on ^--J^\^Zl::>"J^e^y Everett Green, I shall feel more '^an ever and mde«l.haU ^^^ ^^^_ resigned to feel. «hat sort of honor BtbuluB "J^y"" ™\„„,,, „ff„ing ,0 dedicate to ^^^^ ^^^^^_ ^gQ p g^ _ ^ One .ho is too well endowed, .eotally. not to a. once ^^^^^^ ■defects, yet too kindly affectioned to be o'"'-- "^ f;; f„ „, .. ,„„ "i^ire'tr;: zriz; rr hands\f .» obu^ed ana grateful friend, ^^j, AUTHOR. LIVES OF THB QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA, OF ZELL, WIFE OF GEORGE I. Du GliLnzende ist nicht immer du Bessere. KoTZEBTTB, Brudcr MoriU. CHAPTER I. GEORGE OP BRUNSWICK-ZELL AND ELEANORE D OLBREUSE. When George the First ascended the throne of England, the heralds, with an alacrity at once officious and official, proceeded to furnish him with that sort of greatness without profit and with- out value, which it is part of their profession to provide for those who are weak enough to need it, and wealthy enough to pay for it. They, in other words, provided him with an ancestry ; and they constructed that crane's foot roll which the Normans knew by the name of a " pied de grue," and which pretended, with pleasant disregard of truth, that his Majesty, who had few god-like virtues of his own, was descended from that deified hero, Woden, whose virtues, according to the bards, were all of a god-like quality. Now, George Louis of Brunswick-Lunebourg, with respect to AV^oden, was, as Dumas remarks, of a questionable great-grand- son of Charlemagne, " un descendent bien descendu." The two 6 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. • had little in common, save lack of true-heartedness towards their wives. The more modest builders of ancestral pride, who ventured to water genealogical trees for all the branches of Brunswick to bud upon — before the princes of the family so named ever hoped to sit in the seat of the Conqueror and Ca^ur de Lion, did not dig deeper for a root, or go farther for a fountain head than, into the Italian soil, of the year 1028. Even then, they found nothing more or less noble than a certain Azon d'Este, Marquis of Tuscany, who having little of sovereign about him, except his will, joined the banner of the Emperor Conrad, and hoped to make a fortune in Germany, either by cutting throats, or by subduing hearts whose owners were heiresses of unencumbered lands. Azon was as irresistible in held and bower as his almost name- sake, Azor, of the fairy tide, and not only did this truly designated soldier of fortune Avin a name by liis sword, but a heart by his tongue. He was doubly lucky, it may be added, in his bride, for when he espoused Cunegunda of Guelph, he married a lady who. was not only wealthy, but who had the additional attraction and adviintj^e of being the last of her race. The household was, con- sequently, a happy one, and when there appeared an heir to its honors in the person of Guelph d'Este the Robust, the vaticma- ting court-poet foretold brilliant fortunes for his house, yet failed to see the culminating brillmncy which awaited it in Britain, beyond their ken. It is singular, howe^^r. to see how soon the Guelplis of Este became connected with Britain. This same Prince - Robust," of whom I have just spoken, when he had come to man's estate, wooed no maiden heiress as his father had done, but won the wid- owed sister-in-bw of our ^eat Harold. The lady in question was Judith, daughter of Baldwin de Lisle, Count of Flanders, and widow of Tftjtic, Earl of Kent. He took her by the hand while she was yet seated under the shadow of her gl^at sorrow, and looking up at Guelph the Robust, she smiled and was comforted. Guelph was less satisfactorily provided with wealth than the comely Judith, but in the days m which he lived provision was easily made, were he who needed it only in favor with the impe- SOPHIA DOKOTHEA. 7 rial magician, at whose word fortunes rose, disappeared, and were transferred from one prince to another without troublmg the leri>e, solemnly declared that God was great — by way of inapplicable comment ui)on the legend of the seven brothers — and swore that it would be worth while to go on foot from Byzantium to Brunswick only to look at them ! The heir-apparent of this marriage was Frederick Ernest Au- gustus, who, in 1658, married Sophia, the daughter of Frederick and Elizabeth, the short-lived King and Queen of Bohemia ; the latter the daughter of James I. The eldest cliild of this marriaore was George Loui??; who ultimately became King of Great Britain, and who was then discovered, as I have said, to Ije a descendant 1* / 10 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 11 of Woden. He at least espoused a lady who, by the mother's side, was less heroically, yet not less honorably, descended. When Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, the Roman Catholic religion in France achieved neither a less sanguinary, nor a less melancholy, nor a less vaunted triumph, than it did on the bloody day of the never-to-be-forgotten St. Bartholemew. Those who refused to be converted were executed or imprisoned. Some found safety, with suffering, in exile ; and confiscation made beg- gars of thousands. When towns, where the Protestants were in the majority, exhibited tardiness in coming over to the king's way of thinking, dragoons were ordered thither, and this order was of such significance, that when it was made known, the population* to escape massacre, usually professed recantation of error in a mass. This daily accession of thousands who made abjuration under the sword, and walked thence to confession and reception of the Sacra- ment under an implied form in which they had no faith, was de- scribed to the willingly-duped king by the ultra bishops as a mir- acle as a«^tounding as any in Scripture. Of some few individuals, places at court for themselves, commis- sions for their sons, or honors which sometimes little deserved the name, for their daughtei-s, made, if not converts, hypocrites. Far greater was the number of the goooint, seeing that that had reference to the question of the succes- sion of the House of Brunswick to the throne of Great Britain. But as this question was not one of a "much vexed" character, the time passed by Platen with his sovereign master afforded him ample leisure to talk of his wife, praise her political abilities, and over-eulogize her, as men and women do the consorts for whom they have no cause to bear an over-heaped measure of respect. The Prince Bishop felt his curiosity excited to behold and study more neariy this phoenix of a woman. The curiosity of such a sovereign a loyal subject would, of course, be eager to gratify. It 24 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGI^ND. ;.., .Wore, tUe ^^^^ZZ^^ thus reached. , husband had ad- ThP ladv lo^t no tune in justifymg aU that ner nusuoi rounu.uui.v T,i .„„ Tint " tlftbe in Hercules arms . diplomatic Madame von Platen. Bu lleDe in i is very well in statuary, and " Dido wUl. iEneas may be attract We oTcInva..V.le the love adventures of Arthur and die ad ven- urous and liberal love of Gt.inever may amuse us jn l>aUad.,-but there h a liM.t of reality that does not daz.le us l.ke the light of romance Jull in such illumination is reve.Ued to us the picture TbH OP Emest and Elizabeth von Platen. A more shameless foupl nev!^^^^^^ at the tribunal of judgment; but if they were : aimed of their own iniquity, therein Kes no --J^^ - should detail it. Quite sufficient will it be to remark that it had i„ reward; and if the wages of sin, in tins ^!-^' ^^''^[^^""^^l a death, they were at least quite as retributive, and not the more " mTn Alcides submitted to take the distaff of Omphale, and lui- oomJrninMy endured to be buffeted by her slipiH>r, he on^y af- foSTn iulstration of how i»wer may playfully -^^k-tsetf the sUve of weakness,-there is even something pretty in the pictur^ IHs strong man j-ielding to womanly influence ; and the picture only cease: to be heroic, without ceasing to be of an amiable asp^c^ Then the chief chanicter is poor, sickly, Cowper, winding up cotton in rpph for ffood Mrs. Unwin. Bu; the obese Ernest Augustus in the hands of the youthM Ehzabethvon Platen, reminds me of nothing so ^^^^ j^/J ^^^^^ « Lion in Love," deservedly having his claws dipped by the clever object of liis ridiculous adoration: the fate of the lion wa. also tha of the Bishop. He wa^ not, indeed, a man of weak mind, but that SOPHIA l;OUOTilEA. 25 of Madame von Platen was still stronger. He could rule his mm- istcr, but not his minister's wife ; and most appropriately might he have made paraphrastic application of the line in Othello, and have declared his consciousness \nth a sigh, that his " general's wife was now the general.'* CHAPTER HL TUE BllUNSWICKER IN ENGLAND. "While all was loose and lively at the court of the Bishop, there was only the daily routine of simple pleasures and duties to mark tlie course of events at the modest court of the Duke of Zell. The monotony of the latter locality was, however, agreeably inten-upted by the arrival there of his Serene Highness Prince Augustus Wil- liam of Wiilfenbuttel. He had just been edified by what he had witnessed during his brief sojourn in the episcopal circle of Osna- burgli, where he had seen two ladies exercising a double influence, jMjidame von Platen ruling her hu.-band and his master, while her sister Caroline von Busche was equally obeyed by her consort and his Highness George Louis, the Bishop's son. Prince^ Augustus of Wolfeiibuttel was the brother of that early suitor of the little Sophia Dorothea, who had met a soldier's death at the siege of Philipsburg. He was, like his brother, not as rich in gold i)ieces as in good qualities, and was more wealthy in vir- tues tlum in acres. He was a bachelor prince, with a strong incli- nation to lay down his bachelorsliip, at the feet of a lady who would, by addition of her dowr}', increase the greatness and material com- forts of both. Not tliat Augustus of Wolfenbuttel was mercenary ; he was simply prudent. A little piincely state m Germany cost a great deal to maintain, and when the errant Prince went forth in search of a lady with a dower, his last thought was to offer him- self to one who had no heart, or who had no place in his own. If there was some system, a little method, and an air of business about the passion and pnnciple of the puissant Prince Augustus, something thereof must be laid to the charge of the times, and a 2 26 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. little to the princely matter-of-fact good sense : he is a wise and a merciful man, who, ere he comes to conclusions with a lady, on the chapter of matrimony, first weighs prospects, and establishes, as far as in him lies, a security of sunshine. Augustus of Wolfenbuttel had long suspected that the sun of his future home was to be found at Zell, and in the person of his young cousin Sophia Dorothea. Even yet tradition exists among Bnmswick maidens as to the love-passages of this accomplished and handsome young couple. Those passages have been enlarged for the purposes of romance-writers, but divested of jtU exaggera- tion, there remains enough to prove, as touching this pair, that they were well assorted both as to mind and person ; that their inclina- tions were towards each other ; and that they were worthy of a better fiite than that wliich fell upon the honest and wann affection which reigned in the hearts of both. The love of these cousins was not the less ardent for the fiict of its being partially discouraged. The Duke of Zell looked upon the purpose of Prince Augustus with an imfavorable eye. He had indeed nothing to object to the suitor's person, character, position, or prospects. 116 did not deny thfit >Wth such a husband, his daughter midit secure that which Monsieur Necker's daughter has designated as woman's sole blessing, happiness in the married state; but then that suitor was the successor of a dead brother, who had been the prosecutor of a similar suit. The simple-minded Duke had an unfeigned superstitious awe of the new lover ; and the idea of consenting to a match under the circumstances as they presented themselves, seemed to him tantamount to a species of sacrilege outraging the manes and memorj' of the defunct kinsman. But then, on the other hand, the Duke loved his daughter, and the daughter assuredly loved Augustus of AVolfenbuttel ; and, added thereto, the good Duchess Eleanora was quite disposed to see the cherished union accomplished, and to besfbw her benediction upon the well-favored pair. Altogether, there were strong odds against the opposition of a father, which rested on no better foundation than a tripod, if one may so speak, of whim, doubt, and a fear of ghosts, lie was influenced, possibly, by his extensive reading in old legendai-y ballad-lore, metrical and melancholy German ro- SOPUIA DOROTHEA. 27 mances, the commonest incident in which is the interruption of a marriage ceremony by a spiritual personage professing priority of right. It was not without infinite trouble that the lovers and the Duch- ess succeeded in breaking down the opposition of the Duke. Even when his reluctant consent had been given, he was everlastingly- bringing forward the subject of the departed suitors, until liis re- marks became as wearisome as the verses of the German author, who wrote a poem of three hundred lines in length, all about pigs, and every word of which began with the letter P. The opi)osition to the marriage was not, however, all sunnounted Avhen the antagonism of the Duke had been successfuUy overcome A father may be accounted for something even in a German duke- dom ; but a mistress may be stronger, and Madame von Platen has the credit of having carried out her opposition to the match to a very successful issue. It is assorted of this clever lady, that she was the first who caused the Bishop of Osnaburgli thoroughly to comprehend that Sophia Dorothea would form a verj- desirable match for his son George Louis. The young lady had lands settled on her which might as well be added to the territoiy of that electoral Hanover of which the IVince-Bishop was soon to be the head. Every acre added to the possessions of the chief of the family would be by so much an increase of dignity, and little sacrifices were worth making to effect great and profitable results. The worthy pair, bishop and female prime minister, immediately proceeded to employ every conceivable engine whereby they might destroy the fortress of the hopes of Sophia Dorothea and Augustus of Wolfenbuttel. They cared for nothing, save that the hand of the former should be con- ferred upon the Bishop's eldest son ; that George who was subse- quently our George I., and who had as little desire to be matched with his cousin, or his cousin with him, as kinsfolk can have who cordiallv detest each other. George Louis wls not shaped for a lover. He was not indeed a> defonned as Prince Riquet with the tuft, but neither was he possessed of that legendary prince's wit, refinement, and most win- ning ways. George Louis was mean in person and character. 28 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. Epaminondas ^vas little more than a dwarf, but then he was a giant measured by the stature of his worth. Not so this he.r of great hopes ; he was the loixl of small virtues ; and his msignifi- cance of person was insijrnifieant only beeause it bore not about it any manly stamp, or outward promise of an inward merit. George was brave indeed ; to none of the princes of the House of Bruns- wick can be denied the possession of bravery. In aU the bloody and useless wars of the period, he had distinguished himself by his dauntless coura-e and his cool self-possession. I have intimated that he was not heroic, but I may correct the phrase ; he really looked heroic at the head of Uis scpiadron, charging across the bat- Ue-lield, and carrving his sword and his fringed tuid feathered hat into the very thickest of the fray, where the thunder was loudest, and death revelled amid the incense of villanous saltpetre. He did not fail, it may be added, in one of the characteristics of brav- ery, humanity on the field. He had no great heart for the common sufterings, or the mental angui^h, of othei-s ; but for a wounded foe he had I thorough English respect, and he no more dreamed of the Muscovite officers' fashion of massacring the helpless wounded enemy than he did of the ^lillennium. OiU of the field of battle George Louis was an extremely ordi- nary personage, except in his vices. I le wa^ coarsely-minded and coarsely-spoken, and his profligacy was so extreme of character, — it bore about it so little of what Lord Chestei-field recommended when he said, a man might be gentlemanlike even in his vices, that even the Bishop, easy as he was both as parent and prelate, and rich as he was himself in evil eximi[)le to a son who needed no such warrant to plunge headlong into sin, — even the Bi>hop felt uncomfortable for a while. He thought, however, as easy fathei-s do sometimes think, that marriage would cure profligacy. When we read in German ballads of pure young girls being sacri- ficed to monsters, the meaning probably is, that they are given, unconsulted and unheeded, to lords and masters who are odious to them. George Louis was now in his twenty-second year. He was bom in 16G0, and he luid recently acquired increase of importance from the fact of his sire liuving succeeded to the paternal estates, SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 29 grandeur, and expectations of his predecessor, Duke John Freder- ick. The latter was on his way to Rome, in 1679, a city which he much loved, holding in respect a good portion of what is taught there. He was proceeding thither with a view of a little more^of pleasure and something therewith of instruction, when a sudden attack of ilhiess carried him off, and his death excited as much grief In the Bishop as it possibly could in a son who had little rev- erence for his sire, and by whose death he profited largely. When tlie Bishop, as a natural consequence of his death, estab- lished a gayer court at H;uiover than had ever yet been seen there, became sovereign duke, made a sovereign duchess of his wife Sophui, of whom I shall have to speak more at large, in a future page, and raised George Louis to the rank of a "Crown Prince," a title given to many heirs who could inherit nothing but coro- nets,— the la^t-named individual began to consider speculatively as to what royal lady he might, with greatest prospect of advantage to himself, make offer of his hand. At the time here spoken of, it will be remembered that Charle-s IL was King in England. The King's brother, James, Duke of York, had a daughter, a certain " lady Anne," who is better kno>Mi to us all by her after-title, in which there is undeniable ti'uth sea- soned by a little flattery, of "good Queen Anne." Li the year 1G80, George of Hanover came over to England with matrimonial views respecting that young Princess. He had on his way visited "William of Orange, at the Hague ; and when that calculating Prince was made the confidential depository of the views of Georo-e Louis respecting the Princess Anne of England, he listened with much complacency, but is suspected of having forthwith set on foot the series of intrigues which, helped forward by Madame von Pla- ten, ended in the recall of (Jeorge from P:ngland, and in his hap- less marriage with the more hapless Sophia Dorothea. George of Hanover left the Hague with the conviction that he hjid a fi-iend in William ; but William was no abettor of marriages with the Princess Anne, and least of all could he wish success to the hereditarj^ prince of Hmiover, whose union with one of the heiresses of the British throne might, under certain contingencies, miserably mai- his o\ni prospect*. The case is very succinctly put 80 LIVES OF THE QUEEXS OF ENGLAND. SOrillA DOROTHEA. 31 by Miss Strickland, who makes allusion to the subject of tlus vi.it and contemplated marriage in her life of Mary, the wife ot A\ il- liam. ''If George of Hanover married Anne ot lork, luid the Prmcess of Orai^'e died first, without oftspring (a.s she actually did), William of Orange would have liad to give way before their prior claims on the succession ; to prevent wliich he set at work a threefold series of intrigues, in the household of his sister-m-law, at the court of Hanover, and that of Zell." The plot was as com- plicated as any in a Spanish comedy, and it is as hard to unravel. A history of Brunswick, published anonymously soon after the accession of George I. to the crown of these realms, asserts that the Prince arrived in this countiy to prosecute his suit to the Princess Anne, who had just been somewhat unexpectedly de- prived of another lover, on the 17th of November, 1G80. The Sidney Diaiy tixes his amval at Greenwich on the 6th of Decem- ber of that year. England was much disturbed at the time by a double subject of discussion. INIen's minds were much occupied ' with the question of excluding from the succession to the throne Jiunes, the father of the lady to whom George came a-wooing. The second subject of disquietude was the trial of Lord Viscount Stafford, who was then in process of bi'ing slowly murdered by a judicial trial, on a charge of conspiring the death of the King. The charge was supi>orted by the oaths, made with alacrity, of that pupifof whom Merchant Taylors* School is not proud/ritus Gates, and one or two others— liai-s as stupendous. If George Louis landed at Greenwich, as is said, on the Gth of December, 1680, it was the day on which the calumniated nobleman entered on his defence. On the 7th he was condemned, and Evelj-n, who was present at the trial, rightly remarks upon the guilt or inno- cence of the accused in this strain :— " I can hardly think that a person of his age and experience should engage men whom he never saw before (and one of them that came to visit him as a stranger at Paris), point blank to murder the King ;" but in recol- lection of the delibemte and hard swearing, he adds, perplexedly, ^ God only, who searches hearts, can discover the truth." On the 29th of the month Viscount Stafford was beheaded on Tower Hill, ond at this lively spectacle George of Hanover was i)robably pres- ent, for on the 30th of the month he sends a long letter to her Serene Highness, his mother, s^tating that "they cut off the head of Lord Stafford yesterday, and made no more ado about it than if they had chopped off the head of a pullet." In this letter, the writer enters into the details of the incidents of his arrival and reception in England. His higlmess's spelling of the names of places is as defective as that of poor Caroline of Brunswick was generally, and it reminds us, if one may go to the stage for a simile, of the " Cacolology" of Lord Duberly. How- ever, the prince spelt quite as correctly as many a lord or lady either, of his time. The tenor of his epistle is, that he remained one whole day at anchor at '^ Grmmwitsch" (which is his reading of Greenwich,) while his secretary, Mr. Beck, went ashore to look for a house for him, and find out his uncle Prince Rupert. Scant ceremony was displayed, it would appear, to render hospitable welcome to such a visitor. Hospitality, however, did not altogether lack. The zealous Beck found out " Uncle Robert," as the prince ungermanizes Rupert, and the uncle having little of his own to offer to his nephew, straightway announced to Charles IL the cir- cumstance that the princely lover of his niece was lying in the mud off Grunnwitsch. " His Majesty," says George Louis, " im- mediately ordered them apartments at Writhall,'' — and he then proceeds to state that he had not been there above two hours Avhen Lord Hamilton arrived to conduct him to the king, who re- ceived him most obligingly. He then adds, " Prince Robert had preceded me, and was at court when I saluted King Charles. In making my obeisance to the king, I did not omit to give him the lett(;r of your Serene Highness ; after which he spoke of your Iligliness, and said that he 'remembered you very well.' When lie had talked with me some time, he went to the queen, and as soon as I arrived, he made me kiss the hem of her Majesty's petti- coat. The next day I saw the Princess of York (the Lady Anne), and I j-aluted her by kissing her, with the consent of the king. The day after, I went to visit Prince Robert, who received me in bed, for he has a malady in his leg, which makes him very often keep his bed. It appears that it is so, without any pretext, and he has to take care of himself. He had not failed of coming to m 32 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. see me one clay. All the lords came to see me, sans pretendre le main chez moir (probably, rather meaning without ceremony, without kissing hands, as was the common custom m Germany, fi-om inferiors to superiors, and still remains a custom m Southern Germany-than, as has been suggested, that - they came without venturing to shake hands whh him.") There is something melancholy in the idea of the fiery Rupert held in-loriously prostrate in bed by a sore leg ; and there is a subject lor a picture in the profligate little George, saluting the lips of the cold princess Anne. Cold, at all events, and deaf, it we were to judge by results, did the princess remain to the suit of the Hanoverian wooer. The suit, indeed, was not pressed by any sanction of the lady's father, who during the three months' of George Louis in England, remained in mther secluded state, at Ilolyrood. Neither was the " suit opposed by James. In the seclusion to which he was condemned by Charles, who bade him take patience, a commodity much needed by himself, James wa-s troubled but little touching the suitor of his daughter. He had personal troubles enough of his own wherewith to be concerned, and therewith sundry annoyances. On tlie Christinas day of this year, while George of Hanover was enjoying the festivities of this time! at the side of James's daughter, the students of King's Colh'-e, Edhiburgh, entertained James himself by a spectacle which must have raised a sardonic smile on his unusually sardonic face. Those young gentlemen burnt the Pope in effigy, in front of Ilolyrood House, and beneath the windows of the apartments occupied l)V James. Sir John Lander apologizes for this rudeness by kindly explaining that " this was highly resented as an inhos- pitable affront to the Duke of York, tliough it teas only to his religionr As if an aflVont to what is so sacred, could be excused by an "only." But it was at a time when the actors at the ^'Theritre Royal" in London were playing "the Female Prelate," and George Louis had a good opi)ortunity of hearing in wliat rugged hexameters was told the story of Joanna Angelica. Hew the'oifended became the slighted mistress of the Duke of Saxony, vowed revenge, turned monk, became Pope, and after revenging SOPHIA DOllOTIIEA. 33 the injuries she had received from the Duke, as woman, con- demned him to the st.'UvC for his blaspliemies against her as Pope. Among the ''celebrations" of the visits of George Louis to this country, was the pomp of the ceremony which welcomed him to Cambridge. Never had the groves or stream of Cam been made vocal by the echoes of such laudation as was given and taken in this solemnly hilarious occasion. There was much feasting, which included very much drinking, and there was much expenditure of lieavy compliment in very light Latin. Scaliger's assertion, that the Germans do not care what wine they drink, as long as it is wine, nor wliat Latin they speak, as long as it is Latin, is a calumny. They are nice connoisseurs of both. George and his trio of followers, who were made doctors of law by the scholastic authorities, were too polite to criticise ehher. The honor, how- ever, was hardly more appropriate than when a similar one was conferred, in after years, upon IMucher and the celebrated artillery officer, Gneisenau. " Ah ! " exclaimed the veteran leatler, " they are going to make me a doctor ; but it was Gneisenau tliat fur- nished all the pills." That Parliament was convened at OxfoM whereby there was, as Evelyn remarks, *' great expectation of liis Royal Highness's cause, as to the succession against which the house was set," and therewith there was, according to the same diarist, "an extra- ordinary, sharp, cold spring, not yet a leaf upon the trees, frost and snow Ivins while the whole nation was in the greatest fer- nicnt." — Such was the Parliament, and such the spring, when George Louis was suddenly called home. He was highly in- terested in the bill, which was read a first time at that Parliament, as also in the ''expedients" which were proi)Osed in lieu of such bill, and rejected. The expedients proposed instead of the Bill of Exclusion in this Parliament, were that the whole government, upon the death of Charles II., should be vested in a regent, who should be the Princess of Orange, and if she died without issue, then the Princess Anne should be regent. But if James, Duke of York, should have a son educated a Protestant, then the regency should last no lonirer than his minority, and that the regent should uovern in the name of the father wliile he lived ; but that he kv\ I 84 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHLV DOROTHEA. 85 should be obliged to reside five hundred miles from the British dominions ; and if the Duke should return to tliesc kingdoms, the crown should immediately devolve on the regent, and the Duke and his adherents be deemed guilty of high treason. Here was matter in which the Hanoverian suitor was doubly interested both as man and as lover. However strenuously some writers may assert that the heads of the House of Brunswick troubled themselves in no wise upon the question of the succes- sion, no one can deny, or doubt, that tlu'y had a deep, though, it may be as yet, a distant interest in it. Their concern was greater than their professed adherents will consent to acknowledge. Nor was there anything unnatural or unbecoming m such concern. The possible inheritance of even such a tlu-one as that of England was in the days of Charles II., when Britain was treated with a contempt by other nations, which of right belonged only to her worthless sovereign — even a possible inheritance to even such a throne was not to be contemplated without emotion. An exclu- sive Protestant succession made such a heritage possible to the house of Brunswick, and if ever the heads of that house, before the object of their hopes was reidized, ceased to be active for its realization, it was when assurance was made doubly sure, and action was unnecessary. It is not easy to determine what part William of Orange had in the recall of George Louis from England, but the suddenness of that recall was an object of some admiring jierplexity to a lover, who left a lady who was by no means inconsolable, and who, two 3'ears afterwards, was gaily married at St. James's to the Prince of Denmaik, on the first leisure day between the executions of Kussell tuid Sidney. George Louis, however, obeyed the summons of his sovereign and father, but it was not until his amval in Iliuiover that he . found hunself called upon to transfer the prosecution of his matri- monial suit from one object to another. The ruling idea in the mind of Ernest Augustus was, that if the territory of Zell were miited to tliat of Hanover, there would be an increased chance of procuring from the Emperor its elevation to an electorate ; and he felt that, however he might liave provided to secure his succession to the dominion of Zell, the marriage of his son with the Duke's only child would add thereto many broad acres, the possession of which would add dignity to the Elector. Sophia Dorothea was still little more than a child; but that very circumstance was made use of in order to procure the post- ponement of her marriage with Augustus of Wolfenbuttel. The Duke of Zell did not stand in need of much argument from his brother to understand that the union of the young lovers might more properly be celebrated when the bride was sixteen than a year earlier. The duke was ready to accept any reasoning, the object of which was to enable him to retain his daughter another year at his side. Accoixlingly, a betrothal only took place between Sophia and Augustus, and the public ceremony of marriage was deferred for a year and some supplementary months. It was a time which was very actively employed by those who hoped to accomplish much before it had quite expired. Latimer remarks, tluit the devil is the only prelate he knew who is for ever busy in his diocese. He certainly was unweariedly occupied for a time in that portion of his see which is comprised in the narrow limits including Hanover and Zell. And it was an occu- j)ation in which that dark diocesan must have been especially delighted. " The end of the action employed w^as to destroy the happiness of two young |>ersons who were bound to each other by the strong bonds of respect and aftection. A bad ambition was the impelling motive of such action. The devil, then, never had work which so exactly suited his satanic nature. His ministers, however worthy they may have been of their ma-ster, as far as zeal was concerned, did him or themselves little credit with regard to the measure of their success. The sixteenth birtli-day of Sopliia Dorothea had arrived, and George Louis had made no impression on her heart, the image of the absent Augustus still lived there ; and the whole plot would have failed, but for the sudden, and active, and efficient energy of one who seemed as if she had allowed matters to proceed to extremity, in order to ex- hibit the better her own powers when she condescended to inter- fere personally, and remedy the ill-success of others by a triumph of her own. That person was Sophia, the wife of Eniest, a lady Fl t li S(i LIVKS OF TIIK QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOI'IIIA DOROTHEA. 