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Ebook has 1653 lines and 99429 words, and 34 pages

One can see them doing it, and the dry old Envoy--it is presumed he was a bachelor as he makes no mention of his wife--looking on, and as much at sea with regard to the "points" of a fine baby as a midwife would be at a horse show.

Taking the latter first, the Elector and future King of England was in the habit of retaining without any concealment whatever a minimum of three mistresses. These ladies, this considerate old father-in-law expected his son's wife to receive and treat with civility, and strange to say Caroline the Princess Electoral did it. Poor soul! She had much more than that to wink at on her own account before long owing to the before-mentioned "foiblesses" of her little husband.

The chief of her father-in-law the Elector's little harem was a lady of the name of Schulemburg, of an ancient but poor family, who had occupied her exalted position almost from a very plain girlhood, and whose name became subsequently very well known in England.

The first George never distinguished himself as a seeker after beauty. The Schulemburg is described as a tall, thin person, quite bald, wearing a very ugly red wig, and with an uncomely face much marked with the smallpox. This disfigurement she endeavoured to cover with paint with shocking results.

The lady occupying the second position in the seraglio who bore the euphonic name of Kielmansegge, and was the separated wife of a Hamburg merchant, was of exactly opposite dimensions, bulking large with great unwieldiness, she, however, had no need to redden her cheeks, being gifted by Nature with a plenteous colour which she vainly endeavoured to assuage with layers of white powder.

The advent of this Ruler in public with either or both of these fascinating ladies under his immediate protection must have added considerably to his Electoral dignity.

The third of this honourable trio was, strange to say, a beautiful young woman, the Countess Platen, married to a man whose family seems to have provided courtesans for princes for generations, but it was so far to the Count Platen's credit that when his wife openly became the Elector's mistress he separated from her. This lady seems to have simply thrust herself into the old Elector's arms, and appears for a time, at least, to have absorbed most of his superfluous elderly affection.

But about the time that little Prince Frederick Louis, the subject of these Memoirs, was about two years old, a little sister--Anne, named apparently after the Queen of England--having joined him in the nursery, a certain couple of adventurers--for they were nothing better--Henry Howard, third son of the Earl of Suffolk, with his pretty but unscrupulous wife Henrietta, made their appearance at the Court of Hanover. They had come, like many others from England, to throw in their lot with the Elector and his chances of becoming King of England, which at that time were none too sure, but still a good sporting chance.

Henry Howard and his wife had come like the others to better their fortunes, which apparently in their case had arrived at that stage when they could not well be much worse.

It is reported that so short of money were they on their arrival that Mrs. Howard had to cut off her beautiful hair and sell it--her glory!--to provide a conciliatory banquet for some powerful Hanoverian acquaintances. One can almost add a tear to those she surely shed over the shorn locks in private. But the loss of her hair does not appear to have handicapped her in any way from the point of view of fascination. She quickly ingratiated herself with the Elector's aged mother, Sophia, granddaughter of James the First of England, and Protestant heiress of England by Act of Parliament, talked English with her, and became one of her intimate friends. From this, it was but a step to the favour of Caroline, the wife of the Elector's son, and Mrs. Hettie Howard was by no means the kind of lady to let grass grow under her feet. She was said to be a great adept at flattery, knowing just how much to tickle the ears of Royalty with Electoral Royalty. She tickled to such effect that she soon became one of the Princess's ladies-in-waiting, and as such no doubt had the privilege of dandling our Prince Frederick as an infant in her arms.

But apparently she had not as yet hit her mark; it was at the heart of the little Prince's father that her darts were aimed, and certainly never was a target more ready to receive them. George Augustus had ever posed as a lady's man, yet this incident was possibly the first which opened the eyes of his young wife to his subsequently deplored "foiblesses." The Electoral Prince followed in the exemplary footsteps of his father, the Elector; he started the nucleus of a harem, and Mrs. Hettie Howard obligingly became the nucleus! One more good example to set before the little Prince when his eyes--and ears--should open to understand the wicked things of this world!

The comment of George Augustus's aged grandmother the Electress on this arrangement--with which, by-the-bye, she was rather pleased--was quite German and appropriate. "Ah!" she remarked, "it will improve his English."

Though the position of the House of Hanover at this time with regard to the throne of England was considered to be good, yet it was by no means sure. The two following letters will, perhaps, throw some light on the period.

