Part i
. p. 87.
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But, before this act of authority on the part of the Emperor could command the assent of the Estates of the Empire which he required in order to proceed to the investiture, much remained to be done at Vienna, where Grote was active in person during the latter half of the year; at Dresden, where Jobst von Ilten, another specially trusted servant of the Hanoverian dynasty, successfully exerted himself; and elsewhere. In the midst of these difficulties, the Duchess of Orleans wrote to her aunt that she was convinced as to the source of opposition being German Princes rather than France. As a matter of fact, not only the political but the religious interests were agitated with which the House of Hanover had been, or might hereafter be, in conflict; and Grote was informed that both the King of Denmark (Christian V) and the Pope (Innocent XII) were adverse to the desired investiture. The good offices of Brandenburg were, however, freely exerted in its favour, and the Elector Frederick III’s envoy at Ratisbon, von Metternich, was instructed to tranquillise the Catholic Electors by undertaking that, in the event of the dying-out of the Bavarian and Palatine lines, the establishment of a new Catholic Electorate should be promoted by Brandenburg, Saxony, and Hanover. Thus, by the middle of October, 1692, a majority of the Electors had been secured for the investiture, and it was possible to ignore the violent opposition of Duke Antony Ulric of Wolfenbüttel, who, as Elizabeth Charlotte had hinted, was irreconcilable on this subject, and was calling out troops as if the world were out of joint.[99] On December 10th following, the investiture took place at Vienna, and Grote received the coveted Electoral hat for his master. Ernest Augustus and Sophia were at Berlin on a visit to their daughter when the good news reached them; a series of brilliant festivities ensued as a matter of course, since Frederick III was always glad of a reason for display; and, two days before Christmas, a defensive alliance for three years was concluded between the two Electors, to be followed a month later by an ‘everlasting league.’ This alliance, to whatever other results it might or might not lead, unmistakably signified the recognition of an important success gained for the ‘Evangelical’ cause in Germany. Brandenburg, which was so soon to merge in the Prussian Kingdom, and Hanover, whose heir was not long afterwards to mount the English throne, would, if they held together, suffice to defy any religious reaction in the Empire, and likewise be able to resist any attempt in any quarter at asserting a political domination.
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Footnote 99:
See as to his opposition Bodemann, _Anton Ulrich und seine Correspondenz mit Leibniz_, in _Zeitschr. d. histor. Ver. für Niedersachsen_, 1879. It was largely from ambitious motives that this Duke entered so zealously into the great scheme for a reunion between Catholics and Protestants. (See Clemens Schwarte, _Die neunte Kur und Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel_, in _Münstersche Beiträge zur Geschichtsforschung_, Neue Folge, Münster, 1905.)
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Neither, however, had Grote’s labours as yet come to an end—though they were a few months afterwards cut short by his death—nor were the aspirations of the House of Hanover within the Empire satisfied by the Electoral investiture of December, 1692. Brandenburg, Saxony, and most of the other German courts recognised the new Elector; but the question of his introduction into the Electoral College, which implied his admission as Elector to his due share in the administration of the affairs of the Empire—the question _quo modo_—had still to be settled. The progress of its solution was delayed by a persistent opposition, of which the guiding spirit was once more Duke Antony Ulric of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and which included the King of Denmark as Duke of Holstein, the Dukes of Mecklenburg, and a number of other princes, both temporal and spiritual, in the north and west of the Empire. In 1693, these formed an association which designated itself as that of the Princes ‘corresponding’ against a Ninth Electorate, thus, as was justly observed to the Emperor by the Elector of Brandenburg, who continued loyally to support the demand of his father-in-law, lowering the Imperial authority by ‘maintaining’ a resistance against a decision already announced by it. The Elector of Saxony, John George IV, had been likewise well disposed to the Hanoverian promotion; but, in 1694, he had been succeeded by his brother Frederick Augustus (Augustus the Strong, the lover of Aurora von Königsmarck), whom, as will be seen in a different connexion, private as well as public motives had estranged from the Hanoverian Court; and thus a fresh obstacle had been put in the way of the admission of Ernest Augustus into the College of Electors. The virulence of Antony Ulric’s jealous hatred, which, as we shall also see, was to find in the Königsmarck catastrophe of 1694 and its antecedents a most tempting opportunity for damaging the reputation of the Hanoverian family, suggested to him what the Hanoverian diplomatist Ilten termed a ‘_projet d’alliance diabolique_.’ Frederick Augustus was to be gained over to the association of ‘Corresponding’ Princes by a surrender to Saxony of the Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel claims to part of the Duchy of Lauenburg, and he was to cooperate with Denmark in dispossessing Hanover and Celle, who had occupied other parts of the duchy claimed by them. Ernest Augustus had to appeal to King William III to put a stop to manœuvres which threatened seriously to affect the general peace of Europe.
Although the machinations of Antony Ulric were thus frustrated, he succeeded in depriving his hitherto so fortunate kinsman, Ernest Augustus, of the satisfaction of attaining in person to the consummation of his chief dynastic ambition. Soon after the death of Ernest Augustus, in January, 1698, the insensate jealousy of Antony Ulric led him to make, with fresh assistance, an armed attack upon Hanover, which amounted to an act of hostility against the Empire, committed at a critical season in the affairs of Europe. The defeat of this attempt by the energetic action of the Elector George Lewis broke down the opposition of Antony Ulric in the matter of the Ninth Electorate (1702); and soon afterwards he acknowledged the Electoral dignity and the precedence of the Hanoverian Elector at the Diet (1703). Previously to these occurrences, the exertions of Frederick III of Brandenburg had succeeded in inducing the three Spiritual Electors to abandon their resistance to the new Protestant Electorate (1699); but the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession had thereupon caused further delays. Thus it was not till 1707 that the positive assent of all the Electors was secured, nor till September 7th, 1708, sixteen years after the investiture at Vienna, that the Hanoverian envoy, von Limbach, at last took his seat in the Electoral College at Ratisbon.
The marriage between Sophia Dorothea of Celle and her cousin George Lewis of Hanover, which was to end so disastrously, came as a matter of course to be represented as having been ill-omened at the outset. It is, however, impossible to trust either the account of the transactions that preceded this marriage, or that of the long train of events ending in its dissolution, to be found in a long series of versions of this pitiful story. In substance, if not in every detail, they all go back upon the parent romance compiled by Duke Antony Ulric, very probably with the aid of information furnished to him by the confidante of the unhappy heroine. An authority so signally untrustworthy is best ignored; though it would be idle to pretend that the copious stream, which has flowed through all sorts of channels from this turbid source, is likely to be wholly devoid of some admixture of truth.[100] In point of fact, we cannot tell in what frame of mind Sophia Dorothea entered on her married life, or even what was her mother’s view of the match. Eleonora, beyond all doubt, tenderly loved her daughter; but Sophia Dorothea’s nature was light and frivolous, and there had not, so far as is known, been anything in her life to incline her to resistance. The views of the Duchess Sophia on the subject of her eldest son’s marriage it may seem easy to guess. But, though she had execrated the d’Olbreuze connexion in all its earlier stages, and though she seems at no time to have pretended to anything like affection for Eleonora’s daughter, we may take it for granted that, so soon as the marriage-project had been formally adopted as a matter of court and state policy, the Duchess completely acquiesced in it. And, indeed, no doubt could exist as to the advantages of the arrangement, whether from the point of view of the political future of the dynasty, or from that of the present resources of the House. The marriage-contract gave to the Hereditary Prince the free use of his wife’s income, though it secured her fortune—which was certain to be a very large one—to herself in the event of her husband’s decease preceding her own. It was only at a later date, when a dissolution of her marriage seemed desirable to Sophia Dorothea, that she complained of the terms of this settlement. The great wealth of the bride might well be held to cover whatever minor disabilities might result to the possible issue of the marriage from the imperfection of her own descent.
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Footnote 100:
The supplementary (sixth) volume of the _Roman Octavia_, which contains the story of Sophia Dorothea under the title of the _History of the Princess Solane_, was first published in 1707, when Sophia Dorothea’s lady-in-waiting, Fräulein Eleonora von dem Knesebeck, who had, from first to last, been in the secret of the Princess’ relations with Count Königsmarck, either was or recently had been resident at Wolfenbüttel under the protection of Duke Antony Ulric after her escape from prison. In the revised edition of this ‘historical novel,’ published at Nürnberg in 1712 and dedicated to the ‘_Hochlöbliche Nymfen-Gesellschaft an der Donau_, the name of _Solane_ was altered to _Rhodogune_, and there were certain other changes. The derivation of the traditional narrative from Duke Antony Ulric’s romance was convincingly traced by the late Professor Adolf Köcher, who, though disbelieving in the genuineness of the correspondence to be mentioned immediately, succeeded in throwing a flood of light upon the entire course of Sophia Dorothea’s story.—Writing, in 1709, about the amour between the Landgrave Ernest Lewis of Hesse-Darmstadt and the (married) Countess von Sintzendorf, the Duchess of Orleans observes that, since the lady is quite ready to show the Prince’s letters, it would be easy for Duke Antony Ulric to turn their affair into a romance.
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Nothing, it may be added, could be more improbable than that either George Lewis or his mother should have been at the pains of considering how far Sophia Dorothea’s character and disposition were suited to his own, or whether she would find any difficulty in accommodating herself to his way of life. The Duchess Sophia had learnt by long experience to bear with the open faithlessness of her husband, and with his frank neglect of herself, without forfeiting the influence which her intelligence had long assured to her over him and his affairs. How should she, with her shrewd apprehension of the ways of the world, have supposed that the same lesson would not be learnt by her new daughter-in-law? And it may at once be stated that there is no indication of George Lewis having during the early years of his married life kept up any relation that would have been unbearable to his young wife. If there was any truth in the rumour that he had been on terms of intimacy with Countess Platen’s younger sister, Frau von dem Bussche (_née_ Marie von Meysenbug), the relation must have been broken off before his marriage, as indeed a further circumstantial piece of scandal asserted. She appears to have been a very pretty person, with plenty of admirers; and she is said to have set the fashion of ‘drinking tobacco’ among the ladies at Hanover.[101] For the rest, although George I was at no time in his life in the habit of seeking personal praise, and in truth cannot be said to have received an overflowing measure of it either from contemporaries or from posterity, yet he was not without qualities sure to impress themselves on anyone brought into close contact with him. His unflinching courage and military capacity were generally known; and it may further be averred in his honour, that he was never found false to his word, and that he was unswervingly true to any attachment once formed by him. His manners may, in his younger days in particular, have had a smack of the camp, and they must at all times have given proof of the reserve which was part of his nature, and which bad and good fortune combined to harden into the stolidity of his later years. That he made no pretence to intellectual tastes (though he quarrelled with his illustrious historiographer’s unpunctuality in fulfilling his engagement to digest the ancient records of the House of Guelf) may have disappointed his mother, but could hardly perturb Sophia Dorothea, who came of no lettered stock. In general, she might well have been thought likely to suit her own fluid temperament to a character cast in a stronger and sterner mould. The portraits which remain of her show her to have been graceful and pleasing beyond the common, and this impression is confirmed by notices of her personality dating from the early years of her married life. Perhaps there may be perceptible in certain of her portraits (one of which reminded the ingenious Wraxall of Sterne’s Eliza) a sentimentality of the superficial kind; but nothing could be more cruelly unfair than to draw from these likenesses conclusions as to her levity of disposition. On the other hand, the Duchess Sophia may be thought a prejudiced witness, when, in 1684 and 1685, she is found expressing distrust of both the smiles and the tears of her daughter-in-law, and setting her down as an unsatisfactory example for Sophia Charlotte, the apple of her mother’s eye; in truth, however, the Duchess’ strictures cannot, in this instance, be said to be very serious. The bad maternal bringing up of Sophia Dorothea, on which the same censor’s faithful echo, the Duchess of Orleans, was afterwards fain to dwell as the original cause of the Princess’ misfortunes, has been waived aside as a mere invention of spite; yet it should not be forgotten that both Sophia and her niece were, in their girlhood, carefully and even rigidly educated, and that to this training the unfaltering rectitude that marked the conduct of both is, in no small measure, attributable. At the same time, it is equally obvious that the kindly guidance by which the most perfect system of moral discipline needs at times to be supplemented, or by which the absence of such discipline may be in part redeemed, was wanting to Sophia Dorothea at Hanover. While there can be no reason for gainsaying this, and while it must be allowed to have been natural enough that those who had hated the mother should have treated the misconduct of the daughter as what might have been expected almost as a matter of course, yet the attempt to throw upon the Electress Sophia the responsibility of the catastrophe which we are about to narrate may be at once denounced as inherently absurd. Whether or not George Lewis cruelly ill-treated his wife—and there is no trustworthy evidence to support any such supposition—the assumption is altogether unwarranted that either in his bearing towards her, or in any other important relation of his life, he allowed himself to be influenced by his mother.[102] Least of all was he likely to be amenable to her counsel at a stage of his career when he must have known her to be at heart adverse to his interest in the matter, all-important to himself, of the institution of primogeniture. And as for Sophia herself, though elaborate efforts have been made to represent her as morally guilty of her daughter-in-law’s ruin, there is not a tittle of evidence to support a conjecture in itself utterly improbable. For her frankness and sincerity are never found belying themselves; and intrigue of all kinds, as both her public and her private conduct show, was wholly foreign to her nature. Moreover, though, as will be noted, no letters from her hand referring to the crisis in Sophia Dorothea’s affairs have been allowed to survive, the general tone of her correspondence during these eventful years is one of a serenity of mind unbroken, except by her grief for her losses as a mother.
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Footnote 101:
See _Briefe des Herzogs Ernst August_, &c., p. 33, note.
Footnote 102:
‘That the Elector is a dry and disagreeable gentleman,’ writes the Duchess of Orleans in 1702, ‘I had opportunity enough to discern when he was here ... but where he is entirely in the wrong, is in his way of living with his mother, to whom he is in duty bound to show nothing but respect.’
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At first, things seem to have gone well with Sophia Dorothea at Hanover. The Hereditary Prince (for he was, of course, not styled the Electoral Prince till 1682) continued the military career which best corresponded both to his aspirations and to his habits—serving during a series of campaigns in the Imperial army, and taking no part in the home government till, about 1694, his father’s health began to give way. Doubtless George Lewis’ long and repeated absences must have contributed to keep him estranged from the Princess, and, as already observed, there were at Hanover no members of the ducal family or court likely to aim at endearing themselves to her. The star of Countess Platen, mistress _en titre_, remained steadily in the ascendant, and her villa of Monplaisir, in the immediate neighbourhood of the capital, became the centre of its fashionable dissipations. Her sister, Frau von dem Bussche, was likewise still to the front (she took part in Ernest Augustus’ farewell expedition of pleasure to Italy, to be noticed immediately); but, whether or not she had formerly been a recipient of the Hereditary Prince’s favours, they do not appear to have continued to be bestowed upon her either under her present name, or when, after her husband’s death (at Landen), she bestowed her hand upon another gallant officer, General von Weyhe.[103] When the exigencies of etiquette did not require her presence at the interminable court dinners and suppers, or at the operas in the new theatre, in which the heart of Ernest Augustus delighted, Sophia Dorothea may be concluded to have led a life as solitary as it was dull in her apartments in the Leine Palace at Hanover.[104] The favourite companion of her long hours of idleness was her lady-in-waiting, Fräulein Eleonora von dem Knesebeck, who had come with her from Celle, and whose devotion, self-sacrificing though by no means blind, was to involve her in the consequences of her mistress’ aberrations.
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Footnote 103:
He served with distinction under Marlborough in Flanders. The marriage took place in 1696, two years after the Königsmarck catastrophe. Yet the late Mr. Wilkins makes Countess Platen, ‘with a refinement of cruelty,’ try to induce Sophia Dorothea to be present at the wedding. This significant blunder, repeated in the second edition of _The Love of an Uncrowned Queen_, is exposed by Mr. Lewis Melville, _The First George_, Vol. i. pp. 52-6. A Fräulein von Weyhe was in Sophia Dorothea’s service. The court of Hanover, after all, has much of the aspect of a large family party. In 1701, Sophia mentions a tour to the Harz made by the Elector in a company which included three ladies, ‘the Schoulenburg, Madame Wey, and Ernhausen, the Schoulenburg’s sister.’
Footnote 104:
The Palace was enlarged about this time, and entirely ‘restored’ in 1831-41. In Sophia Dorothea’s days the bear at his chain and the lynx in his cage were still to be seen near the guard-house at the outer gate.
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In October, 1683, the Hereditary Princess gave birth to a son, who was named George Augustus, in honour of his father and grandfather respectively, and who was nearly half a century later to ascend the throne of Great Britain and Ireland as King George II. We may feel assured that an event so auspicious for the future of the dynasty, and so speedily fulfilling the hopes with which the marriage had been brought about, specially commended her to the favour of her father-in-law; and, that this favour continued, is shown by his consideration for her some two years afterwards. In 1684, Duke Ernest Augustus had undertaken his last journey to the beloved land of Italy, being accompanied on it by an oddly composed company consisting, among others, of Count Platen and Major-General von dem Bussche and their wives. During this visit the Duchess remained behind, professedly _à son grand regret_, and Prince George Lewis was, for part of the time, engaged in one of his Hungarian campaigns against the Turks. But his Princess, at the particular request of her father-in-law, joined the ducal party at Venice, arriving there just before the opening of the carnival of 1686. ‘I am delighted to hear,’ writes the Duchess Sophia from Hanover in January, ‘that my daughter-in-law and her following are in good condition.’ Sophia Dorothea then accompanied the Duke for the Holy Week to Rome, where their sojourn cost the cruel sum of twenty thousand dollars; but, though her husband had by this time finished his campaign, ceremonial difficulties (which one would have thought would have affected the father as much as the son) prevented him from coming to the papal city, and he amused himself with a trip to Florence and Naples on his own account. All these things are told without so much as a suggestion of untowardness; nor was it till long afterwards that a scandal, promptly credited by the Duchess of Orleans, declared Sophia Dorothea to have consoled herself for her husband’s absence by an amour carried on at Rome with a French marquis of the name of de Lassaye. But the story in question rests entirely on the braggadocio to which this squire of dames treated the Duchess, and on the still more doubtful evidence of certain compromising letters purporting to have been addressed by him to Sophia Dorothea when at Rome, and printed by him in his old age—as late as 1738. Thus the shame of this denunciation lies entirely with its cowardly author.
There seems, however, little doubt but that, after her return from Italy, Sophia Dorothea became further estranged from her husband. To this date would have to be assigned, were it otherwise worth noticing, the attraction said by the Duchess of Orleans to have been exercised by Sophia Dorothea upon the Raugrave Charles Lewis, one of the family of nephews and nieces ‘by the left hand’ to whom the Duchess Sophia extended so benevolent and almost maternal a protection. According to the same authority, it was to escape the wiles of the light-hearted Princess that the Raugrave took service against the Turks in the Morea, where he met with his death in 1688; but there was very probably more malice than truth in the story. In March, 1687, Sophia Dorothea gave birth to a second child, the daughter who was named after her, and who, as the wife of King Frederick William I of Prussia, was to become the mother of Frederick the Great and of his brother Augustus William, the direct ancestor of the subsequent Kings of Prussia and of the German Emperors of our own times. It cannot have been till after this event that George Lewis, who seems to have remained nearer home after his campaign in 1685, began to follow his father’s example and give publicity to his preference of other attractions to those of his wife. But much uncertainty exists as to the date at which this infidelity began, and as to the extent to which it was carried. It has been widely assumed, and is constantly repeated, that Countess Platen sought to maintain the family influence over the Hereditary Prince, after he had tired of her sister, through her daughter; but this assumption, which, because of its revolting character, was carefully kept alive and cherished by the detractors of George I and his dynasty, must be dismissed as baseless. This celebrated lady, who, like the Duchess Sophia’s own daughter, had been christened Sophia Charlotte, in 1701 became the wife of Baron von Kielmannsegg, a nobleman of honourable reputation, who had for some years been attached to the Hanoverian Court. Here the pair lived in unbroken union and enjoyed a distinguished position; their villa of _Fantaisie_ on the avenue to Herrenhausen being regarded as a favourite resort of foreign visitors to Hanover. They afterwards followed King George I to England, where, after the resignation of the Duke of Somerset, the high household office of Master of the Horse was left vacant, in order that its duties might be performed by the Hanoverian _Oberstallmeister_, while his wife was created Countess of Leinster in the Irish and afterwards Countess of Darlington in the English peerage. Neither at Hanover nor in England had George I ever made any secret of the nature of the tie which he believed to exist between her and himself; he had consistently treated her as his half-sister, giving her at the Electoral Court precedence over the Raugraves and Raugravines, and, in the patent that conferred an Irish peerage upon her, causing her to be designated _consanguinea nostra_. So simple an explanation of the honour in which she continued to be held till her death in 1727 was of course insufficient for Jacobite spite, for anti-German prejudice, and for the love of scandal on its own account. On the other hand, the only personage whom, either before or after he mounted the English throne, George publicly recognised as mistress, was also the only lady at the Hanoverian Court who seems in the days of his married life to have exercised a strong fascination over him. Yet Melusina von der Schulenburg (afterwards Duchess of Kendal)[105] appears at this time to have refrained from thrusting herself into notice; and this agrees with the indications of refinement which it is impossible to ignore in the portrait remaining of her in the period of her youth.
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Footnote 105:
Of the persistently repeated story of King George I’s morganatic marriage to the Duchess of Kendal there appears to be no proof. The late Dr. Richard Garnett, who could hardly have failed to come across whatever evidence on the subject existed, assured me that he knew of none.