37 who rivalled GriseUla in one point of her patience— that which she felt for her hiishand's intidrJities. In other respects she Mas craftv, philosophical, and free-thinking; bnt she was as ambitious as any of her family, and as she had resolved on the marriage of her son, George Louis, with Sophia Dorothea, she at once pro- ceeded to accompli.«.h that u\H)n which she had resolved. It had suddenly come to her knowledge that Augustus of Wdlf- enbuttel had made his re-appearance at the Court of Z«'1I. Coupling the knowledge of this fact with the remembnuiee that Sophia Dorothea was now sixteen years of age, and that at such a period her marriage had been fixed, the mother of George Louis addressed herself at once to the tcosk of putting her son in the place of the favored lover. She ordered out the heavy coach and heavier ^Mecklenburg horses, by which German potentates were wont to travel stalely and leisurely by post some two centuries ago. It was night when she left Hanover ; and although she had not fiirther to travel than an ordinary train could now accomplish in an hour, it was broad daylight before this match-making and match-breaking ladv reached the portals of tlie ducal palace of Zell. Tliere was something delightfully primitive in the method of her proceeding. She did not despise state, except on occasions when serious business was on hand. The present was such an occasion, and she therefore waited for no usher to marshal her wav and announce her coming to the duke. She descended from her jwuderous coach, jjushed aside the sleepy sentinel, who ap- peared disposed to question her, ere he made way, and entering the hall of the mansion, loudlv demanded of the few servants who came hurrvintr to meet her, to be conducted to the duke. It was intimated to her that he was then dressing, but that his IIighne-< would -oon be in a condition to descend and wait upon her. Too impatient to tariy. and too eager to care for ceremony, she mounted the stairs, bade a groom of the chamber [K)int out to her the diH>r of the duke's room ; and, her onler havinir been obeved. slft^ ibithwith pushed open the door, entered the apartment, and discovered the dismayed duke in the most niglige of dishaliUes. She neither made apology nor would receive any; but intimatin** that she came upon business, at once a-ked, "Where is your wife?" The flurried Duke (;f Zell pointed through an open door to a capacious bed in the adjacent room, wherein lay the wonder- ing duchess, lost in eider-down and deep amazement. The »• old Sophia" could have wished, it would seem, that she had been further off. She was n#t quite rude enough to close the door, and so cut off all communication and listening ; but remem- bering that the Duchess of Zell was but very indifferently ac- quainted with German, she ceased to speak in the language then common to the German courts — French.— and innnediately ad- dressed the duke in hard Teutonic phrase, which was utterly unin- telligible to the vexed and suspecting duchess. It wa< another group for an artist de>irous to illustrate the bye- ways of history. Half undressed, the duke occupied a chair close to his toilet-table, while the astute wife of Ernest Augustus, seated near him, unfolded a narrative to which he listened with every mo- ment an incrca-^e of complacency and conviction. The Duchess PLleanor, from her Ix d in the adjacent room, could see the actors, but could not comprehend tlie dialogue. But if the narrative was unintelligible to her, she could understand the drift of the argu- ment ; and as the names of lier daughter and lover were being constantly pronounced with that of George Louis, the poor lady coiuinued to lie heli)less beneath much alarm and her silk counter- pane. The ca-e was forcibly put by the mother of George. She showed how union makes strength, how little profit could arise from a ma'.ch between Sophia Dorothea and Augustus of Wolfenbuttel, and how advantageous must be an union between the heir of Han- over and the heiress of the domains which her provident father had added to Zell, and had bequeathed to his daughter. She sj)oke of the certainty of p:mest Augustus being created arch-standard-bearer of the emi>ire of Gennany, and therewith Elector of Ilimover. She hinted at the possibility even of Sophia Dorothea one day sharing with her son the throne of Great Britain. The hint, iV really made, was something premature, but the astute lady may have strengthened her case by remindhig her hearer that the'crown of England would most probably be reserved only for a Protestant f-7 38 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. succession, and that her son was, if a distant, yet not a very distant, and certainly a possible heir. The obsequious Duke of Zell was bewildered by the visions of greatness presented to his mind's eye by his clever sister-in-law. He was as proud as the poor exiled Stanislaus, who entered his daughter's apartment on the morning he received the application of Louis XV. for her hand, with the salutation, " Good morning* my child ! you are Queen of France ;" and then he kissed the hand of ]Marie Leczinska, — the happy father, too happy to be the first to render homage to his daughter on her becoming, what he had ceased to be — a sovereign oppressed by responsibilities. The Duke of Zell was almost as ea;?er to ^o and con^^ratulate his daujjh- ter. With ready lack of honesty, he had consented to break off the match between Sophia Dorothea and her affianced lover, and to bestow her hand upon the careless prince for whom it was now demanded by his mother. The latter returned to Hanover per- fectly satisfied with the work of that night and morning. The same satisfaction was not experienced by the Duchess Eleanora, When she came to learn the facts, she burst forth ;n expressions of grief and indignation. The marriage which had now been definitively broken, had been with her an affair of the heart, — of a mother's heart. It had not been less an affair of the heart, — of a young girl's heart, with Sophia Dorothea ; and the princely lover from Wolfcnbuttel had invested as much heart in the matter as had ever been known in Cicrman times when min- strels sang of knights who^e chivalry more than hidf consisted of fidelity in love. It was a pitiable case ! There were three per- sons who were to be rendered irretrievably wretched, in order, not that any one might be rendered hapjiy, but that a man, without a heart, might be made a little more sjiacious in the possession of dirt. The acres of Zell were to bring misery on their heiress, and every acre was to purchase its seat daughter would fain have had the throne of England rendered accessible to herself and heirs, although Romanist.-, upon the poor understanding of toleration to the reformed kiiih. Our forelalhers would hiive nothing to do wiih such compromise, and they who kept to the purer faith g-ained the splendid prize. Sophia was m;irried in 1 Go^, and during a long course of sub- sequent years, she sustained the highest reputation for slirewdness, extensive knowk-dge. wit, acute observation, originality of concep- tion, and brilli;uicy of expression. She had not. indeed, the stem steathiie>s of principle of her mother, and she was by tar more ambitious, while she was les* scrupulous as to the means employed for the attainment of her end-. Men vx less inlbrmation ilian her- seh* were alraid of her. for >iie uos luiid of triumpliing in argu- ment. But she was ireviouslv well-armed for securinjr such tri- umphs. ;md the amount of knowledge which she had made her own, amid scenes and trials and dissij^ation- ^■••' favorable to the amass- inir of such intellectual treasure, i* accuuaied for bv a remark of Leibnitz, with whom she lovetl ' ' ' close inier«»ur!*, — to the effect that she w:is not only givt-n lu asking irAy, but that, as be q[uaintly puts it, she invariably wanted to know the irAy of the "whys. In other woAi>. - .>>-vpied no reasons that were not ren- dered sirictlv intell "_ :o her. And then, she w;^- .is she was cle'. . •it bout a tiBs:e of peniit">s to sji^il her l»eau:y. or a trace of pedantry to mar her scholarship^ If she loved ;o win logical battles by power of the latter, ind fousht boldlv. ea . and with everv sense awake to pn>dt by the weakness of her adversary, it was all dime gailv. and lightly; and if gr^eai wits wer -^ !!ed over in the das« when they tilted ag&in^t her in intellet:;,-ai lonmaments, thej were ready to acknowledge tliat they were struck down with a most consummate grace. She as much enjoyed to see these battlings of brains between other parties, as to sustain the fight herself. When her sister EUzabeth had withdrawn from the v,-orld, and retired within the Protestant Abl>ev of Ilerford, to dream with the dreaming Labadie and his disciples over theories more baseless than dreams them- selves, the gay Sophia once surprised her too grave sister with a visit. She brought in her train the ecclesiastical suf>erintendent of Osnaburgh for the express purpose of "^ pittmg " him again.-t the prophet and reformer Labadie. Prince Charles, the son of Charles Louis (brother of Elizabeth and Sophia; and his tutor Paul Hack- enburg. were witnesses or partid^ers in the intellectual skirmish. Hackenburg lias left a graphjp description of the onslaught be- tween the orthodox Osnaburgher and the new apostle Lal>adie ; at which Sophia assisted without uttering a remark, but not with- out giving evidence of much enjoyment. "When all was over, says Paul. - during dinner we talked of nothing else but this absurd and quaking sort of piety to which jxi-ople are sometimes brought, and oar a-toni*hment could hardly find words when, alludic to the number of young women of the best famihes, richly dressed, brilliant with beauty and youth, vho were insane enough to give up the conduct of their souls to this worst of men and most j/ower- less of priest- (only t- laughed at too by him in secret;, and who were so riveted to their delusions that neither the prayers of their parents, nor the pleadings of their l^trothed. nor the prosfject of maternal joys could tear them away ; some among them said they were surely hvjiochondriaes and unanswerable for what they might do ; others opined that they should all be sent to the bath^ cS S^hwalbach or Pyrmont. and that probably they would come V*. «. cuTTiL All these remarks and discussions made the Princess Elizabeth highly indignant, and she exckimed ajrainst the unkind- r -- which could induce any one to ascribe to bodily infirmity a gr» raier d^rgree of piety wherewith the Holy Ghost chose to inspire a certain number of individuals purer than the rest '. But to this the Eleetres* .Sophia, a lady of extraordinary beauty, found an imswer which turned all biitemess into jrenend mirth, bv assertin*'. W u LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. with mock gravity, that her sister's sole reason for holding to the Labadists was that thoy were stingy housekeepers, and cost little or nothing to keep." llackenburg says that the accusation was a true one, but it may be added that whatever the cost of this house- hold, it never incurred debt, never allowed expenses to go beyond its means ; and if the Lady of Hanover and her lord had always followed the same vulgar fashion, it would have been none the worse for their reputation and comfort, or for that perliaps of some of their descendants who might otherwise have profited by example. Spittler, writing of 8o])hia and her husband, says, rather too panegyricully, perhai)s: — "Through the complicated events of their troublous times, this princely pair are a sort of landmark whereon to rest the eye, and form a proof of how much good may be done by those who hold an exalMiil position. We must admire that really German intellectual enthusiasm which made them tlie friends of Leibnitz, that systematic firmness which characterized their goverament, and allied to ceaselessly active efforts for the public good, that untiring patience and longanimity so easy to learn in years of discouragement, and generally so easily forgotten when years of greater prosperity are reached." This is rather showing the principal characters in the drama under a flood of pink liglit, but there is nuuli therein that is fairly applicable to the wife of Ernest Auirustus. CHAPTER IV. THE HOUSEHOLD OF GEOKGE AND SOPHIA. According to Pope, it was 'Mo curse Pamela whh her prayers " that the gods — ** Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares, The shiniiifT robes, rich jewels, l)eds of state, And, to complete her bliss, a fool for mate. She jjlarcs in balls, front boxes, and the ring, A vain, unquiet, glitt'ring, wretched tiling. Pride, pomp, and state but reach her outward part ; She sighs, and is no duchess at her heart." SOPniA LOllOTIIEA. 45 The greatness of Sophia Dorothea was no consequence of her prayers, and she was unlike the Poet's Pamela in all things, save that she had " a fool for mate," spent her time in sighs, and was indeed " no duchess at her heart." For a few months after her husband had taken her to Hanover, she experienced perhaps a less degree of unhappiness than was ever her lot subsequently. Her open and gentle nature won the regard even of Ernest Augustus. That is, he paid her as much regard as a man so coarsely minded as he was could feel for one of such true womanly dignity as his daughter-in-law. His respect for her, however, may be best judged of by the com- panionship to which he sometimes subjected her. He more fre- quently saw her in society with the immoral Madame von Platen, than in the society of his own wife. The position of Sopliia Do- rothea with regard to tliis woman was not unlike that of Marie Antoinette at the Court of Louis XV. with regard to Madame du IJariy. Poor Marie Antoinette was, in some degree, the worse conditioned of the two, for her own mother, tlie great Maria Theresa, held friendly intercourse with the king's " favorites," and did not hesitate, wlien she Ir.id a i)olitical purpose in view, to address them by letter in terms of familiarity, if not of endear- ment. By her own mother she was exposed to much indecent outrage. It was otherwise with Sophia Dorothea. Her mother deplored her marriage as a miserable event, simply because she was aware from the character of George Louis, that her husband would heap upon her nothing but insult and indignity. Ever after the separation of mother and daughter, the former seemed as one doomed to sit for ever beneath the shadow of a great sorrow. The first child of this marriage brought with him, however, some tran- sitory promise of felicity. He was born at Hanover, on the 30th of October, 1G83, and when his father conferred on him the names of George Augustus, he expressed pleasure at liaving an heir, and he even added some words of regard for the mother. But ex- pression of regard is worth little unless its sincerity be proved by action. It was not so in the present caweriul as their favorites ; and secondly, the friend of the philo- sophical Leibnitz was too much occupied with the sage to trouble herself with the aflairs which gave concern to Madame von Platen. The present affair, however, most nearly concerned poor Use, Avho found herself outside the city walls, friendless, penniless, with a damaged character, and nothing to cover it but the light costume whicli she had worn in the process of her march of expulsion to the roll of *^ dry drums." When she had found a refuge, her first course was to apply to Ernest Augustus for redress. Tlie prince, however, was at once oblivious, ungrateful, and poweriess ; and confining himself to sending to the poor petitioner a paltry eleemo- synary half-dozen of gold pieces, he forbade her retuni to Han- over, and counselled her to settle elsewhere, and congratulate her- self that she hiul not received even rougher treatment. Use, periiaps, would have quoted the Psalmist, who dissuades men from putting their trust in princes, but for the fact that she hoped, even yet, if not from a prince, to find succor from a princess. She accordingly made full statement of her case to the Duchess of Zell ; and that lady, deeming the case one of iDcculiar hardship, and the penalty inflicted on a giddy giri too unmeasured for the pardonable offence of amusing an old prince who encouraged her to the task, af^er much consideration, due weighing of the state- ment, and befitting inquir}-, took the offender into her own service, and gave to the exiled Hanoverian a refuge, asylum, and employ- ment in ZeU. These iire but smaU pohtics, but they illustrate the nature of 3 I. 60 LIVES OF TUE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 51 things as they then existed, in by-gone days, at little Gennan courts. They had, moreover, no small influence on the happiness of Sophia Dorothea. Madame von Platen was enraged that the mother of that princess should have dared to give a home to one whom she had condemned to be homeless ; and she in consequence is suspected of having been fired with the more satanic zeal to make desolate the home of the young wife. She adopted the most efficient means to arrive at such an end. It was the period when Sophia Dorothea had just become the mother of a daughter who bore her name, and who was subsequently Queen-consort of Prussia. It was from this period that George Louis openly treated his wife with contempt, and the evil genius by whom he wiis most influenced was Madame von Platen. The first attempt to estrange him permanently from Sophia Dorothea was made through her sister, Madame von Busche. The latter lady, previous to her marriage with the tutor of George Louis, had endeavored with some slight success, to fascmate his pupil. She embniced with alacrity the mission with which she was charged, again to throw such meshes of fascination as she was possessed of lU'ound the heart of the not over susceptible prince. If endeavor could merit or achieve success, the attempt of this would-be charmer would have deserved, and would have accom- plished, a triumph. But George Louis stolidly refused to be charmed, and ^ladame von Busche gave up the attempt in a sort of offended despair. Iler sister, like a true genius, fertile in expedients, and prepared for every emergency, bethought herself of a simple circumstance, whereby she hoped to attain her ends. She remembered that George Louis, though short himself of stature, had a predilection for tall women. At the next fete at which he was present at the nuuision of Madame von Platen, he was enchanted by a may-pole of a young lady, with a name almost as long as her person — it was Ennengarda Melusina von Schulemberg. She wa^ more shrewd than witty, this " tall mawkin," as the Electress Sophia once called the lofty Ermengarda ; and, tis George Louis was neither witty himself, nor much cared for wit in others, she was the better enabled to estabUsh herself in the most worthless of hearts that ever beat beneath an embroidered vest. She was an inimitable flatterer, and in this way she fooled her victim to " the very top of his bent." She exquisitely cajoled him, and with exquisite carelessness did he surrender himself to be cajoled. Gradually, by watching his inclinations, anticipating his wishes, admiring even his coarseness, and lauding it as can- dor, she so won upon the lazily excited feehngs of George Louis, that he began to think her presence indispensable to his well- being. If he hunted, she was in the field, the nearest to his saddle-bow. If he went out to walk alone, he invariably fell in. with Ennengarda. At the Court theatre, when he was present, the next conspicuous object was the towering von Schulemberg, like Mademoiselle Georges, " in all her diamonds," beneath the glare of which, and the blazing impudence of their wearer, the modest Sophia Dorothea was almost extinguished. Doubly authorized would she have been, as she looked at her unworthy husband, to have exclaimed, as Alfieri afterwards did in his autobiography : — " O picciola cosa e pur Tuomo." It is said of the robe originally worn by the prophet 3Iahomet and reverently preserved at Mecca, that it was annually washed in a tub of clear water, which was subsequently duly bottled off and sent as holy water to the various princes of Islam. A fashion alleged to have been adopted by Madame von Platen is recalled to memory by this matter of the prophet's robe. That estimable person had announced a festival, to be cele- brated at her mansion, which was to surpass in splendor any- thing that had ever been witnessed by the existing generation. The occasion was the marriage of her sister, Madame von Busche, who had worried the poor ex-tutor of George Louis into the grave, with General Wreyke, a gallant soldier, equal, it would -eem, to any feat of daring. "Whenever Madame von Platen designed to aj)pear with more than ordinary brilliancy in her own person, she was accustomed to indulge in the extravagant luxury of a milk bath ; and it was added by the satirical or the scandalous, that the milk which had thus lent softness to her skin was charitably dis- Hi 52 LIVE3 OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. tributed among the poor of the district Avherein she occasionally affected to play the character of Dorcas. Be this fable or not— and very strange things were done in the old-fashioned circles of Germany in those days— the fete and the giver of it were not only to be of a splendor that had never been equalled, but George Louis had promised to grace it with his presence, and had even pledged himself, to " walk a measure " with the irresistible Ennengarda ^Melusina von Schulemberg. Madame von Platen thought that her cup of joy and pride and revenge would be complete and full to the brim, if she could suc- ceed in bringing Sophia Dorothea to the misery of witnessing a spectacle, the only true significance of which was that the faithless George Louis publicly acknowledged the gigantic Ermengarda for his " favorite." There was more activity employed to encompass the desired end than if the aim in view had been one of good purpose. It so far succeeded that Sophia Dorothea intimated her intention of being present at the festival given by Madame von Platen ; and when the latter lady received the desired and welcome intelligence, she was conscious of an enjoyment that seemed to her an antepast of Pai*adise. The eventful night at length arrived. The bride had exchanged rinn-s with the bridejiroom, conjrnitulations had been dulv paid, and the floor was ready for the dancers, and nothing lacked but the presence of Sophia Dorothea. There walked the proudly eminent von Schulemberg, looking blandly down upon George Louis, who held her by the hand ; and there stood the impatient von Platen, ea'^er that the wife of that liprht-oMove cavalier should arrive, and be crushed by the spectacle. Still she came not ; and finally her lady of honor, the Countess von Knesebeck, arrived, not as her attendant, but her representative, with excuses for the non-appear- ance of her mistress, whom indL; posit ion (unfeigned indisposition to be a witness of a suspected sight) detained at her own hearth. The course of the festival was no longer delayed ; in it the bride and bridegroom were forgotten, and George and Ennengarda were the hero and heroine of the hour. After that hour, no one doubted as to the bad eminence achieved by that lady ; and so naiTowly SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 53 and sharply observant was the lynx-eyed von Knesebeck of all that passed between her mistress' husband and that husband's mistress, that when she retunied to her duties of dame d'atours, she unfolded a narrative that inflicted a stab in every phrase, and tore the heart of the despairing listener. But court life in Germany was at this, as also at an earlier and till a later period, one of unmixed extravagance and viciousness. A few of the social traits of such Ufe will be found in the next chapter. CHAPTER V. COURT LIFE IX GERMANY THE ELECTORATE OF HANOVER. The extravagance of Madame von Platen, mentioned in the last chapter, was a reflex of that which made some of the sovereign! courts of her day most sadly illustrious. Louis XIV. was not the only monarch guilty of impoverishing the people by living in a splendor which made his country bankrupt. The German courts needed not, and did not turn to France for a precedent of superb wickedness^ The imperial household at Vienna was a high school, whereat the minor potentates of Germany might take degrees in extravagance and profligacy. Not less than forty thousand indi- viduals were attached to the service of that house, and the licen- tious habits and coarse tone of the majority of these servants of the Emperor, from the noble to the lacquey, not only had an ill eff*ect upon contemporary society, but may be said to be felt even now in Vienna ; the most dissolute capital in Europe, where the aristo- cracy point in scorn to the citizens as abandoned to vice, and the citizens scowl at the aristocrary as the setters of bad example. In the times of which I am treating, there was not the minutest count holding sovereignty over a few acres who did not maintain an ambassadorial estabUshment at Vienna, the expenses of which swallowed up a very considerable portion of the state represented. These legates of their lords, and often with their lords, and these lords' "ladies" in their company, were busily employed in the 54 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 55 imperial city in the solemn occupations of feasting, drinking, dan- cinff, jrazinj; at fireworks, and other business which will less bear mentioning. Two hogsheads of Tokay wine were daily consumed for soaking the bread which wiis given to the imperial parrots ! The Empress' nightly possets required twelve gallons of the same wine. Not that the imperial appetite was equal to such consump- tion, but that the kitchen supplied that quantity to the household generally ; for in the eighteenth century a German noble or his consort no more thought of going to sleep without the " sacrament- al " posset, than an English squire of the same period. I have alluded in another page to the "protector" of the sister of Count Kunigsmark, Augustus the Strong, — strong in everything but virtue, and utterly worthless as man or monarch in all beside. His reign, after he became king of l*oland, was a long course of brutal excess in every shape, and, in some cases, outraging nature as much as was done in the brutal excesses of Caligula. lie left behind him three hundred and fifty-two children dependent on the state, but whose claims the state soon refused to recognize. His extravagant taste exceeded that even of the masters of Vi- enna or Versailles. In honor of Maria Aurora Kiinigsmark, the queen of the harem, and the only "favorite" of this crowned brute that ever retained in her bad eminence the refinement of character and conduct which had distinguished her before her elevation ; in lionor of this " favorite " he gave a festival on the Elbe, at which Neptune appeared in a sea-shell (in very shallow water,) sur- rounded by a fleet of frigates, gondolas, and gun-boats, all of true model dimensions, and maimed by crews who mijrht have suno^ in chorus the song from La Promise, " ma teste, ma vesfe" so gay glorious, glittering, and unseamanlike were they, in their satin jackets, their silk stockings, and their paste-diamond shoe-buckles. Soldiei-s, or civilians in the masquerade of soldiers of all nations under the sun, and all splendidly attired, lined the banks of the river. The festival lasted throughout a long day, and when night set in, a huge allegorical picture, occupying six thousand yards, nearly four miles of canvas, was illuminated by blazing piles of odoriferous woods ; and there was squandered that day, in honor of a royal concubine, as much wealth as would have fed and clothed all the hungry and destitute in Dresden for a whole year. Nor was this a solitary instance of the profligate extravagance of this monarch. On the occasion of a visit to his court by Fred- erick William of Prussia, and the Crown Prince, he expended five thousand dollars in porcelain vases for the adornment of their bed- chambers, and gave them a gypsy party at Muhlberg, where the rural amusenlents of a few hours absorbed not less than three mil- lions of dollars. But Augustus delighted in monster fetes, with all sorts of mon- ster appliances ; and one of these gigantic festivals is spoken of, at which a cake was placed before the guests twenty-eight feet long by twelve bi*oad, the sides of which w^ere cut into by a gaudy offi- cial, armed with a silver axe. Into the lap of one of his favorites, Augustus poured no less a sum than twenty millions of dollars. The fortunate recipient was the Countess von Kosel. He spent the same sum in welcoming to his dominions the daughter of the Emperor Joseph I., newly espoused to his son. The festivities were " stupendous," in character, duration, and extravagance. He met the bride with a whole army at his back to give her welcome ; and a host, nearly as large, of courtiers, players, minstrels, and dan- cers, all exerting themselves in their several capacities to win a smile of approbation from the lady, who looked in melancholy on the show. She must have been weary of it ere it was half over, for it drag- ged on, in gorgeous ponderosity, through a whole month. Day after day the festival was renewed, and there was more revelry in Dresden than there was in Babylon when Alexander entered it J and of much the same degree of uncleanness too. To crown the whole, Augustus and his court appeared in the guise of heathen deities ; thus rivalling that Augustus of Rome and his friends, who sat down to the banquet, in the likeness of the gods and goddesses of Olympus, — less dignified, indeed, than they, but twice as beastly. His conduct might fairly be described as that of a maniac, were it not for one circumstance. He flung gold about with a reckless prodigality that betokened insanity, but it must l>e remembered, that, at the very period of his doing so, he entertained the convic- 'i 66 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHTA DOROTHEA. 57 tion, that he was on the point of tearing the veil before the great ai-eunura of chemistry, mastering the knowledge connected with the transmutation of metals, and becoming tlie maker of gold, to an extent limited only by his necessities. For this purpose he maintained an alchemist in his palace. The professional gentleman, so calling himself, was right royally lodged as regarded his person, and right proiusely provided as respected his vocation. His apartments were furnished with a splendor that might have dazzled an emi)eror, and his laboratory was a glitter- ing chaos of costly vessels, means, and appliances, — such as befit- ted the arclwleceiver of a king foolish enough to be deceived. The experiments were being carried on while Augustus was as insanely experimenting on the patience of his people. The alchemist, however, soon encountered a swifter and more hideous ruin than ultimately fell upon the head of Augustus himself. His patron became impatient, and more exacting than ever ; the magi- cian more tricky, more boastful of success, and less satisfactory m realization of his boasting. His specimens were pronounced coun- tei-feit, his gold was scornfully rejected by the goldsmiths of the capital, and, detected as a cheat, he was beheaded by the order of him who had hoped to profit by his address. Dreso.