"Vienna, "December 16th, 1713.

"I have not troubled your Highness with letters since I left Hanover, as I had nothing of interest to tell you, but I must not neglect the opportunity which this season gives me of assuring your Highness of my perpetual devotion, and I pray God to grant you the same measure of years as the Electress enjoys, and the same good health. And I pray also that you may one day enjoy the title of Queen of England so well worn by Queen Elizabeth which you so highly merit.

"Consequently, I wish the same good things to his Highness, your Consort, since you can only occupy the throne of that great Queen with him. Whenever the gazettes publish favourable rumours concerning you and affairs in England, I devoutly pray that they may become true; sometimes it is rumoured here that a fleet is about to escort you both to England, and a powerful alliance is being formed to support your claims. I have even read that the Tsar is only strengthening his navy in order to supply you with Knights of the Round Table. It is time to translate all these rumours into action, as our enemies do not sleep. Count Gallas, who is leaving for Rome in a few days, tells me that well-informed people in England think that the first act of the present Tory Ministry will be to put down the Whigs, the second to confirm the peace, and the third to change the law of succession. I hear that in Hanover there is strong opposition to all this. I hope it may be so with all my heart."

The Princess Caroline's reply.

"Hanover, "December 27th, 1713.

"I assure you that of all the letters this season has brought me, yours has been the most welcome. You do well to send me your good wishes for the throne of England, which are sorely needed just now, for in spite of all the favourable rumours you mention, affairs there seem to be going from bad to worse. For my part I cling to the hope that, however bad things may be now, they will ultimately turn to the advantage of our House. I accept the comparison which you draw, though all too flattering, between me and Queen Elizabeth as a good omen. Like Elizabeth, the Electress's rights are denied her by a jealous sister with a bad temper, and she will never be sure of the English crown until her accession to the throne. God be praised that our Princess of Wales is better than ever, and by her good health confounds all the machinations of her enemies."

Poor young Princess Caroline, "the Pure, the Great, the Illustrious," as Mr. Wilkins calls her. She must, but for her children, have found it none too cheerful in that dreary old Leine Schloss by the river, about which clung the then unsolved mystery of the disappearance of K?nigsmarck, the lover of the Princess Sophie Dorothea--her husband's mother--as he left that lady's chamber and was seen no more. A mystery which remained a mystery until years after when, the floor of an adjoining room being taken up, his body was found beneath.

But apart from this it must have been a dreary life for a young girl, a life of looking on at much over-eating, and over-drinking perhaps, too. A life of low sordid immorality going on under her very nose in which her husband and his father played leading parts; a life in which the higher side of her nature was never called upon, except for the almost habitual display of charity and forbearance to others.

Yet the higher nature was there despite her faults which were many; she possessed the pure gold of a good heart, which saw her through many trials and temptations, and left her, but for her conduct to her eldest son--and some of her correspondence--a clean name in history.

But other more stirring thoughts soon filled the young mother's head than the frailties of her husband's family, for when the sum of her nursery reached four and the little Prince Frederick was in his eighth year, the fruit of her hopes ripened, Queen Anne of England died, and a lucky turn of politics in favour of the Whigs, laid open to her the road to a throne.

FOOTNOTES:

The Electoral Prince was the eldest son of the elector.

Howe's Despatch. Hanover, 5th Feb., 1707. From this it must be seen clearly that the Prince was born on February 4th, not on February 5th, as it has been stated.

Queen Anne.

The Electress Sophia, her husband's grandmother.

THE FALLING IN OF A GREAT LEGACY.

On the 18th of June, 1714, the Heiress of England, the Electress Sophia of Hanover, the aged mother of that Prince Elector, who afterwards became George the First of England, and granddaughter of James the First having dined in public with her son, that is to say having taken her big German mid-day meal in the presence of the Court, went forth on the arm of her granddaughter-in-law, the Electoral Princess Caroline, to take the summer air in the beautiful gardens of the Palace of Herrenhausen.

Much had occurred during the previous twenty-four hours to upset the "Heiress of Britain" as she was proud to be called, far too much worry for an old lady in her eighty-fourth year. Even at that advanced age the glamour of the English crown fascinated her. Perhaps it was the long drawn out hope of many years, the hope that possibly had been ever before her eyes since the flight of James the Second.