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Thus, then, scarcely anything is ascertainable as to the beginnings and rise of the general sense of unhappiness which is known to have come over Sophia Dorothea during her life at Hanover, and to which—some time in 1692 or later—she gave _naïve_ expression by the avowal, afterwards, with cruel ineptness, judicially quoted against her, that she would rather be a ‘_marquise_ in France’ than Electoral Princess of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Yet fixed antipathies of this kind are commonly of gradual growth, and it would have been difficult for a nature like Sophia Dorothea’s, craving for impulse to meet impulse, and quite incapable of renunciation, to settle down into the dull acquiescence which, with so many women, has to do duty for contentment. The restraint of a monotonous existence and the petty rules of an elaborate etiquette, imposed upon her among surroundings in which there was so much to annoy her and so little to sustain her self-respect, must in any case have made her restive and unhappy. Least of all could she have felt any inclination to take an interest in the schemes of dynastic ambition to which she knew herself to have been sacrificed—perhaps against the wish of her best friend, her mother. The anecdote that it was attempted to implicate her in the plot hatched by Prince Maximilian—Moltke, who was to pay the penalty of the discovered design, being offered his release, if he would charge her with a guilty knowledge,—may be dismissed as fictitious. And it may be observed, by the way, that, while there is no authority for connecting Countess Platen with the supposed offer, it could not possibly have been promoted by the Duchess Sophia, whose sympathies were on the side of Maximilian’s revolt against the principle of primogeniture. Sophia Dorothea was, no doubt, on pleasant terms with her high-spirited but flighty brother-in-law Maximilian, who, indeed, unmistakably oppressed her with his attentions; but it is quite clear that, in no sense of the word, can there have been anything ‘serious’ between them. We do not know how Sophia Dorothea was affected by the rise in the family dignity which procured for her the title of Electoral Princess. But, in regard to a question of still greater importance for the future of the House, we have it on excellent authority that she took a line opposite to that adopted by her husband. Sir William Dutton Colt, who, as was seen, had entered upon his duties as English Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Hanover in 1689, while describing the Duchess Sophia as an incomparable person, full of charming wit, kindness, and civility, and speaking of the ‘Princess of Hanover’ (Sophia Dorothea), for whom and her infant son, he says, Duke Ernest Augustus showed great fondness, as beautiful, accomplished, and agreeable, notes (in 1691) that the Princess was distinctly anti-English in her sympathies. Her partiality for France might have found a sufficient explanation in her descent, and in the associations so long cherished by her mother at Celle; but Sir William Colt assigns another reason that cannot be overlooked. The eldest son (George Lewis), the envoy reported, was not in the least French in his inclinations; and the French party, discontented with this, paid all the court imaginable to the Princess—‘and I fear not without success, for she has no great fondness for the Prince.’
It is, therefore, clear that, by this time (1691), Sophia Dorothea’s feelings towards her husband had passed into a condition of more or less
## active antipathy. And there can no longer be any pretence of doubt that,
whether or not the indifference of her husband towards herself had hardened into positive unkindness, and whether or not this unkindness (as there is absolutely nothing to prove) had shown itself in actual ill-treatment, Sophia Dorothea was already under the influence of a growing passion for another man. The story of the guilty loves of Sophia Dorothea and Königsmarck need not be related at length here, since large portions of their correspondence are generally accessible, at least in a translation from the French originals, while a supplementary part is for the first time (with the exception of two letters which have appeared elsewhere) printed in an Appendix to the present book. The evidence for the genuineness of this correspondence, in so far as the greater part of it is concerned, which covers 679 pages, and is now extant in the University Library at Lund, was practically irresistible as it stood, and is confirmed beyond the last shadow of doubt by the letters in the Royal Secret Archives of State at Berlin, which cover 65 pages, and which are seen at the first glance to belong to the same correspondence. They agree in the handwritings, and in the use of the same cipher, as well as in all the distinctive features of style; they refer to numerous details mentioned in the Lund letters; and to some of these certain of the Berlin documents stand in the relation of supplements or answers. It is said—but on no stated authority—that to these letters might be added others, of contents unknown, in the possession of the present head of the House of Hanover. No part of Count Königsmarck’s correspondence with the Princess Sophia Dorothea remains in the possession of the present representative of his family. As for the Lund documents, their history can be satisfactorily traced up to the direct descendants of Countess Lewenhaupt, the elder sister of Count Philip Christopher von Königsmarck. The younger sister, the famous Countess Aurora, as will be seen, actively intervened in the transactions that followed on its discovery, at a time when both the sisters were residing at Hamburg. It must be supposed that Aurora at some time transferred the letters from her custody into that of her elder sister; how they came into her own, must remain matter of conjecture, though it is a not unnatural supposition that they were entrusted to her by the recipients. On the other hand, the evidence of handwriting obtained by a comparison of these documents with others of incontestable genuineness, from the hands of Sophia Dorothea and Königsmarck respectively, is entirely satisfactory—though this part of the subject is complicated by the fact (for as such it may be set down) that the Princess possessed the art of writing in two different hands, while portions of her part of the love correspondence were dictated by her to her confidante. (Königsmarck wrote his own love-letters; but his official letters at Hanover are, except the signatures, probably in the handwriting of his private secretary.) But it is the internal evidence contained in the documents themselves, in face of which the refusal to accept them, though maintained by at least one historian of high eminence to whom this period of Brunswick-Lüneburg history and this particular episode were familiar as to no other among his contemporaries, must be said to have broken down. The internal evidence in the present case consists mainly of a number of coincidences of circumstance and date, such as it is impossible to ascribe either to chance or to design, that have been proved to exist between incidental statements in these letters and in contemporary documents of unimpeachable authenticity. The most important of these are the letters and contemporary despatches of Sir William Dutton Colt, the envoy to the Courts of Hanover and Celle mentioned above, now preserved in our Record Office, and extending over the period from July, 1689, to December, 1692. (To these have, at all events, to be added passages in the correspondence of the Electress Sophia, and isolated statements as to the campaign in the Netherlands and the battle of Steenkirke in particular, in a military list cited by Havemann, and in a contemporary account of the battle in the _Theatrum Europæum_.) The credit of placing this investigation on lines which could not but lead up to an irrefutable issue belongs to the late Mrs. Everett Green, for whom a careful second transcript had been made of the letters of which a first, incomplete, transcript had been presented to her by the late Count Albert von der Schulenburg-Klosterrode. The second, complete, copy, carefully digested and arranged, was placed by Mrs. Green in the British Museum, after she had, for prudential reasons, abandoned the idea of embodying it in a published work. This task was accomplished by the late Mr. W. H. Wilkins, in his own way, in a book afterwards republished in a new and revised edition; but he did not live to carry out his contingent design of some day ‘translating the whole correspondence at Lund, at Berlin, and at Gmünden, and arranging it in chronological order with the aid of first-hand documentary evidence drawn from other sources.’ The corroboration of the genuineness and authenticity of the Lund documents furnished by those now printed from the originals in the Berlin Archives is, as observed, complete, and all the more convincing, inasmuch as they must have been separated from the rest at a very early date. It is stated in the Register of the Archives of State at Berlin that they were found among the papers of Frederick the Great at Sans Souci after his death; and the superscription which they bear (‘_Lettres d’Amour de la Duchesse D’allen au Comte Konigsmarc_’) is in the King’s own handwriting. How they came into his possession must remain a matter of conjecture, which will be more appropriately discussed elsewhere. It should perhaps be added that the whole problem of the genuineness of this correspondence is of very secondary historical significance; but, apart from the human interest of the letters themselves, their whole story shows how difficult it is to find, and perhaps also how difficult it is to kill, the truth.[106]
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Footnote 106:
For an examination of the whole question of the genuineness of the Lund letters I must refer the reader to an article on the original edition of Mr. Wilkins’ book, _The Love of an Uncrowned Queen_, contributed by me to the _Edinburgh Review_ for January, 1901. I have since re-examined the cipher with the aid of the key supplied by the late Count Schulenburg to the late Mrs. Everett Green; and it certainly fills one with amazement that any rational human beings should have thought concealment attainable by so perfectly transparent a disguise. But the miserable folly of the whole business is at least consistent with itself.—As to the Berlin letters, Mr. Wilkins does not explicitly say that he had seen them; but it was unnecessary that he should do so, as an exhaustive account of them (with the text of two of them) was given by Dr. Robert Geerds in the _Beitlage_ to the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, No. 77, Friday, April 4th, 1902. The eminent historian Dr. A. Köcher, after first directing attention to these letters in the _Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie_, Vol. xxxiv. (art. _Sophia Dorothea_), and declaring them an audacious forgery (he repeated this assertion privately to myself), deposited in the Royal Archives at Berlin a statement of his belief that a comparison of handwritings left him in no doubt as to the letters being spurious; but Dr. Geerds’ explanations on this head (see _Appendix B_) are to my mind perfectly satisfactory.—I should like to add that at my request Count Königsmarck, in December last, most kindly allowed the examination of his family archives at Plaue near Berlin on my behalf by Archivrath Dr. Paczkowski, but that no part of any correspondence between Sophia Dorothea and her lover was discovered there. Dr. Paczkowski carried out the task which he was so good as to undertake with a thoroughness and _savoir faire_ reflecting the highest credit upon himself and the distinguished official body of which he forms part.
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Nothing indicates that Count Philip Christopher von Königsmarck, the ill-fated hero of the tragedy of Sophia Dorothea’s life, made his appearance at Hanover before the month of March, 1688, when his presence at a court _fête_ is accidentally mentioned—just a twelvemonth after the birth of the second and last of George Lewis’ and Sophia Dorothea’s children. Königsmarck was a member of a Swedish family of high position and great wealth, which had derived lustre from the important services of Field-Marshal von Königsmarck in the latter part of the Thirty Years’ War, and which had, through him, acquired large estates in northern Germany. The branch of the family to which Philip Christopher belonged were citizens of the world; to set them down as adventurers argues an imperfect apprehension of the spirit of their age, and indeed of that of a great part of the following century also. Like the rest of them, Philip Christopher had seen many courts already in his youthful days; and nothing could be more probable than that he should have found his way to Celle, especially as he had a family connexion with France, such as would always have ensured him a welcome at the court of George William and Eleonora. He may thus very well have formed a boy and girl acquaintance with their daughter; but the statement said to have been afterwards made by him, that he had loved her from childhood, is insufficiently authenticated, and does not recur in any of his love-letters. He then accompanied his elder brother, Count Charles John, whose wanderings had been more widely varied than his own (and with whom he is confounded by Horace Walpole, in his careless way), on a visit to England. Here the elder brother was the principal figure in a _cause célèbre_, the trial of himself and others for the murder of the wealthy Thomas Thynne (‘Tom of Ten Thousand’), of which crime an elaborate representation may to this day be seen carved in relief on the victim’s tomb in Westminster Abbey.[107] Fortunately for himself, Count von Königsmarck escaped the gallows, where the careers of his accomplices ended; but England was no longer an agreeable place of sojourn for the two brothers, and their travels recommenced. The elder died in the Morea in 1686; so that it was the younger who, in 1688, inherited the wealth of their uncle, on his death after a distinguished career as a commander in the service of the Venetian Republic. Thus, when Königsmarck, after visiting France and becoming acquainted with the Saxon Prince afterwards known as Augustus the Strong, King of Poland, in this same year, 1688, arrived at Hanover, he was not only a nobleman of much knowledge and experience of the world, but a personage of great wealth, and an extremely desirable acquisition for a court such as that of Hanover, where there were excellent opportunities for spending money as well as for encouraging its expenditure. On his side, Königsmarck, as the head of his migratory family, may have wished to further the settlement of his sisters; and the elder, about this time, married the Swedish Count Axel Lewenhaupt, who two years later passed into the service of the Duke of Celle. The younger, Aurora, had not as yet found at Dresden, where her brother was probably already well known, the sphere in which her beauty and wit, after liberally diffusing their radiance in many regions, were for a time established as supreme; at Hanover, so fixed a constellation as that of the Platen family was sure to regard this brilliant meteor with much displeasure. But Countess Platen could raise no objection to Ernest Augustus’ offer of a commission to Königsmarck; and this offer was certainly made and accepted. For he is soon found commanding a Hanoverian regiment, in frontier operations and in Flanders, and afterwards holding, in the same service, a colonelcy of dragoons.
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Footnote 107:
See Evelyn’s _Diary_ as to the scandal which surrounded the trial.
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So far we stand on solid ground; but, as to the beginnings of the intimacy between Sophia Dorothea and Königsmarck, and as to the incidents that occurred in the period before the commencement of the extant correspondence between them, we possess no trustworthy account whatever. There is no evidence even to show the authenticity of the story, which has been used with much effect in a recent poetic drama (very different in conception from that imagined by Schiller on the same theme),[108] that Königsmarck accompanied Prince Charles Philip in the campaign in which the Duchess Sophia lost her favourite son, and that he shared the Prince’s dangers, though escaping his doom.
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Footnote 108:
See Schiller’s _Dramatischer Nachlass_, ed. G. Kettner, Vol. ii. pp. 220 _sqq._ (Weimar, 1825), and the references there given to articles by Kettner on the subject.—The play to which allusion is made in the text is Mrs. Woods’ _The Princess of Hanover_ (1902).
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At the time when the correspondence between Sophia Dorothea and Königsmarck opens—at the beginning of July, 1691—he must at any rate have been for some time back in Hanover; for he had started at the head of a regiment of foot in the ducal service on a march towards the Elbe, undertaken for the purpose of ensuring the safety of Hamburg. A few weeks later, he was himself sent to that city on a diplomatic mission for the conclusion of a treaty of alliance with Sweden,—a balancing operation on the part of Ernest Augustus, before he had made up his mind to join the Grand Alliance against France. That this charge, for which of course his Swedish descent rendered him particularly suitable, should have been given to Königsmarck, proves him to have been at this time in full favour at the Hanoverian court.
Inasmuch as, already in the earliest of his extant letters to Sophia Dorothea, Königsmarck describes himself as _in extremis_, though at the same time assuring her that his respect for her is as great as his love, we find the pair already on the brink of an abyss of passion, and understand why their correspondence was a clandestine one. Such, in fact, it was, from first to last, intended to be and to remain; and all the usual devices of secrecy at the command of the writers of these letters were adopted for the purpose. Of course they were all—or nearly all—written in French, the language ordinarily used at the Hanover as well as the Celle Court. The communications from Königsmarck, which may be said to form about two-thirds of the whole series of letters or portions of letters, are, when they bear any address at all, directed to Fräulein von dem Knesebeck, either by name or by some kind of designation under which she is evidently intended. Part of the Princess’ letters are written in a hand differing so much from that which wrote the remainder, and which a comparison with her undoubtedly genuine writing seems to identify as her own, that it may be assumed to be the hand of the confidante. In the actual composition of the letters, the writers had further agreed to guard themselves by the adoption of a twofold—or perhaps one should say threefold—system of cipher, which it needs no Œdipus to unriddle, at all events sufficiently for the purposes of detection.[109] Under such flimsy safeguards, explicable in Sophia Dorothea’s case only by her youth and utter inexperience, and in Königsmarck’s by the habits of a roving life which had led him to cast himself recklessly into a whirlpool of excitement, the lovers gave full vent to their feelings of amorous and jealous passion. The voice of nature is audible in this correspondence, but it is singularly devoid of charm. Königsmarck’s tone, as could hardly but be expected, has a general tendency to coarseness, and is at times very gross, calling to mind Stepney’s description of the unfortunate man, after his catastrophe, as a loose fish whom he had long known and would always have avoided. No similar charge is to be brought against the letters of Sophia Dorothea, which are written in an easy and flowing style. But her letters, as well as Königsmarck’s, contain passages irreconcilable with any conclusion except one—that theirs was a guilty love. For the rest, there is no straining of style in the correspondence, and those who regarded it as fabricated might well describe it as a ‘clumsy’ forgery; for it omits to make certain points which a forger could hardly have missed. In the Lund letters, at all events, Königsmarck, except when calling up the image of the Electoral Prince George Lewis in his marital capacity, refers to him with good humour; and Sophia Dorothea gives quite a matter-of-fact account of a quarrel between her parents.
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Footnote 109:
First, they use pseudonyms of a more or less allusive nature in lieu of proper names. Thus _Don Diego_ and _la Romaine_ signify the Elector and the Electress (the former is not a flattering nickname in contemporary English literature; it will be remembered that the eldest of Sophia’s sisters had in former days been called _la Grecque_ by the younger); _le Grondeur_, _la Pédagogue_, are farcical names for the Duke and Duchess of Celle, while the Electoral Prince, Sophia Dorothea’s husband, is (not quite so intelligibly) called _le Réformeur_; Countess Platen (query with an allusion to Monplaisir) _la Perspective_, and Sophia Dorothea herself goes by the appellation of _la petite louche_, or of _le cœur gauche_, or of _Léonisse_, a character in a romance of the times. Aurora von Königsmarck is _l’Avanturière_, and Prince Ernest Augustus _l’Innocent_. Secondly, the writers of these letters employ a numerical cipher of a tolerably simple kind. Of this Professor Palmblad, who published a few of the letters (carefully selecting the worst), and who formed a monstrous hypothesis upon them, lacked the key; Mrs. Everett Green, who possessed it, was already able to decipher most of the names; Mr. Wilkins had not to leave much obscure. Thirdly, names, and occasionally other words, are spelt in figures, the chief difficulty of deciphering being in this case the phonetic spelling adopted by Königsmarck (_biljay_ = _billet_, &c.). Finally, the lovers also resorted to an occasional cryptogram, which would not deceive a child. A name, such as Chauvet, is split up and interlarded with the letters ‘_illy_’—thus: ‘_illychauillyvetilly_.’ The farce of insertion might have gone further. Cf. _Appendix B_ as to the Berlin letters.
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It would be unprofitable to attempt here to follow the course of this unhappy passion, of which many incidents have now been verified as to time and place, chiefly by means of the despatches of the English envoy, while the main event of its catastrophe is lost in impenetrable gloom. Königsmarck—who asserts that, had he proceeded from Hamburg to Sweden, he would have readily been admitted into the service of that monarchy, where, on account of his numerous connexions in many lands at many Courts, he might very possibly have come to play a conspicuous part—chose, instead, to return to Hanover, probably in consequence of the favourable reception accorded by the Princess to his still hesitating written advances. His letters now begin to assume a freer tone. Temporary separations inevitably ensued. He accompanies Duke Ernest Augustus to Wolfenbüttel, while she remains behind; she joins in a visit, in which he is not included, to her father at his hunting-seat at Epsdorff, or at Wienhausen; and he has to swear eternal fidelity in a letter signed in his blood, and to protest that he will go to the Morea (whither Ernest Augustus’ son Christian was at the time intent upon proceeding), in order to relieve her of his compromising presence. It seems to have been not long after this that Sophia Dorothea succumbed to her passion; and, early in 1692, fears were already pressing upon them of discovery—in the first instance through her mother; for Königsmarck had followed her to the Court of Celle. At last, in June, 1692, he was obliged to join the Hanoverian force under the command of Sophia Dorothea’s husband in Flanders; for Ernest Augustus, resolved on striking a bargain for the Ninth Electorate, had now openly become a member of the Grand Alliance. With the opening of the Flemish campaign (during which Königsmarck took part in the battle of Steenkirke) begins the series of the Princess’ letters, several of which are dated from Brockhausen, where Prince Maximilian had taken refuge with the Duke of Celle after his trouble at Hanover, while others are written from Wiesbaden, which later in the year she visited with her mother. Many of these letters contain details that admit of verification from Colt’s despatches. The intrigue between Sophia Dorothea and Königsmarck had now passed into a phase in which expressions of love, jealousy, and haunting apprehensions, breathlessly crowd upon one another; and, after the Princess had returned to Hanover, it almost seemed as if she must listen to the advice which he had sent to her from the Low Countries, and cut the knot of their difficulties by flying with him.
We here touch one of the obscurest passages in this pitiful story, and one which must here be dealt with quite briefly. It was quite impossible that Königsmarck’s devotion to the Princess before his departure to Flanders should have remained unnoticed at the Hanoverian court; and nothing could have been more appropriate than that her mother-in-law, the Duchess Sophia, who, without at all suspecting the worst, must have been seriously annoyed by what she had observed—unless we are to adopt the absurd supposition that she was pleased to see her daughter-in-law beginning to go wrong—should have lectured the Princess on her want of _conduite_. But Sophia Dorothea was aware that there was at court another and a less straightforward influence, which she suspected would be adverse to her—that of the Countess Platen. From what followed, there can be no doubt that the Countess had reasons for bearing Königsmarck a grudge; and it has been unhesitatingly assumed, in accordance with an unauthenticated tradition, that her motive was jealousy, and that he had formerly shared her favours. On the other hand, the Duchess of Orleans deliberately states that there is no _apparentz_ of Countess Platen having sought to attract to herself so young a man, and that it is more likely that, as the Electress Sophia had been informed, the Countess cajoled Königsmarck in the hope of his marrying her daughter; ‘for he was a good match.’ This story also long found acceptance; but it does not very well suit either Königsmarck’s account of his later meeting with Countess Platen, or the jealousy of her which this account unmistakably excited in the Princess. In any case, when it occurred to Sophia Dorothea to consult the Electress Sophia Charlotte of Brandenburg on the situation—a step which at all events shows her to have been without fear of any underhand action on the part of her cousin or her mother-in-law—Sophia Charlotte counselled her to conciliate the Countess Platen; and this piece of advice was communicated by Sophia Dorothea to Königsmarck. On his return to Hanover, about November, he seems to have determined to contribute towards the appeasing of the powerful mistress; but, whether in sheer recklessness, or because he considered himself safe with the Countess, who would assuredly remain silent on the subject towards her august protector, he clearly overdid his part. After this escapade, a sort of desperate rage seems to have seized upon him, and the correspondence of the year 1692 concludes with a brutally sarcastic tirade launched against the new ‘Electoral Princess’ by her infuriated lover. It is, then, manifest that Sophia Dorothea had grounds for distrusting Countess Platen; but, how far the double insult offered to the Elector’s mistress by Königsmarck’s conduct is to be connected with the terrible events that followed, no evidence exists to show, and the part of evil genius assigned to the Countess in the tragedy has had to be written up with the aid of conjecture and fiction.