-ition of the minister who was acting in obedience to the instructions of his master, but in opposi- tion to his own sentiments. It was no difficult task for Burnet to prove to this diplomatist, that by supi)orting the views of France he was destroying the prospects of Hanover ; whereas if it was his desire to promote the influence and glory, and to elevate the for- tunes of the latter house, his course was clear, simple, patriotic, and profitable. Opposition to Fmnce, on the part of Hanover, would be popularly acknowledged with something more than empty gra- titude in England, and the time might come when such opposition SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 68 would receive as splendid a recompense as prince or patriot could desire. It is easy to believe that William approved of a communication of such a nature made, as Burnet protests, without being otherwise than self-prompted thereto. The immediate result would be, to secure an ally for Holland, and William might safely leave ulterior contingencies to Providence and time. I lowever this may be, it is certain that Burnet was eminently successful in his object with the Hanoverian minister. The latter ai)i)('ars not only to have communicated what passed to his sover- eign, but to have added comments thereto which carried conviction to the mind of Ernest Augustus. This conviction is seen by the result which followed. Hanover, in 1 688, ranged herself with the European coalition, that is, with England, Holland, and the Ger- man Empire, against France. There was true " definite policy" in this act. Ernest Augustus was bound indeed to supply a contingent to the Emperor whenever the latter might call for such aid in behalf of the empire ; but he was not satisfied with this alone ; his own territory was not threat- ened, and it was too far away from the stage whereon the gi-eat drama was being played, or was about to be played out, to give him fears concerning the inviolability of his frontier. He acted however, as though he had as fierce a quarrel with Louis as the more powerful belligerents opposed to that monarch. He recalled his minister from Paris, gave passports to the French ambassador at Hanover, and in short, played his grand coup for an electorate noic^ and a throne in futurity. To be elevated to the electorate had certainly been long the dearest among the more immediate objects of his ambition. AVhen his elder brother John Frederick died childless, and left him the principalities of Calemberg and Grubenberg, with Hanover for a ** residenz," he hailed an increase of influence which he hoped to see heightened by securing the Duchy of Zell also to his family. He had determined that George Louis should succeed to Hanover and Zell united. In other words, he established primogeniture, recognized his eldest son as heir to all his land, and only awarded to his other sons moderate appendages whei-eby to support a dig- I 64 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. nity which he considered sufficiently splendid by the glory which it would receive, by reflection, from the head of the house. This arrangement by no means suited the views of one of Ernest's sons, Maximilian. He had no inclination whatever to bon'ow glory from the better fortune of his brother, and was re- solved, if it might be, to achieve splendor by his own. He pro- tested loudly against the accumulation of the family territorial estates upon the eldest heir ; claimed his own share ; and even raised a species of domestic rebellion against his sire, to which weight, without peril, was given by the adhesion of a couple of confederates, Count Molcke, and a conspirator of burgher degree. Ernest Augustus treated "Max" like a rude child. He put him under arrest in the paternal palace, and confined the filial rebel to the mild imprisonment of his own room. Maximilian was as obstinate as either Henry the Dog, or Marcus the Violent, and he not only opposed his sire's wishes with respect to the aggran- dizement of the family by the enriching of the heir-apparent, but went counter to him in matters of religion, and in after years was not only a good Jacobite, but he also conformed to the faith of the Stuarts, and Maximilian ultimately died, a tolerable Catholic, in the service of the Emperor. In the meanwhile, his domestic antagonism against his father was not productive of much inconvenience to himself His arrest was soon raised, and he was restored to freedom, though not to favor or affection. It went harder with his friend and confederate Count Miilcke, against whom, as nothing could be proved, much was invented. An absurd story wiis coined to the effect that at the time when Maximilian was opposing his father's projects, the Count Molcke, at a court entertainment, had presented his snuff- box to Ernest Augustus. That illustrious individual having taken therefi-om the pungent tribute respectfully offered, presented the same to an Italian greyhound which lay at his feet, who thereon suddenly sneezed, and swiftly died. The count was sent into close arrest, and the courtly gossips forged the story to account for the result. The unfortunate Molcke was indeed as severely punished as though he had been a murderer by anticipation. He was judged in something of the old Jcnlburgh fashion, whereby execntion pre- SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 65 ceded judgment ; and the head of .Count Molcke had fallen before men could well guess why he had forfeited it. Tlui fact was that this penalty had been exacted as a vicarious infliction on Prince Maximilian. In old-fashioned courts in England there used to be a whipping-boy who received castigation whenever the young princes of the royal family behaved ill. The latter, in the agony of the actual victim, were supposed to be able to understand what their own deserts were, and what their sufferings would have been, had not their persons been far too sacred to endure chastisement for their faults. The more ignoble plotter was only banished, and in the death of a friend, and the exile of a follower, Maximilian, it was hoi)ed, would see a double suggestion from which he would draw a healthy conclusion. Tliis course had its desired effect. The disinherited heir accepted his ill-fortune with a humor of the same quality, and, openly at least, he ceased to be a trouble to his more ambitious than affectionate father. Domestic rebellion having been thus suppressed or got rid of, Ernest Augustus looked to the Emperor for the reward of his ready alacrity in supi>orting the imperial house. It was not with- out much trouble tmd vexation that the desired end was achieved. The sacred college opposed the aim of the sovereign of Hanover, but the Emperor, of his own accord, made Ernest Augustus an elector ; and the IDth December, IGDl, was the joyful day of nom- mation. The day, however, was anything but one of joy to the branch of Bruuswick-Wolfenbuttel. That elder branch felt itself dishon- ored by the august dignity which had been conferred upon the younger scion of the family. The hatred which ensued between the kinsmen was of that intensity which is said to distinguish the mutual hate of kinsmen above all others. The elder branch, and the sacred college with it, affirmed that the Emperor was invested with no prerogative by which he could, of his own spontaneous act, add a ninth elector to the eight already existing. Originally there were but seven, and the accession of one more to that time- honored number was pronounced to be an innovation by which ill- fortune must ensue. Something still more deplorable was vaticin- 66 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 67 1^ ated as the terrible consequence of an illegal step so peremptorilj taken by the Emperor, in despite of the other electorfj. It was said by the supjwrters of the Emperor and Hanover that the addition of a ninth, and Protestant elector was the more ne- cessary ; that there were only two electors on the sacred roll who now followed the faith of the Reformed Church ; and that the sin- cerity of one, at least, of these was very questionable. The re- form(?d states of Germany had a right to be properly represented and the p]mperor was worthy of all praise for resf>ecting tliis right. With regartl to the nomination, it was stated that though it had been made s|K)ntaneously by the Emperor, it had been confirmed by the Electoral College, — a majority of the number of which had carried the election of the p]m})eror's candidate. Now, this last point was tlie weak point of the Hanoverians ; for it was asserted by many adversaries, and not denied by many sup- porters, that in such a case as this, no vote of the Electoral College was good unless it were an unanimous vote. To this objection, strongly urged by the elder branch of Brunswick- Wolfenbuttel, no answer was made, except indeed by praising the new elector, of whom it was correctly stated that he had introiluced into his states such a taste for mas{piei-ades, operas, and ballets, as had never been known before; and that he liad made a merry and a prosper- ous people of what had been previously but a dull nation, as re- garded both manners and commerce. The Emperor only thought of the gotnl service wiiich Ernest Augustus had rendered him in the field, and he stood by the " accomplished fact " of wliicli he was the chief author. The college was to the full as obstinate, and would not recognize any vote tendered by the Elector of Hanover, or of Brunswick, as he was at first called. Ernest Augustus sat in the college, as our Bishop of Sodor and :Man is said to have done, in the olden time, in the House of Lords, where a seat was prepared for the i)relate, which he was allowed to occupy on condition that he had no voice in the proceedings. Eor nearly sixteen years was this opi^sition carried on. At length, on the 30th of June, 1708, this affair of the ninth electorate was adjusted, and the tliree colleges of the empire resolved to admit the Elector of Hanover to sit and vote in the Electoral College. In the same month he was made general of the imperial troops, then assembled in the vicinity of the Upper Rhine. His original selection by the Emperor had much reference to his military services. The efforts of Louis XIV. to get possession of the Palatinate, after the death of the Palatine Louis, had caused the fonnation of the German confederacy to resist the aggression of France, — an aggression which was not finally overcome till the day when Marlboi-ough defeated Tallard, at Blenheim. Louis was burned into the war by his minister Louvois, who was annoyed by his interference at liome in matters connected with Louvois's de- partment. It was to make the confederation more firm and united that Ernest Augustus was created, rather than elected, a nmth elector. The three Protestant electors were those of Saxony, Brandenburg, and Hanover ; the three Catholic, Bohemia, Bava- ria, and the Palatinate ; and the three spiritual electoi's, the Princo Archbishops of Metz, Treves, and Cologne. The original number of electors was seven, and their office, according to Schiller, was to encircle the ruler of the w^orld (tlie Emperor) as the company of Stars surround the sun : — Und allc die Wiihler, die Sieben Wic der Sterner Chor um die Sonne sich stellt, Umstandcn gcschiiftig die Herrscher del Welt, Der Wurde des Amies zu iiben. In the battle-field they stood with their colors round the im- perial standard, " like Iris with all her seven." Their efforts against France were not at first marked by success. Mai*shal Luxembourg routed the Dutch General AValdeck, and in 1691 NaTnur was carried by storm, and Liege bombarded. In the fol- lowing year William III. was defeated at Steinkirk, where the husband of Sophia Dorothea served under him, and learned how great a general may be under defeat ; — a retreat was never con- ducte(> in more masterly style. The castle of Heidelberg, the birth-place of the Electress Sophia was, at the same period, blown into ruins by the French ; and in 1697 the peace of Ryswick humiliated the allies, and gave breathing time to the King of 68 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. France to frame new projects, which were ultimately foiled by the triumphant sword of Marlborough. Kut this is anticipating. The history of the creation of the ninth electorate would not be complete without citing what is said in respect thereof by the author of a pamphlet suppressed by the Hanoverian government, and entitled '* Impeachment of the Ministry of Count Munster." It is to this effect. " During the war between Leopold I. and France, at the close of the 17th century, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, and administrator of Osnabriick, father of George I., had been j)aid a considerable sum of money on condition of aiding the French monarch with ten thousand troops — the Em{)eror, aware of the engagement, and anxious to prevent the junction of these forces with the enemy, proj^sed to create a ninth electorate, in favor of the Duke, provided he brought his levies to the im- perial banner. The degrading offer was accepted, and the envoys of Brunswick-Luneberg received the electoral cap, the symbol of their master's dishonor, at Vienna, on the 19th December, 1G02. From the opposition of the college and princes, Ernest was never more than nominally an elector, and even his son's nomination was with ditHculty accomplislied in 1710. It was in connection with this new dignity that Hanover, a name till then applied only to a princi[Kd and almost independent city of the Dukedom of Bruns- wick, became known in the list of European sovereignties. CHAPTER VI. THE KoXIGSMARKS. Having briefly traced the outline of the history regarding the elevation of the Court of Hanover to the rank of an electoral court, I must beg pennission to continue for a short space more to be episodical, in order to trace the career of an individual whose residence at that Court brought death, dishonor, and destruction in his train. I have before noticed the circumstance of the sojourn of a Count KOnigsmark at Zell, during the childhood of Sophia Doro- SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 69 thea. The family of the Konigsmarks was originally of the Mark of Brandenburgh, but a chief of the family settled in Sweden, and the name carried lustre with it into more than one country. In the army, the cabinet, and the church, the Konigsmarks had re- presentatives of whom they might be proud ; and generals, states- men, and prince-bishops, all laboring with glory in their respective department*!, sustained the high reputation of this once celebrated Dame. From the period, early in the 17th century, that the first Konigsmark (Count John Christopher) withdrew from the impe- rial service and joined that of Sweden, the men of that house devoted themselves, almost exclusively, to the profession of arms. This Count John is especially famous as the subduer of Prague, in 1C48, at the end of the Thirty Years' War. Of all the costly booty which he carried with him from that city, none has con- tinued to be so well cared-for, by the Swedes, as the silver book, containing the Moeso-Gothic Gospels of Bishop Ulphilas, still with pride preserved at learned Upsal. John Christopher was the father of two sons. Otho William, a marshal of France, a valued friend of Charles XII., and a gallant servant of the state of Venice, whose government honored his tomb with an inscription Semper Victori, was the younger. He was pious as well as brave, and he enriched German literature with a collection of very fervid and spiritual hymns. The other, and the older son, was Conrad Christopher. The last name was almost as common an appellation in the family of Konigsmark as those of Timoleon Cosse in the family of Brissac. Conrad Chris- topher was killed in the year 1 673, when fighting on the Dutch and imperial side, at the siege of Bonn. He left four children, three of whom became at once famous and infamous. His sons were Charles John and Philip Christopher. His daughters were Maria Aurora (mother of the famous Maurice of Saxony), and Amelia Wilhelmina, who was fortunate enough to achieve happi- ness without being celebrated, and who, if she has not been talked of beyond her o^vn Swedish fireside, passed there a life of as calm felicity as she and her husband, Charles von Loewenhauft, could enjoy when they had relations so celebrated, and so troublesome, as Counts Charles John, and Phihp Christopher, and the Countess 70 LIVES OF THE QL'EEXS OF ENGLAND. SOrillA DOHOTUEA. 71 Maria Aurcra, the " favorite " of Augustus of Poland, and the only royal concubine, perhaps, who almost deserved as much respect as though she had won her greatness by a legitimate process. It was this Philip Christopher who was, for a brief season, the playfellow of Sophia Dorothea, in the young days of both, in the quiet gardens and galleries of Zell. It is only told of him that, after his departure from Zell, he sojourned with various members of his family, travelled with them, and returned at intervals to reside with his mother, Maria Christina, of the German family of Wrangle, who unhappily survived long enough to be acquainted with the crimes as well as misfortunes of three of her cliildren. In the year 1682, Philip Christopher was in Engliuid. The elder brother, who had more than once been a visitor to this country, and a welcome, because a witty, one at the Court of Charles II., had brought his younger brother hither, in order to have him instructed more completely in the tenets of the Pro- testant religion, and to ultimately place him at Oxford. In the meantime he placed him in a very singular locality for a theolo- gical student. He loilged him with a " governor," at the riding academy, in the Ilaymarket, of that Major Foubert, whose second establishment, where he taught the young to witch the world with noble horsemanship, is still commemorated by the passage out of Regent-street, which bears the name of the French Protestant refugee and i)rofessor of equestriani>m. The elder brother of these two Konigsmarks was a superb scoundrel, and I have no more foith in his professed zeal for Philip Christopher's religion than he had in the tnith which Philip was to be taught, after he had learned to ride. He had led a roving and adventurous life, and was in England when not more than fifteen years of age, in the year 1G74. During the next half dozen years he had rendered the ladies of the Court of France ecstatic at his impudence, and had won golden opinions from the "marine knights" of Malta, whom he had accompanied on a " caravane," or cruise, against the Turks, wherein he took hard blows cheerfully, and had well-nigh been drowned by his im- petuous gallnntry. At some of the Courts of southern Europe he appeared with an eclat which made the men hate and envy him ; but no where did he produce more effect than at Madrid, where he appeared at the period of the festivities held to celebrate the marriage of Charles II. with Maria Louisa, of Orleans, daughter of that Henrietta Maria, who was the youngest child of our Charles I., bom at Exeter, never beheld by her sire, and mur- dered, it is feared, by the connivance of her husband, the Duke of Orleans, as her daughter this Maria Louisa was, by the negligence or connivance of her consort. The marriage of the last-named august pair was followed by the fiercest and the finest bull-fights, symbolic of Spanish royal unions, that had ever been witnessed in Spain. At one of these, Charles John niiule himself the champion of a lady, fought in her honor in the arena, with the wildest bull of the company, and got dreadfully mauled for his pains. His horse was slain, and he himself, stag- gering and faint, and blind with loss of blood and with deep wounds, had finally only strength enough left to pass his sword into the neck of the other brute, his antagonist, and to be carried half-dead and quite senseless out of the arena, amid the fierce approbation of the gentle ladies, who purred applause, like satisfied tigresses, upon the unconscious hero. In 1G81, at the mature age of twenty-two, master of all manly vices, and ready for any adventure, he was once more in England, where he seized the opj)ortunity afibrded him by the times and their events, and luv bless the king, and this honorable bench !" He well knew where his gratitude was due — to a graceless monarch, and a servile judge. The meaner assassins were flung to the gallows. Vratz went to his fate, like Pierre ; declared that the murder was the result of a mistake, that he had no hand in it, and that as he was a gentleman, God would assuredly deal with him as such ! This *' gentleman," who looked for civil treatment hereafter, accounted for his presence at the murder, as having arisen by his entertaining a quarrel with Mr. Thynne, whom he was about to challenge, when the Pole, mistaking his orders and inclinations, discharged his carbine into the carriage, and slew the occupant. The other two confessed to the murder, as the hired instruments of Vratz ; but the latter (who could not have saved his own neck by implicating the count, his employer), kept his own secret as to liim who had seduced him to this great sin, and, feeling that he was thus behaving as a "gentleman" of those days w^as expected to behave, quietly confided in God to treat him in gentlemanlike fashion, in return. Count Philip Christopher gave brief evidence on this trial, sim- ply to speak to his brother's having been engaged in the purchase of horses. As for Count Charles John, he felt for a moment that there was a blot or speck upon the escutcheon of the Konigsmarks. *' Tut," said he, after a httle reflection, — " it will all be wiped out by some dazzling action in war, or a lodging on a counterscarp ! '* So did this Protestant gentleman settle with his conscience. He proceeded to efface the little speck in question by repairing to the Court of France, where he was received in that sort of gentlemanly fashion which Vratz looked for in Paradise. His sword gleam«d in many an action fought in various battle- fields of Europe during the next few years, in most of which he distinguished himself at the head of a French regiment, of which he was colonel. Finally, in 1G86, he was in the service of the Venetians in the Morea. On the 29th of August he was before Argos, when a sortie was made by the garrison, and in the bloody struggle which ensued, he was mortally wounded. He had done enough, he thought, to wipe out the speck which had for a season sullied the good name of Konigsraark ; and he was grateful to the u 76 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. last for the kind attentions paid to him by the " polite " society of England during the time of his little troubles. In .«hort, this so- called Protestant gentleman, who was a Popish colonel in the service of Louis XIV., did not appear to have the remotest idea of the balance likely to be struck against him by the Recording Angel. Like Vratz, perhaps, he considered that he was too much of a "gentleman" to have his little foibles set down against him in Heaven's Chancery. They were not even recorded against him on Thynne's tomb in Westminster Abbey. A Latin inscription was prepared for the tomb, which more than merely hinted that Konigsmark was the murderer of Tom of Ten Thousand. " Small, servile, Spratt," then Dean of Westminster, would not, however, allow the inscrip- tion to be set up ; and his apologists who advance in his behalf that he would have done wrong had he allowed a man, cleared by a jury from the charge of murtler, to be permanently set down in hard record of marble, as an assassin, have much reason in what they advance. Before we trace the further outlines of the Konigsmark annals, it were as well briefly to state what became of the youthful maid, wife, and widow. Lady Ogle. She remained at Amsterdam (whither she had gone, some persons said^tW), after her marriage with Thynne, until the three of his nuirderers, who had been exe- cuted, had expiated their crime, as far as human justice was con- cerned, upon the scafibld. If her ladyship landed at llanvich, the most frequented port in those days for travellers arriving from or proceeding to Holland, she probably passed the body of one of the assassins, Stem, as she entered London by Mile End. However this may be, the young lady did not " aj>pear public," lus the phrase went, for six or seven weeks, and when she did so, it was found that she had just married Charles Seymour, third Duke of Somer- set — a match which made one of two silly persons and a couple of colossal fortunes. This red-haired lady met with rude ingratitude from the Duke, and was designated by Swit\ as '' your d— d Duchess of Somerset" He had reason to be angry, for when she was Mistress of the Robes to Queen Anne, she contrived to prevent his being raised to SOPIHA DOROTHEA. 77 a bishopric ; by which she did extremely good service. She was the mother of a numerous family, and her third son married a grand-daughter of the tirst Viscount AVey mouth,— the cousin and heir of Tom of Ten Thousand. She died in the fifty-sixth year of her age, a.d. 1722 ; and the Duke, then sixty-four, found speedy consolation for his loss in a marriage with the youthful Lady Char- lotte Finch, who was at once his wife, nurse, and secretary. A very few persons of extreme old age are alive who saw her in their childhood, when she died, in the year 1773. It is said of her, that she one day, in the course of conversation, tapped her husband familiarly on the shoulder with her fan ; whereupon that amiable gentleman indignantly cried out :— " Madam, my first wife was a Percy ; and she never took such a liberty ! " But it is time to revert to the Konigsmark whose fate was so bound up with that of Sophia Dorothea. He left England with his brother, and did not pursue his researches after Protestantism at the feet of any reformed Gamaliel on the Continent. Like his brother, he led an adventurous and roving life, never betraying any symptom of the Christian spirit of the religion of the Church of England, of which he first tasted what little could be found in Major Faubert's riding school. A portion of his time was spent at ihunburg with his mother and two sisters. His renown was suflicient for a cavalier who loved to live splendidly ; and when he appeared at the Court of Himover, he was welcomed as cavaliers are who are so comfortably endowed. CHAPTER VH. KONIGSMARK AT COURT. The estimation in which Count Philip Christopher von Konigs- mark was held at the Court of Hanover, was soon manifested by his elevation to the i^ost of Colonel of the Guards. He was the handsomest colonel in the small Electoral army, and passed for the richest. His way of life was warrant for the opinion entertained I 78 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. of his wealth, but more flimsy warrant could hardly have existed, for the depth of a purse is not to be discovered by the manner of life of him who owns it. He continued withal to enchant every one with whom he came in contact. The spendthrifts reverenced him, for he was royally extravagant ; the few people of taste spoke of him encouragingh'i for at an era when little taste wa-* shown, he exhibited much in both his dress and his equipages. These were splendid without being gaudy. The scholars even could speak with and of him without a sneer expressed or reserved, for Philip Christopher was intellectually endowed, had read more than most of the mere cavaliers of his dav, and had a ^rood memorv, with an understanding, whose digestive powers a philosopher might have envied. He was not less welcome to the soldier than the scholar, for he had had experience in "the tented field," and had earned in the "imminently deadly breach" much reputation, without having been himself, in the slightest degree, " illustriously maimed." Ball- rooms re-echoed with the ringing eulogiums of his gracefulness, and his witty sayings are reported as liaving been in general cir- culation ; but they have not been strong enough to travel by the rough paths of time down to these later days. He is praised, too, as having been satirical, without any samples of his satire having been offered for our opinion. He was daringly irreligious, for which free-thinkers applauded him as a man of liberal sentiments, believing little, and fearing less. He was pre-eminently gay, which, in moilern and honest English, means that he was terribly licentious : and such wa> the temper of the times, that probably he was as popular for this characteristic a* for all the other (quali- ties by which he Avas distinguished, put together. Those times must be mon* than ordinarily out of joint when a man is more estimablv accounted of for his ;;reat sins than for his sterlinjr virtues. There was nothing remarkable in the fact that he speedily attracted the notice of Sophia Dorothea. She may, without fault, have remembered with pleasure the companion of her youth ; may have "wished him well and no harm done," as Pierre says. He was not a mere stranger ; and the two met. just as the hu.-band of Sopliia Dorothea had publicly insulted her by ostentatiously SOPHIA DOROTUEA. 79 parading his attachment and his bad taste for women, no more to be compared with her in worth and vii-tue than Lais with Lucretia. What follows much more nearly resembles romance than history, but it is without doubt substantially true, and in the details of the catastrophe wholly so. It is asserted that the count had scarcely been made Colonel of the Guards when the Countess von Platen fixed upon him as the instrument by which she would ruin Sophia Dorothea, and relieve George Louis of a wife whose virtues were a continual reproach to him. The simplest and mo;t innocent of circumstances appeared here the basis whereon to lay the first stone of her edifice of infamy. The princess had been taking some exercise in the gardens of the palace, retuniing from which she met her little son, George Autrustus, whom she took from the arms of his attendant, and with him in her arms began to ascend the stairs which led to her apart- ments. Her good will was greater than her strength, and Count Konigsmark happened to see her at the moment when she was exhibiting symi)toms of weakness and irresolution, embarrassed by her burden, and not knowing how to proceed with it. The count at once, with ready gallantry, not merely proffered, but gave his aid. He took the young prince from his mother, ascended the stairs, holding tlie future King of England in his arms, and at the door of the apartment of Soi)hia Dorothea again consigned him to maternal keeping. They tarried for a few brief moments at the door, exchanging a few conventional terms of thanks and civility, when they were seen by the ubiquitous von Platen, and out of this simple fact she gradually worked the subsequent terrible calamity which may be said to have slain both victims, for Sophia Dorothea was only for years slowly accomplishing death, wliich fell upon the cavalier so surely and so swiftly. This incident was reported to Ernest Augustus with much ex- aggeration of detail, and liberal suggestion not warranted by the I'acts. The conduct of the princess was mildly censured as indis- cretion, and that of the count as disloyal impertinence; and, there- to, there seems to have been added a mountain of comment and a misty worid of hints, which annoyed the Duke without convincmg 80 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. him. If he had a conviction, it was that von Platen was herself more zealous than discreet, and less discerning than either. Foiled in her first attempt to ruin Sophia Dorothea, she ad- dressed herself to the task of cementing strict friendship with the count; and he, a gallant cavalier, was nothhig loth, naught suspect- ing. Of the terms of this friendly alliance lit.le is known. They were only to be judged of by the conduct of the parties whom that alliance bound. A periect understanding appeared to have been established between them ; and the Countess von Platen was often heard to rally the count upon the love-passages in his life, and even upon his alleged well-known admii-ation of Sophia Doro- thea. What was said jokingly, or was intended to seem as if said jokingly, was soon accepted by ciisual hearers as a sober, and a sad as sober, truth. This first step having been made, no time was lost in pursuing the object for which it had been accomplished. At one of those splendid mascpierades, in which Ernest Augustus especially de- lighted, which he managed with consummate taste, and for which he gained as much reputation among the gay, as he had deservedly won for deeds of battle, from the brave, — at one of these gorgeous entertainments, given about the time of the Duke's eleviuion to the electorate, Konigsmark distinguished himself above all the other guests by the variety, as well as richness, of his costume, and by the sparkling talent with which he supported each assumed charac- ter. II.' excited a universal admiration, and in none, — to it was said by the Countess von Platen, — in none more than in Sophia Dorothea. This may have been true, and the poor princess may ix)ssibly have found some oblivion for her d juiestic trials in allow- ing herself to be amused with the exercise of the count's dramatic talent. She honestly complimented him on his ability, and on the advantages which the fOte derived from his presence, his talent, and his good-nature. Out of this compliment, the countess forged another link of the chain, whereby she intended to bind the prin- cess to a ruin from which she should not escape. The next incident told is more dramatic of character, perhaps than any of the others. The countess had engaged the count in conversation in a pavilion of tho gard.^ns m the electoral palace, SOPHIA LOUOTIIEA. 