She had received a letter on the previous day written by the hand of Queen Anne herself in which that royal lady had distinctly told her in the most peremptory manner in answer to a supplication to that effect, that she objected to have any member of the Electoral family in her dominions during her lifetime.

This had been a crushing blow. The old Electress had schemed, and schemed as she imagined successfully, to establish her grandson George Augustus, the Electoral Prince, with his wife in England. This would have been a masterly stroke worthy of the universal reputation for policy of so grand an old lady, and would have been as it were the planting of one foot on the land she looked upon as her rightful heritage, but fate and Queen Anne decided differently. The latter had left no room for doubt about her intentions. Writing to her confidant Leibnitz, on the 17th June, the Electoral Princess Caroline said on the subject of this letter and others:

"We were in a state of uncertainty here until yesterday, when a courier arrived from the Queen with letters for the Electress, the Elector, and the Electoral Prince, of which I can only say that they are of a violence worthy of my Lord Bolingbroke."

It is perfectly certain that Queen Anne had made herself exceedingly objectionable as even a Queen can at times, and had not possibly stayed to choose her words. Be that as it may, she had succeeded in entirely upsetting the equanimity of her "good cousin" the Electress.

The old lady issuing from the Palace, where possibly she had dined more amply than was judicious--for she was a great eater--leant on the arm of her beloved Catherine and harped as ladies of her age will do on the string of her treatment by her kinswoman Anne. It is said that she became greatly excited and walked very fast, as she spoke of her imagined wrongs. They bent their steps towards the celebrated orangery, where the Princess and the attendants with them noticed the Electress turn very white; then the next moment she fell forward in a swoon.

Thus did this great Princess, to whom our own late Queen, Victoria, her descendant, has been so often likened, miss by a little over six weeks the great goal of all her long years of ambition, the throne of England, for Queen Anne died on the 1st of August following.

It is extraordinary that after the lapse of six generations a descendant so like her should fill that throne after which she had striven so long and so wisely for her family.

Her son George was now the "Heir of Britain" in her place; an heirship which was to very soon resolve itself into possession, for within a few weeks began that celebrated crisis in England between Oxford and Bolingbroke which from the virulence of the discussions at the Councils absolutely broke down Queen Anne's health and killed her.

She departed this life on the 1st of August, 1714, almost her last intelligible words being of her brother, the Pretender: "My brother! Oh! my poor brother. What will become of you?"

On July 31st, Craggs, a creature of the Whig Government, had been despatched to Hanover to convey the news that the Queen of England was dying.

Craggs reached Hanover on August 5th--a journey then apparently of six days--but his performance, though accomplished, one can imagine, with all haste, was entirely eclipsed by that of one Godike, secretary to Bothmar, the Hanoverian Envoy to England, who, despatched by his master on August 1st, the day of the Queen's death, arrived at Hanover on the 5th, the same day as Craggs, and proceeding direct to the Palace of Herrenhausen, conveyed the news to the Elector before any of the other messengers from England arrived.

It was this enterprising Bothmar who really decided George in accepting the British Crown, for had not his reports from London been satisfactory as to the feeling of the people, or at any rate as to the absence of hostility to the Elector on their part, it is very unlikely that George would have left his beloved Herrenhausen at all, and England might to-day have been ruled by a Stuart King.

"The late King," wrote Dean Lockier after the death of George the First, "would never have stirred a step if there had been any strong opposition."

But there was no disturbance, the people of London at any rate were quiet, probably in a state of expectancy, and the preparations of the Elector and his family for a move to England commenced forthwith.

Nevertheless, the new King of England did not hurry himself to take possession of his dominions; he had been there thirty-four years before on a matrimonial venture, of which the late Queen Anne, then Princess of York, was the object, and he apparently cherished no pleasant recollections of the visit, which had proved a dismal failure.

To his son, the Electoral Prince, George gave the command to travel with him, the Princess Caroline was to follow in a month with all her children except one. Little Prince Frederick Louis, the subject of these Memoirs, by his grandfather's command, was to remain behind in Hanover, a child of seven, alone and separated from the rest of his kindred.

FOOTNOTES:

The Electoral Princess Caroline to Leibnitz, Hanover, 17th June, 1714. From Wilkins' "Caroline."

D'Alais's Despatch. Hanover, 22nd June, 1714. Wilkins' "Caroline."

Wilkins' "Caroline."

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