The last chapter of the correspondence, which extends from the early summer to the close of the year 1693 (or thereabouts), shows the fatal passion of the pair still aflame, but the clouds of danger thickening around them. In the absence of her husband during the year’s campaign in Flanders, the Electoral Princess continued to idle away her days with her parents-in-law at Luisburg, or with her own parents at Brockhausen, whither Königsmarck followed her. She took some comfort from the good humour of the Electress Sophia; though, foreseeing that, if she came to know the truth, she would show no pity, Königsmarck warned the Princess that her mother-in-law would, sooner or later, be her ruin. At Brockhausen, a nocturnal meeting between the lovers was not wholly unwatched, and the letters afterwards interchanged by them show increasing apprehension. Countess Platen herself vaguely warned the Princess as to the risk she was running—an act which it must be conceded at least admits of a kindly explanation. In her last extant letter, Sophia Dorothea utters what comes very near to a cry of hopeless despair. In the course of the month in which this letter was written (August, 1693) Königsmarck was obliged to absent himself from Court, in order to take part in a military movement intended to check a Danish _coup de main_ upon the contested duchy of Lauenburg. When he returned to Hanover, fresh warnings reached him—from old Marshal von Podewils,[110] under whom he had served, and from the youngest of the Hanoverian Princes, Ernest Augustus, whose devoted attachment to his brother, the Electoral Prince, appears not to have prevented this act of kindness. These warnings themselves, together with other indications, show that, although the actual character of the intrigue between Sophia Dorothea and Königsmarck may have remained unknown—unless indeed some letters had already fallen into the wrong hands—the _liaison_ itself was, as is, after all, usual in such cases, more or less of an open secret, and that thus the pair were rushing headlong to their ruin. Quite at the end of the year, Königsmarck had once more to go away from Hanover; and, at this point, the Lund correspondence comes to an end with a letter from him evidently addressed to the confidante, and, through her, assuring _Léonisse_ that, whatever might befall, he would not abandon her.
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Footnote 110:
‘_Le bonhomme_’ in the lovers’ cipher.
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The cessation of the correspondence leaves us in some doubt as to the precise nature of the occurrences in Hanover in the earlier half of the year 1694, which was to see the end of this lamentable history. Königsmarck, who had returned to Hanover, quitted it again in April; and, without having resigned his Hanoverian commission, betook himself to the Court of the Elector Frederick Augustus of Saxony (Augustus the Strong) at Dresden. Here he undoubtedly behaved with an indiscretion beyond that habitual to him, and it is probable enough—though this again cannot be proved—that his vaunts included some reference to his successes with Countess Platen. However this may have been, Königsmarck, though he had not accepted a commission offered him in the Saxon army and still remained a Hanoverian officer, could hardly expect on his return to Hanover to carry on his amour as before. There had been indications of an uneasy feeling at Court, which explain themselves without the supposition that a combination was at work there to drive Sophia Dorothea to her ruin, and without the wholly gratuitous assumption that, in the front of that combination, stood the Electress Sophia. Attempts were afterwards said to have been made to provoke ill-will between the Electoral Prince and his wife through the agency of her lady-in-waiting, Fräulein von dem Knesebeck; and, though there is no reason for suspecting her of any interference of the kind, it is certain that, about the early part of June, Sophia Dorothea left the Electoral Court and repaired to her parents at Brockhausen. Once more, there is nothing to show that her departure had been caused by actual ill-treatment on the part of her husband. On her way home to Hanover, she refused to alight at Herrenhausen in order to pay her respects to the Elector and Electress; and, after ascertaining at Hanover that her husband was away at Berlin, she resolved once more to join her parents at Brockhausen. But they refused to receive her; and, on the fatal night of July 1st, 1694, she was still with her faithful lady-in-waiting in the Leineschloss at Hanover.
On the same night, Count Königsmarck left his house at Hanover, never to be seen again. That his intention was to enter the Leine Palace and the apartments of the Electoral Princess, there can be no doubt; but the actual purpose of their meeting, and the plan on which they then agreed or on which they had agreed before, remain unknown. They may have merely designed to contrive her escape with his help to Wolfenbüttel, where she might rely on a welcome from Duke Antony Ulric; or they may have intended to realise the dream to which their correspondence refers, and henceforth to belong wholly to one another. But, from Sophia Dorothea, no attempt was afterwards made to extract an avowal on this head; and the confidante, Eleonora von dem Knesebeck, persisted from first to last, both during her imprisonment and after she had effected her escape from it, in asserting the innocency of her mistress. Yet Fräulein von dem Knesebeck confessed to having known of a ‘plot,’ and to having been so full of uneasiness that tears and entreaties were needed to persuade her to remain in the Princess’ service.
Some days passed before the disappearance of Königsmarck attracted public notice. The first sign that there was something wrong appears to have been the intimation, noticed in a despatch of July 3rd from Cressett (Colt’s successor), that, while the Electoral Prince remained at Berlin, the Princess was sick at Hanover. As a matter of fact, both she and her confidante had been strictly confined to her apartments; whether any letters from Königsmarck had been discovered in her keeping, we do not know. But there is evidence that, already in May and June, hands had been laid on some of the correspondence between the lovers; and the knowledge of this had probably determined the Elector Ernest Augustus to proceed against his daughter-in-law. And it is certain that some of her letters were sent by the authorities at Hanover to her parents; for Leibniz positively asserts that, had not her letters been produced, they could not have thought her so guilty at Celle. These letters must have been found in Königsmarck’s residence; and we have no reason for doubting the statement that a thorough search was made in his cabinet, in the presence of officials only, although it is added that a packet of letters thought to be incriminating was sent by persons who had been in his confidence to Celle, where his sisters soon afterwards made their appearance. These latter, in all probability, formed the correspondence which ultimately found its way to Berlin.
Both the Elector Ernest Augustus and Sophia Dorothea’s father, the Duke of Celle, considering her guilt to be established, the question next arose as to the way in which her case should be treated. In the first instance she was taken to Ahlden, a magistrate’s house or ‘castle’—no one who has cast eyes on it could ever think of it as anything but a ‘moated grange’—situate in a lonely marshland corner of her father’s territory, at some twenty miles’ distance from Hanover. While she was detained here in strict custody, the mode of procedure against her was arranged. It was resolved, for the honour of the House—which, for good or ill, was the dominant motive in the whole of this melancholy business—to keep the name and person of Königsmarck out of the affair altogether, and to make the desertion of her husband by the Princess the ground of a suit of divorce before a specially constituted Consistorial tribunal. This course, which could hardly have succeeded but for the attitude maintained by her, was carried through with a completeness which must have surpassed the anticipations of the astute minds that had devised it. Throughout the enquiry, the Princess made no confession whatever of any act of infidelity, adhering to the instructions conveyed to her by her father’s ministers, Bernstorff and Bülow, who, in an interview at Ahlden, had informed her that ‘everything was discovered’—manifestly another reference to the evidence of part of her correspondence with Königsmarck. Accordingly, notwithstanding the representations of the honest counsel with whom she had been provided—and to whose dissatisfaction with the proceedings and desire to preserve the proofs of his not having been responsible for their result is due the private preservation, at least in part, of the documents of the divorce-suit—she refused to swerve from her declared resolution no longer to live with the Electoral Prince as her husband. After some attempts on the part of the Duke of Celle to mitigate the rigour of the expected result, which were successfully resisted on the part of the Hanoverian Government, the sentence of the Consistorial tribunal was pronounced on December 28th, 1694, and delivered to the Princess at Lauenau, whither she had been temporarily removed, on the last day of the year. It dissolved the marriage between her and the Electoral Prince, granting him, as the innocent party, permission to remarry, but withholding this from her as the guilty party. She at once accepted the sentence; a few days later her confessor informed her father that she acknowledged ‘_sa faute_,’ and the justice of the punishment inflicted upon her; and, in 1698, on the occasion of the death of the Elector Ernest Augustus, she wrote to her former husband and to his mother, the Electress Sophia, beseeching them to pardon her faults of the past, and entreating the favour of being allowed to see her children. This favour was never granted to her.
The Hanoverian court and Government had, as has been seen, persistently striven to dissociate the disappearance of Königsmarck from the disgrace of the Princess. In the first instance, this disappearance had been simply ignored, while a circular had been issued to foreign courts, drawn up in this sense, and attributing the alienation of the Princess from her husband to the machinations of Fräulein von dem Knesebeck, who was soon afterwards clapped into a dungeon at Scharzfels in the Harz, from which she did not make her escape till four years afterwards.[111] As to the vanished Königsmarck, it had been easy to stifle the anxieties of the unhappy Sophia Dorothea, who, before she was effectually silenced, had written a letter expressive of her fear that he had fallen into the hands of a certain lady, and that his life might be in danger. There can hardly be any doubt but that this referred to Countess Platen, although it merely proves Sophia Dorothea to have been afraid of the consequences of the Countess’ anger. Nor could it be impossible to baffle the curiosity of the world at large—represented by no less august an enquirer than Louis XIV—in the assurance that the mystery would in due course be forgotten as a nine days’ wonder. But it proved a serious task to meet the pertinacious efforts of Königsmarck’s sister Aurora, who, adopting a rumour which for some time found an extraordinary amount of credit, insisted that her brother was still alive, and, while demanding that the truth should be revealed, pursued Countess Platen (with whom she had a quarrel of old standing) with special animosity. It is noteworthy that the Electress Sophia should be found taking the side of Countess Platen, who, she writes, is not accustomed to be spoken of in the terms applied to her by the Countess _Orrore_. Having been forbidden to show herself in Hanover, Königsmarck’s dauntless sister betook herself to Dresden, in order to secure the assistance of the Elector Frederick Augustus in her quest. It was on this occasion that she conquered that potentate altogether; and he espoused her cause so heartily as to send Colonel Bannier to Hanover, there to demand that Königsmarck, as an officer in the Saxon service, should be given up to him. As late as December, 1694, Bannier remained convinced that the Count was still alive, and detained as a prisoner somewhere in the Palace. Not until after some months had passed was the tempest raised by Aurora allayed, largely through the diplomatic skill of the Hanoverian minister at Dresden, Jobst von Ilten. But her passionate activity, and the widespread interest excited by so impenetrable a mystery, already in 1695 led to the publication of a narrative purporting to have been sent from Hamburg to the French minister at the Danish court, which the Duchess of Orleans characterised as impertinent and mendacious, and to which Leibniz was instructed to supply a corrective commentary. Meanwhile the Electoral Government had not only maintained an absolute silence as to the Königsmarck affair, but had resorted to the expedient of systematically destroying all evidence concerning it or in any way connected with it. This policy was carried through with extraordinary vigilance and consistency, as might be shown in various instances, of which some reach down to our own times. Above all, a systematic destruction took place of all the documents, whether public or private, at Hanover, in London—and even in Ahlden—which might have thrown light on the episode. Among the rest, the letters of the Electress Sophia bearing on it were destroyed. This was in accordance with the wish of the Duchess of Orleans, whose sagacity apprised her that there was something in the rumours which had reached her, although the excellent Frau von Harling had declared them to be all lies.[112] It would, however, appear that, whether because of a desire on the part of the Duke of Celle that some evidence should be procured which would justify his assent to the severe treatment of his daughter,[113] or because of the Electress’ own wish not to annihilate all proof, certain incriminating portions of the correspondence remained undestroyed; and these were perhaps the letters which are supposed to have been afterwards sent to Berlin, in order to remove the doubts of Sophia Dorothea’s daughter and namesake as to the misconduct of her mother, to whom she always behaved with kindness—and which, afterwards, certainly found their way into the hands of Frederick the Great and thence into the Secret Archives of State. So far as Königsmarck is concerned, the current story as to his death, and as to the horrible part played in it by the Countess Platen, still remains unauthenticated. Horace Walpole, the author of _Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard III_, was prepared to believe a story which he professed to have derived from George II, through Queen Caroline and Sir Robert Walpole, according to which, on the occasion of some repairs in the Leine Palace, the remains of Königsmarck were discovered under the floor of Sophia Dorothea’s dressing-room; and, of the assassins rumoured to have been hired by Countess Platen, one at least is said to have been enabled by his crime to found a family of much respectability at Hanover.
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Footnote 111:
Of this castle little or nothing remains at the present day but a ‘restored’ gate and staircase.
Footnote 112:
According to W. H. Wilkins, _A Queen of Tears_, George III similarly ordered the destruction of the entire correspondence with Copenhagen occasioned by the catastrophe of his daughter Caroline Matilda of Denmark and Struensee.
Footnote 113:
In the spring of 1695, Cresset reports that the Duke and Duchess of Celle feel some distaste, now, for the company of the Electress, on account of the divorce proceedings.
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Sophia Dorothea herself was henceforth lost to the history of her House, and almost fell out of the remembrance of the world in which she might have played so prominent a part. She was now officially styled the Duchess of Ahlden, the village on the Aller over whose immediate district a certain petty jurisdiction was given to the prisoner, together with a few shadowy rights of honour. During a period of thirty-two years she lingered out here her life of durance—never being allowed to quit Ahlden, with the single exception, when a movement of Saxon-Polish troops seemed to render her place of detention unsafe, of a brief visit to Celle, where, however, her father declined to see her. Neither was she at any time permitted to go forth from her castle beyond a distance of six miles; and her carriage, closely attended by a guard of honour, had always to drive along the same road.[114] She had the occasional consolation of a visit from her mother till the Duchess Eleonora’s death in 1722; for the mother’s love never waned, and her will contributed to make the prisoner nominally the possessor of great wealth. On the other hand, she was, as already noted, never allowed to see her children. She occupied herself much with works of charity and piety. She presented an organ and candelabra to the parish church where during part of her imprisonment she worshipped—and was extremely popular in the village, which she rebuilt at her own cost after a fire in 1715; and she gave much attention to the affairs in the neighbourhood, receiving formal visits, and bestowing great care upon her personal adornment. She never quite abandoned the hope of a change in her condition, until shortly before her death she discovered that her interests had been betrayed, and (it is said) most of her large accumulated capital made away with, by an agent (a certain von Bahr), in whom she had reposed confidence. The records of the poor woman’s life during the long years of her confinement do not change our notions of her character; but the story of her solitary woe needs no deepening.
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Footnote 114:
Her habit of driving along it at a furious pace recalls the practice of a very different captive—Napoleon at St. Helena.
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George Lewis has met with nothing but blame for his share in the whole story of Sophia Dorothea’s misfortunes. Our age happily refuses to accept the view that what is unpardonable in a wife is venial in a husband; but such was not the opinion of George Lewis’ contemporaries. On returning to Hanover, he had found the relations between his wife and Königsmarck very much of an open secret at court; and, when proofs were in his hands, a divorce was the only course open to him, if the honour of his House was to be vindicated. There was afterwards a rumour, mentioned by Elizabeth Charlotte to her aunt, that he would take back his wife on his accession to the Electorship at his father’s death; and, in 1704, a report was again current at Paris, that the Duke of Marlborough hoped to effect a reconciliation between the Elector and his discarded consort. But, as a matter of fact, he never varied his attitude towards her of absolute and immutable estrangement; and least of all did he show any inclination to invite her to share the glories of the English throne, though it is probable that he might, by such a step, have diminished the prejudices to which he was exposed in his new kingdom.[115] On the occurrence of her death on November 13th, 1726 (which, as is known, preceded his own by but a few months), he prohibited a general mourning in the Electorate, and she was buried without ceremony in the family vault at Celle, after her interment at Ahlden had proved impracticable. There can be no doubt that the bitter resentment with which her conduct had inspired him was, in a measure, continued in his feelings towards his son, the future King George II; but, though the accounts on this head are contradictory, it is at least doubtful whether Sophia Dorothea’s son ever exhibited any active sympathy for his unfortunate mother.[116] Sophia Dorothea the younger, who, in 1706, married the Crown Prince of Prussia (afterwards King Frederick William I), kept up some communication with her mother, and, after she became Queen, took Eleonora von dem Knesebeck into her service, besides entering into a more frequent correspondence with the prisoner. But mother and daughter never met; and, finally, there seems to have been a marked difference of opinion between them as to the famous Double Marriage Project between the courts of Great Britain and Prussia.
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Footnote 115:
It is a curious instance of a certain cynical hauteur in George Lewis (which, however, contains an element of manly self-possession) that he should have supplied the Duchess of Orleans with a key to the characters of the Supplement to the _Roman Octavia_, in which Duke Antony Ulric had taken the opportunity, perhaps with the help of Fräulein von dem Knesebeck’s reminiscences, of giving to the world a version of the whole story of the Duchess of Ahlden.—A French MS., _Histoire de Frédegonde, Princesse de Chérusque, Duchesse d’Hanovre, Épouse de George, Roi de la Grande Bretagne_, proposing to give an account, _inter alia_, of ‘_sa Prison au Chateau d’Alhen, où elle a fini ses jours_,’ supposed to date from about 1740, was not long since advertised for sale.
Footnote 116:
Lord Hervey’s story of his having preserved his mother’s picture may be true; but the further statement that he proposed, if she had survived, to have brought her over and declared her Queen, needs a stronger qualification than the ‘it was said,’ by which it is accompanied. (_Memoirs_, Vol. iii. pp. 348-9.)
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That the unfortunate prisoner should have gained the active goodwill, which the fair young Princess had never conciliated, of her mother-in-law, the Electress Sophia, was hardly to be expected. Such advances as were made to her by the Duchess of Ahlden seem to have been coldly rejected; and the tone in which the Duchess of Orleans continues occasionally to speak of her ill-fated relative no doubt reflects, with tolerable accuracy, that adopted by her aunt in her non-extant letters. The Electress, as we now know, had verified the conclusion of Elizabeth Charlotte, that Sophia Dorothea’s case exemplified the proverb as to there being no smoke without fire; and, while we may regret that the charity which, in the matter of morals, the Electress Sophia readily showed to the shortcomings of the men of her family, was never extended by her to the daughter of Eleonora d’Olbreuze, there is in this rigour nothing unnatural or incompatible with the rules of life which she consistently observed. To argue, however, from this severity back to the unproved supposition of an active cooperation on the part of Sophia towards the ruin of her daughter-in-law, is palpably unjust. And it should always be borne in mind that the sympathy of posterity was secured to Sophia Dorothea by her misfortunes, not by her character, in which there is little or nothing to admire, while much in it may have justly repelled the sound and self-controlled nature of her mother-in-law; and that the Electress was more impressed by the Princess’ fall than by what might seem its legitimate consequences.
There seems no reason for attributing to the painful experiences through which the House of Hanover had recently passed the decline which, about this time, set in in the health of the Elector Ernest Augustus. His illness (which Cressett thought in a large measure imaginary) has quite gratuitously been brought into connexion with Sophia Dorothea’s catastrophe, the suggestion being that the wife and the mistress of the Elector had conspired to avert the consequences which might ensue, in the event of his death and the accession of a new Electress. In June, 1697, the Electress Sophia informs the Raugravine Louisa that, though the other symptoms in the Elector’s condition are good, his nervous debility is great, and that it has been resolved to try the skill of a Dutch empiric, with whose ‘_charlattaneri_’ she characteristically expresses impatience. Towards the end of the year the course of his malady seemed to have been in a measure arrested; but the decay of his powers soon set in again with alarming rapidity. His life of constant self-indulgence ended very miserably; for some time loss of sight in one eye was feared, and after this he was all but deprived of the use of speech. The Electress Sophia faithfully nursed him to the last. Even in the days of his health she had bravely accustomed herself to his habits; and she afterwards humorously related that she had made a point, in the hour of domesticity, of filling his pipe with the tobacco which she loathed. In his last illness she, during many months, never left his side, except when he was asleep. The end came on January 24th, 1698; and a letter written by Sophia a few months later shows her still in a condition of deep and unaffected grief—hopeful only ‘_que le bon Dieu me fera bientost rejoindre ce cher Électeur en l’autre monde_,’ but consoled by the attentions of her children and her brother-in-law. Ernest Augustus had well played his part as a ruler, not only providing a sure basis for the progress of his dynasty to augmented power and influence, but also strengthening and consolidating the civil as well as the military administration of the Electorate established in his person. His extravagant expenditure on himself and on his court, though no doubt largely occasioned by habits of self-indulgence and a profligate temperament, seemed in consonance with what was probably a well-merited reputation for liberality of conduct and feeling towards those who served him well. Thus he proved, in his way, an apt imitator of the great French prototype whom he, not less than his brother John Frederick, kept before his eyes; and the style in which he lived and reigned suited the interest of the dynasty as well as his own tastes. At the same time, he knew how to combine with his magnificence and generosity a self-restraint that enabled him in his will to dispose of an unencumbered personal estate. To Sophia his death, in more respects than one, brought a considerable change. She had never ruled him, not even controlled him by her influence, as Eleonora of Celle long controlled her Duke, or as, in another generation, Sophia’s favourite Caroline of Ansbach was to control King George II. But the aid of her counsel had been of great value to Ernest Augustus, both in the ordinary business of government and in great questions of state policy; and much of the authority which thus accrued to her passed away with him. George Lewis was not of a disposition likely to induce him, from motives of piety, to show to his mother a deference beyond that of ordinary custom. On the other hand, the death of Sophia’s husband gave to her more of that freedom which no princess ever used less ostentatiously or more nobly; it made her, in certain respects, more distinctly the centre of the intellectual life of the Hanoverian Court than she had cared to be, or at all events to seem, in the lifetime of Ernest Augustus; it probably brought her closer to her daughter, and certainly allowed her a fuller enjoyment of the friendship of Leibniz.