81 when, making the approach of two gentlemen an excuse for reti- ring, they withdrew together. The gentlemen aUuded to were George Louis -and the Count von Platen ; and these entering the pavilion which had been just vacated, the former picked up a glove which had been dropped by the countess. The prince recognized it by the embroidery, and perhaps by a crest, or some mark im- pressed u\)on it, as being a glove belonging to his consort. He was musingly examining it, when a servant entered the place, profes- sedly in search of a glove which the princess had lost. On some explanation ensuing, it was subsequently discovered that Madame Wreyke, the sister of the Countess von Platen, had succeeded in persuading the Prince Mjiximilian to procure for her this glove, on pretext that she wished to copy the pattern of the embroidery upon it, and that the j)rince had thoughtlessly done so, leaving the glove of Madame Wrevke in its place. But this, which min-ht have accounted for its ai)pearance in the pavilion, was not known to George Louis, who would probably, in such case, have ceased to tliink more of the matter, but that he was obligingly informed that Count Konigsmark had been before him in the pavilion where the glove was found, — been there, indeed, with the excellent Count- ess von Platen, who acknowledged the fact, adding, that no glovfe was on the ground when she was there, and that the one found could not have been hers, inasmuch as she never wore Netherland gloves, as the one in question was, but gloves altogether of different make and (juality. Konigsmark had been there, and the glove of the Princess Soj)hia Dorothea had been found there, and this ex- cellent German specimen of Mrs. Candour knew nothing beyond. This unlucky glove really effected as much perplexity, pain, and calamity as the handkerchief in Othello. Thenceforth, George Louis was not merely rude and faithless to his wife, but cruel in the extreme — the degrading blow, so it was alleged, following the harsh word. The Elector of Hanover was more just than his rash and worthless son ; he disbelieved the insinuations made against his daughter-in-law, and was probably disgusted with the domestic trouble with which his electorship had been inaugurated. The electress was less reasonable, less merciful, less just, to her son's wife. She treated her with a coolness which interpreted a beli« f 4* 82 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. in the slander uttered against her ; and when Sophia Dorothea expressed a wish to visit her mother, the electoral permission was given with an alacrity which testified to the pleasure with which the Electress of Hanover would witness the departure of Sophia Dorothea from her court. Granting that the incidents were all as here related, the persons who were aiFected hy them as damning evidence against the wife of " the electoral prince," as George Louis was now called, must have been singularly void of penetration, or even of common dis- cernment. But some of them, if they lacked clearness of judg- ment, did not want for wickedness ; and, in truth, it may be rather said, that their penetration was not at fault, but that their wicked- ness would not permit of its being exercised. Sophia Dorothea had experience of this as soon as she descended at the gates of her father's residence. She found a mother there, indeed, ready to receive her with the arms of a mother's love, and to feel that the love was sliowered ujwn a daughter worthy of it. Not of like quality were the old Duke's feelings. Communications had been made to him from Hanover, to the effect that his daugh- ter was obstinate, disobedient, disrespectful to the elector and elect- ress, neglectful of her children, and faithless in heart, if not in fact, to their father. The Duke of Zell had been, as he thought, slow to believe the charges brought against his child's good name, and had applied to the elector for some farther explanation. But poor Ernest Augustus was just then perplexed by another domestic quarrel. His son, the ever troublesome Prince Maximilian, hav- ing long entertained a suspicion that the Countess von Platen's de- nial of the light offence laid to her charge, of wearing rouge, was also a playful denial, mischievously proved the fact one day, l)y not very gallantly " flicking" (a good German word, as exi)laining the consequence of what he did) from his finger a little water in which peas liad been boiled, and which was then a j)opularIy mi.-- chievous test to try the presence of rouge, as, if the latter were there, the pea-water left an indelible Jleck or stain upon it. At this indignity, the Countess von Platen was the more enraged, as her denial had been disproved. She rushed to the feet of the elector, and told her complaint with an energy as if the whole state SOPHIA DOROTHKA. 83 were in peril. The elector listened, threatened Prince Maximilian with arrest, and wished his family were as easy to govern as his electoral dominions. He had scarcely relieved himself of this par- ticular source of trouble, by binding Prince Maximilian to his good behavior, when he was api)lied to by the Duke of Zell on the sub- ject of his daughter. He angrily referred the Duke to three of his ministers, who, he said, were acquainted with the facts. Now these ministers were the men who had expressly distorted them. These worthy persons, if report may be trusted, performed their wicked otfice, with as wicked an alacrity. However the result was reached, its existence cannot be denied, and its consequences were fatal to Sophia Dorothea. The Electress Sophia is said to have so thoroughly hated her daughter-in-law as to have. entered partly into these misrepresentations, which acquired for her the temporary wrath of her father. But of this enmity of her mother- in-law, the younger Sophia does not appear to have suspected any- thing. She possessed not those means of discovering the treachery of such a relative, which, according to Plutarch, were to be pro- cured by the nations of old. The icy-cold plant called the Phryxa, which grew on the banks of the Tanais, was popularly said to be tiie Tuardian angel of those who feared the machinations of step- dames and mothers-in-law. If one of the latter were plotting against the peace of her kindred by marriage, the plant set itself on fire, and shot forth a bright flame upon being looked at by the intended victim. On the other hand, the name of a stei)-dame or mother-in-law breathed over the white violet which grew on the banks of the river Lycormas, caused the flower to instantly wither away, — such antipathy did it bear to the persons holding in fami- lies the rank and position above named. Sophia Dorothea had no means of applying the first test, nor would she, even if the application had resulted in the discovery of her mother-in-law's treachery, have had recourse, even if she could, to the test. She was too gentle of nature, and she bore her father's temporary aversion with a wondering patience, satisfied that " time and the hour" would at length do her justice. The Duke's prejudice, however, was rather stubborn of charac- fer, and he was guilty of many absurdities to show, as he thought, 84 LIVES OF TIIK QUEENS OF ENGLAND. that his obstinacy of ill-merited feeling against his own child was not ill-founded. He refused to listen to her own statement of her wrongs, in order to show how he guarded himself against being unduly biassed : a proceeding which as much ran counter against profession, as that of the old clergy of the Established Church of Scotland, who had a horror of theatrical entertainments, but who^ nevertheless, made a point of going to the play in Lent, that they might manifest their contempt for what they considered a renmant of Popery ! The mother of the princess remained, however, and naturally so, her firmest friend, and truest champion. If misrej)resentations had shaken her confidence for a moment, it was only for a moment. She knew the disposition of Sophia Dorothea too well to lend credit to false representations which depicted her as a wife, compared with w hom Petruchio's Katherine would have been the gentlest of Griseldas. As little did she believe, — and to the expression of her disbelief she gave much indignant force of phrase, — as little did she believe in the suggestions, rather than assertions, of the minis- ters of the elector, that the iamiliar tenns which, as they alleged, existed between the electoral princess and Count KOnigsmark were such as did foul wrong to her husband George Louis. Those terms were not more familiar than those which existed between the electress herself and her favorite, Leibnitz ; but the electress was neither fair nor young, and Leibnitz was of neither a seductive look nor age. The judges of morality at once jumped to the con- clusion, that youth and good looks were incompatible with propri- ety of conduct. The worst that could have been alleged against Sophia Dorothea at this period was, that some letters had i)assed between her and Count Konigsmark, and that the latter had once or twice had private audience of the electoral princess. Whatever may be thought of such things here in P^ngland, and the present age, they have never been accounted of in Germany but as commonplace circumstances, involving neither blame nor injury. A corres- pondence between two persons, of the respective ranks of the electoral princess and the count, was not an uncommon occurrence . — save that it was not often that two such ]iorsoTis had either the SOPHIA DOliOTHEA. 85 taste or capachy to maintain such intercourse. As to an occa- sional interview, such a favor, granted by ladies of rank to clever conversational men, was as common an event as any throughout the empire ; and as harmless as the interviews of Leonora and that very selfish personjige, the poet Tasso. The simple fact appears to have been, that, out of a very small imprudence, — if imprudence it may be called, — the enemies of Sophia Dorothea contrived to rear a structure which should threaten her with ruin. Her exem- plary husband, who affected to hold himself wronged by the alleged course adopted by his consort, had abandoned her, in the woi-st sense of that word. He had never, in absence, made" her hours glad by letters, whose every word is dew to a soul athirst for assurance of even simple esteem. In his own household his con- versation was seldom or never addressed to his wife ; and, when it was, never to enlighten, raise, or cheer her. She may have con- versed and corresponded with Konigsmark, but no society then construed such conversation and correspondence as crimes ; and even if they had approached in this case to a Hmit which would have merited stern censure, the last man who should have stooped to pick up a stone to cast at the reputation of his consort was that George Louis, whose affected indignation was expressed from a couch with ^Mademoiselle von Schulemberg at his side, and their very old-fashioned (as to look, but not less illegitimate as to fact) baby, playing, in much unconsciousness of her future distinction, between them. It was because Sophia Dorothea had not been altogether tamely silent touching her own wrongs, that she had found enemies trumpet-tongued publishing a forged record of her transgressions. "NVhen Count Molcke had become implicated in the little domestic rebellion of Prince Maximilian, ^ome intimation was conveyed to him, that, if he would contrive, in his defence, to mingle the name of Soi>hia Dorothea in the details of the trumpery conspiracy, so as to attach suspicion to such name, his own acquittal would be secured. The count was a gallant man, refused to injure an un- offending lady, and was beheaded ; as though he had conspired to overthrow a state, instead of having tried to help a discontented heir in the disputed settlement of some family accounts. se LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF EXGLANP. The contempt of Sophia Dorothea on discovering to what lengths the intimacy of George Louis and Ermengarde von Schulemberg had gone, found bitter and eloquent expression. Where an angry contest was to be maintained, George Louis could be elotiuent too ; and in these domestic quarrels, not only is he said to have been as coarse as any of his own grooms, but even, on one occasion, to have proceeded to blows. His hand was on her throat, and the wife and mother of a King of England would have been strangled by her exasperated lord, had it not been for the intervention of the courtiers, who rushed in, and, presumedly prevented murder. To such a story wide currency was given, and if not exact to the letter, neither can be said to be without foundation. As little can it be said to be without precedent. William the Norman was a mirror of knighthood, and he is known to have knocked down the gentle Matilda of Flanders, even in the days of their courtship. The blow did not put a stop to their wooing, nor did it delay a merry wedding, which one would think could hardly have been merry under such auspices. Then there was that paragon of chivalry, the elder Aymon, sire of the '-Quatre lils Aymon" of the romantic legend ; that gallant gentleman was not only accus- tomed to maltreat his lady-wife by tiiumping her into insensibility, but when his eldest son, IJeinoKl, once ventured to comment upon one of those plea-ant little dome>:tic scenes, to the effect that they interrupted conviviality, and that his respected sire should either chastise the speaker's mother more gently, or elsewhere, the kniglitly father wa^ so enraged at this approach to interference on the part of a son, in behalf of a mother who was lying senseless at his feet, that, taking him with one hand by the hair, he beat his face with the other and mailed hand, into that pulpy consistency which, Professor Whewell says, possibly distinguishes the intere.-t- ing inhabitants of the wide and desolate plane of the phuiet Jupiter. From this contest, however, the old knight came out tu little recognizable in human features as his son, so chivalrou.-ly had they mauled each other. So much for precedent. The exam])le has been followed in Germany since the days of George Louis. Louis XVIIL informs us in his Memoirs, that when the daughter of Louis XVL found a refuge at Vienna, after her liberation from SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 87 the Temple, she was urged by the empress to consent to a mar- riage with one of the imperial arch-dukes, and that the Empress became at last so enraged by the firm and repeated refusals of "Madame Royale" to acquiesce in the proposal, that on one occasion her Imperial Majesty seized the royal orphan by the arm, and descended to ''votes de fait;' in other words, visited the young and destitute princess with a shower of hard blows. The ill-treatment of George Louis drove Sophia Dorothea to Zell, and the wrath of her husband and the intrigues of von Platen made of that residence anything but a refuge. The Duke refused to give permission to his daughter to remain longer in his palace than was consistent with the limit of an ordinary visit. She petitioned most urgently, and her mother seconded her prayer with energy as warm, that for the present she might make of Zell a temporary home. Her angry father would not listen to the request of either petitioner ; on the contrary, he intimated to his daughter, that if she did not return to Hanover by a stated period, she would be pennanently separated from* lier children. On the expression of this threat she ceased to press for leave to remain longer absent from Hanover; and when the day named for her departure arrived, she set out once more for the scene of her old miseries, anticipation of misery yet greater in her heart, and with nothing to strengthen her but a mother's love, and to guide her but a mother's counsel. Neither was able to save her from the ruin under which she was so soon overwhelmed. Her return had been duly announced to the Court of Han- over, and so much show of outward respect was vouchsafed her as consisted in a portion of the electoral family repairing to the country residence of Herrnhausen to meet her on her w ay, and accompany her to the capital. Of this attention, however, she was unaware, and she passed Ilernnhausen at as much speed ai could then be shown by electoral post-horses. It is said that her first intention was to have stopped at the country mansion, where the electoral party was waiting to do her honor ; that she was aware of the latter fiict, but that she hurried on her way for the reason that she saw the Countess von Platen seated at one of the windows looking on to the road, and that, rather than encounter 88 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPniA DOROTHEA. 89 her, she offended nearly a whole family, who were more nice touching matter.^ of etiquette than they were touching mattei*3 of morality. The members of this family, in waiting to receive a young lady, against whom they considered that they were not whhout grounds of complaint, were lost in a sense of horror that was farcical, and of hidignation at violated proprieties, that must have been lu* comical to look at, as it, no doubt, was intense. The farcical nature of the scene is to be found in the fact, that these good people, by piling their agony beyond measure, made it ridiculous. There was no warrant for their horror, no cause for their indignation ; and when they all returned to Hanover, follow- ing on the track of a young princess, whose contempt of ceremony tended to give them strange suspicions as to whether she possessed any remnant of virtue at all, these very sei*ene i)rinces and princesses were as sui>remely ridiculous as any of the smaller people worshipping ceremony in that never-to-be-forgotten city of Kotzebue's painting, called Kriihwinkel. AVhen So})Iiia Dorothea passed by Herrnhausen, regardless of the company who awaited her there, she left the persons of a com- plicated drama standing in utter amazement on one of the prettiest of theatres. Herrnhausen, the *• master's mansion" was a name given to trim gardens, as well as to the edifice surrounded by them. At the period of which we are treating, the grounds were a scene of delight ; the fountains tasteful, the basins large, and the water abundant. The maze, or wilderness, was the wonder of Germany, and the orangery the pride of Europe. There was al.>o, what may still be seen in some of the pleasure-grounds of German princes, a perfectly rustic theatre, complete in itself, with but little help from any hand but that of nature. The seats were cut out of the turf, the verdure resembled green velvet, and the chances of rheumatism must have been manv. There was no roof but the sky, and the dressing-rooms of the actors were lofty bowers (on- structed near the stage ; the whole was adorned with a ])rofusion of gilded statues, and kept continually damp by im incessant i)Iay of spray-scattering water-works. The grand tableau of rage in this locality, as Sophia Dorothea passed unheedingly by, must have been a spectacle worth the contemplating. CHAPTER Yin. THE CATASTROPHE. With the return of Sophia Dorothea to Hanover, her enemies appeared to have commenced more actively their operations against her. George Louis was languidly amusing himself with Ermen- garde von Schulemberg and their little daughter Petronilla Melu- sina. The Countess von Platen was in a state of irritability at the presence of Sophia Dorothea, and the absence of Konigsmark. The last-mentioned person had, in his wide-spread adoration, off(?red a portion of his homage to both the countess and her daughter. The elder lady, while accepting as much of the incense for herself as was safe to inhale, endeavored to secure the count as a husband for her daughter. Her *"iilure only increased her bitterness against the count, and by no means lent less asi)erity to the sentiment with which she viewed Sophia Dorothea. She was, no doubt, the chief cause, primarily and ai»proximate, of the ruin which fell upon both. It was not merely the absence of Konigsmark, who was on a visit to the riotous court of Augustus of Saxony, wliich had scared her spirit ; the reports which were made to her of his conversation there gave fierceness to her resentment, and called into existence that desire of bloody vengeance which she accomplished, but with- out profiting by the wickedness. There was no more welcome guest at Dresden than Konigs- mark. An individual so galhmt of bearing, handsome of feature, easy of principle, and lively of speech, was sure to be warmly wel- comed at that dissolute court. He played deeply, and whatever sums he might lose, he never lost his temper. He drank as deeply as he played ; not quite so deeply, perhaps, as the old Emperor ^Maximilian, or as the older Persians who could boast, when they »l 90 IiIVES OF THK QUEENS OF ENGLAND. had nothing else left to boast of, that they could drink more than any other men without being overpowered by their liquor. But Konio'smark was inferior to both the Persians of old, and to the more modem toper Maximilian, in discretion under wine. He then became as loquacious as Ca.^sio, but more given to slander. He was then as prodigal, too, of flattery. No man was more open to the double peril named by Dr. South, when he said, that '' as by flattery a man opens his bo^om to his mortal enemy ; so, by de- traction and slander he shuts the same to his best friends." It was not that he had that secret propensity of the mind to think ill of all men, which is followed by the utterance of such sentiments in ill-natured expressions, the which, according to Theophnistus, con- stitutes slander. He sjxjke ill of others out of mere thoughtless- ness, or at times out of mere vanity. He possessed not what Swift calls the "lower prudence" of discretion. "Vanity," says Jeremy Collier, " is a strong temptation to lying ;" and in detailing its char- acteristics and consequences, he names, among others, that it "makes men tell strange stories of their interest and acquaint- ance." Konigsmark in some degree illustnited these remarks ; and his vanity, and the stories to which it prompted him, seemed to amuse and interest tlie idle and scandalous court where he was so welcome a guest. He kept the illustriously wicked company there in an uninter- rupted ecstasy by the tales he told, and the point he gave to them, — of the chief personages of the Court of Hanover. He retailed anecdotes of the elector and his son, George Louis, and warmly- tinted stories of the shameless mistresses of that exemplary parent, and no less exemplary child. He did not spare even the Electress Sophia ; but she was, after all, too respectable for Konigsmark to be able to make of her a subject of ridicule. This subject he found in Uidies of smaller virtue and less merit genenilly. Touch- ing them his anecdotes were of a quality to suit a "Chronique Scandaleuse," to delight Brantome, and to have made the very ghost of Boccaccio smile. But every word he uttered, in sarcastic description of tlie life, character, and behavior of the favorites of the Elector of Hanover and his son, found its way, with no loss of pungency on the road, to the ears of those persons whom the report SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 91 was most likely to offend. His warm advocacy of Sophia Doro- thea, expressed at the table of Augustus of Saxony, was only an additional offence; and George Louis was taught to think that Count Konigsmark had no right to ask, with Pierre, " May not a man wish his friend's wife well, and no harm done?" The count returned to Hanover soon after Sophia Dorothea had arrived there, subsequent to her painful visit to the little court of her ducal parents at Zell. In this connection of circumstances there was nothing pre-arranged ; and no one could be more sur- prised probably than the count himself, when, shortly after his resuming his duties as colonel of the electoral guard, he received a note from the princess, written in pencil, and expressing a wish to see him in her chamber. The note was a forged document, — as confessed by the Countess von Platen, when confession came too late for the repair of evil that could not be undone. Nevertheless, the count, on presenting himself to Mad >.noiselle Knesebeck, the lady of honor to the prin- cess, was admitted to the presence of the latter. This indiscreet step was productive of terrible consequences to all the three who were present. The count, on being asked to explain the reason of his seeking an interview with the princess, at an advanced hour of the evening, produced the note of invitation, which Sophia Dorothea at once pronounced to be a forgery. Had they then separated, little of ill consequence might have followed. The most discreet of the three, and the most perplexed at the " situation," was the lady of honor. Tlie INIemoirs which bear her name, and which describe this scene, present to us a woman of some \\eak- ness, yet one not wanting in discernment. In proof of the latter, it may be stated that, as she had long previously suspected the count to be a worthless libertine, so on this night suspicion was followed by conviction. Sophia Dorothea, it would seem, could dwell upon no subject but that of her domestic troubles, the cruel neglect of her husband, and her desire to find somewhere the refuge from persecution which had been denied to her in her old home at Zell. More dangerous topics could not have been treated by two such pcrsonr. The count, it is afhrmed, ventured to suggest that Paris would 92 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 98 afford her such a refuge, and that he should be but too happy to be permitted to give her such protection as she could derive from his escort thither. This was probably mther hinted than suggested ; but however that may be, only one course should have Ibllowed even a distant hint leading to so unwarrantable an end. The in- terview should have been brought to a close. It was still continued, nevertheless, and to the annoyance, if not scandal, of the faithful Knesebeck ; whose fears may have received some little solace on hearing her mistress express a desire to find at least a temporary home at the court of her cousin, Duke Anthony Ulric of Wolfen- buttel. While this discussion was proceeding, the Countess von Platen was by no means idle. She had watclied the count to the bower into which she had sent him by the employment of a false lure, and she thereupon hastened to the elector to communicate what she termed her discovery. Ernest Augustus, albeit waxing old, was by no means iutirm of judgment. If KOnigsmark was tlien in the chamber of his daugater-in-law, he refused to see in the fact anything more serious than its own impropriety, lliat^ however, was crime enough to warrant the arrest wliich the countess soli- cited. The old elector yielded to all she asked, except credence of her assurance that Sophia Dorothea must be as guilty as Ktinigs- mark was presuming. lie would consent to nothing further than the arrest of him who was guilty of the presumption ; and the method of this arrest he left to the conduct of the countess, who urjrentlv sohcited it as a favor, and with solicitation of such eani- estn^ss that the old elector atlected to be jealous of the interest she took in such a case, and added phiyfully the expression of his opin- ion, that, angry- as she seemed to be with the count, he was too handsome a man to be likely to meet with ill treatment at her hands. Armed with this permission, she proceeded to the body of sol- diers or watch for the night, and exhibiting her written warnuit for what she demanded, she requested that a guard might be given to her, for a purpose which she woidd explain to them. Some four or live men of this household body were told off, and these were conducted by her to a large apaitment, called the Hall of Knights through which Konigsmark must pass, if he had not v«t quitted the princess's chamber. ^ They were then informed that their office was to arrest a crim- inal, whose person was described to them, of whose safe cus.X he elector was so desirous, that he would nether that such crLind hould be slam than that he should escape. They were Tc"^ ngly mstructed to use their weapons if he should resist ; an"t .he.r courage had been heightened by the double bribe ^f nit wme and a shower of gold pieces, they expressed their willingnesl to execute her bidding, and only too well showed by the isfble quent act the sincerity of their expression. At length Konigsmark appeared, coming from the prince..'. apartment. It was now n,id„ight. He entered .he R.ter H. , as unsuspecng of the fa.e betbre him as the groat Guise was It S^irS^o-*"" ; "^TV"^ "''' ^' dark apartment in tL Ca.^ le of Blois, and was butchered ere he reached ai. opposite door ilenri IIl""' ""'" '" '^""^"'' '^ ""= "-«• --^^"-f The elector had he cared much for the honor of his daughter- an-h.w would have investigated the case himself. The ImtbTnd of Soplua Dorothea might have been summoned ,o look to U ow' honor and ,he peril in which it is sai.l to have stood tha i^I >m .t ,s remarkable that at this very time he was absent t a ^ U o Berhn, where lus sister, the Elec.ress of Br-andenbur^h, is nid to have almost called a blush upon his cheek by her ,x,r,;a .ur;"? h.s conduct, and a dnail of the wrongs by which he had infl ctld van misery upon his wife. In the absence of these ,„•. ten. authorities, the Electress of Hanover ,.:htr hrelfT.':^' w.,h any .ffairs less weighty than politics, philosopl.;. and "L. ^ «ork. the Countess von Platen was soverei-n for thp t,„,„ K over the small circle of Hanover, of whi^he ^ '.^^ n^:^^^^ and the sovereign of the hour wielded her might with a p"omm and most terrific energj-. prompt In 0.e Kitten-' HaH "there was a huge, square, ponderous stove, ooking like a mausoleum, silent and cold. It reached from floor o roof and hidden by one of its sides, the guard awaited thT^m .ng of the count. He approached the spot, passed it, was seized iii lll'l 94 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. reputation. The la*t .vorci^ ^^^ ^ .^ "Tu'^-'t'Cman detail of this as.™tion. It is added, jee\...ea.o.^|ot.ee.e^,to^^^^^^^ L .h"e blocly dLa «.. enacted .^hout any one be.ng a«a:c of .hat .as .^in. on, save ^ ;r;^^J^^';,^^^;' the Tn Cramer's ** ^lemoirs ot the Loimtess oi xvu ^ fate of thTcount is told .,.on the alleged evidence ot a sonce»s ^ ^ ^^^^ .^^^^^^ SOPHI.V DOROIHEA. 95 The hoff-fourier came back running, and whispered to the electoral prince, and tlien to his highness the elector. But the electoral prince went away from the opera with the hoff-fourier. Now Bernard saw all thi.<, and knew what it meant, and as he knew the count was with the princess, he left the opera secretly, to warn her ; and as he went in at the door, the other door was opened, and two ma.