No sooner had the reign of Ernest Augustus come to an end, than his sons Maximilian and Christian renewed their protest against the principle of primogeniture which he had so persistently maintained;[117] and the sympathy with Maximilian displayed by his sister, the Electress Sophia Charlotte of Brandenburg, can hardly have failed to find a secret response in the maternal heart of the Electress Dowager Sophia herself. But, though there was some talk of her paying a visit at this season to Berlin, she had learnt to tutor her own wishes, and was well aware how much depended upon the maintenance of the good understanding between the two Electoral Governments, which was at the time endangered by certain territorial questions that may here be passed by. Thus George Lewis succeeded without let or hindrance to the whole of the paternal inheritance and expectancies; and, as was noted above, Hanover and Brandenburg were united by a close and ‘perpetual’ alliance at the very period when the dynastic ambition of the one seemed on the point of consummation, and that of the other was near achieving its absorbing object—the acquisition of a royal (Prussian) crown. That the Hanoverian court was filled with joy by the success of the operations which ended, early in 1701, with the coronation of the first Prussian King, Frederick I, would be an unnatural supposition. The event had, however, been rendered virtually inevitable by the accession, in 1697, of the Elector Frederick Augustus of Saxony to the Polish throne; and the Elector George Lewis was personally not so constituted as to be impelled, even by jealousy, to an eagerness to follow suit. As for the Dowager Electress Sophia, there was, to her, something more than compensation in the thought that a royal crown now surmounted the brow of her favourite child.
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Footnote 117:
Early in 1694, Cresset reports him as ‘moving heaven and earth’ on the subject.
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Sophia Charlotte, her parents’ only daughter, had grown up in a long and unbroken intimacy with her mother. With that mother, as already noted, she had in common a clear and penetrating intelligence, a charm of manner irresistible to anyone whom she chose to admit to familiar intercourse, and a self-possession against which scandal waged war in vain. She also had her mother’s intellectual curiosity and general love of knowledge; but she must have approached more nearly to her aunt Elizabeth in her power of entering into problems of philosophy, though it is only with a grain of salt that the assertion can be accepted as to the conferences between her and Leibniz having originated his _Théodicée_. On the other hand, what little remains from her hand in the way of familiar correspondence, can scarcely be said to be lit up with the natural humour that her mother and the Duchess of Orleans always had at command. Notwithstanding her power of delighting those admitted to her society by the sunny brightness of her manner, when she was so disposed, or when she was stimulated by intellectual interest, her nature seems from early years to have possessed the tranquillity which reason and resignation enabled her mother more gradually to acquire. Probably a certain physical indolence, or phlegma, may have contributed to this result; together with a calm determination to please herself—a luxury in which her mother had rarely or never enjoyed opportunities of indulging.
Already in her childhood, benefiting by the traditions in her mother’s family as to the necessity of a good education based on linguistic knowledge, she had exhibited signs of talent; while her character probably owed much to the training of Frau von Harling (who was also Elizabeth Charlotte’s governess), one of those teachers whose destiny it is to be loved for their administration of the rule of law by pupils who, under a less vigorous influence, would certainly be inclined to remain a law to themselves. In the eleventh year of her age, Sophia Charlotte, as we saw, accompanied her mother on a visit to the French Court, while her father was recruiting his health at Ems. It was a delightful visit—perhaps one of the happiest episodes of Sophia’s life—in the mixture which it offered of pleasant retrospect under the caresses of the faithful Duchess of Orleans, and of still earlier reminiscences in the genial company of the Abbess of Maubuisson, with a hopeful looking-forward to the future in store for her charming daughter. King Louis XIV himself was the perfection of magnificent courtesy, requesting his brother, the Duke of Orleans, not to whisper in Sophia’s presence, and taking magnanimous notice of her daughter. Sophia’s quick wit helped her through every difficulty, and enabled her to avoid any mistake—even that of accepting a _tabouret_ when self-respect bade her take a _fauteuil_, or not sit at all. She knew how to meet both the stiffness of the French Queen (a Spanish princess) and the effusiveness of the Spanish Queen (a French princess); nor was her self-possession disturbed even by the splendour of Versailles, for which, as she justly observed, art had done more than nature. As for Sophia Charlotte, the impression created, both by her beauty and by the extent of her knowledge, was such as to suggest to Louis XIV the idea of a match between her and one of his princes. Nothing, however, came of the notion except, perhaps, an accentuation of the diplomatic activity of de Gourville at the Lüneburg courts. Sophia Charlotte’s quiet life continued; and, though there was some talk of a Bavarian suit for her hand, it gradually became known that her destiny was shaping itself nearer home. The establishment of relations of intimacy between the Courts of Brandenburg at Hanover had become a political necessity, and Sophia had recognised the expediency of promoting his object with the aid of her daughter’s hand. When, in 1683, the Electoral Prince Frederick of Brandenburg became a childless widower, these speculations at once assumed a practical aspect. The obstacles which had to be surmounted did not include a religious difficulty, inasmuch as the Reformed (Calvinist) faith, of which Sophia Charlotte made public profession shortly before her marriage, was a form of religion always favoured, though never actually professed, by her mother.[118] There is no reason for crediting the story (which rests only on the gossip of Pöllnitz) that it had been thought unnecessary to anticipate Sophia Charlotte’s own choice of a form of Protestantism till it was known whom she was to marry. But, whatever the daughter’s religious profession, tolerance would always have formed part of her creed, as it did of her mother’s. The marriage was celebrated at Herrenhausen on September 28th, 1684.
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Footnote 118:
‘I used,’ she writes to the elder Schütz in 1703, ‘to know all the common prayers, practically, by heart, but I was never taught that our religion much differed from the reformed religion of France and Germany, and I have communicated in this also;’ and, again: ‘I have had prayers offered for the Queen’ [Anne] ‘in both the German and the French reformed churches here’ [at Hanover], ‘with the permission of the Elector.’—Erman, preacher at the French Reformed church in Berlin, subsequently wrote _Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Sophie Charlotte, Reine de Prusse_.]
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From the first, Sophia Charlotte displayed that indifference to playing any part in politics which seemed so strange in her, considering the capacity which she indisputably possessed for exerting influence alike by her personal charms and by her intellectual powers. But, during the few remaining years of the Great Elector’s life, the Electoral Prince Frederick was under a cloud; and, in 1686, he had to withdraw with his consort to Halle. In 1688 he succeeded his father as Elector, and a few months later his consort presented him with an heir to his honours (the future King Frederick William I). She continued, however, to show little disposition to assert the authority and influence which had now accrued to her; and, though, during the ensuing decade, so eventful in the history of the relations between the Houses of Hanover and Brandenburg, she was always happy to exchange visits with her parents and to listen to the advice bestowed on her by her mother, she cannot be said to have taken much trouble to use, either directly or indirectly, the power which she can hardly have lacked aught but the will to exercise. It was not that she had to contend against any great strength of character in her husband, who, if humoured in a few things, could without much difficulty be ruled in the rest. But she did not care to stoop even to the level of his rather commonplace and formal nature, in order to conquer for herself an all-controlling influence in both public and private affairs. She preferred to create a sphere or circle of her own, into which only those were admitted who approved themselves to her, more especially by their intellectual gifts. Here simplicity, typified by black dress, was the rule. The colony of French refugees, which was in these years establishing itself at Berlin and Brandenburg, was largely represented in her intimate social circle. Sophia Charlotte appreciated those gifts of conversation, of which, in her age, Frenchmen and Frenchwomen possessed, if not the monopoly, at least a predominant share; and she seems herself to have become mistress of an art which is always more easily described than reproduced. She was fond of theatrical entertainments of many kinds, and probably gave more offence to the pietism prevailing around her by these, for the most part, innocuous tastes than by her philosophising tendencies. Toland amused her, and she was not, like her mother, obliged to respect British prejudices about his views or principles, though she was indignant to have been supposed to have gone so far as to ask a man without birth or official position to dine at her table. In general, she was, no doubt, very much _sans gêne_ in her relations with persons whom she liked; but, though scandal was busy with these freedoms, she never compromised herself by indulging in them too far. The height of her personal influence seems to have been reached when, by 1696, the Elector Frederick III had fulfilled her heart’s desire by building for her a country residence in the village of Lützen on the pleasant declivities of the Spree. She had never been willing to sojourn in the castle of Copenick, where her predecessor, Frederick’s first wife, had pined away her days; and the ample gardens at Berlin, which he had presented to his Electress, she had, with intelligent philanthropy, mainly distributed in allotments among the townsfolk, with whom, for this reason, and perhaps also because of a sympathetic quickness of wit indigenous among the inhabitants of the growing capital, her reputation always stood high. Lützenburg, as the Italian villa, which gradually grew into a palace, was called, became Sophia Charlotte’s chosen abode, although the magnificence with which it was in course of time adorned, both inside and out, had not received its final touches before her death, when this famous royal residence was, in remembrance of her, rechristened Charlottenburg.
The death of Ernest Augustus, in 1698, as we saw, drew mother and daughter more closely together; and, in the same year, a very important ministerial change at Berlin, the circumstances of which to this day occupy the attention of historical students, greatly increased Sophia Charlotte’s opportunities of exercising a personal influence upon the government and policy of her husband. The fall of the hitherto omnipotent minister, Eberhard von Danckelmann, which was speedily followed by his incarceration, affords a most striking instance of the uncertainty of princely favour, and a cruel illustration of the recompense that may await great political services.[119] Here it must suffice to say, that Sophia Charlotte had certainly been jealous of Danckelmann’s influence, and that his downfall was regarded by her mother and her friends, even more decidedly than by herself, as an epoch in her personal career. Leibniz wrote to her, with rather exasperating _aplomb_, surmising that, since she had now secured the entire confidence of the Elector her husband, she would recognise the necessity of taking advantage of the situation (_ménager la conjoncture_). As there was, he continued, an identity of interest between her and her mother, it was to be hoped that they would find consolation for the evils that had befallen them (the death of Ernest Augustus) in employing their gifts so as to bring about a complete union between Sophia Charlotte’s brother and her husband. (It may perhaps be noted that the sorrow afterwards shown by George Lewis on his sister’s death indicates the existence of a genuine affection between them.) Leibniz could not think of anyone likely to manage so effectively the requisite communications between the two Electresses as it would be within his own power to do; and he suggested that this purpose would be most easily accomplished if he were to be appointed to some supervising post connected with science and art at Berlin, and thus supplied with a ready reason for occasional visits to that capital. As a matter of fact, Sophia Charlotte used her best endeavours to induce Frederick III to call into life a (prospectively) Royal Society or Academy of Science, which, as the Elector was quick to perceive, would conspicuously add to the reputation of his court and to the glory of the monarchy of which he was ambitious to become the founder; and, after Leibniz had spent several months at Berlin, and conducted the deliberations on the subject, besides participating in the intellectual delights of ‘Lustenburg’ (Lützenburg), the Society of Sciences was, in July, 1700, actually called into life, with Leibniz as its perpetual president.[120]
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Footnote 119:
See H. Breslau, _Der Fall des Oberpräsidenten E. von Danckelmann_, 1692 (H. Breslau and S. Isaacsohn, _Der Fall zweier Preuss. Minister_). Berlin, 1878.
Footnote 120:
Curiously enough, on the day after the opening of this august institution, Leibniz took a prominent part in a ‘Village Fair’ at the Court, of which a graphic description remains in a letter from him to the Electress Sophia. It seems to have been a revised edition of the _Wirthschaften_ of her youth, and of similar Arcadian diversions of later days.—For an interesting survey of the relations—both personal and philosophical—between Leibniz and Sophia Charlotte, see A. Foucher de Careil, _Leibniz et les deux Sophies_, Paris, 1876.
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Danckelmann’s fall had, however, not put an end to Sophia Charlotte’s difficulties at her husband’s court. Some of these were of much the same sort as those from which her mother had suffered so much at Hanover, and from which the more sensitive nature of her grand-daughter Wilhelmina was afterwards to suffer at Baireuth. The Elector Frederick III’s new minister-in-chief, Kolbe von Wartenberg, had himself many attractive qualities; but his wife was of humble origin and undistinguished manners. It pleased the Elector, apparently only for the sake of the completeness of the thing, to confer on her the position of his mistress _en titre_. Sophia Charlotte’s pride long rebelled against receiving this lady at her private court. Another source of anxiety to Sophia Charlotte was the training of her son Frederick William, which, during part of his fourth year, she had entrusted to the veteran Frau von Harling at the court of her mother, the Electress Sophia. But the boy, both passionate and obstinate, could not agree with his cousin George Augustus, and had to be taken back to Berlin. As he grew up he seemed to care for nothing but soldiering, while he detested the ceremonial dear to his father’s heart, and more distinctive than ever of the Court of Berlin since the manœuvres for securing a royal Crown had assumed a definite shape, and this project had come to absorb the entire policy of the Brandenburg court and Government. Neither Sophia Charlotte’s nor her mother’s intelligence could fail to grasp the situation. The Electress of Brandenburg made up her mind that no personal grievance should interfere with the maintenance of a good understanding between her consort and herself, and received the Countess of Wartenberg at Lützenburg, although, oblivious of her guest’s imperfections of education, she welcomed her there with a few words of French. The Electress Dowager Sophia was willing to cooperate; and, partly with a view to procuring for the furtherance of the project the good offices of King William III and of the Elector Maximilian Emmanuel of Bavaria, Governor of the Austrian Netherlands, it was, in the spring of 1700, arranged that the two Electresses should, on the pretext of Sophia Charlotte’s health, repair to the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle, and thence visit Brussels and Holland. They accomplished this journey, on which Leibniz was by his own ill-health prevented from accompanying them, but in the course of which they, at the Hague, made the personal acquaintance of another philosopher of European reputation—‘_l’illustre Bayle, honneur des beaux esprits_.’ And, in October, 1700, they were received at the Loo, where (as we shall see immediately) other matters were also discussed between the Electress Dowager and King William, and where he promised Sophia Charlotte to acknowledge her husband as the first King in Prussia. The desire of Sophia Charlotte’s consort (rather than her own) was consummated by their coronation as King and Queen of Prussia at Königsberg on January 18th, 1701—the year which likewise proved her mother’s conference with her host at the Loo not to have been held in vain.
To understand this result, it is necessary to go back a few years, and to recall the circumstances which, in 1696, had led to an earlier, but more transitory, visit on the part of the two Electresses to the Loo. The year 1696 was one of some importance in the history of the English Succession question. After the death of Queen Mary, on December 28th, 1694, some time had necessarily passed before even a conjecture could be formed as to the future intentions of King William, who was prostrated with grief. But he was only in his forty-fifth year, and his remarriage was therefore by no means an unlikely event. In the course of 1695, speculation was accordingly rife on the subject, and, taking time by the forelock, Louis XIV provided that any overtures made on William III’s behalf at Stockholm (for the hand of the Princess Hedwig Sophia) should meet with a cold reception. The hopes of the House of Savoy were once more aroused. The claims by descent of the Duchess Anna Maria, daughter of Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, and grand-daughter of Charles I, and of her issue, were superior to those of the Electress Sophia and the House of Hanover; and, in the twofold event of another son being born to Anna Maria and Victor Amadeus II, and of the boy being brought over to England and there educated as a Protestant, he might acquire a Parliamentary title. William III was supposed to look favourably upon this scheme; and, though, already in the summer of 1695, there were rumours of Savoy having entered into secret negotiations with France, Victor Amadeus was one of the Princes who, about this time, ratified the renewal of the Grand Alliance. But, in the following year, after France had paid the price of the restoration of Pignerol, the Duke of Savoy went over to her side (thus executing a movement of which he carried out the exact converse in 1703, early in the great War), and thereby closed any prospect of his House inheriting the English throne.
Meanwhile, King William’s widowed state occupied the thoughts of the dynasty of whose close connexion with the House of Hanover we have just been treating. Immediately after the campaign of 1695 and the renewal of the Grand Alliance, the Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg had begun to sound King William, through the agency of his favourite, Keppel (soon afterwards created Earl of Albemarle), as to the royal intentions on the subject of a remarriage, with a view to directing the King’s attention to the Electoral Princess Louisa Dorothea, then fifteen years of age. In the following year, 1696, William had found himself the object of an unprecedented popularity in England, owing to the discovery of the Assassination Plot, at the time when James II was known to be preparing an invasion of these shores. The Jacobite interest, which was to have benefited by the most gracious proclamation ever drafted by the exiled King, experienced one of the most disheartening of its many rebuffs; and, instead of reconquering his kingdoms, James II informed the Abbot of La Trappe, that ‘all these attempts which seemed to be lost labour in the eyes of the world, were great advantages as he managed them in order to that great end which had now become his sole concern.’ Still, the ‘Prince of Orange’s’ weak condition of health prevented King James from regarding the chances of his restoration as at an end; and, in the event of his rival’s death, he was resolved to ‘return into England, though three men had not followed him.’[121] In May, 1696, King William resumed the command of the army in the Low Countries, but no military operations of importance took place; and, in the course of the summer, the Elector Frederick III, with his family and court, took up their residence at Cleves, whither the Duke of Celle likewise found his way, and whence in August the Electress Sophia Charlotte, with her mother the Electress Sophia, paid an _incognito_ visit to the Loo in the King’s absence. He was then invited to Cleves; but he preferred in the first instance to send two agents—an Englishman (Southwell) and a Dutchman (General Hompesch)—to report to him on the personality of the Princess Louisa Dorothea. Their reports were unfavourable, and, the King’s visit having been deferred on the plea of difficulties of ceremonial,[122] no less a personage than Portland was sent by him to Cleves to make another report. Though this again proved deterrent, William resolved to trust to his own eyes, and, in September, paid a visit to Cleves, of which a full account remains in a letter from Stepney, then in the royal suite, to Sir William Trumbull. The Princess stood, during four hours, as a spectatress of the royal game at _l’hombre_, while the favourite, Keppel, was accommodated with a seat. But the visit led to no result; and, when it became known that the two Electresses had abandoned their proposed tour through Holland, it was understood that the marriage project was for the present at an end.
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Footnote 121:
This was the time when James II refused Louis XIV’s offer of aid towards securing for him the Polish throne, then vacant by the death of John Sobiesky; on which occasion Sophia wrote to the Duchess of Orleans that King James might pass for a saint, since we are told to become as little children, or we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Footnote 122:
These were of a kind of which the Electress Sophia had, as we have seen, had some experience. According to English usage, the King was alone entitled to an arm-chair (_fauteuil_); but, according to the German rule, the Electors were privileged to occupy an arm-chair even in the presence of the Emperor. Hence the King and the Elector could not _sit_ in one another’s company; and, when the King actually came to Cleves, the Elector had to absent himself from the royal _partie_.
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Whether or not because of his own unwillingness to contract a second marriage, as well as on account of the secession of the House of Savoy from the Grand Alliance, the attention of William III, in the latter part of 1696, turned more decisively than before to the Electress Sophia and the House of Hanover. He interested himself directly in the still unsettled question of the admission of the Elector of Hanover into the Electoral College. About the same time (October), when George William of Celle had returned home from a long visit to the Loo, whither he had proceeded from Cleves, Leibniz (who, it must be remembered, was in the service of the entire House of Brunswick-Lüneburg) put forth one of those feelers by which he is henceforth found from time to time endeavouring to test the sentiments of the Electress Sophia on the Succession question. Though on this occasion he approaches the subject most cautiously, it may be looked upon as significant that he prophesies for Sophia’s grandson a renewal of the historic achievement of William III. Nothing, however, could be more explicit than her reply refusing to act on his insinuation. Two months later, she wrote to her niece, the Raugravine Louisa, then on a visit to London, where she had met with scant courtesy on the part of the Princess Anne, that everything ‘Palatine’ seemed to have quite fallen into oblivion in England, nor did anybody there remember her (the Electress’) existence, inasmuch as there was no apparent intention of allowing the Crown to descend to her family.
During the period immediately ensuing, William III was necessarily occupied by the task of securing his own seat upon the English throne, rather than by that of determining its ulterior devolution. The success of the peace negotiations which opened at Ryswyk, in June, 1697, was rendered more than doubtful by the avoidance of any direct communication between the representatives of the King of France and of the King of England, whom Louis had as yet refused to recognise; and William III had accordingly taken the startling step of entering into a secret negotiation with France. Among the extraordinary rumours that hereupon spread as to the compromise contemplated by the two sovereigns, was one, wholly false, which contrived to make its way into ‘history.’ William, it was said, intended to purchase peace by promising to secure the Succession to the English Crown to the son and heir of James II. In the instrument of the peace, William was not actually recognised as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland by Louis XIV; but he was mentioned as such in the preamble, and secured in his possession of these kingdoms by a formula binding Louis XIV to refuse any direct or indirect assistance to William’s enemies. Indeed, this indirect recognition, and the check which it implied upon the original designs of Louis, constituted England’s chief gain by the peace. William’s motives for seeking, in the period next ensuing, to remain on good terms with Louis XIV, cannot be discussed here; but they help to account for a certain slackness on William’s part in his dealings with the Succession question, at a time when it was becoming of the highest importance for the future of his kingdoms.