^kcd persons rushed in, one exclaiming, * So ! then I lind you ! ' The count, who was sitting on the bed, with his back to the door by which the two entered, .started up, and whipped out his sword, saying, * Who can say anything unbecoming of me?' The princess, clasping her hands, said, ' 1, a princess, am I not allowed to converse with a gentleman ?' But the masks, without listening to reason, slashed and stabbed away at the count. But he pressed so upon both, that the electoral prince unmasked, and begged for his life, while the hoff-founer came behind the count, and run him through between the ribs with his sabre, so that he fell, saying, * You arc murderers, before God and man, who do me wrong.' But they both of them gave him more wounds, so that he lay as dead. Bernard, seeing all this, hid himself behind the door of t lie other room." Bernard was subsequently sent by the princess to spy out what they would do with Konigsmark. " When the count was in the vault, he came a little to himself, and six)ke :— ' You take a guiltless man's life. On that I'll die, but do not let me perish like a dog, in my blood and my sins. Grant me a priest, for my soul's sake.' Then the electoral prince went Old, and the fourier remained alone with him. Then Mas a strange pardon fetched, and a strange executioner, and the fourier fetched a great chair. And wlan the count had confessed, he was so weak that three or four of them lifted him into the chair; and there in the prince's presence was his head laid at his feet. And they had tools witli them, and they dug a hole in the right comer of the vault, and there they laid him, ami there he must be to be found. When all was over, this Benihard slipped away from the castle ; and indeed Counsellor Lucius, who was a friend of the Princess's, sent him some of his livery to save him; for they sought him in all corners because they had seen him in the room N 96 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. during the affmy And ^vhat Benihard Zayer saw in the vault, he saw through a crack." Clear as this narrative is in its details, it is contradictory in some of them, and yet it probably rests on some basis of truth. The Countess Aurora of Konigsmark has left a statement of her brother's connection with the princess, in which the latter's innocence is ni^intained, but his imprudence acknowledged. The statement referred to, explains the guiUy nature of the intercourse kept up between Ki.nigsmark and the Counters von Platen. It is written in terms of extreme indelicacy. We may add that the faithful von Knesebeck, on whose character no one ever cast an imputation, in her examination before the judges, argued the inno- cence of her accused mistress upon grounds, the nature of which cannot even be alludrd to. The princess it is clear had urged Koni-smark to renew his intemipted intrigue with von Platen, out of dread that the latter, taking the princess as the cause of the intercourse having been broken otf, should work a revenge which she did not hesitate to menace, ui)on the princess herself. The details of both stories are marked by great improbability, but they have been in part substantiated by the death-bed confes- sions of the Countess von Platen, and Baumain, one of the guards, —the two criminals having, without so intending it, confessed to the same clergvman,— a minister named Kramer. Though the.e confessions are spoken of, and are even cited by Gennan authors, their authenticity ctumot perhaps be warranted. At all events, there is what I mav term an English version of the details of this murder given by Horace AValpole, and as that lively writer founded his lugubrious details upon authority which he deemed could not be gain>aid, tliey may fairiy find a place, by way of supplement to the foreign version. *^ Konigsmark's vanity," says Walpole, " the beauty of the electoral princess, and the neglect under which he found her, en- couraged his presumptions to make his addresses to her, not coverdv, and she, though believed not to have transgressed her dutv, did receive them too indiscreetly. The old elector, flamed at the insolence of so stigmatised a pretender, and ordered him to quit his dominions the next day. This princess sun-ounded by SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 97 women too closely connected with her husband, and consequently enemies of the lady they injured, was persuaded by them to suffer the count to kiss her hand, before his abrupt departure ; and he was actually introduced by them into her bedchamber the next morning before she rose. From that moment he disappeared, nor was it known what became of him, till on the death of George I., on his son, the new king's first journey to Hanover, some altera- tions in the palace being ordered by him, the body of Konigsmark was discovered under the floor of the electoral princess's dressing- room ; — the count having probably been strangled there, the in- stant he left her, and his body secreted. The discovery was ' hushed up. George II. (the son of Sophia Dorothea) entrusted the secret to his wife Queen Caroline, who told it to my father ; but the king was too tender of the honor of his mother to utter it to his mistress; nor did Lady Suffolk ever hear of it, till I iu- fonned her of it several years afterwards. The disappearance of the count made his murder suspected, and various reports of the discovery of liis body, have of late years been spread, but not with the authentic circumstances." To turn to the German sources of information : we are told by these, that after the departure of Konigsmark from the chamber of the princess, she was engaged in arranging her papers, and m securing her jewels, preparatory as she hojK^d to her anticipated removal to the court of Wolfeiibuttel. She was, of course, kept in ignorance of the count's assassination ; but she was perplexed by his disai)pearance, and alarmed when she heard that all his papers had been seized and conveyed to the elector for his exami- nation. Some notes had passed between them : and, innocent as they were, she felt annoyed at the tliought that their existence should be known, still more that they should be perused. To their most innocent expressions the Countess von Platen, who examined them with the elector, gave a most guilty interpretation ; and she so wrought upon Ernest Augustus, that he commissioned no less a j)erson than the Count von Platen to interrogate the princess on the subject. I liave previously said that she did not lack spirit ; and when the coarse-minded count began to put coarse questions to her, as to the degree of intercourse which had existed between 98 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 99 herself and the count, she spiritedly remarked that he appeared to imagine that he was examining into the conduct of his own wife, a thmst which he repaid by bluntly informing her that whatever intercourse may have existed, it would never be renewed, seeing that sure intelligence had been received of K6nig>mark's death. Sophia Dorothea, shocked at this information, and at the manner in which it was conveyed, had no friend in whom she could repose confidence but her faithful lady-in-waiting, Mademoiselle von Knesebeck. The princess could have had no more ardent defender than this worthy attendant. But the assertions made by the latter in favor of the mistress whom she loved, were not at all to the taste of the enemies of that mistress, and the speedy result was, that Mademoiselle von Knesebeck was arrested, and carried away to the castle of Schartzfeld, in the Ilartz. She was there kept in confinement many years ; but she ultimately escaped so cleverly through the roof, by the help of a tiler, or a friend in the likeness uf a tiler, that the credit of the success of the attempt was given, by the governor of the gaol, to the demons of the adjacent moun- tains. Sophia Dorothea had now but one immediate earnest wish, namely, to retire from Hanover. Already the subject of a divorce had been mooted, but the elector being somewhat feai-ful that a divorce might affect his son's succession to his wife's inheritance, and even obstruct the union of Zell with Hanover, an endeavor was made to reconcile the antagonistic spouses, and to bury past dissensions in oblivion. It was previous to this attempt being entered upon, and perhaps because it was contemplated, that the princess voluntarily under- went a very solemn ordeal, — if I may so speak of the, at least solemn, ceremony to whieli I here allude. The ceremony wa sas public as it could be rendered by the presence of part of the electoral family, and the great oflicial dignitaries of the church and government. Before them, Sophia Dorothea partook of the sacra- ment of the body and blood of our Lord and Saviour, and then made solemn protestation of her innocence, and of her unspotted faith towai-ds the electoral prince, her husband. At the termina- tion of this touching ceremony she was insulted by an incredulous smile which she saw upon the face of Count von Platen ; whereat the natural woman was moved within her to ask him, if his own excellent wife could take the same oath in attestation of her unbroken faithfulness to him. The essay at reconciliation was marred, or was rendered impos- sible, by an attempt made to induce the electoral princess to con- fess that she had been guilty of sins of disobedience towards the expressed will of her consort.. All endeavor in this direction was fruitless ; and though grave men made it, it shows how very little they comprehended their delicate mission. The princess remained fixed in lier desire to withdraw from Hanover; but when she was informed of the wound this would be to the feelings of the elector and electress, and that George Louis himself was heartily averse to it, she began to waver, and applied to her friends at Zell, among others to Bemstorf, the Hanoverian minister there, asking for counsel in this her great need. Bemstorf, an ally of the von Platens, secretly advised her to insist upon leaving Hanover. He assured her, pledging his word for what he said, that she would find a happy asylum at Zell ; that even her father, so long estranged from her, would receive her with open arms ; and that in the adoption of such a step, alone, could she hope for happiness and peace durmg the remainder of her life. Worse counsel could not have been given, but it was given ex- actly because it icas the worst. She was as untruthfully served by some of the ladies of her cir- cle, who, while professing friendship and fidelity, were really the spies of her husband, and her husband's mistress. They were of that class of women who were especially bred for courts and court- intrigues, and whose hopes of fortune rested upon their doing credit to thdr education. In some respect they resembled the defonned and monstrous inmates of the human menagerie of the Emperors of IVIexico ; hideous anomalies, regarded by the Aztecs as a suita- ble appendage of state, and dwarfed and twisted into hideousness by unnaturaf parents desirous to procure a provision for their off- spring by thus qualifying them for a place in the royal museum. As the princess not merely insisted upon quitting Hanover, but 100 LIVES OF THE QUKEKS OF ENGLANP. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 101 firmly refused to acknowledge that she had been guilty of any wrong to her most guilty husband, a course was adopted by her enemies which, as they considered, would not merely punish her, but would transfer her possessions to her consort, without affecting the long projected union of Zell, after the duke's death, with the territory of Hanover. An accusation of adultery, even if it could be sustained, of which there was not the shadow of a chance, miglit, if carried out, and followed by a divorce, in some way affect the transfer of a dominion to Hanover, which tmnsfer rested partly on the rights of the wife of the electoral j)rince. A divorce might destroy the ex-husband's claims ; but he was well-i)rovided with lawyers to watch and guard the case to an ultimate conclusion in his favor. A consistorial court was formed, of a strangely mixed character, for it consisted of the chief ecclesiastical lawyers, and some civil authorities of Hanover and Zell. It had no other authority to warrant its proceedings than the command or sanction of the Elect- or, and the consent of the Duke of Zell, whose ill-feeling towards his child seemed to increase daily. The only charge laid against the princess before this anomalous court, was one of incompatibility of temper, added to some little failings of character ; that is, of dis- position, which two lovhig heart.'*, warmed by a mutual respect, might have adjusted in a few minutes by a brief explanation. The court affected to attempt some such adjustment of the mat- ter ; but as the attempt was always based on another to drag from the princess a confession of her having, wittingly or unwittingly, given cause of offence to her husband, she continued firmly to re- fuse to place her consort in the right, by doing herself and her cause extremest wrong. In the meantime, during an adjouniment of the court, she with- drew to Lauenau. She was prohibited from repairing to Zell, but there was no longer any opposition made to her leaving the capital of the Electorate. She was, however, strictly prohibited from taking her children with her. Her parting from these was as pain- ful a scene as can well be imagined, for she is said to have felt that she would never again be united with them. Her son, George Augustus, was then ten years of age, and her daughter, Sophia, two years younger. The homage of these children was rendered to their mother long after their hearts had ceased to pay any to their father, beyond a mere conventional respect. In her temporary retirement at Lauenau, she was permitted to enjoy very little repose. The friends of the electoral prince seem to have been anxious lest she should pubUsh more than was yet known of the details of his private life. This fear alone can ac- count for their anxiety, or professed anxiety for a reconciliation The lawyers, singly or in couples, and now and then a leash ot them tocrether, went down to Lauenau to hold conference with.her. They assailed her socially, scripturally, legally; they pointed out how salubrious was the discipline which subjected a wife to con- fess her faults. They read to her whole chapters from Corinthi- ans on the duties of married l.idies, and asked her if she could be so obstinate and unorthodox as to disregard the injunctions of bt. Paul Finally, they quoted codes and pandects, to prove that a sentence might be pronounced against her under contumacy, and concluded by recommending her to trust to the mercy of the Crown Prince, if she would but cast herself upon lus honor. They were grave men ; sage, learned, experienced men ; crafty, cunning, far-seeing men ; in all the circles of the empire there were not inc^n more skilled in surmounting difficulties thim these mdefa- ti^Me men, who were all foiled by the simplicity and firmness of a mere child. '• If I am guilty," said she, " I am unworthy of the prince. If I am innocent, he is unworthy of me !" Here was a conclusion with which the sciolist, as she was ac- counted, utterly confounded the sages. They could not gainsay it, nor refute the logic by which it was arrived at, and which gave it force They were " perplexed in the extreme," but neither social experience, nor scriptural reading, nor legal knowledge, afforded them weapons wherewith to beat down the simple defences behmd which the pure princess had entrenched herself. They tried tried repeatedly, and tried in vain. At the end of every trial she slowly and calmly enunciated the same conclusive and insuperable reply: _•' If I am guihy I am unworthy of him. If I am innocent, he is unworthy of me '." , „ , ■• t From this text she would not depart ; and aU the chicanery of 102 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 103 all the courts of Germany could not move her. " At least," said the luminaries of the law, as they took their way homewards, re infectd^ " at least, this woman may, of a surety, be convicted of ob- stinacy." We always stigmatize as obstinate those whom we can- not convince. It is the only, and the poor, triumph of the van- quished. This triumph was achieved by the Consistory Court, the mem- bers of which, unable to j)rove the princess guilty of crime, were angry because she would not even confess to the commission of a fault ; that is, of such a fault as should authorize her husband, covered with guilt triple-piled, to separate from her person, yet maintain present and future property over her estates. The court, however, was a tribunal which did not embarrass itself much either about law or equity, and its decision, in December, 1694, that separation should be pronounced, on the ground of in- compatibility of temper, suri)rised no one. The terms of the sen- tence were extraordinary, for they amounted to a decree of divorce, without expressly mentioning the fact. The judgment, wlierein nothing was judged, conferred on the prince, George Louis, the right of marryinrr again, if he should be so minded, and coukl find a lady willing to be won. It, however, exjdicitly debarred the prmcess from entering into a second union. Not a woi-d was writ- ten down against her alleging that she was criminal. The name of Konigsmark was not even alluded to. Not withstanding these facts, and that the husband was the really guilty party, while the utmost that can be said against the princess was that she may ha\ e been indiscreet ; notwithstanding this, not only wjis he declared to be an exceedingly injured individual, but the poor lady, whom he held in his heart's hottest hate, was deprived of her property, pos- session of which was transferred to George Louis, in trust for the children ; and the princess, endowed with an annual pension of some eight or ten thousand thalers, was condemned to close capti- vity in the castle of Ahlden, near Zell, with a retinur of domestics, whose office was to watch her actions, and a boily of armed jailers' whose only duty was to keep the ca])tive secure in her bonds. Sophia Dorothea entered on her imprisonment with a calm, if not with a cheerful heai-t ; certainly with more placidity and true joy than George Louis felt, surrounded by his mistresses and all the pomp of the electoral state. All Germany is said to liave been scandalized by the judgment delivered by the court, ihe illegality and the incompetency of the court from which it eman- ated were so manifest, that the sentence was looked upon as a mere wanton cruehy, carrying with it neither conviction nor lawful con- sequence. So satisfied was the princess' advocate on this pomt, that he requested her to give him a letter declaring him non-re- sponsible for having so far recognized the authority of the court, ,i to have pleaded her cause before it! What is perhaps more sin^rular still, is the doubt which long existed whether this court eve'i- sat at all ; and whether decree of separation or divorce was ever pronounced in the cause of Sophia Dorothea of Zell, and Georo'c Louis, Electoral Prince of Hanover. Horace Walpole says, on this subject: "I am not acquamted with the laws of Germany relative to divorce or separation, nor do I know or suppose that despotism and pride aUow the law to msist on much foimality when a sovereign has reason or mind to get nd of his wife. Perhaps too much difficulty in untying the Gordian knot of matrimony, thrown in the way of an absolute prince, would be no kindness to the ladies, but might prompt him to use a sharper weapon, like that butchering hu.band, our IlemrVIIL Sovereigns who narrow, or let out the law of God, according to their prejudices and passions, mould their own laws, no doubt to the standard of their convenience. Genealogic purity of blood is the predominant folly of Germany ; and the' Code ot Malta seems to have more force in the empire than the Ten Commandments. Thence was introduced that most absurd evasion of the "^ird, an attorney, to go upon his knees, and ask pardon of the assembly for bribery, or for having been detected in awkwardly attempting to bribe certain members of the House. The senators who condemned were themselves corrupt ; and in the dirty path of such corruption. Sir John Trevor, the Speaker, led the way. He was expelled for receiving a bribe of 1,000 guineas from the City of London " for passing the Orphan bill ;'* though men quite as corrupt were left unpunished for receiving va>t'sums of money from the East India Company, in return fbr facilitating some bills in which that body was interested. The method adopted by the House to cure the evil is a proof of the strabismic morality which prevailed. The commons resolved, **That whoever should discover any money, or other gratuity, friven to any member of the House, for matters transacted in the House relating to the Orphans bill, or the East India Company, should (himself) have the indemnity of the House for such guilt." When immorality was so universal in England that Parliament could only attempt to cure it in its own body by encouraging knaves to purchase exemption from penalty by turning informers, we must not be too pharisaically severe upon the owners of the names affixed to the subjoined decree, even if it were purchased by what Mr. Paul Cliflbrd's Bagshot friend was wont to call "the oil of palms." It deserves to be remembered that Horace Wal- pole, who knew something of the history of corruption, said of the Germans of his and his father's tune, not only that they were a 5* i\ t. I 106 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. civil and agreeable people, but, as he believed, " one of the least cori'upted nations in Europe." " In the matrimonial suit of the illu^trious Prince George Louis, Crown Prmce of Hanover, against his consort, the illustrious Princess Sophia Dorothea, we, constituted president and judges of the Matrimonial Court of the Electorate and Duchy of Brunswick- Lunenburg, declare and pronounce judgment after attempts have been tried and have failed, to settle the matter amicably, and in accordance with the documents and verbal declarations of the Princess, and other detailed circum?tances, we agree that her con- tinual denial of matrimonial dutv and cohabitation is well founded and consequently that it is to be considered as an intentional desertion. In consequence whereof, we consider, sentence, and declare the ties of matrimony to be entirely dissolved and annulled. Since, in similar cases of desertion, it has been permitted to the innocent party to re-marry, which the other is Ibrbidden, the same judicial power will be exercised in the present instance, in favor of his Serene Highness the Crown Prince. ** Published in the Consistorial Court at Hanover, December 28th, 1G94. (Signed) " Phillip Vox Bursche. Francis Eiciifeld (Pastor). Anthony George Hildberg. gustavus molax. Geriiardt Art. Berniiari) SriLKEN. Erytiiropal. David Hlpertus. H. L. Hattorf." The work from which the above document is extracted, fur- nishes also the following, as the copy of the letter written by the Princess, at the request of the legal conductor of her case, as "security from proceedings in relation to his connexion with her affairs :" — " As we have now, after being made acquainted with the sen- tence, given it proper consideration, and resolved not to offer any opposition to it, our solicitor must act accordinglv, and is not to SOPHIA DOKOTUEA. 107 act or proceed any further in this matter. For the rest, we hereby declare that we are gratefully content with the conduct of our aforesaid solicitor of the Court, Thies, and that by this we free him from all responsibility regarding these transactions. (Signed) " Sophia Dorothea. ' Lauenau, December 31, 1694." By this last document, it would seem that the IIof-Rath Theis would have denied the competency of the court, had he been per- mitted to do so; and that he was so convinced of its illegality, as to require a written prohibition from asserting the same, and acknowledgment of exemption from all responsibility, before he would feel satisfied that he had accomplished his duty towards his illustrious client. Four months previous to the publication of the sentence of the Consistorial Court, the two brothers, the Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Zell, had agreed, by an enactment, «hat the unhappy marriage between the cousins should be dissolved. The enact- ment provided for the means whereby this end was to be achieved, and for the disposal of the princess during the progress of the case. The anonvmous author of the biography of 184.3, then proceeds to btate that,—" It was therein specified that her domestics should lake a particular oath, and that the princess should enjoy an an- nual income of eight thousand thalers (exclusive of the wages of her household), to be increased one half on the death of her father, with a further increase of six thousand thalers on her attaining the a'^e of forty years. It was pro\ided that the castle of Ahlden should Ikj her' permanent residence, where she was to remain well guarded. The domain of Wilhelmsburg, near Hamburg, was, at the death of the Duke of Zell, to descend to the prince, son of the Princess Sophia Dorothea— the Crown Prince, however, during his own life, retaining the revenues ; but should the gi*andson die before his fVuher, the property would then, on pr^yment of a stipu- lated sum, be inherited by the successor in the govemment of the son of the elector. By a further arrangement, the mother of the princess was to possess Wienhausen, with an annual income of twelve thous^d th^ers, secured on the estates Scheraebeck, Garze, 108 LIVES OF TEE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. and Bluettingen ; the castle at Lunenburg to be allowed as her residence, from the commencement of her widowhood." Never was so much care taken to secure property on one side, and the person on the other. The contracting parties appear to have been afraid lest tlie prisoner should ever have an opiwrtunity of appealing against the wrong of which she was made the victim; and her strait imprisonment was but the effect of that fear. That nothing might be neglected to make assurance doubly sure, and to deprive her of any help she might hope hereafter to receive at the hands of a father, whose heart might possibly be made to feel his own injustice and his daughter's sorrows, the Duke of Zell was in- duced to promise that he would neither see nor hold communica- tion with the daughter he had repudiated. The oath to be taken by the household, or rather by the per- sonal attendants, counts and countesses in waiting, and persons of similar rank, was stringent and illustrative of the importance attached to the safe-keeping of the prisoner. It was to the effect, "that nothing should be wanting to prevent anticipated intrigues ; and for the perfect security of the place fixed as a residence for the Princess Sophia Dorothea, in order to maintain tranquillity, and to prevent any opportunity occurring to an enemy, for under- taking or imajrining anvthinj? which mijrht cause a division in the illustrious familv." Wliatever correspondence may have been held by letter between Sophia Dorothea and Konigsmark, none was ever forthcoming to accuse or absolve. It is indeed said that the letters of the princess to the count were saved by the valet of the latter, and placed in the hands of the Lowenhaupt f:miily in Sweden, to a member of which a younger sister of Konigsmark was married ; and that among the archives of the Swedish family they are still preserved. This is a very apocrj^phal story, and not less apocrjphal is the assertion that some score of letters, allegedly from the count to the princess, were discovered by George Louis, and copies of them sent to the Duke of Zell. No mention was made of such letters ^t the period of the trial, as it may be called, of Sophia Dorothea, and though documents, purporting to be portions of this epistolary- corres- pondence between Konigsmark and the princess have been made SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 109 public, they are entirely unauthenticated, bear neither date, name, nor address, and are no doubt very poor forgeries, which may have been committed by the author, to try his skill, but which could have brought as little profit to himself as pleasure to his readers. Shortly after the sudden disappearance of the count, his mother and sisters, residing at Hamburg, made application to be put in possession of some property of their deceased relative, which had been deposited by him in the hands of a banker of that city. The latter person, however, naturally enough declmed to surrender his trust, until sufficient proof had been adduced of the death of the alU-ed late owner of the property. The affair lingered for a long time, and its prosecution was productive of some important conse- quence^. In the course of that prosecution, the youngest sister of the count, the Countess Maria Aurora, repaired to Dresden to solicit the aid of the Elector of Saxony, Frederick Augustus, that unworthy prince who was subsequently the nnworthy Kmg of Poland. The elector was struck with the beauty of his fair peti- tioner, and appears to have driven a hard bargain with the hand- some but not too honest suppliant. She became, after a decent show of resistance, first on the roll of the elector's - fiivorites," and in 1G96, she gave birth to that famous Maurice de Saxe, who fou-ht so well, spelled so ill, and loved so lightly : who possessed no excellence save bravery, was entirely destitute of all virtuous principle, and is the ancestor, most boasted of, by his clever descendant, Madame " George Sand." From the period of the birth of Maurice, the Countess Aurora fell, or rose, from the condition of '• favorite," to that of counsellor and friend. Even Augustus's poor consort is said to have looked with something of patience and even regard upon the only one of the mistresses of her wretched husband who treated her with respect. But what a condition must mark that household, wherein a ne-lected wife is reduced to the degradation of feeling grateful for Ihtle attentions from the hands of her husband's mistress ! To t^uch degradation Sophia Dorothea would never submit. The Countess Aurora had been so triumphant, and yet so tn- umphed over, when a suppliant to Augustus, that the elector, in 1702, when reduced to the most miserable extremity by the victo- 110 LIVES OP THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. rious Charles XII., dispatched her upon the diplomatic mission of softening that monarch's not very susceptible heart. The ambas- sadress was one of those women who fancy that they can overcome any one who, while listening to their power of tongue, ventures to look mto their eyes. By n.agic of the latter, and of speech made up ot very persuasive arguments. Aurora fondly hoiK,d to touch the sens.b.hties that were supposed to be buttoned-up bene.ith the unbrushed coat of the stoical Charles. The latter, distrustin.^ his own possible weakness, and dreading the huly's united powers, ^howed hnnself a true hero by avoiding the temptarion lh«,wn in his way, and when the rountess solicited an audience he stoutly refused to see her. MVell!" .x-marked the blushing Aurora, strivmg at the same time to wreath the blush of vexation with the sunniest ot her smiles, -I am the only ,M>rson on whom the Ku.ld word." Of George Louis it may be s-aid, what Cherry's thirsty father said of Lady Bountiful's son. Squire Sullen, ^Uhathe wasaman of agi'eat estate, who valued nobiKly." There was a church in the village, which was in rather ruinous condition when her captivity commenced, but this she put in thorough repair, decorated it handsomely, presented it with an or*»an, — and was refuseil iiermission to attend there, after it had been re-opened for public service. For her religious consolation, a chaplain had been provided, and she was never trusted, even under guaixl, to join with the villagers in common worship hi the church of the village below. In this r^-spect, a somewhat royal etiquette was observed. The chaplain read prayers to the garri- son and household in one room, to which the princess and her ladies listened rather than therewith joined, placed as they were in an adjacent room, where tliey could hear without being seen. With no relative was she allowed to hold never so brief an SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 115 interview ; and not even her mother was pei-mitted to soften by her presence for an hour, the rigid and ceremonious captivity of ^ her luckless daughter. Mother and child were allowed to corres- ' pond at stated periods, their letters passing open ; but the princess herself was as much cut off from her own children, as if these had been dead and entombed. The little prince and princess were expressly ordered to utterly forget that they had a mother, — her very name on their lips would have been condemned as a grievous fault. The boy, George Augustus, was in many points of character similar to his father, and, accordingly, being commanded to forget his mother, he obstinately bore her in memory ; and when he was told that he would never have an opportunity afforded him to see her, mentally resolved to make one for himself. It is but justice to the old elector to say that in his advanced years, when pleasant sins were no longer profitable to him, he gave them up ; and when the youngest of his mistresses had cea;5ed to be attractive, he began to think such appendages little worth the hanging on to his electoral dignity. For, ceasing to love and live with his*' favorites," he did not the more respect, or hold closer intercourse with, his wife,— a course about which the Electress Sophia troubled herself very little. The elector, in short, was very much like the gentleman in the epigram, who said : — I've lost my mistress, horse, and wife, And when I think on human life, 'Tis well that it's no worse ! My mistress had grown lean and old, My wife was ugly and a scold ; — I'm sorry for my horse I In his later days, Ernest Augustus, having little regard for his wife or favorites, began to have much for the good things of the earth, a superabundance of which, as Johnson reminded Garrick, makes death so terrible. Wlien he ceased to be under the in- fluence of the disgraced Countess von Platen, he began to be sensible of some sympathy for his daughter-in-law, Sophia. He Boftened in some degree the rigor of her imprisonment, and corres- ponded with her by letter ; a correspondence which inspired her with hope that her freedom might result from it. This hope wjis, 116 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. however, frustrated by the death of Ernest Augustus, on the 20th of January, 1698. From that time, the rigor of her imprisonment was increased fourfold. If the heart of her old uncle began to incline towards her as he increased in years, it is not to be wondered at that the heart of her an-ed father melted towards her as time began to press heavily upon him. But it was the weakest of hearts allied to the weakest of minds. In the comfortlessness of his great age, he sought to be comforted by loving her whom he had insanely and unnaturally oppressed — the sole child of his heart and house. In his weakness he addressed himself to that tool of Hanover at Zell, the minister Bernstorf; and that individual so terrified the poor old man by details of the ill consequences that might ensue if the wrath of the new elector, George Louis, were aroused by the interference of the Duke of Zell, in matters which concerned the elector and his wife, that the old man, feeble in mind and body, yielded, and, for a time at least, left his daughter to her fate. He thought to com- pensate for the wrong which he inflicted on her under the impulse of his evil genius, Bernstorf, by adding a codicil to his will, wherein the name of his daughter is mentioned with an implied love which reminds one of the " and Peter," after the denial, and which told the other Apostles that love divine had not perished because of one poor mortal otfence. By this codicil he bequeathed to the daughter whom he had wronged, all that it was in his iK)wer to leave, in jewels, moneys, and lands ; but liberty he could not give her, and so his love could do little more than try to lighten the fetters which he had aided to put on. But there was a short-lived joy in store, both for child and parents. The fetters were to be cast aside for a brief season, and the poor captive was to enjoy an hour of home, of love, and of liberty. The last year of the seventeenth century (1700) brought with it an accession of greatness to the electoral family of Hanover, ina>much as in that year a bill was introduced into parliament, and accepted by that body, which fixed the succession to the crown of England after the Princess Anne, and in deftxult of such princess dying without heirs of her own body, in the person of SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 117 Sophia of Ilanovrer. William III. had been very desirous for the introduction of this bill, but under various pretexts it had been deferred, the commonest business being allowed to take precedence of it, until the century had nearly expired. The limitations to the royal action, which formed a part of the bill as recommended in the report of the committee, were little to the king's taste ; for they not only affected his employment of foreign troops in Eng- land, but shackled his own free and frequent departures from the kingdom. It was imagined by many that these limitations were designed by the leaders in the cabinet, in order to raise disputes between the two houses, by which the bill might be lost. Such is Burnet's report, and he sarcastically adds thereto, that when much time had been spent in preliminaries, and it was necessary to come to the nomination of the person who should be named pre- sumptive heir next to Queen Anne, the office of doing so was confided to " Sir John Bowles, who was then disordered in his senses, and soon after quite lost them." " He was," says Burnet, ** set on by the same party to be the first that should name the Electress-dowagor of Brunswick, which seemed done to make it less serious when moved by such a person." So that the solemn question of naming the heir to a throne was intrusted to an idiot, who, by the forms of the house, was appointed chairman of the committee for the conduct of the bill. Burnet adds, that the " thing," as he calls it, was " still put off for many weeks at every time that it was called for ; the motion was entertained with cold- ness, which served to heighten the jealousy; the committee once or twice sat upon it, but all the members ran out of the house with so much indecency, that the contrivers seemed ashamed of this management ; there were seldom fifty or sixty at the committee, yet in conclusion it passed, and was sent up to the Lords." Great opposition was expected from the peers, and many of their lord- ships designedly absented themselves from the discussion. The opposition°was slight, and confined to the Marquis of Normanby, who spoke, and the Lords Huntingdon, Plymouth, Guildford, and Jefferies, who protested, against the bill. Buniet affirms, that *' those who wished well to the Act were glad- to have it passed any way, and so would not exammc the limitations that were in it, 118 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. and which they thought might be considered afterwards. " We reckoned it," says Buniet, " a great point carried that we had now a law on our side for a Protestant successor." The law was stoutly protested against by the Duchess of Savoy, grand-daughtcr of Charles I. The protest did not trouble the king, who despatched the act to the electress-dowagcr and the Garter to her son, by the hands of the Earl of Macclesfield. The earl was a fitting bearer of so costly and significant a present. He had been attached to the service of the mother of Sophia, and was highly esteemed by the electress-dowager herself. The earl had no especial commission beyond that which enjomed him to deliver the act, nor was he dignified by any olhcial appel- lation. He was neither ambassador, legate, plenipotentiary, nor envoy. He had with him, however, a most splendid suite ; which wa3 in some respects strangely constituted, for among its membere was the famous, or infamous, Janius Junius Toland, whose book in support of rationality as applied to religion, and in denial that there was any mystery whatever in the Christian dispensation, had been publicly burnt by the hangman, in Ireland. The welcome of this body of gentlemen was a right royal one. It may be said that the electoral family had neither cared for the dignity now rendered probable for them, nor in any way toiled or inU-igued to bring it within their gi'a-^p ; but it is ceitain that their joy was great when the Eari of Macclesfield appeared on the fron- tier of the electorate with the act in one hand and the gaiter in the other. He and his suite were met there with a welcome of extra- ordinary magnificence, betokening ample appreciation of the double gift he brought with him. He himself seemed elevated by his mis- sion, for he was in his general deportment little distinguished by courtly manners or by ceremonious bearing ; but it was observed that, on this occasion, nothing could have been more becoming than the way in which he accjuitted himself of an ofiice which brought a whole family within view of succession to a royal and powerful throne. On reaching the confines of the electomte, the members of the deputation from England were received by personages of the high- est official rank, who not only escorted them to the capital, but SOPHIA DOKOTHEA. 