In the autumn of 1698, however, shortly after the secret conclusion of the First Partition Treaty between Louis XIV and William III, the latter took up this question of a Succession which concerned him more nearly than that to the Spanish monarchy. He was in the habit of annually welcoming to the Loo, at this season, his old friend and fellow-sportsman, Duke George William of Celle; but on the present occasion they met in the hunting-castle of the Göbrde,[123] near Lüneburg. The Elector George Lewis also put in an appearance there, as did his son, the Electoral Prince George Augustus, and his daughter, Sophia Dorothea the younger, then eleven years of age. Although Count Tallard, the French ambassador at the Court of St. James, was thoroughly puzzled as to the purpose of the King’s journey, it could be no secret to the members of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In September, the Princess Anne, who stood next in the Succession so long as King William remained childless, had given birth to another still-born infant; and her only surviving child, the Duke of Gloucester, was known to be in weak bodily health. Nor could any reliance be placed upon Princess Anne herself, who was in constant communication with St. Germains, and who, had her father but given his assent to her mounting the throne in due course, would have been glad enough afterwards to play it into the hands of her half-brother. King William must, therefore, manifestly have visited the Brunswick-Lüneburg territories with at least a predisposition towards placing the House of Hanover in a more satisfactory position, in regard to the Succession, than it held at present; but he had no reason for supposing that the members of that House were themselves eager to meet him half-way. Strangely enough, the personage who now came forward to urge upon him a decisive course, was the Duchess Eleonora of Celle—perhaps with a view to thus recovering some of the influence lost to her through her daughter’s catastrophe, perhaps in the hope of mitigating the effects of that catastrophe for the unhappy Sophia Dorothea herself, or simply from an inborn love of diplomatic action and a general desire to make things pleasant. Leibniz afterwards assumed to himself the credit of having given her the first hint of speaking to the King. This she did before he quitted the Göhrde, representing herself as obeying an inspiration from Hanover, and begging her royal guest—now that the House of Savoy was out of the question—to promote the placing of the Electress Sophia and her descendants in the Succession. When the King pointed out that the Duke of Gloucester, though in delicate health, might imitate him by growing up into manhood, Eleonora further suggested that her grand-daughter, Sophia Dorothea the younger, would be a suitable match for the Duke. George William of course agreed _ex post facto_ to the step taken by his wife, but stipulated that it should be mentioned to his nephew, the Elector, who gave vent to his annoyance that the King should be led to suppose him to have sanctioned this manœuvre. But, when the King met the Electress Sophia at Celle, he referred to the question of establishing her and her descendants’ claim, and, as Leibniz expresses it, made considerable advances in this direction. Sophia, we may be sure, received these advances discreetly; but that she should have rejected them, or have met them with coldness, is a conjecture unwarranted by her conduct either before or after. Neither can she be shown to have viewed with displeasure the activity, restless though it undoubtedly was, of Leibniz, who about this time corresponded with London as frequently as possible and encouraged the efforts of a Hanoverian agent there. Had Sophia taken up an attitude of indifference, King William would hardly, in June, 1699, have informed her in writing that he had used his best endeavours to bring the business to a conclusion satisfactory to her, and that he felt assured of effecting his purpose within a very short space of time. It is, moreover, significant that the two branches of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg were acting in perfect harmony with one another; in May, Gargan, the Electress’ secretary, declares it impossible to listen without emotion to the conversations between the two illustrious ladies (Sophia and Eleonora), whom he describes as related to one another not less closely by blood than by friendship.
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Footnote 123:
This favourite seat of both George I and George II was in September, 1813—shortly before Leipzig—the scene of a Hanoverian success against a French division.
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The reason why the Celle interview led to no immediate results in England lay, not in Sophia, but in the discordant relations between King William and his Parliament, caused mainly by his policy with regard to the Spanish Succession, into which of course the Electress and the House of Hanover had not been initiated. So late as July, 1700, she wonders what interest England and the United Provinces could have in seeking to cement the power of France. The unfriendliness of Parliament to the King had been heightened when, about a month earlier, the substance of the Second Partition Treaty had become known in this country; and, as matters now stood, there was little or no chance of the House of Commons in particular agreeing to any proposals concerning the Succession that should emanate from the King. In the midst of this trouble, less doubt than ever remained as to the decrease of his physical strength, at no time anything but precarious; so that, after Anne, the only hope for the Succession depended on the feeble vitality of the young Duke of Gloucester. Suddenly, on July 30th, 1700, the frail thread of his life was snapped, and the prospect had vanished of a successor who would have been generally acceptable, and, in all probability, have proved both an intelligent and a kindly ruler. In announcing the news to the Electress Sophia from Berlin, her vigilant monitor, Leibniz, promptly pointed out that it would now more than ever be time to think of the English Succession. But it so chanced that already, three days previously, she had written to him on the same subject from Hanover, exhibiting her usual perfect self-control. Though she took very coolly the news of the young Duke’s ‘decampment’—as she called his death, perhaps in cynical allusion to his innocent military tastes,—she by no means showed herself blind to the importance of the event. Were she younger, she told Leibniz, when informing him that, in October, 1700, the Duke of Celle was to visit King William at the Loo, she might fairly have looked forward to a Crown; as it was, had she the choice, she would rather see her years increase than her grandeur. But she well knew that persons in her station rarely have a choice, if they are resolved not to fall short of their sense of duty. She could hardly be aware of the fresh intrigues that were being carried on by the Princess Anne, or of the hopes, still entertained by certain of William’s most loyal English subjects, that he would marry again, perhaps this time choosing a Danish princess. But she could not have remained unaware that the thoughts of a wider circle of Englishmen were taking the direction of Hanover. Partly, however, under the influence of the regrets caused by the recent death of the young Duke of Gloucester, partly because of the wish to secure an heir to the throne young enough to be Anglicised and, more especially, _Anglicanised_ before his advent to it, politicians, and Tory politicians in particular, were as yet intent rather upon the ultimate succession of the Electoral Prince than upon that of his father, the Elector, or that of his grandmother, the Dowager Electress.
At the meeting of King William with the Duke of Celle at the Loo, it was arranged that he should receive there the Electress Sophia and the Electress of Brandenburg, on the occasion of the visit to the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle on which the latter had persuaded her mother to accompany her. Burnet insists that now ‘the eyes of all the Protestants of the nation turned towards the Electress of Brunswick’; but the arrival in Holland, as his mother’s and grandmother’s visit drew to a close, of the young Electoral Prince of Brandenburg (afterwards King Frederick William I of Prussia) seems to have vividly suggested to William III the notion of placing the heir of the Hohenzollerns in the position left vacant by the Duke of Gloucester. This passing fancy may be regarded as the sequel of a not less transitory ambition which appears to have flitted through the mind of the Elector Frederick III, of taking advantage of the Princess Anne’s unpopularity to endeavour himself to find his way to the English throne. The idea of including the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg in the Succession could not of course be welcome to the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg; and we accordingly find Bothmer, who was in the Celle service as envoy at Paris and was soon to play an important part in the progress of the Succession question, complaining to Ilten (August 31st, 1700) that the Berlin Ministry were preparing for their young Prince the plurality of King of Prussia, Stadholder, and King of England. Count Platen afterwards stated that he had heard it suggested that the Calvinism of Berlin might suit King William better than the Lutheranism of Hanover. Nor is it at all unlikely that he recognised in the Electoral Prince the germ of administrative powers to which full justice has only very tardily been done.[124] But, however this may have been—and perhaps something might be said as to the religious influence noticeable in this period of Hanoverian history—there is no proof that William III seriously thought of adopting the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg, or of introducing him in any other way into the English Succession. Moreover, even had this been on his part more than a passing wish, he of course possessed no right of nomination. No doubt, he would more speedily have dismissed the fancy, had he believed the House of Hanover to be very eagerly intent upon the prospect now opening before it. But, at all events it is neither proved nor probable, that at the Loo the Electress Sophia once more rejected the overtures of her host on the subject of the Succession. The question possesses so much significance, if we are desirous of forming a judgment as to the whole tenor of her conduct in this matter, that it must needs be dwelt upon at some length. What actually passed between her and the King on the occasion is unknown; and her behaviour can only be conjectured from the attitude which she maintained during a journey undertaken by her, it must be remembered, in the first instance at all events, in her daughter’s interest rather than in her own.
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Footnote 124:
It may be noted that Borkowski, _Königin Charlotte als Mutter und Erzieherin_ (in _Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch_ for 1903), defends the Queen against the charge of having insufficiently cared for the education of the heir to the throne, and cites in proof letters addressed by her to Alexander von Dohna, whom she selected and maintained against all opposition as the supervisor of her son’s education.
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At Aix-la-Chapelle Sophia had received a remarkable letter from Stepney, written from London about the middle of September, in which he reviewed the entire situation. Remembering that in her veins ran the blood of the Stewarts, and that her personal reminiscences mounted back to the days of Oliver Cromwell, he excused himself from offering a decided opinion of his own as to the genuineness of ‘_le Fils_,’ but pointed out that there was no chance of his ever abandoning the religion of Rome, or escaping from the political leading-strings of France. On the other hand, he assured the Electress that the English were not Republicans at heart, and that among them there was nobody capable of playing Oliver’s part over again as ‘Captain-General.’ In response to his modest appeal for a reply (by means of which he no doubt hoped to be able to clear up the situation at head-quarters), Sophia wrote the letter, undated, in which, from Lord Hardwicke downwards, so many critics have found indications of her Jacobite tendencies. In this letter she declares that, were she thirty years younger, she would have sufficient confidence in her descent and in the religion professed by her, to believe in her being thought of in England. After her death, which in the natural course of things would precede the deaths of the King and his appointed successor, her sons would be regarded as strangers. Moreover, the eldest of them was far more accustomed to sovereign authority than was the poor Prince of Wales, who was so young and would be so glad to recover what his father had thrown away that they would be able to do with him what they liked. After referring to her hope of shortly seeing the King in Holland, whither she had been induced by her daughter to accompany her, she added that she was of course neither so philosophical nor so foolish as to dislike hearing a Crown talked of, or as to refuse full consideration to her correspondent’s extremely sensible and obliging remarks on the subject, though the number of factions apparently existing in England made it difficult to feel sure about anything.
Such is the substance of what is sometimes cited as the ‘Jacobite letter’ of the Electress Sophia. Clearly, it is nothing of the kind; but at most shows that, while primarily desirous of deferring all discussion till she should meet the King, she desired to apprise him, through a safe channel, that she was alive to the _cons_ as well as the _pros_—the uncertainties as well as the opportunities—of the situation. Above all, she wished to show herself aware of the possibility of that situation being fundamentally changed by the conversion to Protestantism of the ‘Prince of Wales,’ as—assuredly without any _arrière pensée_—she naturally called the kinsman whose claim to this title she had never professed to doubt. Nor is any ‘Jacobitism’ on her aunt’s part proved by the Duchess of Orleans’ nearly contemporary graphic account of King James II’s tender sentiments towards the Electress, who, as he stammered, ‘_m’a tou-toujours aimé_.’
The visit to the Loo was succeeded by a brief meeting between the King and the two Electresses at the Hague, just before his departure for England. It was on this occasion that Sophia Charlotte was accompanied by her son Frederick William, for whom the King manifested a sudden personal fancy. Whether under its influence, or because he had resolved to respond to Sophia’s guarded attitude by maintaining a reserve of his own, or, as is most probable, because English opinion was in his judgment, as well as in hers, still unripe for action—certain passages in the Electress’ correspondence with the Raugravine Louisa, a few months later in date, show that William III had not arrived at any immediate decision as to naming the Electress and her descendants in the Succession, though he had held out to her the prospect of such a result being brought about. This implies that she had by no means refused to entertain such a proposal. In a word, the attitude of cautious expectancy maintained by her and her House, was confirmed by her brief personal intercourse with the actual occupant of the English throne.
Before the end of this year, 1700, all hesitation vanished from the policy of William III. His hopes of securing the peace of Europe by an international agreement based on the Second Partition Treaty were finally extinguished, when the death of Charles II of Spain, on November 1st, was followed by the acceptance of his will, bequeathing the whole of the Spanish monarchy to the Duke of Anjou, by that Prince’s grandfather, Louis XIV. In February, 1701, French troops surprised the Dutch garrisons in the Barrier fortresses; and the States General recognised King Philip of Spain. The question whether England would follow suit, or declare war, would have to be decided by the new Parliament, summoned for February, 1701, ‘in respect of matters of the highest importance’; which expression, as de Beyrie, the Hanoverian resident in London, informed the Electress, unmistakably applied to the choice of the Duke of Anjou, and to the English Succession. Stepney, or some other correspondent, had previously apprised her of the course which events might be expected to take in Parliament with regard to the Succession. The Whigs would press for a further limitation in the Protestant line, and, if necessary, for the exclusion of any child or pretended child of James II except the Princess Anne. An effort (proceeding from the Marlborough interest) in favour of the Princess Anne’s consort, Prince George of Denmark, would serve to lead Parliament to the direct Protestant line, beginning with the Electress Sophia, and going on to the Elector and the Electoral Prince. Early in the same month (November) the Electress, who was accompanied by Leibniz, conferred with her brother-in-law at Celle. The Elector George Lewis was not present; and the confidential memorandum on the rights of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg in respect of the English Succession drawn up immediately afterwards by Leibniz for the use of Cresset, then at Celle, contained a significant passage. The Succession, it was observed, could much more easily be secured by the House, while King William, Duke George William, and the Electress Sophia were still ‘_pleins de vie_.’ Soon afterwards, Sophia herself drafted a letter, which was approved by the Duke of Celle, asking the King’s advice as to the course of action to be pursued; and Leibniz, who thought this insufficient, was permitted to compose a supplementary letter to Stepney, for the information of Baron Schütz, who represented the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg at the Court of St. James.[125] In this it was suggested that, while the Electress wished not to appear at present to be taking any active steps, a further limitation of the Act of Settlement might advantageously be promoted in England by means of private overtures and of pamphlets not purporting to emanate from Hanover. The Electress once more showed a judgment superior to that of Leibniz, who, in his zeal, offered, if called upon, to proceed to London in person, but whom, in May, 1701, Stepney informed that, in his opinion, the English nation was so well disposed towards the Hanoverian Succession that neither pamphlets nor men of talent were needed to push it.
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Footnote 125:
She told Schütz, about this time, that she was very sensible of the kindness shown her by the English people, but very sorry that she was so old that she would never be of any use to them, and much annoyed that her son had not the same inclinations on this head as she had herself, and made no secret of his sentiments.
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In the meantime, Parliament, which sat from February to June, had nearly concluded its session. The Speech from the Throne had duly recommended the further limitation of the Succession in the Protestant line; and a proposal for carrying this recommendation into effect was, without loss of time, brought forward by the Whigs in the House of Commons (March 3rd). But, though the Tory majority in the House was not as a whole unfriendly to the Hanoverian claims, the opinion prevailed that it would be well to postpone the naming of any further successor, until certain additional securities had been obtained for the rights and liberties of the subjects of the Crown. It was generally understood that the Electress Sophia should be named; but some desired to name the Elector and the Electoral Prince likewise, in the expectation that the Electress Dowager and the Elector would waive their claims. On the other hand, it was felt that such an arrangement would involve a difference between the English and the Scottish limitation, which latter had, already in 1689, been made to include Sophia’s name; and this could not have been easily set right until the anti-English feeling excited in Scotland by the Darien Settlement affair should have had time to subside.
Thus, after the eight articles had been agreed upon which were to take effect from the beginning of the new limitation to the House of Hanover, and some of which were, as a matter of fact, dictated by jealousy of the rule of a foreign line, the name of the Electress Sophia was inserted without opposition; and by the _Act for the further Limitation of the Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects_—called in short the _Act of Settlement_—the Crown of England was, in default of issue of the Princess Anne or King William III, settled upon the Electress and her posterity, being Protestants. A protest, inspired by the Duke of Berwick acting under instructions from Louis XIV was, indeed, raised by the Duchess Anna Maria of Savoy, and communicated to both Houses of Parliament by the envoy of Duke Victor Amadeus II; but no notice was taken of it.[126] On June 12th, 1701, the Act of Settlement received the royal assent, and, in his Speech from the Throne, King William, after thanking the two Houses for further securing the Protestant Succession, passed on to the subject of the Grand Alliance. The answer of the House of Commons was an Address promising to support the King in sustaining the alliances deemed necessary by him for upholding the liberty of Europe and the welfare of England, and for reducing the exorbitant power of France.
The Act of Settlement, which secured the Hanoverian Succession, accordingly at the same time imposed certain fresh restrictions of the prerogative, which had an important bearing upon the nature of the royal authority exercised by Sophia’s posterity. Furthermore, the Act, in which both the great English political parties concurred, secured the Hanoverian Succession at a time when the critical struggle was about to open between France and the renewed Grand Alliance; and thus, at the very moment when the House of Hanover acquired a Parliamentary title to the expectancy of the English throne, it was, again with the assent of both parties, identified with the adversaries of France in the great European conflict. Nor is it without significance that at this very time a Pope (Clement XI) had been seated in St. Peter’s Chair, who, in a far greater measure than his predecessor—for Innocent XII had on the whole disappointed the hopes of Louis XIV—served the interests of France. The letter addressed by Clement XI on his election in November, 1700, to James II, had, in its ‘beautiful terms of paternal tenderness,’ drawn tears ‘more from the heart than from the eyes’ of the exiled King.
Throughout these transactions, the conduct of the Electress Sophia had been uniformly judicious—observing a wise mean between the adoption, as a matter of course, of the advice readily given to her by Leibniz, and an absolute impassiveness like that maintained by her eldest son. It seems unwarranted to regard her as having energetically defended her rights up to the time when policy and the condition of affairs in England imposed upon her a certain reserve, and having at the last enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing both King and Parliament sue for her acceptance of their offer. On the other hand, her conduct is misunderstood when she is supposed to have resisted so long as possible the unwelcome necessity of securing the inheritance of a throne to which she believed her kinsman, the Prince of Wales, to have had a just claim. She had frankly accepted the situation, and done her best to promote a solution in the interests of her dynasty, without going further than would have been either seemly or judicious. Her letter written on June 22nd, 1701, to Burnet (who describes himself as in more or less continuous correspondence with her from the death of the Duke of Gloucester onwards) exactly expresses her point of view. Though sensible of his affection to her in the matter of the Succession, which excluded all Catholic heirs, ‘who had always caused so many disorders in England,’ she felt herself ‘unfortunately too old ever to be useful to the nation.’ Yet she wished that ‘those who were to come after her might render themselves worthy of the honour awaiting them.’
On August 14th, 1701, the Earl of Macclesfield arrived in Hanover, in order formally to notify to the Electress Sophia the passing of the Act of Settlement, of which, kneeling before her, he presented her with a splendidly illuminated copy, still preserved in the Hanover Archives. Macclesfield appears to have been chosen for the office at his own request, as the son of a cavalier closely associated with Prince Rupert and a visitor at the Hague in Queen Elizabeth’s days, and therefore likely to be _persona gratissima_ to the Electress[127]—though his own antecedents rather associated him with the Mohocks. He was accompanied by three other Whig Lords, Say and Sele, Mohun (Macclesfield’s intimate, who is stated to have taken care to be on his best behaviour) and Tunbridge. In their suite was the ingenious Toland, with his enquiring eyes wide open, and in his pocket, according to Luttrell, a ‘treatise lately wrote in relation to the Succession, intituled _Anglia Libera_, or The Limitation and Succession of the Crown explained and asserted,’ for presentation to the Electress. With them were also ‘Mr. King the herald,’ who brought the Garter for the Elector, and Dr. Sandys, the ambassador’s chaplain, who read the common prayers of the Church of England before the Electress in her ante-chamber. ‘She made the Responses, and performed the Ceremonys as punctually as if she had been us’d to it all her life.’ These and other details may be read in Toland’s _Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover_, which he published after his return. He was particularly anxious to recount the honours which he had received at Hanover and Herrenhausen, including that of conversing with the Electress, who, on one occasion, had told him that ‘she was afraid the Nation had already repented their Choice of an old Woman, but that she hop’d none of her Posterity wou’d give them any Reason to grow weary of their Dominion’—much the same words as those which she had used to Burnet.
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Footnote 126:
‘I do not see,’ writes Sophia in April, 1701, ‘how he can claim the English Crown before King James and his two sons, being himself as much a papist as they are; but perhaps he is offering to have his son educated in the Anglican religion.’
Footnote 127:
She writes that Macclesfield’s father had been most friendly to her as well as to Prince Rupert—‘_car il voulait me donner au roi Charles_.’—Macclesfield died shortly after his journey to Hanover.
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We need not dwell upon the solemnities at Hanover and Celle, whither the special embassy proceeded in due course, nor upon the lavish munificence bestowed upon the ambassador,[128] nor upon the medals distributed in honour of the event, among which none was more remarkable than that which exhibited the portrait of the English Matilda, the consort of Henry the Lion, and, on the reverse, that of the Electress Sophia, ‘_Angliae princeps ad successionem nominata_.’ But it may be worth our while in our next chapter to return to Toland, and to his account of the Court of Hanover, as giving an interesting, though no doubt rather rose-coloured, picture of the Electress and her surroundings, at a point of time which may be described as the climax of her fortunes.