119 treated them on the way with a liberality so profuse as to be the wonder of all beholders. They were not allowed to disburse a farthing from their own purses ; all they thought fit to order was paid for by the electoral government, by whose orders they were lodged in the most commodious palace in Hanover, where as much homage was paid them as if each man had been a Kaiser in his own person. The Hanoverian gi-atitude went so far, that not only were the ambassador and suite treated as favored guests, and that not alone of the princess but of the people,— the latter being com- manded to refrain from taking payment from any of them, for any article of refreshment they required,— but for many days all Eng- lish travellei-s visiting the city were made equally free of its cara- vansaries and were permitted to enjoy all that the inns could aftbrd, without being required to pay for the enjoyment. The delicate treatment of the electoral government extended even to the servants of the earl and his suite. It was thought that to require them to dine upon the fragments of their master's ban- quets would be derogatory to the splendor of the hospitality of the House of Hanover, and an insult to the domestics who followed m the train of the eari. The government accordingly disbursed hali- a-crown a day to the liveried followers, and considered such a " composition " as glorious to the reputation of the electoral house. The menials were even emancipated from service during the sojourn of the deputation in Hanover, and the elector's numerous servants waited upon the English visitors, zealously throughout the day, but with most splendor in the morning, when they were to be seen hurrying to the bed-rooms of the different members of the suite, bearing^with them silver coffee and tea pots, and other requisites for brc^akflist, which meal appears to have been lazily indulged in, as if the legation had been habitually wont to " make a night of it,"— in bed. And there was a good deal of hard drinking on these occasions, but all at the expense of the husband of Sophia Dorothea, who, in her castle of Ahlden, was not e^ en aware of that increase of honor which had flillen upon her consort, and in which she had a right to share. For those who were, the next day, ill or indolent, there were the ponderous state coaches to carry them whithersoever they 120 LIVES OF IHE QUEENS OF ENGLANP. would go. The most gorgeous of the fetes given on this occasion, was on the evening of the day on which the Act was solemnly pre- sented to the electress-dowager. Hanover, famous as it was for its balls, had never seen so glorious a Ten)sichorean festival as marked this particular night. At the balls in the old elector's time, Sophia Dorothea used to shine, first in beauty and in grace, but now her place was iU supplied by the not fair and quite gmceless Made- moiselle von Schulemberg. The supper that followed was Olym- pian in its profusion, wit, and magniticence. This was at a time when to be sober was to be respectable, but when to be drunk wjis not to be ungentlemanly. Consequently we find Toland, who wrote an account of the achievements of the day, congratulating himself and readers by stating that, although it was to be expected that in so large and so jovial a party there would be some who would be even more ecstatic than the occasion iuid the company warranted, yet that, in truth, the number of those who were guilty of excess was but small. Even Lord Mohun kept himself sober, and to the end was able to converse as clearly and intelligibly as Lord Saye and Sele, and his friend " my Lord Tunbridge." AVith what degree of lucidity these noble gentlemen talked, we are not told, so tliat we can hardly judge of the mejisure of Lord ^Mohun's sobriety. That he was not very drunk, seems to Toland a thing to be thankful for, seeing that it had long been his custom to be so, until of late, when he had delighted the prudent by forswearing sack and living cleanly. This day of presentation of the Act, and of the festival in honor thereof, was one of the greatest days which Hanover had ever seen. Every one wore a face of joy, at least so we collect from Toland's description of wliat he saw, and from which description we cull a few paragrai)hs by way of picture of scene and players. Speaking of the mother-in-law of Sophia Dorothea, he says : — ** Tlie electress is three-and-seventy years old, which she bears so wonderfully well, that had I not many vouchers, I should scarce dare venture to relate it. She has ever enjoyed extraordinary healtli, which keeps her still very vigorous, of a cheeHul counte- nance, and a merry disposition. She steps as firm and erect as any young lady, has not one wrinkle in her face, which is still very SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 121 agreeable, nor one tooth out of her head, and reads without spec- tacles, as I have oflen seen her do, letters of a small character, in the dusk of the evening. She is as great a writer as our late queen (Mar}%) and you cannot turn yourself in the palace, without meeting some monument of her industry, all the chairs of the pre- sence-chamber being wrouglit with her own hands. The orna- ments of the altar in the electoral chapel are all of her work. She bestowed the same favor on the Protestant abbey, or college, of Lockurn, with a thousand other instances, fitter for your lady to know than for yourself. She is the most constant and greatest walker I ever knew, never missing a day, if it proves fair, for one or two hours, and often more, in the fine garden at Herrenhausen. She perfectly tires all those of her court that attend her in that exercise, but such as have the honor to be entertained by her in discourse. She has been long admired by all the learned world as a woman of incomparable knowledge in divinity, philosophy, history, and the subjects of all sorts of books, of which she has read a prodigious quantity. She speaks five languages so well, that, by her accent, it might be a dispute which of them was her first. They are Low Dutch, German, French, Italian, and English, which last she speaks iis truly and easily as any native ; which to me is a matter of amazement, whatever advantages she might have in her youth by the convei-sation of her mother ; for though the late king's (William's) mother was likewise an P^nglishwoman, of the same royal family, though he had been more than once in England before the Revolution ; though he was married there, and his court continually full of many of that nation, yet he could never conquer his foreign accent. But, indeed, the electress is so entirely Eng- lish in her person, in her behavior, in her humor, and in all her inclinations, that naturally she could not miss of anything that pe- culiarly belongs to our land. She was ever glad to see English- men, long before the Act of Succession. She professes to admire our form of government, and understands it mighty well, yet she asks so many questions about families, customs, laws, and the like, as suflficiently demonstrate her profound wisdom and experience. She has a deep veneration for the Church of England, without losing affection or charity for any other sort of Protestants, and 6 122 LIVES OF THB QUEENS OF ENGLAND. appears charmed with the moderate temper of our present bishops and other of our learned clergy, especially for the.r approbat.on of the liberty allowed by law to Protestant Dissenters. She is adored for her goodness .among the inhabitants of the country, and gams the hearts of allstrangers by her unparalleled affabd.ty. .No dis- tinction is ever made in her court concerning the parties mto which Englishmen are divided, and whereof they carry the effects and impressions with them whithersoever they go, which makes others sometimes uneasy, as well as themselves. There it is enough that you are an Englishman, nor can you ever discover by your treat- ment which are better liked, the Whigs or the Tones. These are the instructions given to all the servants, and they take care 'o ex- ecute them with the utmost exactness. I was the first who had the honor of kneeling and kissing her hand on account of the Act of Succession ; and she said, among other discourse, that she was afraid the nation had already reiK-nted their choice of an old wo- man, but that she hoped none of her posterity would give her any reasons to grow weary of their dominion. I answered, that the English had too well considered what they did, to change the.r minds so soon, and they still remembered they were never so happy as when they were last under a woman's government. Smce that time, sir," adds the courtly but unorthodox Toland to the "Minister of State in Holland," to whom his letter is addressed, " we have a further confirmation of this truth by the glorious ad- ministration of Queen Anne." Such is a picture, rather '■loaded,' as an artist might say, of the mother-in-law of the prisoner of Ahlden. The record would be imperfect if it were not accompanied by another " counterfeit pre- sentment—" that of her son. ^ , ^ i,, , At the period when Toland accompanied the Earl of Maccles- field to Hanover, with the Act of Succession, the most important personage at that court, next to the electn^ss, the Begina des,ffnata Britannianim. was her son. Prince George Louis, the husband of Sophia Dorothea. Toland describes him as '• a proper, middle- sized, well-proportioned man, of a genteel address, and good appearance;" but he add., that his highness "is reserved, and therefore speaks little, but judiciously." George Uul., like SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 123 "Monseigneur" at Versailles, cared for nothing but hunting. "He is not to be exceeded," says Toland, "in his zeal against the intended universal monarchy of France, and so is most hearty for the common cause of Europe," for the very good reason, that therein "his own is so necessarily involved." Toland, in the humor to praise ever}nhing, adds, that George Louis understood the constitution of England better than any "foreigner" he had ever met with ; .a very safe remark, for our constitution was ill understood abroad; and even had the theoretical knowledge of George Louis been ever so correct, his practice with our constitu- tion betrayed such ignorance that Toland's assertion may be taken only quanttun vcduit, for what it is worth. " Though," says the writer just named, " though he be well versed in the art of war, and of invincible courage, having often exposed his person to great dangers in Hungary, in the Morea, on the Rhine, and in Flanders, yet he is naturally of peaceable inclination ; which mixture of qual- ities is agreed, by the experience of all ages, to make the best and mo^t glorious princes. He is a perfect man of business, exactly regular in the economy of his revenues," (which he never was of those of England, seeing that he outran his liberal allowance, and coolly asked the parliament to pay his debts,) " reads all dispatches himself at first liand, writes most of his own letters, and spends a considerable part of his time about such occupations, in his closet, and with his ministers." Toland, however, was afraid he had not suflSciently gilded over that sullen reserve in the character of the husband of Sophia Doro- thea, which alone was sufficient to render him unpopular. "I hope," he says, " that none of our countrjmen will be so injudi- cious as to think his reservedness the effect of sullenness or pride ; nor mistake that for state, which really proceeds from modesty, caution and deliberation ; for he is very affable to such as accost him, and expects that others should speak to him first, which is the best information I could have from all about him, and I partly know to be true by experience." Then, we have a trait in the electoral character which was not to be found subsequently in the king ; " for," says the hanger-on to Lord Macclesfield's ambassadorial cloak, " as to what I said of 124 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. his frugalit J in laying out the public money, I need not give a more particular proof than that all the expenses of his court, as to eating, drinking, tire, candles, and the like, are duly paid every Saturday night ; the othcers of his army receive their pay every month, so likewise his envoys in every part of Europe ; and all the otiicers of his household, with the rest that are on the civil list, are cleared off every half year." We are then assured that his admin- istration was equable, mild, and prudent, — a triple assertion, which his own life, and that of his liardly-used wife, flatly denied. Toland, however, will have it, in his " lively sense of favors to come," that there never existed a prince who was- so ardently beloved by his subjects. On this point the " Petit Roi d' Yvetot" of Beranger sinks into comparative un|x>pularity. Hanover itself is said to be without division or faction, and all Hanoverians as beinjj in a con- dit ion of ecstasy at the Solomon-like rectitude and jurisdiction of his very serene highness. But it must be remembered, that all this is said by a man who never condescended to remember that George Louis had a wife. He is entirely oblivious of the captive consort of the elector, but he can aflfbrd to express admiration for the elector's mistresses. He describes Madame Kielmansegge, the daughter of the Countess von Platen, and who occupied near the prince a station similar to that which her mother held near the prince's father, as a woman of sense and wit ; and of Mademoiselle Schulemberg. he says that she is esjiecially worthy of the rank she enjoys, and that " in the opinion of others, as well as mine, she is a lady of extraordinary merit!" — such merit as distinguished the niece of the governor of the Philippine Islands, who, under the ma^k of attachment, robbed Gil Bhas of his diamond rin«^. c There is something suggestive in much of what is here set down. A lunatic proposed that Sophia of Hanover should succeed to the throne of England ; and the hand of that lady, who denied the apostolic succession of bishops, and sneered at the episcopacv, was first kissed, when the Act of Succession was presented to her, by an inlidel, the son of a Romish priest, whose book against the mys- teries of Christianity had been burned in the streets of Dublin by the hands of the hangman. This is historicallv, and not satiricallv. set down. Some at the time, thought it ominous of evil consc- SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 125 quences, but we who live to see the consequences, may learn there- from to disregard omens. But whatever may be said upon this point, there only remains to be added, that the legation left Han- over, loaded with presents. The earl received a portrait of the elect ress, with an electoral crown in diamonds, by way of mounting to the frame. George Louis bestowed upon him a gold basm and ewer, — no ill present to the native of a country whose people were distinguished, to a later period than this, as being the only civilized people who sat down to meat without previous ablution, even of the hands. Gold medals and snuff-boxes were showered amon 132 LIVES OP THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. through the cruel oppression and injustice of a husband, from the fact that her own illustrious spouse was, in every sense of the word, her " lord and ma*ter," and treated her with as little consideration as though she had been head-servant of his exceedingly untidy establishment, rather than consort and queen, to whom, in common with his children, he administered now a heavy blow and even a harsh word, and whom he never soothed with a kind expression but when he had some evil intention in giving it utterance. Honoi-s now fell thick upon the electoral family, but Sophia Dorothea was not permitted to have any share therein. In 1706, Queen Anne created the son of George Louis, the old suitor for her hand,— Baron of Tewkesbury, Viscount Northallerton, P:arl of Milford Haven, Marquis and Duke of Cambridge. With these honors it was also decreed that he should enjoy full precedence over the entire peerage. There was a strong party in England whose most emest desire It was that tlie Electress Sophia, in whose person the succession to the crown of Great Britamwas settled, should repair to London,— not to permanently reside there, but in order that durin- a brief visit she might receive the homage of the Pi-otestant party. She was, however, reluctant to move from her books, philosophy, and cards, until she could be summoned as Queen. Failinrr here an attempt was made to bring over George Louis, who wa" nothin- loth to come ; but the idea of a visit from him, was to poor Queen Anne the uttermost abomination. Her Majesty had some grounds for her dislike to a visit from her old wooer. It was not merely the feehng which every one with a fortune to leave, is said to en- tertain towards an heir-presumptive, but that she was nervously in terror of a monster popular demonstration. Such a demonstration was publicly talked of, and the enemies of the house of Stuart by way of instruction and warning to the queen, whose Jacobite bear- ings towards her brother were matter of notoriety, had determined m the event of George Louis visiting England, to give him an' escort into London that should amount to the very significant num- ber of some forty or fifty thousand men. It was the Duke of Devonshire who originally moved the Hou.e of Lords for leave to bring in a bill to give the Electoral Prince SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 133 of Hanover, as Duke of Cambridge, the precedence of peers. Leave was given, but some of the adherents of the House of Han- over did not think that the bill went far enough, and accordingly the lord-treasurer, previous to the introduction of the Duke of De- vonshire's measure, "offered a bill, giving precedence to the whole electoral family, as the children and nephews of the crown ;" and it was intimated that bills relating to honors and precedence' ought to come from the crown. - The Duke of Devonshire," adds Bur- net, " would make no dispute on this head ; if the thing passed, he acquiesced in the manner of passing it, only he thought it lay with- in the authority of the House." On this occasion the Court seemed, even to an affectation, to show a particular zeal in promoting this bill; for it passed through both Houses in two days, it being read thrice in a day in them both. " For all this haste," continues the minute recorder, " the Court did not seem to design any such bill till it was proposed by others, out of whose hands they thought fit to take it." In other words, the Court would not have been'^Han- overian in this matter, but for outward popular pressure. Sometime previous to this, the Eari of Rochester had designed to bring in a bill, which he described as concerning the security of the nation, and the means whereby such security was to be accom- plished, consisted in bringing over the Electress Sophia to perma- nently reside in England. The party advocating this measure comprised men who were anything but zealous for the interests of the family for who^e profit It was designed ; but they favored it, for the sufficient political reason that it was a measure displeasing to Queen Anne. It was hoped by them, that out of the discussion a confusion mi-ht ari^e from which something favorable might be drawn for the preten- sions of the " Prince of Wales." " They reckoned such a motion would be popular, and if either the Court or the Whigs, on whom the Court was now beginning to look more favorably, should oppose it, this would cast a load on them as men, who after all the zeal they had expressed for that succession, did now, upon the hopes of favor at Court, throw it up ; and those who had been hitherto considered as the enemies of that house, might hope, by this motion, to overcome all the prejudices that the nation had 134 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. taken up against them ; and they might create a merit to them- selves in the minds of that family, by this early zeal, which they resolved now to express for it." In a subsequent session of Parliament, the question of the resi- dence in this country of the declared successor to the crown was introduced into more than one debate. At all these debates (in the House of Lords) Queen Anne herself was present. Lord Haversham, in his speech, arraigning the conduct of the Duke of Marlborough in his various campaigns, touched also on this mat- ter. " He said we had declared a successor to the crown, who was at a great distance from us, — while the pretender was much nearer, and Scotland was aroused and ready to receive him ; and seemed resolved not to have the same successor for whom England had declared ; there were threatening dangers that hung over us, and might be near us. He concluded that he did not see how they could be prevented, and the nation made safe, by any other way but by inviting the next successor to come and live among us." The Duke of Buckingham, the Earls of Kochester, Nottingham, and Anglesea, carried on the debate with great eaniestness. " It was urged that they had sworn to maintain the succession, and by that they were bound to insist on the motion, since there were no means so sure to maintain it as to have the successor upon the spot, ready to maintain his right. It appeared through our whole history, that whoever came first into England had always carried it ; the pretending successor might be in England within three days ; whereas it might be three weeks before the declared suc- cessor could come ; from thence it was inferred that the danger was apparent and dreadful if the successor should not be brought over. With these lords, by a strange reverse, all the Tories joined ; and by another, and as strange a reverse, all the Whigs joined in opposing it. They thought this motion was to be hfi wholly to the queen ; that it was neither proper nor safe, either for the crown or the nation, that the heir should not be in an entire dependence on the Queen; a rivalry between two courts might bring us into great destruction, and be attended with very ill con- sequences ; the next successor had expressed a full satisfaction, and rested on the assurance^ the queen had given her, of her fmn 135 t t i adherence to the title, and to the maintaining of it. The nation was prepared for it by orders the queen had given to name her in the daily prayers of the church ; great endeavors had been used to bring the Scotch nation to declare the same successor. It was true we still wanted one great security, we had not yet made any provisions for carrying on the government, for maintaining the public quiet, for proclaiming, and for sending for the successor, and for keeping things in order till the successor should come. It seemed, therefore, necessary to make an effectual provision against the disorders that might happen in such an interval. This was proposed first by myself, (Burnet) and seconded by the Lord Godolphin, and all the Whigs went into it ; and so the question was put before the other motion, as first put, by a previous divi- sion, whether that should be put or not, and was carried in the negative by about three to one." If this be not elegantly, it is at least clearly expressed by Bur- net, who, in adding that the queen was present throughout this monstrous debate, informs us that her majesty was " annoyed at the behaviour of some who, when they had credit with her, and apprehended that such a motion might be made by the Whigs, had possessed her with deep prejudices against it, for they made her apprehend that when the next successor should be brought over, she herself would be so eclipsed by it, that she would be much in the successor's power, and reign only at her, or his courtesy ; yet these very persons, having now lost their interest in her, and their posts, were driving on that very motion which they made her apprehend was the most fatal thing that could befall. This, the Duchess of Marlborough told me, but she named no jierson ; and upon it a very black suspicion was taken uj) by some, that the pro- posers of this matter knew, or at least believed, that the queen would not agree to this motion which way soever it might be brought to her, whether in an address or in a bill ; and then they might reckon that this would give such a jealousy, and create such a misunderstanding between her and the Pariiament, or rather the whole nation, as would unsettle her whole government, and put all things in disorder. But this was only a suspicion, and more can- not be made of it." 136 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 137 Plain as all this is in some things, and suggestive in others, it does not explain much that is incomprehensible and unsatisfactory in the history of the succession settlement, and the intrigues by which it was accomplished. The question first became a serious one, when the son of Anne, her only child, the hope of Protestant England, died in the year 1700. King William bore the misfor- tune which had befallen his sister-in-law with that cheerful resigna- tion which the selfish feel for the calamities of other people. He looked very sharply to the pecuniary profits to be made by the suppression of the young duke's household, and he concerned him- self ver}- little touching the outward marks of mourning which custom and decency enjoined as observance of respect. He was then himself a widowed king, in seclusion at Loo, and such of the Protestant party who believed that the marriage of Anne with George of Denmaik would be productive of no further issue, busied themselves in finding ehgible wives for King William, and congratulated themselves on the prospects of a succession thence to arise. William, howe\er, did not care to second their views ; and he was in this condition of disregard for the succession to the crown, when he was visited by the Electress Sophia of Hanover and her daughter the Electress of Brandenburg. The latter was that Sophia Charlotte, under whose superintendence Caroline of Anspach, the queen-consort of George II., was educated. It was said that this visit had no other object than to secure William's influence with the Empress for the elevation of the elec- torate of Brandenburg to the rank of a kuigdom under the name of Prussia. William, however, possessed no such influence, and the visit alluded to had no such object. The story of the rise of Prussia may be told in a very few words, and it is not disconnect- ed from the history of Sopliia Dorothea, for the crown of that kingdom subsequently rested on the brow of her only daughter. The Polish Dukedom of Prussia had fallen, by inheritance, to the Elector of Brandenburg, in 1G18. About forty years later, it was made free of all Polish jurisdiction, and annexed to Branden- burg, by treaty. During the following thirty years, the possessions of the Great Elector, as he was called, were greatly enlarged, chiefly by marriage treaties or by legal inheritance ; and when Frederick, the son of the Great Elector, succeeded to his father's dominions, in 1 (588, he had nothing so much at heart as the eleva- tion of the electorate into a kingdom. He succeeded in obtaining the title of king from the Emperor of Germany, not without diffi- culty. His claim was grounded on the fact that he exercised sovereign right in Prussia, and it only succeeded by being support- ed by promises of adherence to the house of Austria in all difficul- ties, and by a bribe, or purchase-money, of nine millions of thalers, two hundred thousand of which went into the pockets of the Jesuits, whose agency brought the negotiation to a successful close. In 1701, only a few months after the visit of the Electress So- phia to William at the Hague, the Elector of Brandenburg crowned himself, at Konigsburg, by the style and title of ''Frederick I., Kuig in Prussia ;" and then crowned the electress, his wife, as she knelt before him. Such is the brief history of the foundation of the kingdom of Prussia, Such a consummation had been eagerly obstructed by the knightly orders in Giirmany, and hotly opposed by Rome. Tlie pojje, who had seen the old protector of Protest- antism, the Elector of Saxony, abandon his trust, could not, with- out much vexation, witness the establishing in Germany of a new stronghold for the reformed religion, and under the more secure and influential form of a kingdom. He represented that such a Protestant kingdom would be the eternal adversary of the Catholic house of Austria, and in such representation he was not to be gain- said. The most amusing fact connected therewith is, that the Jesuits in Austria, for the sake of a pecuniary " consideration," furthered the establishment of the Protestant monarchy that was to prove a thorn in the side of the Catholic imperial power. Whatever cause attracted the Electress of Hanover to Loo, she was but scurvily welcomed by William, who paid her one formal visit, and then suddenly departed for England. He probably had a dread of the old and energetic lady, who was not only anxious for the settling of the succession in her o>vn family, but — like the provident gentleman who bowed to the statue of Jupiter in a mu- seum, and begged the god to bear the respect in mind, if he should ever be restored to greatness again, — was also given to express 138 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. such concern for the'interesU of the exiled famUy as might insure hbera treatment from them, should they, in popular phrase, ever come to their own again. .;.!'''