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Footnote 128:
The Electress bestowed on him a golden ewer and her portrait in a jewelled frame—the total expense amounting to 20,000 dollars—rather more than two-thirds of the sum spent during twoscore years on the maintenance of the palace buildings at Hanover. No wonder that this profuse expenditure was looked upon without much satisfaction in the long years of waiting that ensued.
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V THE HEIRESS OF GREAT BRITAIN (HERRENHAUSEN, 1701-1714)
Great Britain was never to see the face of its heiress, and the widowhood of the Electress Sophia was almost entirely spent in the tranquillity of Herrenhausen. More than any other place associated with her name, this palace and its still delightful gardens, in the midst of which her statue now stands, recall her regal personality. The building of the palace that was so long her home, and the laying-out of the gardens where Leibniz was so frequent a companion of her long daily walks, were begun by Duke John Frederick as early as the year 1665, when the old hunting-box of Lauenstädt was transferred hither. Herrenhausen Palace seems to have been reconstructed, under the superintendence of Sartorio, in imitation of the new palace at Osnabrück, of which, as has been seen, the younger brother, Ernest Augustus, had more or less borrowed the design from the Luxembourg at Paris. Ernest Augustus and Sophia elaborated John Frederick’s beginnings, considerably enlarging the gardens, which were designed by the elder Charbonnier, and carried out by him and his son, in 1697, though it was not till 1705 that the Elector George Lewis caused them to be completed in their present form, which suggests Dutch influences. Thus a pleasing mixture of styles and associations is presented by the solid clipped hedges, some of which in the garden theatre serve as side-scenes and conceal dressing-rooms (these are attributed specially to Quirini), by the prim summer-houses and the wilderness, by the grottoes and the cascades with their stalactites and shells, and by the profusion of statuary in gilt lead among the hedges and in cool marble by the artificial water. It was in these gardens that, during her married life, when she was already accustomed to solitude, Sophia consoled herself with the company of the nightingales, and here that, in 1700, she is found amusing herself with her ducks and swans, and with the new lodgings erected by her for their convenience. She had a genuine fondness for innocent open-air delights; at Lützenburg she speaks of her promenades with her daughter as affording her the greatest delight, while her sons disported themselves at the opera and at comedies played by ‘noble’ comedians; and on the gravelled paths of her Herrenhausen gardens she indulged her love of walking almost literally to the moment of her death. No fine day was allowed to pass without an hour or two—or even more—of her favourite pastime; and her persistency tired out all her attendants, except, as Toland elegantly puts it, when they had the honour of enjoying her conversation.[129]
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Footnote 129:
Sophia’s love of walking seems to have been inherited by her eldest son. Marshal Schulenburg, when on a visit to his sister, the Duchess of Kendal, at Kensington, in 1727, describes his life there as fatiguing, inasmuch as he had to promenade with the King in the gardens every evening for three or four hours.
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Among the buildings at Herrenhausen, where Sophia spent the greater part of her life from 1698 to 1714, the Orangery, one of the largest of its kind in Europe, ought specially to attract the visitor, since a portion of it was the residence, modest in dimensions, but decorated in a florid Italian style, of the Electress Dowager. It had been erected in 1692; its great hall was painted by Tommaso Giusti and stuccoed by Dossa Grana. The Electress’ rooms are small and narrow, but overloaded with decorations, and not in the most perfect taste, with the exception of the fine portal into the little garden.[130] There seems no reason for crediting her with an artistic taste transcending that of most of her contemporaries, or sufficiently formed to maintain the Dutch preferences of her younger days against the more debased French and Italian, but more especially Italian, modes favoured by her husband and his brother.[131] Clever with her hands as in every other way, she understood the use of the brush[132] as well as of the embroidery needle;[133] but neither artistic industry nor art, although as a descendant of the Stewarts she had doubtless inherited some love of both, was a sphere in which she sought to shine. Her husband consistently treated art as a mere handmaid to luxurious self-indulgence; thus, while he devoted nearly 25,000 dollars to the furnishing and adornment of his new opera-house, he wasted an even larger sum in the expenditure of a single carnival season.
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Footnote 130:
See A. Haupt, _u.s._
Footnote 131:
She expresses extreme delight with the changes effected by Count Rochus Quirini zu Lynar, who directed the building operations of the Hanoverian Court, in the hunting-box of the Göhrde.
Footnote 132:
A copy of a portrait of her nephew, Raugrave Maurice, is attributed to her.
Footnote 133:
The coverings of the chairs in the presence-chamber at Hanover, as well as those of the altar in the palace chapel there, were embroidered by her hands. She also embroidered a chair-cover for Baroness Kielmannsegg—an attention bearing out the statement as to the relations between that lady and the Electoral family given above. King Frederick I of Prussia mentions his mother-in-law’s beautiful cabinet of china at Herrenhausen.
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Sophia had never shown much sympathy with what may be called the Venetian tastes of her husband; and, after her youth had ebbed away, had more and more come to live an intellectual life of her own. Perhaps, before recalling the political incidents of her last thirteen years in connexion with the question which invested them with an European significance, we may pause for a moment to summarise our impressions as to the most important features of her mind and character, as they present themselves to us more especially in these final years. The tragic part of her life was now over; but, as has been well said by the finest of the modern critics of her career, Professor Kuno Fischer, she had herself never played the part of a tragedy queen. Even a panegyric like that pronounced upon her by the old Hanoverian historian Spittler—by no means an undiscerning flatterer—seems too highly strung. He speaks of the ‘_Teutschgründliche überfürstliche Aufklärung_’—as who should say, the enlightenment above the ordinary enlightenment of princes, and one in its depth and thoroughness possible only to the Germanic mind—that rendered her deserving of the friendship of Leibniz. Beyond a doubt, Sophia was distinguished by an intellectual curiosity that was still uncommon, though much less so than is often supposed, among the women of her age. This curiosity her linguistic attainments (she was, as has been seen, from her youth up mistress of half a dozen languages) had long enabled her freely to satisfy. To the excellent system of education under which she had been trained she owed her acquaintance with various elements of theology, philosophy, and history. This knowledge she had improved in the course of a long life, abounding in (often involuntary) intervals of leisure, and bringing with it not a few special opportunities of learned intercourse. She had spent some years at Heidelberg, once more a fountainhead of learning; and, already at Osnabrück, she had been ambitious of converting that modest episcopal city into a centre of philosophical speculation, holding colloquies there with Francis Mercurius von Helmont, the interesting son of the great physicist.[134] At a later date she read at least one of Spinoza’s works, towards which she seems to have been drawn by ideas of moral philosophy in which some resemblance to his has been thought traceable.[135] Yet it may be doubted whether either here or afterwards at Hanover and Herrenhausen she was ever a profound student, or even so much as an ardent reader of books. She was fond of reading memoirs—such as those of Pierre Chanut, French ambassador at the Court of Christian of Sweden, or the celebrated autobiography of Marshal de Bassompierre. She had, also, a _penchant_ for novels, preferring to the fashionable long-winded romances of her youth works enlivened by a humour congenial to her own. She asked Leibniz to draw up for her a list of all the novels she had read; for she had come to an end with _Don Quixote_ and _Don Guzman d’Alfarache_, of which she preferred the former. Of German romances, it is almost equally to her credit that she mentions _Simplicissimus_, while avoiding the stagnant fashionable bombast of her age.[136] A still more striking testimony to her critical insight may be found in the remark, which the admiring Duchess of Orleans states to have been confirmed by the Elector Palatine Charles Lewis, that nobody in the world better possessed Michel de Montaigne better than her aunt Sophia. Nor was she afraid of even more potent draughts; for, during her return journey from Italy, the _Gargantua_ was read to her by Ezechiel Spanheim, divine and diplomatist. On the other hand, she does not appear to have greatly cared for historical reading on its own account; according to Leibniz, the reason why she took pleasure in Clarendon was ‘because she was acquainted with many persons mentioned by him.’ Yet she had no personal acquaintance with the Emperor Justinian, whom, as known to her from the Byzantine historian Procopius, she compares with Louis XIV. She certainly had a liking for moral theology and philosophy, which were, in general, more in the way of the ladies of the period than the historical sciences. She had read Boëtius, and was invited by Leibniz to read the Jesuit Friedrich von Spee, a leader in the crusade against that long-lived form of bigotry—the persecution of ‘witchcraft.’ Dogmatic theology had no charms for Sophia; and even the faithful Bishop Burnet’s book on a theme which ought to have interested her, namely, the Thirty-nine Articles, she put aside as ‘_bon à feuilleter, mais non pas à lire_,’ flippantly adding that the good binding of her copy would make it an ornament to her library. Philosophy, like religion, seems to have interested her primarily on the ethical side; the stoical maxims of Seneca and Epictetus had impressed her mind before it had opened itself to more comprehensive problems under the influence of Spinoza, whom, as we know, her favourite brother had sought to domesticate at Heidelberg, and afterwards, and, above all, under the influence of Leibniz. She can at no time have been very well seen in metaphysics, the study of which is held to contribute so largely to the formation of ideas on religion; she shared her eldest son’s somewhat crude notions on the origin of ideas, and would not—or could not—understand Leibniz’s argument about monads. Possibly, like many clever people of both sexes, she was rather too fond of startling her interlocutors; and the excellent Molanus respectfully shakes his reverend head at ‘_Serenissima nostra, quæ a paradoxis sibi temperare nunquam potest_.’ On the other hand, the diplomatist Thomas von Grote, another of her intimates, moved perhaps by a not unnatural jealousy, opined that the learned companions of her Herrenhausen walks would in the end take her a little out of her depth, though he had no fear that for her the consequences would be what they had been for Queen Christina of Sweden. As for the mathematical and physical sciences, she took that casual interest in them which, in the case of great personages, and of great ladies in particular, alternately makes the delight and the despair of _savants_; Leibniz distinctly states that works dealing in detail with such subjects are not among those which the Electress was fond of reading. When, in the last year of her life, the Czar Peter came to Hanover and talked mathematics to her, ‘she held her tongue.’
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Footnote 134:
He seems to have frequented her society up to a late date. In 1696 the Duchess of Orleans expresses her pleasure that her aunt should have his philosophy to amuse her—though, for her part, she ‘does not see how one can understand anything of which one knows nothing.’ The younger Helmont’s doctrine of metempsychosis was not in the long run satisfactory to Sophia, who had once said that it might account for her unlucky son Maximilian’s resemblance to the ‘seven old Dukes of Brunswick,’ who called all their servants ‘thou’ and occupied themselves with making nets and drinking warm beer.
Footnote 135:
See H. Forst, _u.s._, p. 378.
Footnote 136:
Of course, she had to read the _Mesopotamian Shepherdess_ of the interminable Duke Anthony Ulric; but she compendiously set it down as a burlesque on the Bible.
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And yet, though neither a profound philosopher nor a phenomenally accomplished blue-stocking, Sophia was the very reverse of a commonplace personage. She was a woman of the world, but a very wise one. In age, as in youth, she sparkled with wit and intelligence, and in her both these gifts were interfused with that third and greatest gift of humour, which is a property of the soul as well as of the intellect.[137] Of her conversation we can only judge from her letters, of which we fortunately possess a quite extraordinary quantity; but, if her speech was like her writing, its style must have been equally far ‘_esloigné de l’aigreur_,’—to borrow a phrase from Madame de Brinon, to whom she told not a few home truths. Her letters combine with the supreme charm of perfect naturalness a pungency in the choice of expressions superior, in the opinion of the Duchess of Orleans, to any minted by the academies; ‘for to write agreeably is better than to write correctly.’ Occasionally, her wit was singularly incisive, as when she called the same Madame de Brinon ‘_une religieuse qui passe pour bel esprit_,’ and her eloquence extraordinary ‘_car elle parle toujours_’; or when, Toland having _more suo_ taken it upon himself in argument to whitewash the cannibals, she commended him for his prudence, in that, with all Christendom against him, he had provided himself with protectors. Not unfrequently, however, frankness and cynicism did duty for wit. Her jests spared neither Leibniz, nor the House of Hanover, nor ‘_le bon lord Winchilsea_,’ whom she found so heavy in hand, nor Queen Anne’s husband, Prince George of Denmark, of whom, when it was proposed to create him King Consort, she observed that he would be a King like Jove among the frogs—and perhaps popular for that very reason. She had, too, a good deal of fun as well as wit—as when, in acknowledging the courtesy of an unknown Mr. Smith in sending a descriptive account of England and the English (among whom she had ‘been brought up till she reached the age of twenty’), she says that he describes London and St Paul’s and the ‘_pantquitinhouse_’ as if she had never heard a word about them. De Gourville, whose qualities as a butt possibly remained a secret to his sublime self-consciousness, suspected her of a natural inclination to criticising any fellow-mortal brought into her presence, though he allowed that the person bantered by her was sure to be the first to laugh. She was a good hater, and could even hate at second hand, as in the instance of Madame de Maintenon, the bugbear of the Duchess of Orleans. But her aversions were, like all her feelings, kept in constant check by the dictates of reason as well as by her care for the interests of her family and House; and we have seen how even her sentiments towards Eleonora d’Olbreuze underwent a gradual mitigation which outsiders judged to be a complete change. It may, too, be doubted whether sarcasm was really natural to her, though her sense of humour always responded to the irony of things. She was alike open-minded and open-handed, and had nothing of the stinginess which sits so ill on high rank and position. Though towards the close of her life she was desirous that an income should be granted her by the British Crown and Parliament, it was only for political purposes that she desired this. She had quite money enough, she said, to keep up her German establishment. When she found that the distinguished services of the Brunswick-Lüneburg officers and men were left unnoticed in the _Gazette_, she was anxious to pay for a proper mention of them out of her own pocket. The geniality of her disposition shows itself in an affability which was the same to both great and small, and in her power to interest herself with the same readiness in the discourse of philosophers, the conversation of ministers of State, and the gossip of country ladies on domestic thoughts intent. It also showed itself in a hospitality which made everyone welcome at Hanover and Herrenhausen, and a tact which put all at their ease there; at no court in the world, wrote the Brandenburg statesman Paul von Fuchs, are _les étrangers et les gastes_ treated better than at the Hanoverian. Though, during her later years, she lived chiefly in retirement at Herrenhausen, she by no means secluded herself, but received a large variety of visitors, both princely, personages and political and literary celebrities. Above all, it was always a delight to her to see Englishmen at her Court, as indeed it had been even before the passing of the Act of Settlement; and in welcoming them she carefully eschewed any and every distinction between
## parties—divided as these were in England with a severity unknown at the
time to any other country. Occasionally, when the Elector was away on his campaigns, she took his place at Hanover in the reception of distinguished guests.[138] Amiable to all, she reserved the treasures of her affection for those who were nearest to her—not only for the survivors of her own passionately loved brood, but for all the younger members of her family, in which she included the children of her favourite brother.[139] The Duchess of Orleans comically avows her annoyance that everyone who has had the privilege of living with her aunt should be brought to entertain towards her the very sentiments of love and affection cherished by Elizabeth Charlotte herself. Yet she was quite impervious to flattery, and, when told by a diplomatist that the court of Versailles was full of her daughter’s praises, remarked that these were the usual talk to which an envoy was treated when there was nothing else to say to him. In her later years, Sophia seems never to have indulged herself either in outbursts of temper or in moods of discontent; although she allows that her vexation about the vagaries of her son Maximilian had proved to her that her philosophy was only skin deep.
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Footnote 137:
In _The Freeholder_, No. 30, April 2nd, 1716, Addison quotes, _à propos_ of offensive French criticisms of the English and other nations, a passage from _Chevreana_, the amusing anthology of Urban Chevreau mentioned on another page, in which the very sensible proposition that ‘one ought not to judge well or ill of a nation from a particular person, nor of a particular person from his nation,’ is illustrated by the assertion that there are Germans, as there are Frenchmen, who have no wit, and Germans who are better skilled in Greek or Hebrew than either Scaliger or the Cardinal du Perron—‘there is not in all France a person of more wit than the present Duchess of Hanover, nor more thoroughly knowing in philosophy than was the late Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia.’ ‘Prejudiced’ witnesses are not always in the wrong.
Footnote 138:
It seems right to observe that, though the tone of refinement characteristic of the Hanoverian Court was largely due to the Electress Sophia, the Elector George Lewis was by no means insensible to her example. Toland speaks of the liberty of conversation, ‘that nobody who deserves it will abuse,’ allowed at the Elector’s table. And (which is a more entirely trustworthy statement, and one which Toland would hardly have made had there really been no contrast observable on this score with contemporary English habits) he adds that the vice of drinking, for which the German nation is so much branded, is so far from reigning at the Hanoverian court, that he never knew greater sobriety than is to be found there.
Footnote 139:
I have already touched on her grief at her son Prince Christian’s death by drowning in 1703; but the passage in which she refers to it in a letter to the elder Schütz should be read as giving proof not only of her maternal affection, but of the deep religious feeling at the bottom of her heart. (See _Briefe an Hannoversche Diplomaten_ (1905), p. 175.)
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Those, wrote Elizabeth Charlotte, who thought her aunt incapable of being of use in affairs of State, could have little knowledge of her intellectual powers. We have seen, however, that during her husband’s lifetime she had been allowed little direct interference in state concerns, though on several occasions Ernest Augustus had benefited both from listening to her advice and from utilising her personal influence. Her eldest son was not the kind of man to concede, like a sultan at Constantinople, a position of acknowledged control over his Government to his mother, the Electress Dowager. When unable to render to Leibniz a service solicited by him, she wrote rather bitterly that there were times when she found silence best. But, apart from the Succession question, towards which she, of course, occupied a distinct position of her own, a considerable sphere of political influence remained open to her in the last period of her life. More especially, she rendered excellent service by maintaining a good understanding with the court of Berlin, and by restoring it when the relations between the two courts had become strained, and her daughter proved unable to manage them. The influence which had been established over King Frederick I of Prussia by his ‘_gnädigste Mama_,’ she contrived, though she saw through him, to exercise even after her daughter’s death.
But even Sophia’s ‘nimbleness of mind,’ to use another expression of her favourite niece’s, was not so marked a characteristic of her as was the reasonableness which proceeded in nearly equal proportions from intellectual enlightenment and from a beneficent disposition towards humanity. She was, wrote Leibniz about 1701, ‘entirely on the side of reason; consequently, all measures calculated to make kings and peoples follow reason, will meet with her approval.’ A rationalist in the stricter sense of the term she can hardly be called; though her wholly unembarrassed way of expressing herself on any subject in heaven or earth at times resembles a want of reverence.[140] She was irritated by Toland’s restless tongue; but, while thanking Burnet for putting her on her guard, indicated that she was too old for Toland to give her another twist (perhaps this may be a coarse translation of ‘_pli_’) in religion than that to which she had been long accustomed. For the rest, it was not, she said, her habit to ‘catechise’ English visitors. Anthony Collins’ plea for ‘Free-thinking’ struck her as both mischievous and ridiculously superfluous—‘more especially in England, where there was such a multitude of factions’; ‘Free thinquers,’ she observed, when complaining of his insolence in sending her the book, ‘are against all religions.’ All men, she allowed, might like to think as they choose so long as their conduct was honourable; but in a well-governed State all men ought not to be free to publish their opinions. Herein her conscientiousness as a German Princess no doubt counted for something. Thus, when she was asked to lend her aid towards inducing the East Frisian Government to proceed against the spreading eccentricities of the Pietists, she upheld the rights of authority. ‘Lutheran Princes,’ she declared, ‘are the Popes of our Church, and must be obeyed.’ For herself, she had a thoroughgoing dislike of anything ‘enthusiastic,’ and would not hear of shoemakers (like Jacob Behmen) becoming inspired prophets instead of sticking to their lasts.[141] More than this: Kuno Fischer rightly says that ‘to her clear practical intellect the mysteries of religion remained obscure and alien’; and, when he asserts that she was at bottom a deist in her opinions, this is in so far true, that, while she avowed her belief in a personal Creator, she cannot be shown to have gone further in any declaration of her convictions. In 1709, Leibniz informed Toland that the Electress ‘was accustomed to quote and give particular praise to that passage of Scripture which demands whether it be consistent with reason that He that planted the ear should not hear, and He that formed the eye should not see?’ At the same time, her latitudinarianism was perfectly candid. She certainly (in 1702) encouraged the notion which had occurred to her son-in-law, the King of Prussia, of introducing the English Church liturgy into the Calvinistic services, telling him that he might then call himself Defender of the Faith. On the other hand, she had no sympathy with the views of what in one of her letters she calls ‘_Heyschortz_’ men;[142] she laughed at an English clergyman who refused to set his foot in a Calvinist ‘temple,’ and she seriously blamed the early attempts of Queen Anne, as she interpreted them, to force the Presbyterians into conformity both in Scotland and in England. It was as a declared adherent of the Reformed or (as in England alone it was called) Calvinist confession, in which she had been brought up, that, as Toland notes, she built a ‘pretty church’ in the New Town of Hanover for the French Huguenot refugees, to which in his day King William III liberally contributed; and she seems to have at least intended to build a church for the German members of the same religious body. ‘You must know,’ she humorously wrote to Leibniz on this occasion, ‘that I am _une dame fort zêlée_.’ It was probably no mere commonplace of shortsighted criticism when, in 1700, about which time the idea of seeking to evangelise the heathen was first taking root in Germany, she pronounced it ‘a fine enterprise indeed’ to send out missionaries to India. ‘To me it seems,’ she remarked, ‘that the first thing ought to be to make good Christians at home in Germany, without going to so great a distance for the purpose of manufacturing them.’ In a word, she should be credited with genuine religious feeling; though demonstrativeness, whether on this or on any other subject, was altogether out of her way. And she hated religious factiousness, which she thought domesticated in England.[143]
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Footnote 140:
Among such passages can hardly be excluded her finding fault with the Apostles, none of whom had been at the pains of eliciting from Lazarus his experiences after death. Had anyone brought him to court, her own natural inquisitiveness would certainly have prompted her to ask him so obvious a question.
Footnote 141:
It has been seen earlier in this volume how she declined to be edified by the peculiarities of Labadie and Labadism, and how sceptical she had proved as to some new method of ‘healing’ imported from Holland at the time of her husband’s final illness. Both she and Leibniz, however, showed some interest in the vagaries of Rosemunde von Assing, a young lady whose pretensions caused a good deal of trouble at Lüneburg, and whom Molanus and the orthodox clergy proposed to clap into prison. Leibniz thought the case worth attention, though its phenomena might be ascribed to natural causes.
Footnote 142:
‘They say,’ she writes in 1711, ‘that the Bishops are busily preaching Passive Obedience, although they had much better hold their tongues and not interfere in matters of State.’ Thus, notwithstanding her Stewart blood and her own protestations of impartiality, she had something of the Whig in her, after all.
Footnote 143:
‘In all countries of the world,’ she wrote in 1703, ‘religion serves the ends of morality. It is only in England that religion, I am sorry to say, serves to create cabals.’
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We have spoken of the Electress Sophia’s profession of the Reformed faith—a fact as to which, although it has been called into question, there cannot really be any doubt. As we saw, she was, according to her own account, in her childhood taught the Heidelberg Catechism; and, when she married the Lutheran Ernest Augustus, it was arranged that, though she was to take no Calvinist minister with her to Hanover, one should visit the town three or four times in each year, in order to administer the Sacrament to her. Toland explicitly states (as de Gourville, who in 1687 had a little scheme of his own for bringing over her husband and his family to Rome, had also stated at an earlier date) that the Electress was a Calvinist; but he adds, in illustration of the tolerance prevailing at the Court of Hanover, that ‘most of her women and other immediate servants were Lutherans, just as her son the Elector, though himself a Lutheran, had many Calvinists belonging to him; and both their Highnesses, to show a good example and their unfeigned charity in these lesser differences, do often go to church together.’[144] Their only daughter married a Calvinist,[145] and Sophia herself steadily adhered to the confession in which she was born, though her latitudinarian tendencies fell in easily enough with the tolerant principles prevailing in the Lutheran Church of Hanover, and represented by the head of its ecclesiastical administration, the worthy ‘Abbot’ Molanus.[146] Nor is there any reason for supposing that, had she been actually summoned to ascend the English throne, she would, in the matter of religion, have failed to do what was expected of her. Early in 1713, she wrote to Leibniz that Molanus had so well explained to her his Lutheran creed, that there had been some talk of putting his exposition into print for publication in England. Clearly, it was not any question of this kind which would have interfered with her accession to the throne. She had sufficient confidence in herself to shrink from no step approved by both her reason and her conscience. Moreover, there are indications that she by no means regarded the Church of her mother and her brother’s native land with coldness; and, had Leibniz apprehended any objection on her part, he would hardly have proposed that the English establishment which he desired for the Electress should include an Anglican chapel. Indeed, in 1703, she is found expressing a wish that Queen Anne would carry her ecclesiastical zeal as far as Hanover, and contribute to the English church there; ‘in which event we would call it the English Church, and read the Book of Common Prayer in both tongues.’
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Footnote 144:
Perhaps it may be well not to enquire too closely as to their behaviour when they got there. Sometimes, we are told, the Electress fell asleep; occasionally, she wrote letters to her brother, taking care, however, not to disturb her husband when engaged in reading a play, which he did audibly.
Footnote 145:
Owing, however, to the different forms of faith professed by Court and people in Prussia, the tolerance practised at Berlin was even ampler than that prevailing at Hanover; and the subsequent marriage-treaty between the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick William and Sophia Dorothea the younger, the only daughter of the Elector George Lewis of Hanover, provided for her being allowed to adhere to the Lutheran form of faith.
Footnote 146:
Gerhard Wolter Molanus, who held the Abbacy of the secularised Cistercian foundation of Loccum, situate in the forest solitude near Rehburg and the celebrated Steinhuder Lake, plays a considerable part in Sophia’s correspondence. He exercised a great influence in the direction of toleration and irenic ideals, more, however, by his hierarchical position and personality than by his writings. The motto of his life, ‘_Beati pacifici_,’ admirably accorded with Cistercian principles. He lived to an advanced age—so advanced, that his mental powers at last collapsed, and the good old man is said to have fancied himself a barley-corn. At the small watering-place of Rehburg, the Hanoverian Court held a _villeggiatura_—or rather a sojourn under tents—as early as 1691.
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The one change, however, to which she would at no time have consented,—not even, whatever de Gourville may have believed, when her husband was entertaining some such thought in connexion with his long effort for the Ninth Electorate[147]—was conversion to the Church of Rome. In her old age, when Princess Caroline of Ansbach, for whom she cherished a particular affection, was systematically tempted to qualify herself by conversion to Rome for the hand of Archduke Charles, afterwards the Emperor Charles VI, there can be little doubt that the Princess was encouraged in her resistance by the Electress as well as by Leibniz.
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Footnote 147:
The scheme tempted him, not only as likely to approve itself to the Emperor and the Catholic Electors, but also as one which would practically have secured the see of Osnabrück in perpetuity to his House. It illustrates the popular ignorance in England concerning the House of Hanover, that, if Toland is to be trusted, a report was current that this House ‘was so indifferent in point of religion, as generally to breed up one of their sons a Papist, in order to qualify him for Bishop of Osnabrug.’
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Sophia was no stranger to one of the loftiest among the lofty conceptions which occupied the great mind of her friend and counsellor, Leibniz,—that which aimed at the reunion of Christendom. The correspondence on this topic between Leibniz and Bossuet, which took place in 1691-5, and after a pause was renewed in 1699, was brought about through the joint mediation of Sophia and her sister, the Abbess of Maubuisson. Mixed up in the transaction was Madame de Brinon, who found a refuge at Maubuisson after the sudden termination of her rule at Saint-Cyr. This good lady, whose ardent temperament was in glaring contrast with Bossuet’s imperturbable calm, made repeated attempts to bring the Electress of Hanover back into the fold, _en attendant_ its enlargement by means of the Reunion. But Sophia was not at all flattered by these high-minded efforts. She trusted—so she told Madame de Brinon—in the goodness of God, who could not have created her in order that she should be lost; for the rest, she could not reconcile herself to the persecutions of the Protestants in France.[148] But her aversion from Roman Catholicism went further than this. Although at times she spoke of such doctrines of the Church of Rome as the Intercession of Saints with nothing more than contemptuous indifference, she occasionally assumed an attitude of open hostility towards a creed which, as a child, she had been taught to hate. Of all religions, she told Lord Strafford, there was none that she abhorred so much as the Popish; for there was none so contrary to Christianity. Other passages to much the same effect might be cited. For the rest, in an undated letter to Madame de Brinon, Sophia, with her characteristic humour and perhaps her characteristic want of external reverence, so clearly explains her general religious position, that we may conclude our attempt to indicate it by extracting from this letter the following passage:—
The tranquillity of mind which God has granted to me on this topic, I take to be so great a blessing, that He would not have bestowed it upon any person whom He had not chosen to be among the number of His elect. David wished to be only a door-keeper in the house of the Lord; and I lay claim to no more important charge. Those who are more enlightened than I am will perhaps fill higher places; for we are told that in the Father’s house there are many mansions. When you are in yours and I am in mine, I will not fail to pay you the first call; and I fancy that we shall agree very well; for there will then no longer be any question of religious controversies.
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Footnote 148:
To these persecutions she repeatedly returns. In 1709, we find her expressing the opinion that the ‘poor’ French ‘galley-slaves’ should not be forgotten in the peace negotiations then on foot.
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Leibniz, whose name has already so often occurred in this chapter and in this volume, was consulted by the Electress Sophia in other matters besides religion, philosophy, and science. Both as enjoying her confidence and on his own account, he was a welcome guest at several courts, including the Imperial; and to the Houses of Hanover and Celle, in whose joint employment he stood as historiographer, he rendered invaluable service, not only in that capacity, but also as a publicist, on important occasions, demanding a comprehensive as well as effective treatment of the problems handled by him. But his direct influence upon the policy of the dynasty seems practically to have been limited to the question of the English Succession, which, as we have seen, had, up to the passing of the Act of Settlement, been regarded as more or less personal to the Electress, and which, after that date, continued to be largely, though by no means entirely, dealt with in the same way. Thus his position at the Electoral Court, where there is no sign of his having been consulted in matters of general politics by either Ernest Augustus or George Lewis, was perhaps occasionally misunderstood at the time, and has certainly been misunderstood since. He was never the Electress’ secretary, or even her quasi-official political adviser; he was only her trusted personal friend and servant, whose function in such matters was to suggest rather than to advise, and whose influence upon the conduct of affairs in which the Electress took an interest accordingly varied at different times. His exertions as to the English Succession, before 1701, have been already noticed. After the passing of the Act of Settlement, the Electress Dowager appointed, as her confidential agent to England, a diplomatic adventurer of the name of Falaiseau, who had come over to Hanover in Lord Macclesfield’s suite; and his reports seem, as a rule, to have passed through the hands of Leibniz. From 1702 onwards, as will be seen, the conduct of the relations of the House of Hanover began to fall largely into the hands of Bothmer; and, in 1705, on the union between Celle and Hanover, Bernstorff, and with him Robethon, passed out of the service of the late Duke George William into that of his nephew, the Elector. The more regular system of diplomatic representation at the Court of St. James of itself diminished the influence of Leibniz on these relations, more especially as Sophia never seems to have had much personal liking either for Bernstorff (perhaps because of his ineradicable ill-will against Brandenburg-Prussia, perhaps for other reasons) or for Robethon, who became invaluable to the Elector as his private secretary. The credentials of the Hanoverian envoys—the Schützes, Bothmer, and Grote[149]—and residents at the Court of St. James—de Beyrie and Kreyenberg—were made out in the joint names of the Elector and the Electress Dowager, and all the official letters sent to England from this time forward in the name of either were drafted by Robethon. Thus, notwithstanding the active interest taken by Leibniz in a question the progress of which had owed much and continued to be indebted to his assiduity, its threads were no longer continuously in his hands. Whether this was a misfortune for its ultimate development and solution, need not be here discussed. From his earlier days onwards he had exhibited something of the defect habitual to politicians more exclusively academical than himself, who had a considerable experience of affairs—the defect of excess, which includes the mistake of not letting well alone. Not only, however, did the force of his genius enable him to find out the heart of every political problem to which he addressed himself, but the universality of his insight made clear to him its various aspects, and the energy of his mind supplied the impulse which converts design into action.[150] Finally, his literary skill,[151] added to his gifts of finding his material and disposing it according to the leading ideas with which he approached it, made him in the times in which his lot fell, as it made Gentz, an infinitely inferior personality, in another period of even deeper national humiliation, the foremost publicist of his age.[152]
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Footnote 149:
Besides these, Count Ernest Augustus von Platen came over on two ceremonial occasions. (See the _List of Diplomatic Representatives and Agents, England and North Germany, 1687-1727_, contributed by J. F. Chance to _Notes on the Diplomatic Relations of England and Germany_; ed. C. H. Firth. Oxford, 1907.)
Footnote 150:
See E. Pfleiderer, _Leibniz als Patriot, Staatsmann, und Bildungsträger_ (Leipzig, 1870), and, of course, Kuno Fischer’s great work.—Perhaps the most signal instance of the way in which in the political thought of Leibniz past and future came into contact (he says himself: ‘_le présent est chargé du passé et gros de l’avenir_’) is, as Ernst Curtius says (_Alterthum und Gegenwart_, pp. 219 _sqq._), his famous Egyptian plan, of which an account was published in a pamphlet in London, _à propos_ of the French invasion of 1803, and as to which see Guhrauer’s _Life_, and K. G. Blumenthal, _Leibnizens Ægyptischer Plan_ (Leipzig, 1869).
Footnote 151:
Nothing need be said here of his minor literary efforts, such as his tributes in verse to the Electress Sophia.
Footnote 152:
In 1688, Leibniz prepared the counter-manifesto to Louis XIV’s declaration of war in that year.
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That Leibniz, whose political services to the Electress and her dynasty were, in any case, highly important, should at the same time have become her chosen intimate and personal friend, forms one of his titles to the grateful remembrance of those who believe this pair to have been worthy of one another. From his conversation and correspondence, which, in her later years, became more and more of a necessity to Sophia, her active and receptive mind derived constant stimulus and refreshment; while his humane as well as lofty wisdom, at no time seeking to avoid contact with the actualities of life, but neither ever conceding to them a larger claim than was their due, helped to fortify her character against the risk of being mastered by the element of frivolity inborn in most of her mother’s children. Leibniz’ own activity at Hanover, from the time when (as far back as 1673) he had first entered into the service of Duke John Frederick, was remarkably varied. He held the offices of librarian, archivist, and historiographer; fostered, among other activities in the dominions of his patrons, the endeavours of technical science, as in the instance of the mining industry of the Harz; and organised both scientific and literary effort, in connexion with his onerous task as the historian of the Guelfs, with his work as a philologer and with the studies in mental and moral philosophy, which were, in 1710, crowned by the production of his _Théodicée_. His influence upon the foundation of academies as levers for the advancement of scientific research[153] was by no means limited to Berlin, where success had attended on his labours in consequence of the sympathetic support of Sophia’s daughter. The hopes placed by him on the third of the illustrious ladies of the Hanoverian dynasty who felt themselves honoured by his intimacy, were, notwithstanding her loyal efforts at the outset, doomed to disappointment. The Electoral Princess (Caroline of Ansbach) had been solaced by his _Théodicée_ in a season of great anxiety; but, when the political consummation to which Leibniz had so actively helped to prepare had been actually achieved, he had to remain behind in Germany; and she found herself unequal to the task either of impressing his claims upon her impassive father-in-law—or of reconciling his merits with those of Newton.
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Footnote 153:
See L. Keller, _Leibniz u. die Deutschen Sozietäten des 17 Jahrh._, in Jahrgang x. of _Vorträge u. Aufsätze a. d. Comenius-Gesellschaft_ (Berlin).
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During the years of Sophia’s widowhood, to which we must here confine ourselves, Leibniz was drawn nearer to her, not only by intellectual and moral sympathy, but also by the discomforts to which she was subjected by the Elector’s coldness, and by that Prince’s habit of expecting all services to be absolved as per contract. Sophia was unable to secure the fulfilment of Leibniz’s wish for a sinecure like that by which his friend, ‘Abbot’ Molanus, was recompensed for his ecclesiastical services. But her friendship with Leibniz was not dependent upon favours given or received. Not only was the encouragement which he derived from his intimacy with her and from that which through her he enjoyed with Sophia Charlotte and Caroline, of high value to him in the labours and in the trials of his life; but in the Electress Sophia’s case, at all events, her nature was in many respects supplementary to his own. Their correspondence thus furnishes a memorial of a friendship alike sincere and productive; and their names will always remain inseparable from one another.
Sophia Charlotte, though her marriage had long since made it necessary for her to leave her mother’s side, and though the trials to which she had since been subjected had greatly added to that mother’s anxieties, and had often been mitigated by her tact and good-humour rather than by those of the Queen herself, remained Sophia’s truest joy, till taken away by death in 1705. Mother and daughter had kept up a continuous correspondence with one another, besides interchanging visits when possible; nor could the completeness of the confidence existing between them be better illustrated than by the treatment which, after Sophia Charlotte’s death, it was thought judicious to apply to the documents of their mutual affection. At the instigation of Leibniz, the extant letters of the Electress Sophia to her daughter were committed to the flames at Berlin, so that only a small remnant of the series, copied out by him for his own use, have been preserved. Inasmuch as neither have any letters from Sophia Charlotte to her mother come down to us, they may be surmised to have been similarly destroyed by way of precaution. Possibly, these proceedings may have been in part due to evidence contained in these letters as to efforts made, in the Hanoverian interest, at the Court of Berlin by Leibniz or others. The chief trouble of Sophia Charlotte’s married life—King Frederick I’s infatuation for the Countess von Wartenberg—had been particularly acute in the period just preceding the Queen’s death; and her last visit to her mother (in January, 1705) could only be carried out by her submitting to the condition that an invitation to Hanover should also be sent to her detested rival. During this visit Sophia Charlotte died, the victim of a painful and incurable disease that befell her when her intellectual abilities were at their full height. Her death, even more impressively than her life, proved the justice of her grandson Frederick the Great’s tribute to her strength of soul. The illness of the Queen had been concealed from her mother, who herself lay ill; and thus, as she wrote, heart-broken, to her widowed son-in-law, she lost her darling child without even setting eyes upon her.[154]
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Footnote 154:
After Queen Sophia Charlotte’s death there was less love lost than ever between the King, her husband, and the Elector, her brother. In 1711, the Electress Sophia, speaking of a melancholy journey of her son-in-law’s, observes that it was a Divine punishment on him that he should hate the Elector without any reason whatever.
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Princess Wilhelmina Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach had, in her thirteenth year, been left an orphan by the death of her mother, who had been united to the Elector John George IV of Saxony as her second husband. In 1696, the child had been placed under the care of her guardians, afterwards the first King and Queen in Prussia. Thus Lützenburg became the home of Caroline’s childhood; and here she became familiar with the intellectual society which Sophia Charlotte loved to gather around her, and above all with Leibniz. The nature of their intercourse may be gathered from the letter, sublime in thought, which he wrote to her on the occasion of Sophia Charlotte’s death. Only a few months after this event—in September, 1705—Caroline, lovely in person and richly endowed in intellect, had illustrated the saying of the Electress Sophia, that ‘nowadays princesses are sacrificial victims.’ After a proper interval had been allowed to elapse upon the breakdown of the project of marrying Caroline to Archduke Charles, the Electoral Prince George Augustus, to whom the thoughts of his grandmother, the Electress, had been directed already during the attempts made in 1704 to induce Caroline to change her religion, paid a preliminary visit to Ansbach. The rumour which had arisen in 1702, that the Electoral Prince was to find a consort in Sweden and Queen Sophia Charlotte’s counter-suggestion of the Duchess Marie-Elizabeth of Holstein-Gottorp, had alike come to nothing. On September 2nd, 1705, the marriage between the Electoral Prince and Caroline of Ansbach was celebrated at Hanover. Here Caroline spent the following nine years of her life, beyond a doubt its happiest period; and, during the remainder of Sophia’s own existence, she in a large measure filled the place in her affections which her daughter Sophia Charlotte had so long occupied. The congeniality of their tastes and dispositions made her a delightful companion at Herrenhausen to her grandmother-in-law; and thus a kindly fortune granted to Sophia, who was so singularly capable of enjoying it, the truest joy of old age. The Electress repeatedly speaks of the happiness of the marriage; nor can there be any doubt as to the genuine affection on both sides which constituted that happiness. Early in 1707, the Electoral Princess gave birth to her eldest son (destined afterwards to disappoint an indulgent world as Frederick, Prince of Wales), upon whom, a year later, his great-grandmother is found bestowing an infantine equipment for a fancy ball; and three daughters were subsequently born to the young pair, before they accompanied King George I to England. The prospects of a permanent establishment of the Hanoverian dynasty upon the British throne were thus signally advanced by this marriage; and to these prospects and their initial realisation we must now finally turn. They filled Sophia’s last years with anxieties and uncertainties; yet, on the whole, life flowed more easily for her in this final period of her existence; although the joyousness of girlhood, which she so vividly recalls in her _Memoirs_, was a thing of the past, together with the experiences—some grotesque, some painful, some tragic—of her married days. The deep agitations of her life were at an end; and she might pace the Herrenhausen gardens without caring too deeply even for the chances of the English Succession.
Thus we may imagine this spirited and sensible lady, at any time in these last thirteen years of her long life, exemplifying the old saw of ‘_mens sana in corpore sano_.’ In the main, she enjoyed excellent health; and Leibniz’ description of the day of her arrival at Lützenburg is certainly astonishing for a lady of seventy-four. It included, in accordance with her usual habits, two hours of walking exercise. Erect and handsome, with her mother’s aquiline nose and abundant hair, she was, if not a Gloriana as imagined by poets, a princess worthy to mount a royal throne—or at least one who, if placed there, would of a certainty not lose the firmness of her footing by reason of such an elevation.
After, in 1701, a copy of the Act pledging King and Parliament to the new limitation of the Succession had been placed in the hands of the Electress Sophia, thirteen long years of expectancy awaited her, which might have made a less stout heart grow faint. Or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say that a nature less happily balanced, and uninured by experience, both inherited and personal, to the necessity of patience and resignation, might have fallen into mistake upon mistake, and have thus courted failure. Sophia, prudently choosing her own path, almost to the last did nothing to affront the approach of success. To suppose, however, that either her policy or that of her House was one of masterly inactivity, would be almost as contrary to fact as the converse assumption that, either before or after 1701, she was possessed by an absorbing desire to find herself seated on the English throne. The former supposition is confuted by the single circumstance that, by way of furnishing the necessary means in the event of a sudden crisis, a sum of not less than 300,000 dollars was secretly provided by the Committee of the Calenberg Estates, and placed in the hands of the Hanoverian envoy in London—the secret of this expenditure being kept for not less than seventy years.[155] The other assumption is simply irreconcilable with the whole tenor of Sophia’s life.