%!'"' w",r "" "'" °* "'"'*' "■""•"' "*^™ <■"" of inconsisten. cies. Thus, Wtlham, who had undoubtedly first opened, as I have previously stated, negotiations with the Hanoverian family to secure their succession to a throne from which he had ejected James II went into deep mourning, as did half Englaud, when that exiled monarch died. The Princess Anne did the same, and yet, as queen, she projected and sanctioned the bill of attainder against the son and heir of her father ;-a son whom William UL had proffered to adopt, at the peace of Ryswick ' When the old Electress of Hanover visited William at Loo, her visit may probably have had reference to a favorite project of that the throne, on his demise, to the exclusion of the Princess Anne, as papers, discovered at Kensington after his decease, contained many references to this subject ; and it may have been hat it wa^ because he had so alluded to the matter, that he was rclucanrto treat of .t verbally. The report was certainly current at th "me hat among the defunct king's papers was a written ...commeX* ..on or what might be interpreted a., such, to invite .he ElecTre's of Hanover and her son ,o take possession of the thtx.ne of En-^land .mmediately after his death. Pamphlets were published in def " of the queens rights, against such a recommendation of exclusion The government, indeed, declared that the reiKir, of the intended exclusion was false and groundless; which may We been the case, without affecting the request that a hint L such a coui had really been found in the paper* of the deceased kin. When the accession of Anne brought the husband'of Sophia Dorothea one step nearer to the throne of England, there exXd a law which was one of the most singular in"conn;ction,"hS law of taxation; and the singularity alone of which authorizes me to make mention of it here. I„ April, 169.5, this law h^ been rate, and duties upon marriages, births, and burials, .and upon bachelors and widower., "for the carrying on the ;ar agls" SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 139 France with vigor." By the graduated scale of this law, which commenced with the deaths, a duke or duchess could not die with- out paying 50/. sterling for the enjoyment of the luxury. It would be more correct, perhaps, to say that the heir could not administer till such impost had been paid. A marquis could depart at a diminished cost of 40/. ; while an earl was decreed as worth only 5/. less than a marquis, and his decease brought into the treasury the sum of 35/. The scale descended till it included " every gen- tleman, or so reputed, or his wife, 20s.," and also, " every person having a real estate of 50/. per annum, or in personal estate 600/. to pay 205., and for his wife 10*." Nobody was forgotten in this scale. No class was passed over, as the town of Berwick was when the old property tax was laid on, — an omission which the indignant town on the Tweed resented as an insult gross and undeserved. A similar scale affected the births : a duke (or an archbishop, who throughout the scale ranked as a duke) having a first son bom to him, was mulcted of 50/. for the honor ; while the commonest citizen could not legally be a father, at less cost in taxation than " 105. for every son and daughter." And so again with marriages : a ducal knot carried with it the usual dignified 50/. to the treasury ; and the scale ran gradually down till the marriage tax embraced ** every person else that did not receive alms," on whom a levy was made of half-a-crown to the king, in addition to what was expected by the minister. It is an ordinary policy to tax luxuries only ; but under this law every condition of life was set down as a luxury. It was right, perhaps, to set down marriage as a luxury, for it is intended to be so ; and where such is not the case, the fault lies in the par- ties who are too self-willed to allow it to be an enjoyment. Bach- elors and widowers probably paid the impost with decent cheerful- ness. Death, as an undoubted luxury, both to the patient and to the heir who profited by it, might also be fairly placed under the operation of this law. The cruelty in the enactment consisted in the rate put upon births. It was not misery enough that a man should be born, but that his welcome should be put in jeopardy by his coming in company with the tax-gatherer. I can fancy Mr. 140 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. Shandy having much to say upon this particular point, and the law IS certamly obnoxious to ,nueh Shandean obse!^ati;n Th! most scnously cruel portion of this law was that, however wSh affec ed a class of persons who could ill afford to be so s Jit.e^a^ ths enactment thus smote them. Not only was eve^ persln wh^ M not receive ahns compelled to pay one penny pefw^ek but one farthmg per week, in tAe pound, was le4d on all servant rece vmg wages amounting to 4/. per annum. "Those" Iv bmollett, " who received frnm w ♦ ^n -. a nose, say a pound p;rweek."^7hrC. 'or' i^^^^^^^^^^ ine war w ith h ranee might be carried on with vi^or que^LTTt ruf "'""T "* '"^ '^'^^""•"' '-"^ -«• "^e 4uesuon ot the succession to the crown r.v t,^^ i i • observed, ...at on the question as loXlr tit iS^^ r, "^ and the husband of the imnri-^on,.,! « I tI ,'^^' ^P^"«> an agiu.io„ of .heir inter^^fi E ^a^L^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^"«.'°"^'"^ uneasiness to the queen there i ^fT .' ., ^"'^ '"^ *^«""""ed Mus Strickland, i.i w" 'pic:;:;? td ':^^ji ^"•" f - veo' zealously essays ,0 prove tlia. the E cfr t Sot w^^^^ exceptionable and disinterested, as to her condu^ 1?^!,^ """ just named cites from the ioum>,l nf ,1 i . ■ ^''*= '"*'<""'" what that lady states to be l^H^Z':^^''^' ^°"'"^^' the invi.a.ions which had been -.-.iH.Ll 1 !. , ^"""■''' *° •■*" during ,he year 1704 Ld H.e / "anoverian Tories queen's Cab ne, Coiitii Su h v' ? '"""""• "^' ">« ""^^'' ^""uiiv, November llfh I7n^ ^ • here was ready to prooo^P if tk * u xf '^^^ ^'^ P^^^ caused the sam^e pe^n": t acq^l ^ 'Z^VS^^f tUe queen of' El^i^^j; :j:£'^-;;^^^^ '• came from attempt so much that it was believed nn, 'I'-'couraged the inil." «Thc moderate r„H, "" """'^ could be said moderate and humane conduct of the Princess SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 141 * i Sophia, adds Miss Strickland,-" conduct which the irr^fra-ible evidence of events proved was sincere and true, did not mollify the burning jealousy of Queen Anne. If we may believe the cor- respondence of the Jacobite writer. Dr. Davenant, angry letters were wntten by Queen Anne to the Princess Sophia, who, know- mg how little she had deserved them, and being of a hi^h spirit retorted with displeasure, yet did not alter the fntrinsiclnteS of her conduct The Duchess of Marlborough was reckless in her abuse of the Protestant heiress; and it is certain, by her letters, that she worked on the mind of the queen with aU her might, to keep up her jealousy and alarm, regarding the advancement of her high-minded cousin, Sophia. A running fit of angry correspond- ence was actually kept up between the queen and the Princess Sop iia from March 5, 1705. It was increased at every violent political agitation, until we shall see the scene of this world's -lory close almost simultaneously on both the royal kinswomen." ° The trut^h is that Sophia, who was naturally reluctant to come to England upon a mere popular or partisan invitation, would gladly have come on the bidding of the queen. This was never g.ven and hence .he angry correspondence. It is said that not only Anne, but that Sophia hei^clf, would have sacrificed the in- terests of the House of Hanover, and would have secured the succession to the son of James II., if ,he Utter would have con- sented to profess tlie Pi-o.es.ant religion. The queen and electress .ere perfectly safe in consenting to such a sacrifice on such a sf^ulation, for they might have been perf-ec.ly sure that it would never be istened to. Then again, much has been said about the rejected Mhig ministry, towards the end of Anne's reign, wrote a letter to Marlborough, ye. in command of the army abroad, offer- ing to seize the queen and proclaim the Elec.rcss of Hanover, as regent ,f Marlborough could bring over a force upon which he could depend, to su,>port them. Marlborough is declared to have described such a project as one of rank insanity; and it is stated that Sophia contented herself with recommending lier son to the consideration of the actual ministry. This proves nothing more, either tor mother or son, than that at a period when the health of Anne 142 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. was failing, they were very prudently contented to wait for an inheritance which every day brought nearer to their grasp, from which any day it might be snatched by popular commotion. In one year, the queen sent a request to the electress to aid her in promoting the peace of P:urope, and a present to her god- daughter Anne, the first child of George Augustus and Caroline of Anspach. Earl Rivers carried both letter and present. The latter was acknowledged with cold courtesy by the electress, in a communication to the Earl of Strafford, secretary of state The communication bears date Nov. 11, 1711 ; and, after saying that the gift is infinitely esteemed, the electress adds—" I would not however, give my parchment for it, since that will be an ever^ lasting monument in the archives of Hanover, and the present for the mtle princess will go, when she is grown up, into another lamily. It is suggested that by " my parchment," is meant the queen's letter to the electress, but the letter was a letter and nothmg more. It was no commission, and is not likely to have been engrossed. The word - parchment," it is much more pro- bable, had reference to the act of succession, which certainly was and remains " an everlasting monument in die archives of Han- over." When the daugliter of Sophia Dorothea married the Prince of Prussia, the young married couple repaired to Brussels, in the hope of receiving an invitation to England from Queen Anne They waited in vain, and returned without being noticed at all There was something more than mere jealousy in this conduct of the Bntish queen, and the angry allusions in the coiTespondence of Anne and Sophia tend to prove this ; for though the latter may not have been, and probably was not, intriguing against the peace of the queen, she was desirous that the electoral prince should visit the country, while Anne was as determmed tliat he should not come, if she and her ministiy could prevent it. In November, 1714, Anne addressed a poweiful remonstrance to the aged electress, complaining that ever since the Act of Sue- cession had been settled, there had been a constant agitation, the object of which was to bring over a prince of the Hanoverian house to reside in England, even during the writer's life. She SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 143 accuses the electress of having come, though perhaps tardily, into this sentiment, which had its origin in political pretensions,. and slie adds that if persevered in, it may end in consequences dan- gei-ous to the succession itself, " which is not secure any other ways than as the princess, who actually wears the crown, main- tains her authority and prerogative." The royal writer makes a strong appeal to the feelings and loyalty of the dowager-electress, adding such expressions of confidence in her good intentions, as courteous people are apt to express to persons in whom they do not fully trust, and whom they would not altogether offend. Nor was she satisfied with this alone. Her Majesty addressed a second letter to George Augustus, as Duke of Cambridge, im- partially expressing her thoughts with respect to the design he had of coming into her kingdom. Afler a rotundity of paraphrase, which is anything but Ciceronian, she says, "I should tell you, nothing can be more dangerous to the tranquillity of my dominions, and the right of succession in your line, and consequently most disagreeable to me." These letters undoubtedly helped to kill the proud dowager- electress, although it is said of her that " that illustrious lady had experienced too many changes of capricious fortune in her youth, to be slain with a few capricious words." The conclusion ij illogical, and the terms incorrect. The words were not capricious, they were solemn, sober truth ; and they thwarted her in one of her great desires. She would have been glad to see the son of the electress take his place in the House of Peers as Duke of Cam- bridge ; and her not unnatural ambition is manifest in the words, that " she cared not when she died, if on her tomb could be re- corded that she was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland." These words are said to have given great offence to Queen Anne ; and some profit to Tom D'Urfey, who, standing at her majesty's side- board, during the queen's dessert, after her three o'clock dinner, received, it is said, " a fee of fifty pounds for a stanza which he composed soon after Queen Anne's refusal to invite the Elector of Hanover's son, for the puq)ose of taking his place as Duke of Cambridge in the house of peers." Here is a verse of the dot^- 144 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. \l gerel which delighted the monarch, and brought guerdon to the minstrel. The crown's far too weighty For shoulders of eighty ; She could not sustain such a trophy. Her hand, too, already Has grown so unsteady, She can't hold a sceptre ; — So Providence kept her Away, poor old dowager Sophy ! There is evidence that the last letters of Anne really had some- thing to do with the death of the electress. They had hardly been received and read, when her health, wliich certainly had been for some time failing, grew worse. She rallied, however, for a time, and was able to take exercise, but the blow had been given from which she never recovered. Molyneux, an agent of the Duke of Marlborough, at Hanover, says :— He was on his way to the country palace of the electress, when he was suddenly infonned that she had been seized with mortal illness in one of the garden walks. "I ran up there, and found her fast expiring in the arms of the poor electoral princess (Caroline, afterwards queen of George II.) and amidst the tears of a great many of her servants, who endea- vored in vain to help her. I can give you no account of her ilhiess, but that I believe the chagiin of those villanous letters I sent you last post, has been in a great measure the cause of it The Rheingravine who has been with her these fifteen years, has told me she never knew anything make so deep an impression on her, as the affair of the prince's journey, which I am sure she had to the last degree at heart, and she has done me the honor to tell me so twenty times. In the midst of this, however, these letters arrived, and these, I verily believe, have broken her heart, and brought her with sorrow to the grave. The letters were delivered on Wednesday at seven. " When I came to court she was at cards, but was so full of these letters that she got up and ordered me to follow her into the garden, where she gave them to me to read, and walked, and spoke a great deal in relation to them. I believe she walked three hours SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 145 * that night. The next morning, which was Thursday, I heard that she was out of order, and on going immediately to court, she or- dered me to be called into her bed-chamber. She gave me the letters I sent you to copy ; she bade me send them next post, and bring them afterwards to her to court. This was on Friday. In the morning, on Friday, they told me she was very well, but seemed much chagrined. She was dressed, and dined with the elector as usual. At four, she did me the honor to send to town for some other copies of the same letters ; and then she was still perfectly well. She walked and talked very heartily in the orangery. After that, about six, she went out to walk in the garden, and was still very well. A shower of i-ain came, and as she was walking pretty fast to get to shelter, they told her she was walking a little too fast. She answered, ' I believe I do,' and dropped down on saying these words, which were her last. They raised her up, chafed her with spirits, tried to bleed her ; but it was all in vain, and when I came up, she was as dead as if she had been four days so."* Such was the end, on June 10, 1714, of a very remarkable wo- man ; a woman who bore with more complacency than any other trial, that indeed which was scarcely a trial to her at all,— the infi- delities of her husband. For the honor of that husband she her- self was exceedingly jealous. This was exhibited on more than one occasion. William HI. once showed his gratitude to the Duke of Zell for political ser\ices rendered in cabinet or field, by conferring on him Uie Order of the Garter. This favor, however, rendered the Elect- ress Sophia furious. She could bear complacently the infidelities and the neglect of her husband, but her mind, full of reference for etiquette, propriety, and the fitness of things, as set do^Ti by the masters of ceremonies, could not tolerate that a younger brother should wear a distinction which, so far as it went, elevated him above the elder branch of his house. The astute lady affected to be unable to comprehend the reason for thus passing over her husband. The reason, perhaps, was tliat m principle she herself was a thorough Jacobite, and that Jacobite * Letter to the Duke of Marlborough. 146 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. principles influenced the elder branch of a family which, neverthe- less, was not without some hopes of rising to a throne through a popular and national triumph over these very principles. The electress, it may be added, oscillated very actively between two extremes, and endeavored to maintain friendship with both parties. She corresponded with the dethroned James at St, Ger- mains, and she wrote very afliectionate letters to his daughter Mar}*, who, in succeeding him in the palace from which he had tied, rolled herself over the cushions, on which he had so lately sat, in frolic- some but untilial delight. Her letters to Anne were marked by more ceremonv than those addressed to Mary, and for this reason: she respected the latter as a clever woman, but for Amie she had a contempt, ill concealed, tmd a very thin cloak of civility, — deem- ing her to be destitute of ability, and unendowed with personal qualities to com{)ensaie for the defect. She had little more respect for Anne's father than she had for Aime herself, but in the former case she hid her want of attachment beneath a greater weight of ceremony. But if she loved neither king nor queen in England, she had a strong feeling, or at least declared she had, in favor of the countrj* itself. She used to speak of Great Britain as being her own na- tive hmd, and expressed a wish that she might be buried beside her mother in Westminster Abbey. It is doubtful whether this expression was founded on affection or ambition, for. as we have before stated, she declared she could die happy, were she so to die as to warrant her tomb being distinguished by the inscription, " Here lies Sophia Queen of England." ** It is my own country," she used to say ; and she told Lord Dartmouth, when the latter was sojourning at Hanover, that she had once in her younger d;\ys. been on the point of becoming Queen of England, by a m;\rriage which was said to have been projected between her and Charles 11. She added, in her coarse way, thiU England would have profited by such a marriage, for her numerous children would have rendered, as she suggested, a •disputed succession less comphcated ; — a conclusion which w«s by no means logically arrived at ; tor in England she might not have been the prolitic mother she was in Germany : and, moreover, of SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 147 ^ that German family, the half went over to that faith, the following of which rendered them ineligible to the crown of Great Britam. None knew better than the electress dowager on what basis her claims rested. If she nehher openly nor privately agitated the question, she was not indifferent as to its consequences ; and though anxious, she was quiet ; and was quiet, because she was in reality sincere. In a letter, written by the electress on this very subject, and quoted by Miss Benger in her life of the mother of the elect- ress, there is the following passage :— - 1 find all the fine speeches too strong ; they are only fit to amuse the lower orders, for the comparing the Prince of Wales with Perkin is too strong. And it is not he who could by right deprive me of the crown. If a Catholic king could not succeed, the crown is mine by right. With- out that, there are many nearer to the succession than I am. So, I do not like that the Prince of Wales should be caUed bastard : for I love the truth." CHAPTER Xi. AHLDEX ASD EXGLAXD. DuBiXG marriage festival- and Court fetes held to celebrate some step in greatness, Sophia Dorothea contmued to vegetate in Ahlden. She was politically dead ; and even in the domestic oc- currences of her family, events in which a mother might be grace- fully allowed to have a part, she enjoyed no share. The marriages of her children, and the births of M«> chUdren, were not officially communicated to her. She wa* left to learn them through chance or tlie courtesy of individuals. Her daughter was now the second Queen of Prussia, but the king cared not to exercise his influence in behalf of hi^ unfortunate mother-in-law. Not that he was unconcerned with respect to her. His consort was heiress to property over which her mother had control, and Frederick wa^ not tranquil >f mind untU this property had been secured as the indisputable inheritance of his wife. He was earnest enough in his correspondeooe with Sophia Dorothea, 148 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. until this consummation was arrived at ; and when he held the writings which secured the succession of certain portions of the property of the duchess on his consort, he ceased to trouble him- self further with any question connected with the unfortunate pris- oner ; except, indeed, that he forbade his wife to hold any further intercourse whh her mother, by letter, or otherwise. This prohi- bition was by far too obediently observed, and Sophia Dorothea was in this much like old King Lear, that by endowing a daughter she lost a child. Few and trivial are the incidents told of her long captivity. The latter had been embittered in 1703, by the knowledge that Mademoiselle von Schulemberg was the mother of another daugh- ter, Margaret Gerti-ude, of whom the elector was the father. This child, of whom little is known, but of whom we shall have to speak in a future reign, was ten years younger than her sister, Petronilla Melusina, who subsequently figured at the Court of George II. as Countess of Walsingham, and who, as the careless and uncared-for wife of Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, gave, nevertheless, very considerable trouble to that celebrated personage, who had the spirit to be a patriot, and the tact to be a gentleman, but who had neither the tact nor the principle to be a Christian. In the latter respect, the parties were, for a time at least, not ill-matched. Previous to the prohibition laid on his wife by the King of Prussia, an epistolary intercourse had been privately maintained between the prisoner and her daughter. Such intercourse had never the king's sanction ; and when it came to his knowledge, at the period of the settlement of part of the maternal property on the daughter, he peremptorily ordered its cessation. It had been maintained chiefly by means of a Chevalier de Bar ; Ludwig, a privy-counsellor at Berlin ; Frederick, a page of the queen's ; and a baiUff of the castle of Ahlden. There were too many confederates in a matter so simple, and the whole of them betrayed the poor lady, for whom they professed to act. The most important agent was the chevalier; in him the duchess confided longest, and in his want of faith she was the last to believe. He had introduced himself to her by sending her presents of snuff, no unusual present to a lady in those days, — though it is pretended that these gifts SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 149 bore a peculiar signification, known only to the donor and the recipient. They probably had less meaning than the presents for- warded to her by her daughter, consisting now of her portrait, another time of a watch, or some other trinket, which served to pass a letter with it, in which were filial injunctions to the poor mother to be patient and resigned, and to put no trust in the Count de Bar. The prisoner did not heed the counsel, but continued to confide in a man who was prodigal of promise, and traitorous of perform- ance. Her hopes were fixed upon escaping, but they were foiled by the watchfulness of noble spies, who exultingly told her that her husband was a king. And it is asserted that she might have been a recognized queen if she would but have confessed that she had failed in obedience towards her husband. It is certain that a renewed, but it may not have been an honest, attempt at recon- ciliation was made just previous to the accession of George I., but the old reply fell from the prisoner's hps : — " If I am guilty, I am not worthy of him ; if 1 am innocent, he is not worthy of me." I have alreiuly noticed the death of the Electress Sophia, and the causes of that death, — in 1714. It was followed very shortly after by the demise of Queen Anne. This event had taken all parties somewhat by surprise. They stood face to face, as it were, over the dying queen. The Jacobites were longing for her to name her brother as her successor, whom they would have pro- claimed at once at the head of the army. The Hanoverian party were feverish with fears and anticipations, but they had the regency dressed up, and ready in the back ground ; and Secretary Craggs, booted and spurred, was making such haste as could then be made, on his road to Hanover, to summon King George. The Jacobite portion of the cabinet was individually bold in resolving what ought to be done, but they were, bodily, afraid of the responsibility of doing it. Each man of each faction had his king's name ready upon his lips, awaiting only that the lethargy of the queen should be succeeded by irretrievable death, to give it joyful utterance. Anne died on the first of August, 1714; the Jacobites drew a breath of hesitation ; and in the meantime, the active Whigs instantly proclaimed King George, gave Addison 160 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. the mission of announcing the demise of one sovereign to another, who was that sovereign's successor, and left the Jacobites to their vexation, and their threatened redress. Lord Berkley was sent with the fleet to Orange Polder, in Holland, there to bring over the new king, but Craggs had not only taken a very long time to carry his invitation to the monarch, but the husband of Sophia, when he received it, showed no hot haste to take advantage thereof. The Earl of Dorset was de- spatched over to press his immediate coming, on the ground of the affectionate impatience of his new subjects. The king was no more moved thereby than he was by the first announcement of Lord Clarendon, the English ambassador, at Hanover. On the night of the 5th of August, that envoy had received an express, announcing the demise of the Queen. At two o'clock in the morn- ing he hastened with what he supposed the joyful intelligence to Hermhausen, and caused George Louis to be aroused, that he might be the first to salute him as king. The new monarcli yawned, expressed himself vexed, and went to sleep again as cahnly as any serene highness. In the morning, some one delicately hinted, as if to encourage the husband of Sophia Dorothea in staying where he was, that the presbyterian party in England was a dangerous regicidal party. " Not so," said George, who seemed to be satisfied that there was no peril in the new greatness ; " Not so ; I have nothing to fear from the king-killers ; they are all on my side." But still he tarried ; one day decreeing the abolition of the excise, the next ordering, like King Arthur in Fielding's tragedy, all the insolvent debtors to be released from prison. While thus engaged, London was busy with various pleasant occu- pations. On the 3d of August, the late queen was opened ; and on the following day her bowels were buried, with as much cere- mony as they deserved, in AVestminster Abbey. The day subse- quent to this ceremony, the Duke of Marlborough, who had been in voluntary exile abroad, and whose office in command of the imperial armies had been held for a short time, and not discre- ditably, by George Louis, made a triumphant entry into London. The triumph, however, was marred by the sudden breaking down of his coach at Temple-Bar, — an accident omnious of his not again SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 151 rising to power. The Lords and Commons then sent renewed assurances of loyalty to Hanover, and renewed prayers that the lord there would doff his electoral cap, and come and try his kingly crown. To quicken this, the lower house, on the 10th, voted him the same revenues the late queen had enjoyed, — ex- cepting those arising from the Duchy of Cornwall, which were, by law, invested in the Prince of Wales. On the 13th, Craggs arrived in town to herald the king's coming; and on the 14th, the Hanoverian party were delighted to hear that on the Pretender repairing from Louvain to Versailles, to implore of Louis to acknowledge him publicly as king, the French monarch had pleaded, in bar, his engagements with the House of Hanover ; and that thereon the Pretender had returned dispirited to Lou- vain. On the 24th of the month, the late queen's body was privately buried in Westminster Abbey, by order of her successor, who appeared to have a dread of finding the old lady of his young love yet upon the earth. This order was followed by another, which ejected from their places many officials who had hoped to retain them, — and chief of these was Bolingbroke. London then became excited at hearing that the king had arrived at the Plague on the oth of September. It was calculated that the nearer he got to his kingdom, the more accelerated would be his speed ; but George was not to be hurried. Madame Kielmansegge, who shared what was called his regard, with Mademoiselle von Schu- lemberg, had been retarded in her departure from Hanover by the heaviness of her debts. The daughter of the Countess von Platen would not have been worthy of her mother, had she suffered herself to be long detained by such a trifle. She, accordingly, gave her creditors the slip, set off to Holland, and was received with a heavy sort of delight, by the king. The exemplary couple tarried alone a week at the Hague ; and on the 1 Oth December, George and his retinue set sail for England. Be- tween that day and the day of his arrival at Greenwich, the heads of the Regency were busy in issuing decrees : — now it was for the prohibition of fireworks on the day of his majesty's entry; next against the admission of unprivileged carriages into Green- wich Park on the king's arrival ; and, lastly, one promising one 152 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. hundred thousand pounds to any loyal subject who might be lucky enough to catch the Pretender in England, and who would bring him a prisoner to London. On the 18th of September, the king landed at Greenwich ; and on the two following days, while he sojourned there, he wa3 waited on by various officials, who went smiUng to the foot of the throne, and came away frowning at the scurvy treatment they received there. They who thought themselves the most secure endured the most disgraceful ftills, especially the Duke of Or- mond, who, as captain-general, had been three parts inclined to proclaim the Pretender. He repaired in gorgeous array to do homage to King George ; but the king would only receive his staff of office, and would not see the ex-bearer of it ; who returned home whh one dignity the less, and for George one enemy the more. The public entry into London on the 20th was splendid, and so was the court holden at St. James's op the following day. A lively incident, however, marked the proceedings of this first court. Colonel Chudleigh, in the crowd, branded Mr. Allworth, M.P. for New Windsor, as a Jacobite ; whereupon they both left the palace, went in a coach to Marylebone-fields, and fought there a duel, in Avhich ^Ir. Allworth was killed on the spot. It was the first liba- tion of blo©d offered to the king. Were it not that we know how much more intensely the poets love the Muses than they care for Truth, we might be puzzled in our endeavors to reconcile the rhyming records of England's wel- come to George I. with the narrations given in simple prose by eye-witnesses of the incidents wliich they narrate. No poet deplored — that is, no poet affected to deplore — the de- cease of Anne, with such profundity of jingling grief, as Young. He had not then achieved a name, and he was eagerly desirous to build up a fortune. His threnodiu on the death of Queen Anne is a fine piece of measured maudlm ; but the author appears to have bethought himself, ere he had expended half his stock of sorrows, that there would be more profit in welcoming a living than bewail- ing a defunct monarch. Accordingly, wiping up his tears, and arraying his face in the blandest of smiles, he thus falls to the dou- L SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 153 ble task of recording the reception of George, and registering his merits. He first, however, apologetically states, as his warmnt for turning from weeping for Anne to cheering for George, that all the sorrow in the world cannot reverse doom, that groans cannot *' unlock th* inexorable tomb ;" that a fond indulgence of woe is sad folly, for, from such a course, he exclaims, with a fine eye to a poet's profit, — What fruit can rise or what advantage flow ! So, turning his back from the tomb of Anne to the throne of George, he grandiosely waves his hat, and thus he sings : — Welcome great stranger to Britannia's throne ! Nor let thy country think thee all her own. Of thy delay how oft did we complain ! Our hope rcach'd out and met thee on the main. With pray'r we smooth the billows for thy feet, With ardent wishes fill thy swelling sheet; And when thy foot took place on Albion's shore. We, bending, hlexs'd the Gods and ask'd no more ! What hand but thine should conquer and compose, Join those whom interest joins, and chase our foes. Repel the daring youth's presumptuous aim, And by his rival's greatness give him fame 1 Now, in some foreign court he may sit down, And quit without a blush the British crown ; Secure his honor, though he lose his store. And take a lucky moment to be poor. This sneer at the Pretender is as contemptible as the flattery of George is gross; and the picture of an entire nation on its knees, blessing Olympus, and bidding the gods to restrain all fur- ther gifts, is as magnificent a mixture of bombast and blasphemy as ever was made up by venal poet. But here is more of it ; — Nor think, great sir, now first at this late hour, In Britain's favor you exert your power. To us, far back in time, I joy to trace The numerous tokens of your princely grace ; Whether you chose to thunder on the Rhine, Inspire grave councils, or in courts to shine, 7* 154 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. In the more scenes your genius was displayed, The greater debt was on Britannia laid ; They all conspir'd this mighty man to raise, And your new subjects- proudly share the praise. Such is the record of a rh^-mer; TValpole, in plain and truthful prose, tells a very different story. He informs us that the London mob— no Jacobites, be it remembered, but, to paraphrase Nell Gwynne's celebrated phrase, « a good Protestant mob," were highly diverted at the importation by the king of his uncommon semcrUo of ugly women. " They were food," he says, *• for all the venom of the Jacobites," and so far from Britain thanking him for coming himself, or for bringing with him these numerous tokens of his princely grace, '' nothing could be grosser than the ribaldry that was vomited out in lampoons, libels, and every channel of abuse, against the sovereign and the new court, and chanted even in their hearing about the public streets." As for the great balance of debt which Young struck against poor Britannia for the outlay of genius on the part of George, the creditor did not fail to exact payment, with a lar^e amount oi' com- pound interest, both out of the national purse^aud the national peerage. Mademoiselle von Schulemberg was created Duchess of Kendal. " The younger Mademoiselle von Schulemberg, who came over with her, and was created Countess of Walsin^'-ham passed for her niece, but was so like the king, that it is not°very credible that the Duchess, who had affected to pass for cruel, had waited for the left-handed marriage." Lady Walsingham, as before said, wiis afterwards married to the celebrated Philip Stan- hope, Earl of Chesterfield. To the Duchess of Kendal,— George, who was so shocked at the mfidelity of which his wife was aUeged to be guilty, was to the mistress as inconstant as to the wife he had been untrue. He .et aside the former, to put in her place Madame Kielmanl«-th his-whieh'^ hkelj enough-was surely a sight to pen.lex those very gods to 158 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. whom, Young said, all Britain bent in humble thankfulness for such a blessing. I can fancy Dan Mercury looking down upon such a sight, and exclaiming, as he saw the jumbling of triumj)hs for the unrighteous, oppression for the innocent, and praise offered by the vain to the wicked, that in this lower world, as Stephen Blackpool has since remarked, " it was all muddle ! " 159 CHAPTER Xn. CRO^VN AND GRAVE. "While Sophia Dorothea continued to linger in her prison, her husband and son, with the mistresses of the former and the wife of the latter, were enjoying the advantages and anxieties which sur- round a throne. The wife of the Prince of Wales, Caroline, ar- rived at Margate on the 13th of October. She was accompanied by her two eldest daughters, Anne and Amelia. Mother and chil- dren rested during one day in the town where they had landed, slept one night at Rochester, and arrived at St. James's on the loth. The royiU coronation took place in Westminster Abbey on the 20th of the same month. Amid the pomp of the occasion, no one appears to have thought of her who should have been queen- consort. There was much splendor and some calamity, for, as the procession was sweeping by, several people were killed })y the fall of scaffolding in the Palace Yanl. The new king entered the Ab- bey amid the cheers and screams of an excited multitude. Three days after, the monarch, with the Prince and Princess of Wales, dined with the Lord Mayor and corporation, in the Guild- hall, London, and there George peribrmed the first grateful ser\ice to his people, by placing a thousand guineas in the hands of the sheriffs, for the relief of the wretched debtoi-s then immured in the neighboring horrible prisons of Newgate and the Pleet. Within a month, the general festivities were a little marred by the proclamation of the pretender, dated from Lorraine, wherein he laid claim to the throne which George was declared to Iiave I I usurped. At this period the Duke of Lorraine was a sovereign prince, maintaining an envoy at our court ; but the latter was or- dered to withdraw from the country immediately after the arrival of the " Lon-aine proclamation," by the French mail. Already George I. began to feel that on the throne he was destmed to en- joy less quiet tlian his consort in her prison. The counter-proclamations made in this countr}% chiefly on ac- count of the Jacobite riots at Oxford and some other places, were made up of nonsense and malignity, and were well calculated to make a good cause wear the semblance of a bad one. They de- creed, or announced, thanksgiving on the 20th of January, for the accession of the House of Hanover ; and, to show what a portion of the people had to be tlmnkful for, they ordered a rigorous exe- cution of the laws against papists, nonjurors, and dissenters gene- rally,, who were assumed to be, as a matter of course, disaffected to the reigning house. The government was earnest in its intentions. Vine, a come- dian, was prosecuted for a libel contained in his " Reasons humbly offered to the Parliament for abrogating the observation of the 30th of January." But this was an innocent libel enough, com- pared with others such as that of Hornby's, in his " Advice to the Freethinkers of England," in which it was affinned that the Whig government would overturn the constitution in Church and State, alter the law of limitations in the })ower of the crown, establish a standing army, crush public liberty, and " encourage the people to abuse the memory of good Queen Anne." A reward of a thou- sand pounds was conferred on the discoverer of the author of this libel. Some of its assertions appeared, however, to be justified in the king's first proclamation for the electing a new paryament. In this document his majesty charged the late House of Commons with being Jacobitical, and desired his subjects to elect men of an op- posite tendency. His desire was tolerably well obeyed ; but when the king told the new parliament that the public debt had in- creased in peace, and diminished during war, — and when the com- mons, in their address, encouraged the monarch in his warlike pro- pensities,— the freethinkers were more obstinate than ever in their 160 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. opinion that liberty was doomed to die beneath the heels of a standing army. Not that much pains could be said to have been taken by the government to conciliate the army. On the first anniversary of the king^s birth-day, the 28th of May, the first regiment of Guards, and divisions of other regiments, broke out into open mutiny, on the ground that they were furnished with clothes and linen that were not fit to be worn on the royal birth-day. The Duke of Marlborough, who had succeeded Ormond as Captain-General saUied from his house in the Mall, and made a speech to the soldiers in the park. But some of the men stripped otf their jack- ets and shirts, and flung them over the wall of the duke's garden and of that behind St. James's Palace, while others, hoisting the Imen garments on poles, paraded them about the streeLs excfaim- ing, " Look at our Hanover shirts !" Reparation was promised the army agents and tradesmen were blamed, and the men were enjoined to burn clothes and shirts in front of Whitehall,— an order which they obeyed with alacrity. Amid it all, the little Princess Caroline, youngest daughter of the Prince and Princess of Wale^ who had arrived only two days before in London, took her first drive in public. Her little highness must have been startled at the contrast between the noisy metroi)olis and the quiet city of Hanover ; the streets of the latter all tranquillity, those of the former lull of prostrate Whigs, knocked down by strong-armed Tories for refusing to join in the shout of - High Church and the Duke of Ormond." The duke gained little by his popularity, for he, in common with Bolingbroke and other lords, were impeached on the charge of him the foot of the bed where he had been standing with his wife's maids of honor, to the side of the bed where the duke was standing near the kmg, and there holdmg up his hand and forefinger men- acmgly, said, in broken EngUsh, " You are a rascal, but I shall find you,"— meaning, " I shall find a time to be revenged." The kin- affecting to understand this as a challenge to fight, placed liis son under arrest ; but soon releasing him therefrom, turned hun out of the palace, retaining the three eldest daughters, who resided with hnn till his decease. The dissensions between George I. and his son are said to have arisen long previous to the accession of the former. The respect which the prince once entertained for his mother Sophia Dorothea, may have had much to do with the matter, but politics had aUo ^mething to do therewith. Before the Act of Settlement, the i^Iectress Sophia was a Jacobite in principle ; ** but," says Walpole « no sooner had King William procured a settlement of the crown* after Queen Anne, on her electoral highness, than noboily became a stauncher Whig than the Princess Sophia, nor could be more impatient to mount the throne of the exiled Stuarts. It is certain that dunng the reign of Anne, the Elector George was inclined to the Tones ; though after his mother's death, and his own accession he gave himself to the opposite party. But if he and his mother espoused different factions, Sophia found a ready partisan in her grandson the electoral prince ; and it is true that the demand made by the prince of his writ of summons to the House of Lords, as Duke of Cambridge, which no wonder was so offensive to Queen Anne, was made in concert with his grandmother, without the privity of the elector his father." To these causes of oftence may be added the royal sire's jealousy, as is supposed, of his son. On the first absence of the king from England, the Prince of Wales was appointed regent, but he was never intrusted with that hic^h office a second time. "It is probable," says Walpole, "that the SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 165 8on discovered too much fondness for acting the king, as that the father conceived a jealousy of his having done so. Sure it is, that on the king's return, great divisions arose in the court, and the Whigs were divided,— some devoting themselves to the wearer of the crown, and others to the expectant." So that, in the second year of his reign, the king not only held his wife in prison, but his son and heir was banished from his presence. He even went so far as to declare to the peers and peeresses of Great Britain and Ireland, and to all privy councillors and their wives, that if any of them should go to the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales, they should forbear to come into his majesty's presence. At the same time that this example of family division was being given to the kingdom, George I. created Prince Frederick, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, Duke of Gloucester ; and a day or two later, the little Prince George William, at whose christening the scene of violence had occurred, died at the age of three months and three days. The body was privately interred in Westminster Abbey on the 12th of February, the Bishop of Rochester reading the funeral service. At this time the Prince of Wales had retired to the house in " Leicester Fields," which he had recently pur- chased. This house stood in the northeast comer of the square, and was originally built by the Eari of Leicester, father of Waller's " Sacharissa." The eari let it to persons of " condition," after ceasing to reside in it himself There died the mother of the Elec- tress Sophia. It was subsequently, and successively, occupied by the French and German ambassadors, and it was thence (when the Emperor of Germany's envoy resided there) that Beau Field- ing procured the priest who married him privately, in Pall Mall, to Mrs. Mary Wadsworth. About a month after the Prince of Wales had purchased Lei- cester House, he was neariy called upon to leave it again, for the palace, by the attempt at assassination made by a lad, named Shep- herd, upon George L This was on the 6th of March, 1717. The young assassin was only eighteen years of age, and was apprentice to a coach-painter. He looked upon the act as being so meritori- ous, that when Lord Chesterfield, just previous to his execution, asked what he would do if the king forgave his attempt to shoot 164 LIVES OF THK QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 165 his child. George L peremptorily named the Duke of Newcastle as co-sponsor, and would hear of no other. The duke, then secre- tary of state, was hateful to the prince, whom he treated with stu*- died neglect ; and when the ceremony of christening had been brought to a close in the princess's bed-chamber, the prince crossed from the foot of the bed where he had been standing with his wife's maids of honor, to the side of the bed where the duke was standing near the king, and there holding up his hand and forefinger men- acingly, said, in broken English, " You are a rascal, but I shall find you," — meaning, " I shall find a time to be revenged." The king, affecting to understand this as a challenge to fight, placed his son under arrest; but soon releasing him therefrom, turned him out of the palace, retaining the three eldest daughters, who resided \Yith him till his decease. The dissensions between George I. and his son are said to have arisen long previous to the accession of the former. The respect which the prince once entertained for his mother Sophia Dorothea, may have had much to do with the matter, but politics had nho something to do therewith. Before the Act of Settlement, the Electress Sophia was a Jacoliite in i)rinciple ; " but," says Walpole, "no sooner had Khig AVilliam procured a settlement of the crown, after Queen Anne, on her electoral highness, than nobody became a stauncher Whig than the Princess Sophia, nor could be more impatient to mount the throne of the exiled Stuarts. It is certain that during the reign of Anno, the Elector George was inclined to the Tories ; though after his mother's death, and his own accession, he gave himself to the opposite party. But if he and his mother espoused different factions, Sophia found a ready partisan in her grandson the electoral prince ; and it is true that the demand made by the prince of his writ of summons to the House of Lords, as Duke of Cambridge, which no wonder was so offensive to Queen Aime, was made in concert with his grandmother, without the privity of the elector his father." To these causes of oflence may be added the royal sire's jealousy, as is supposed, of his son. On the first absence of the king from England, the Prince of Wales was appointed regent, but he was never intrusted with that high office a second time. "It is probable," says Walpole, "that the I ; 1 1 ^ gon discovered too much fondness for acting the king, as that the father conceived a jealousy of his having done so. Sure it is, that on the king's return, great divisions arose in the court, and the Whigs were divided, — some devoting themselves to the wearer of the crown, and others to the expectant." So that, in the second year of his reign, the king not only held his w^ife in prison, but his son and heir was banished from his presence. He even went so far as to declare to the peers and peeresses of Great Britain and Ireland, and to all privy councillors and their wives, that if any of them should go to the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales, they should forbear to come into his majesty's presence. At the same time that this example of family division was being given to the kingdom, George I. created Prince Frederick, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, Duke of Gloucester ; and a day or tw^o later, the little Prince George William, at whose christening the scene of violence had occurred, died at the age of three months and three days. The body was privately interred in Westminster Abbey on the 12th of February, the Bishop of Rochester reading the funeral service. At this time the Prince of Wales had retired to the house in " Leicester Fields," which he had recently pur- cha<;ed. This house stood in the northeast comer of the square, and was originally built by the Earl of Leicester, father of Waller's " Sacharissa." The earl let it to persons of " condition," after ceasins: to reside in it himself. There died the mother of the Elec- tress Sophia. It was subsequently, and successively, occupied by the French and German ambassadors, and it w^as thence (when the Emperor of Germany's envoy resided there) that Beau Field- ing procured the priest who married him privately, in Pall Mall, to ^Irs. Mary W^adsworth. About a month after the Prince of Wales had purchased Lei- cester House, he was nearly called upon to leave it again, for the palace, by the attempt at assassination made by a lad, named Shep- herd, upon George I. This was on the 6th of March, 1717. The young assassin was only eighteen years of age, and was apprentice to a coach-painter. He looked upon the act as being so meritori- ous, that when Lord Chesterfield, just previous to his execution, asked what he would do if the king forgave his attempt to shoot 166 LIVKS OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 167 him, the boy replied, " I would do it again." He met his fate at Tyburn without exhibiting the slightest mark of fear ; and Ches- terfield said of him, that " Reason declared him to be a Regulus, but that silly Prejudice was against it." The most important pub- lic affair of the following year was the signing of the quadruple alliance treaty between Great Britain, France, Germany, and Hol- land, whereby these powers were, among other obligations, bound to support the succession to the British crown as fixed by the present law of the land. Passing over the record of public events, the next interesting fact connected with the private life of the faithless husband of Sophia Dorothea, was the marriage of his daughter Charlotte, of whom Madame Kielmansegge (his younger mistress) was the mother, with Lord Viscount Howe (of the kingdom of Ireland). The bride was never publicly acknowledged as the daughter of the king, but the Princess Amelia, daughter of George II., ** treated Lady Howe's daughter, * Mistress Howe,* as a princess of the blood-royal, and presented her with a ring, containing a small por- trait of George I., with a crown in diamonds." The best result of this marriage was, that the famous Admiral Howe was a de- scendant of the contracting parties, and that was the only benefit "which the country derived from the vicious conduct of George I. If the marriage of the child of one mistress tended to mortify the vanity of another, as is said to have been the case with the Schu- lemberg. King George found a way to pacify her. That lady waa already Duchess of Munster, in Ireland, and the king, in April, 1719, created her a baroness, countess, and duchess of Great Brit- ain, by the name, style, and title of Baroness of Glastonbury Countess of Feversham, and Duchess of Kendal ; and this done, the king soon after embarked at Gravesend for Hanover. It was during his absence that a Spanish invasion of Scotland, by a small force, in conjunction with a body of Highlanders, in behalf of the pretender, was promptly suppressed by General Wightman, to whom the whole of the Spaniards, some three hundred men only, surrendered at discretion. The year 1720 saw King George more upon the Continent than at home, where indeed universal misery reigned, in conse- 4tf^ quence of the bursting of the great South Sea bubble, which had promised such golden solidity, — which ended in such disappoint- ment and i-uin, and for furthering which the Duchess of Kendal and her daughter received bribes of 10,000/. each. In April of the following year, William Augustus was born at Leicester House. The daughter of Sophia Dorothea was his godmother; her husband and the Duke of York were the godfathers. This son of George Augustus and Caroline of Anspach, Prince and Princess of Wales, was afterwards famous as the Duke of Cum- berland. It was in July of this same year that the king conveyed to the House of Commons the pleasant piece of information that the debts on his civil list amounted to more than half a million. He asked that body to j)rovide for the payment of the same, and the obsequious house did what was asked of it ! No wonder that on the anniversary of the restoration, seditious oak-apples were seen in the citizens' hats; that on the 10th of June, the pretender's birth-day, white roses decorated their button-holes ; and that on the 23d of August, Queen Anne's natal day, there was much toast- ing of the memory of a queen who, throughout her reign, had not cost her country the blood and treasure which that country paid in any single year for her successor. It was scarcely a month after the royal request to the representatives of the people to pay the penalty of the king's extravagance, by advancing above half a mil- lion of money, when he quartered his mistress, Sophia Charlotte, Madame Kielmansegge, on the civil list of Ireland, and dignified the act by creating her Countess of Leinster! On the 17tli of January, 1721, the royal family went into mourning, and this was the only domestic incident of the reign in which Soi)hia Dorothea was allowed to participate. With her, the mourning was not a mere foiTnality ; it was not assumed, but was a testimony offered, in sign of her sorrow, for the death of her mother Eleanora, Duchess of Zell. In an anonymous biography of her daughter, the duchess is said to have died on the 24th of February, 1722, but the Court of St. James's went into mourning for her on the 11th of February of the preceding year. She had seen little of her daughter for some time previous to her death, but 168 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 169 she bequeathed to her as much of her private property as she had power to dispose of by will. Sophia Dorothea had now a considerable amount of funds placed to her credit in the bank of Amsteixlam. Of the incidents of her captivity nothing whatever is known, save that it was most rigidly maintained. She was forgotten by the world, because unseen, and they who kept her in prison were as silent about her as the keepers of the Man in the Iron ^lask were about that mysterious object of their solicitude. Where little is known, there is little to be told. The captive bore her restraint with a patience which even her daughter must have admired ; but she was not without hopes of escaping from a thraldom from which, it was clear, she could never be released by the voluntary act of those who kept her in an un- deserved custody. It is believed that her funds at Amsterdam were intended by her to be disposed of in the purchase of aid to secure her escape ; but it is added that her agents betrayed her, embezzled her property, and by revealing for what purpose they were her agents, brought upon her a closer arrest than any under which she had hitherto suffered. Romance has made some addi- tions to these items of intelligence, — items, great portions of which rest only on conjecture. The undoubted fact that much of the property which she inherited was to pass to her children, rendered the death of a mother a consummation to be desired by so indifferent a son and daughter as the Prince of Wales and the Queen ot Prussia. The interest held by her husband was of a similar description, and the fatal consequences that might follow were not unprovided for by the friends of the prisoner. " It is known," says Walpole, "that in Queen Anne*s time there was much noise about French prophets. A female of that vocation (for we know from Scripture that the gifl of prophecy is not limited to one gender) warned George I. to take care of his wife, as he would not survive her a year. That oracle was probably dictated to the French Deborah by the Duke and Duchess of Zell, who might be appre- hensive that the Duchess of Kendal might be tempted to remove entirely the obstacle to her conscientious union with their son-in- law. Most Germans are superstitious, even such as have few other impressions of religion. George gave such credit to the "f denunciation, that, on the eve of his last departure, he took leave of his son and the Princess of Wales with tears, telling them he should never see them more. It was certainly his own approach- ing end that melted him, not the thought of quitting for ever two persons that he hated." But both parties had yet a few years to live, and one of them some honors to bestow. It was alijiost in the same hour that George wrote directions for the stricter keeping of his wife, and signed the patents for raising his mistress in the peerage. On the same day, " Sophia Charlotte von Platen, Countess of Leinster, in Ire- land," was raised to the rank of Baroness of Brentford, and Countess of Darlinj^ton, in England ; and the king's illegitimate daughter, Melusinji de Schulemberg, niece (as the patent lyingly declared) of the Duchess of Kendal, was created Baroness of Ald- borouffh and Countess of Walsinjijham. This was on the 10th of April, 1722. That day week the Prince of Wales made a better trial upon the admiration of the public, by having his two daughters, Amelia and Caroline, inoculated for the small-pox ; a trial which ended favorably, as it deserved to do. " The quality," says the i)apers of the day, *' would have universally followed this exanqile, but for the death of the infant son of the Earl of Sunder- land, who died of small-pox after inoculation." The family of the Prince of Wales was increased, in the year 1722, by the birth of a daughter — Mary. The last foreign favorite of George I., Sophia Charlotte von Platen, Countess of Darlington, did not long enjoy the new honors conferred upon her by the king ; she died in the month of April, 1724. This death was followed soon after by that of the king's brother, Maximilian William, a colonel in the service of the emperor. He was a rigid Roman Catholic, as were others of his family ; and, at the time of his death, which occurred at Vienna, he was in the sixtieth year of his age. On the 2nd of November, 1726, a death, which should have more nearly touched the king, took place in Germany. On the day named, in the Castle of Ahlden, calmly, and almost unobservedly, died the poor princess, " Queen of Great Britain," as those who loved her were wont to call her, — after a captivity of more than thirty years. She liad 8 # 170 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. SOPHIA DOROTHEA. 171 been long in declining health, born of declining hopes ; and yet she endured all things with patience, contenting herself in her last moments with reasserting her innocence, commending herself to God, naming her children, and pardoning her oj)pressors. Thus much is generally known ; but there is little further reliable infor- mation. She was a prisoner, and she died: fuid such is the amount of what is really hnown concerning her, after she was cloistered up within the limits of the castle and estate at Ahlden. Her royal husband simply notified in the Gazette, that a Duchess of Ahlden had died at her residence, on the date above named ; but he did not add that he had thereby lost a wife, or his children lost a mother. No intimation was given of the relationship she held towards him or them ; but his ire burst forth into an explosion of rage, when he heard that his daughter, with the court of Prussia, had gone into mourning for the death of her mother. The amiable father and king, having thus exhibited the character of his own feeling, proceeded to manifest that of his very bad taste. It was shortly after the demise of his consort, not that he had icaited for the event, that lie raised to the infamy of being his " favorite " an English woman, named Ann Brett, half-sister of Savage the poet, — their common mother, the repudiated wife of the Earl of Macclesfield, having married that rakish gentleman Colonel Brett, by whom she became the mother of Ann, in whom the foreign sojereign of England paid the nation the compliment as Walpole satirically says, of taking openly an English mistress. Miss Brett, unlike the other royal concubines, resided in St. James's Palace. "Abishag," says Walpole, ''was lodged in the palace under the eyes of Bathsheba, who seemed to maintain her power, as other favorite sultanas have done, by suHering partners in the sovereign's affections." George intended to have honored her, and dishonored the peerage, by raising her to the rank of a countess. Three of the grand-daughters of the king also resided in the palace, and " Anne, the eldest, a woman," says Mr. Cun- ningham, " of a most imperious and ambitious nature, soon came to words with the English mistress of her grandfather." After the king repaired, for the last time, to Hanover, Miss Brett ordered a door to be broken in the wall of her apartment, in order that she might have access by it to the royal gardens. In these gardens the Princess Anne was accustomed to walk, and not desiring Miss Brett for a companion, she ordered the door to be bricked up. "Abishag" had the obstruction removed, and the Princess again bricked up the concubine ; and thus went on the war between them, until news of the death of the unworthy grand- father of the one, and the wretched old lover of the other, put an end to the conflict, and to many other matters besides. Not long before his majesty set out on his last continental journey, his bronze statue, erected in Grosvenor-square, was, on one dark night, treated with great indignity. Its limbs were hacked and mutilated, the neck was hewn into, as if an attempt had been made to decapitate it, and a seditious libel affixed to the breast. With this type of the national feeling impressed upon his mind, the king set out for Hanover on the 3rd of June, 1727. On the night of that day week he died at Osnaburgh, aged sixty- seven years and thirteen days. The king had landed at Vaer, in Holland, on the 7th, and he travelled thence to Utrecht, by land, escorted by the Guards to the frontiers of Holland. On Friday, the 9th, he reached Dalden, at twelve at night, when he w^as apparently in exellent health. He partook of supper largely, and with api)etite, eating, among other things, part of a melon, a fruit that hius killed more than one emperor of Germany. At three the next morning he resumed his journey ; but he had not travelled two hours when he was attacked by violent abdominal pains. He hurried on to Linden, where dinner awaited him ; but being able to eat nothing, he was immediately bled, and other remedies made use of. Anxious to reach Hanover, he ordered the journey to be contiimed with all speed. He fell into a lethargic doze in the carriage, and so continued, leaning on a gentleman in waiting, who was with him in the carriage. To this attendant he feebly announced in French, " I am a dead man." He reached the episcopal palace at Osnaburgh at ten that night ; he was again bled in the arm and foot ; but ineffectually : his lethargy in- creased, and he died about midnight. A well-known story is told by Walpole, to the effect that George, '' in a tender mood, promised to the Duchess of Kendal, that if she 172 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. survived him, and it were possible for the departed to return to this world, he would make her a visit. The duchess, on his death so much expected the accomplishment of that engagement, that a large raven, or some black fowl, flying into the windows of her villa, at Islewoith" (Twickenham?), ''she was persuaded it was the soul of her departed monarch so accoutred, and received and treated it with all the respect and tenderness of duty, till this royal bird or she took their last flight." CHAPTER XIIL BERENGARIA AXD SOPHIA DOROTHEA ;~C(EUR DE LION, AND GEORGE OF HANOVER. I HAVE already remarked, that of all the queens of En