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Footnote 155:
In a letter from the Electress to Bothmer (_Briefe an Hannoversche Diplomaten_, p. 319) she mentions some money of hers in England; but the passage seems to refer to a private investment.
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The festivities at Hanover and Celle, on the occasion of the transmission of the Act of Settlement, were hardly at an end, when King William III had a meeting at the Loo with his old friend Duke George William. The Duke was accompanied by his grandson, the Electoral Prince George Augustus, whom, according to Toland, the King received as a son. This Prince certainly seems in his youth to have displayed attractive qualities, which were afterwards driven into the background by his master quality, self-conceit; curiously enough, though he was a fair linguist, it had not been thought necessary to make him well acquainted with the English tongue. At this interview, the account of which shows how loyally the old Duke of Celle was working for the interests of the dynasty, King William promised to use his influence in order to obtain from Parliament an annual revenue for the Electress Sophia, and mentioned his intention of inviting her and the Electoral Prince to visit England in the coming spring. On his sounding his next heir, the Princess Anne, at all events as to the proposal of summoning the Electress, she is said to have pretended to be still in hopes of an heir. The Electress on her side seems to have trusted in the fulfilment of the King’s promise, not only during the remainder of his reign, but for a few months afterwards.
But no time was left to the King for carrying out his design. On September 6th, 1701, nine days after the conclusion of the Grand Alliance to which William III had set the seal on his visit to Holland, James II died; and, by recognising his son as King of England, Louis XIV once again, and more completely by his own act than ever, identified himself with the Stewart cause. His grandson, King Philip of Spain, followed his example; and Pope Clement XI publicly extolled the action of Louis XIV, as entitling him to the gratitude of posterity. In the final form of the instrument of the Grand Alliance—which William III was not to live to see actually concluded—a clause was inserted binding the contracting Powers not to conclude peace with France, until the King of England should have received satisfaction for the grave insult involved in the recognition of the ‘pretended Prince of Wales’ as King. In other words, the War of the Spanish Succession had become a War of the English Succession also; and, to whatever extent this fact might be overlooked during the course of the conflict, it was certain to become prominent again so soon as a settlement began to be seriously discussed. Inasmuch as the first public suggestion of such a clause had been made by a prominent Tory politician (Edward Seymour), it can hardly have been inspired from Hanover, though in a letter to the Electress, written as early as 1701, Leibniz had stated such a stipulation to be desirable.
In England, the recognition of the Pretender by Louis XIV had an immediate consequence in the Attainder and Abjuration Acts, passed in January, 1702, by William III’s sixth Parliament. The Act of Attainder had been criticised beforehand by the Electress Sophia, who, in October, 1701, told Leibniz that there was an intention of declaring the poor Prince of Wales a rebel, such as Monmouth had been declared to be before him, ‘though his personal merit deserved a better fate.’ Why should she have refused this modicum of sympathy to her kinsman, who, not more unfortunate in his fate than he was in his infatuation, was about this very time rejoicing that Pope Clement would manifestly ‘leave no stone unturned to show how much he favours us’? The Abjuration Act, which led to long and warm debates in both Houses, provided both for abjuring the ‘pretended Prince of Wales,’ and for swearing fidelity to the ‘rightful and lawful King’ and ‘his heirs according to the Act of Settlement.’ A motion in the Commons, carried by a single vote, made these engagements obligatory; the opposition in the Lords ended in nothing but a protest, the list of whose signatories, including the names of Craven and Jeffreys, as it were mirrors the story of the downfall of the Stewart monarchy in England.
On March 8th, 1702, King William III died, after a fortnight’s illness following on his fall from his horse. To Portland, the faithful friend for whom the King had asked, without being able to speak to him intelligibly, shortly before his death, the Electress Sophia, when the first shock of the blow had passed over, wrote in unaffected sorrow—
I assure you, Sir, that I have received with much pleasure the proof of your kind remembrance of me, and that, in the midst of the sad change which has come upon us, I called to mind that you would weep with us for the loss which the whole of Christendom has undergone. But when one does not die oneself, one has to see many others pass away; and I cannot think that I shall live to see yet another calamity for England of the same kind; for Queen Anne is much younger than I am, who have entered my seventy-second year. Nevertheless, I feel much happier than a Queen; for, God be thanked, I am still in very good health, and have joined my daughter here, in order to enjoy myself with her here in her country-seat.[156]
By the death, on March 8th, 1702, of King William III and the accession of Queen Anne, the prospect which the Act of Settlement seemed to have once for all thrown open to the House of Hanover was again clouded over. Queen Anne, indeed, at once sent an assurance to the Electress through the Hanoverian resident, the elder Schütz, that her sentiments towards the House of Hanover were the same as those of her predecessor,[157] and a few days afterwards repeated the message in writing. An Order in Council directed the Archbishop of Canterbury to insert the name of the Princess Sophia in the Book of Common Prayer; and, as was usual in such cases, this Order was in due course sent on to Dublin.[158] It has been observed, nor is there great exception to be taken to the remark, that beyond the issue of this Order nothing was done by Queen Anne in the whole of the earlier period of her reign on behalf of the Hanoverian Succession. In other words, the proposals discussed at the Loo, which were to have resulted in the payment of an annuity to the Electress, and to her or the Electoral Prince residing in England, were not carried further. Interchanges of civility, however, took place; and the Earl of Winchelsea arrived at Hanover, in order to return the congratulations brought thence by Count Platen on the occasion of Queen Anne’s accession. But, though the special mission was flattering, Sophia’s wish, that the ambassador might bring with him some money which she might apply to the necessities of her sons Christian and Maximilian, remained unfulfilled. For the rest, she told the Raugravine Louisa that, for all the compliments which had passed, ‘time would show’ whether she was still wanted in England; and she continued to bear herself calmly, avoiding the appearance of excessive zeal that some of her partisans could not deny themselves. She had thought it a piece of impertinence, when, after his return to England, Toland had, early in this year, followed up his _Anglia Libera_ by another publication provocatively entitled _Reasons for addressing His Majesty to invite into England their Highnesses the Electress Dowager and the Electoral Prince of Hanover_; which, soon after Queen Anne’s accession, was duly censured by the House of Lords. The Electress had reasons for disliking a championship which under King William would have been superfluous and was now inopportune. She could not consider Toland so ‘_infâme_’ as Cresset painted him; and she took care that in her presence he should not say a disrespectful word about Queen Anne. But, when, in 1702, Toland found it convenient again to quit England for Germany, he left the court of Hanover unvisited; nor does he seem to have reappeared there till 1707.
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Footnote 156:
This letter is translated from one of the unpublished letters to the Earl of Portland mentioned in the Preface.
Footnote 157:
She also renewed the assent given by William III to the measures of force adopted at this time by the Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Celle against the Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
Footnote 158:
In September, Sophia writes that Lord Stamford has been good enough to transmit to her a dozen copies of the Prayer-book, with her name inserted in it; but that there are not a dozen persons in Hanover able to join her in using them.
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The Elector’s instincts as to the doubtfulness of Queen Anne’s real sentiments on the subject of the Hanoverian Succession were justified by what ensued. The hope of an immediate grant to the Heiress Presumptive out of the ample Civil List good Queen Anne frustrated by the highly popular step of making over to the Exchequer £100,000 towards lightening the burdens of the nation. The claims upon the national resources were many and urgent; and Parliament could perhaps hardly be expected to consider how much a subvention was needed by the Electress, more especially in view of the presents which, in accordance with the usage of the times, she as well as the Elector had to make to a succession of English special ambassadors. There can, however, be no doubt but that, already in this early part of Queen Anne’s reign, and even before the Toryism of her first Parliament had encouraged in her the tendency which her choice of ministers had implied, deliberate attempts had been made to influence unfavourably her attitude towards the Succession of the House of Hanover. Moreover, her nature was so peculiarly prone to strong personal attachments, and her gift of insight into the motives of men was so unmistakably accompanied by an absence of all real power of political judgment, that she could hardly but be dominated by a strong prepossession against the line so likely to succeed her on the throne of her ancestors. Yet, hitherto, neither the Electress Sophia nor any of the members of her House—and least of all her impassive eldest son, who at one time had been supposed to have a chance of the hand of the Princess Anne—had been on unfriendly terms with the new Queen; nor is there any reason for supposing her to have imparted to any of them a share in the wild scheme rumoured to have been set on foot for ousting her from the Succession. When, however, in May, 1702, the Whig Earl of Carlisle, the First Lord of the Treasury, carried in the House of Lords his demand for an enquiry into the scandalous rumour which asserted that King William had intended by a kind of posthumous _coup d’état_ to raise the Electoral Prince to the throne, Queen Anne showed no desire for the vindication of her predecessor’s good faith towards herself, and pointedly dismissed Carlisle from office. Nor is it probable that, at this early stage, the Queen was much intent upon the interests of her half-brother, the Pretender. The favourite advisers by whom she was swayed—Marlborough and Godolphin—could have no wish to hurry her intervention on behalf of either of the two sides, with both of which they desired to stand well; and the Tory majority in the Commons, typified by the Speaker, Harley, were certainly not prepared to unsettle the Act of Settlement. The Act for the further Security of the Protestant Succession passed in December, 1702, which declared it high treason to seek to defeat the Succession to the Crown as now limited by law, or to set aside the next Succession, followed the precedent of a similar Act passed in the previous reign, and accordingly encountered no resistance. Thus Queen Anne was slow to take up any definite attitude towards the political problem which overshadowed the whole course of her reign; and she was consequently all the more unwilling, and remained so from first to last, to listen to any suggestion of carrying out William III’s promise and inviting the Electress Dowager and the Electoral Prince, or either of them, to England. The probability of this plan being brought forward, either as a practical proposal or by way of testing the sincerity of her own views on the subject, acted as a perennial irritant upon the Queen. Neither she nor her advisers are to be blamed for leaving without response the suggestion, pardonably enough made by Sophia, that the un-English title of ‘Hereditary Princess’ should be conferred upon her. Other signs were noticeable of the uncertainty prevailing at the Court of St. James. At Hanover and Herrenhausen, Cresset watched the Electress with a suspiciousness that could not escape her attention, though she commented on it with her usual _insouciance_; and Stepney even left off corresponding with her and her intimates, in order not to give offence nearer home. In conversing with the Englishmen and Scotchmen who attended the Court of Hanover, anxious to promote its fortunes or their own, the Electress naturally sought to emphasise her confidence in her august relative, the Queen. But in her intimate correspondence she was fain to strike a different key. She told the Raugravine Amalia that Queen Anne had no desire to be survived by her, although (quoting a Dutch proverb which she has made classical) she allowed that ‘_creaking wagons go on for a long time_,’ and suggested that the Queen’s real preference was for her brother.[159] Matters continued very much in this stagnant and unsatisfactory condition during the first three years (or thereabouts) of Queen Anne’s reign. In March, 1694, Sophia writes with some bitterness, that Queen Anne ‘seems to have more friendship for the King of Prussia than for us, inasmuch as she speaks of the’ [Prussian] ‘and says nothing of the Brunswick troops, without whom the battle’ [of Blenheim] ‘could not have been won. This is a sample showing what is to be expected in that quarter.’ And she adds that the statement in the _Gazette_ of the great presents sent by the Queen to Hanover is untrue, whoever caused it to be inserted.
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Footnote 159:
This, too, was the impression of Queen Sophia Charlotte at Berlin. (See her letter to Bothmer, May 27th, 1702, in _Briefe an Hannoversche Diplomaten_, p. 10.)
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It may, at this point, be noted that the violence of public feeling which about this time disturbed Scotland had very seriously endangered the prospects of the Succession of the House of Hanover in that kingdom. Here, it was universally believed that Queen Anne cherished the secret wish of securing the Succession to her brother; and no declarations to the contrary exercised the slightest effect upon the stubbornness of preconceived Scottish opinion. At the same time, a strong belief that she meditated a Prelatic as well as a Jacobite reaction, led to the anti-Episcopalian legislation of the last Scottish Parliament, which met in 1703.[160] The Act of Security brought forward in this Parliament provided that the Estates of the Realm should meet within twelve days after the present Queen’s death, and should proceed to name a successor professing the Protestant religion. A proposal to insert the name of the Electress Sophia was rejected; but the ministers, besides frustrating an attempt at inserting a series of limitations calculated to take away the last vestige of authority from the Crown, also defeated a proposal to limit the Protestantism of the successor to ‘the true Protestant religion as by law established within this kingdom,’ which would have excluded the Lutheranism of the House of Hanover. On the other hand, the Government could not resist a clause, proposed by the Earl of Roxburghe, precluding Parliament from naming, as successor to the Crown of Scotland, the person who was successor to the Crown of England, unless conditions should have been previously settled securing the interests of Scotland against English or foreign interference. The Act of Security, with this clause inserted in it, passed by large majorities; but the Duke of Queensberry refused to give to it the royal assent. In 1704, however, the national and religious agitation remaining unalloyed, the Marquis of Tweeddale touched the Act with the royal sceptre: and a condition of things was thus legalised which might at any time put an end to the personal union of the two countries, or actually provoke war between them. But time often provides its own remedy; and, in January, 1707, the Act of Union became law, whose Second Article, limiting the Succession to Sophia and her heirs, had met with only a feeble opposition upholding the provisions of the Act of Security. When the Union was on the eve of actual accomplishment, the Electress Sophia expressed herself as well satisfied, adding that, though she had never supposed the Scottish lords against her, she thought it quite natural that conditions should be imposed—another illustration of the way in which she looked upon constitutional questions. In Ireland, the Succession had already in the previous year been regulated by a measure modelled upon the English Act of Settlement, but subjecting all officials and magistrates to a rigid Church of England test.
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Footnote 160:
In June, 1702, Sophia had written that Scottish affairs seemed in a troublesome state, but that she could hardly doubt that the Queen would be prudent enough to leave the Scotch their _extempore_ prayers ... and that there would be no attempt to impose upon them bishops and ‘common prayer,’ by which means Charles I had spoilt everything.—For an elucidation of the religious condition of Scotland as affecting the question of the Hanoverian Succession, see Mr. Rait’s paper in Appendix C.
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Even in this early period of Queen Anne’s reign, the Electress Sophia, though, according to her wont, she abstained from all restless manœuvring, was by no means without thought for the future. On June 4th, 1703, she signed three powers for Schütz, the envoy extraordinary in London, authorising him, in the event of the Queen’s death, to bring forward her lawful claim to the throne; and she kept up a correspondence with friends in England, both directly and through Leibniz. In November, 1703, she put it to Schütz that, if Marlborough resigned the command in the Low Countries, it would be right to appoint the Elector in his place; ‘for if it is wished that the Elector should have a good opinion of the English, they ought to do something towards making him entertain such an opinion and enabling him in any court to support those who were in his favour.’ As for Leibniz, though indefatigable and full of initiative as ever, he naturally enough occasionally fell short of the necessary familiarity with English persons and affairs. Thus, about this very time, the Electress had to comment on his approval of a scheme for marrying the Electoral Prince to one of Marlborough’s daughters, by reminding him that the Duke had no more daughters in the matrimonial market. Marlborough, however, gained the goodwill of the Elector, above all by commending the behaviour of the Hanoverian troops at Blenheim; and, on a visit to Hanover in December, 1704, while the laurels of his great victory were still green, he completely won over the Electress by the fascination of his manner. She declared that she had never seen anyone ‘_plus aisé, plus civil, ny plus obligeant_,’ and that he was as good a cavalier as he was a captain. The extraordinary civility shown to him on this occasion, when a special household was provided for him and other courtesies were multiplied,[161] was not thrown away. His correspondence with the Electoral court—and with the Elector in
## particular, whose admiration for the military genius of the great
commander was genuine—now became continuous.
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Footnote 161:
The Duke, we learn _inter alia_, played a game at cards with the Electress and ‘Madame Bellmont.’ This Lady Bellmont or Bellamont, whom Leibniz in vain begged the Electress not to admit into her intimacy, was no other than Frances Bard, who claimed to be the widow of Prince Rupert, and whose relations with him had certainly been of the most intimate kind. She justified Leibniz by misusing her position at Hanover to engage in Jacobite intrigue, thereby giving much trouble to Cresset and to Edmund Poley, who succeeded him as envoy extraordinary in 1703; and it is just conceivable that she may have in some measure influenced the Electress in favour of the Pretender and his cause. She died in 1708.
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The year 1705 marked an epoch in the history of the Succession question, as we saw that it did in the personal life of the Electress Sophia, who, during its course, lost not only her beloved daughter, but also her old admirer and constant friend, Duke George William of Celle. All the dominions of the Brunswick-Lüneburg line were now at last united under the single rule of the Elector George Lewis, and into his coffers flowed most of the great private wealth of his late uncle and father-in-law, which had materially contributed to the high consideration enjoyed by George William. About the same time the long-standing quarrel with the elder (Wolfenbüttel) branch of the House of Brunswick was brought to a close, and the House of Hanover stood stronger than ever before the world. No season could have been more opportune for taking up the question of the Succession with renewed earnestness. Its vigorous prosecution was further favoured by the circumstance that the late Duke of Celle’s prime minister, Baron Andreas Gottlieb von Bernstorff, now passed into the Hanoverian service, and, on the death of Count Platen in 1709, became prime minister at Hanover. He was already a statesman of proved ability, trained in the school of his father-in-law, Chancellor Schütz, whom he describes as one of the greatest and most capable ministers ever known to him. While he always kept his political ends clearly in view, Bernstorff’s political action was marked by ruthlessness that is apt to make a statesman of his type cordially hated where he is not eagerly followed; and his bitter jealousy of Brandenburg-Prussia in particular was unlikely to commend him to the goodwill of the Electress Sophia. Her faithful echo at Versailles allows us to make a guess as to the sentiments of the Electress concerning him; and they were afterwards reproduced by Queen Caroline, who, like Elizabeth Charlotte, was unwilling to differ in her opinion of men or measures from their venerated senior. Bernstorff’s activity in the last stage of Sophia Dorothea’s catastrophe proves that he had not been captivated by the influence which had so long been dominant at Celle; and the Duchess Eleonora doubtless held the same opinion of him as the other ladies. He devoted himself with indefatigable zeal to advancing the greatness of the Hanoverian dynasty; but he laboured in no narrow spirit and with no petty aims, as an adequate survey of his statesmanship in the earlier years of George I, should it ever be made, could not fail to show. With Bernstorff (to mention no other name) Jean de Robethon had passed from the service of Celle into that of Hanover—a perfect type of the sort of man and the sort of mind whose destiny it is to be _a secretis_ of those whose grasp is on the wheel of State. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes had driven him, like so many other capable Frenchmen, into the service of the foes of France, he had served his apprenticeship under no less a master than William III. During Queen Anne’s reign he became one of the most assiduous and useful instruments in the transactions connected with the Succession. For a time, he in Bothmer’s absence attended to affairs at the Hague; but he then returned to Hanover, where as confidential secretary he was of infinite service to both the Elector and the Electress, and played a political part not the less important because it was to a great extent played behind the scenes. Bernstorff trusted no man more implicitly than Robethon, who, in the end, was said to have acquired an unbounded influence over him; and by Robethon were drafted all, or virtually all, the despatches and letters sent to England by the Electoral family from the date of his entrance into their service to that of George I’s landing in England. All the more important of these documents likewise passed through the hands of Hans Caspar von Bothmer, whose services to the dynasty had likewise begun at Celle; whence he had been sent as envoy to Vienna, passing on, after he had acted as a plenipotentiary at Ryswick, to Paris. Unlike Bernstorff, and unlike Bernstorff’s master, Bothmer united political insight of a high order with remarkable diplomatic ability and tact; and, after he had, when the crisis came, shown perfect prudence in the supreme moment of success, he was perhaps the only one of the Hanoverians of the early Georgian period who attained to personal popularity in London. But this was later. On the accession of Queen Anne, it had been thought desirable that he should in the first instance take up a post of observation at the Hague, since the Queen was at present unlikely to welcome so prominent a Hanoverian diplomatist to her Court. Thus it was from the Hague that he actively helped to bring about the English legislative enactments, which we shall immediately notice, and which signally improved the prospects of the Hanoverian Succession. We shall see that, though his first and second stay as envoy in London were but short,[162] he returned thither in time to direct the final stage in the transactions connected with the Succession, and to apply to this task a consummate skill and an equally conspicuous courage.
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Footnote 162:
He was accredited to London after the death of Schütz in August, 1710, and remained certainly till March, 1711. He reappeared there in October, and remained till January, 1711. He came back in June or July, 1714. (Chance, _u.s._)
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The ministerial arrangements made after the death of his uncle by the Elector George Lewis, who was at no time wont to delegate to others any part of what he had clearly recognised as his own bounden duty, might seem to imply that, from 1705 onwards, the conduct of the Succession question was more and more taken out of the hands of his mother. It is true that the Elector had, as the head of his dynasty, become more vigilant; but her interest in the question had remained the same. And, as a matter of fact, at no previous time had her name been bandied about between the political parties in England as it was now and during the remaining years of her life. To the close of the year 1705 belongs that strange episode in the party history of the reign, the attempt on the part of a section among the Tories to bring the Electress over to England.
Hitherto, she had wisely refrained—nor is there any indication that her eldest son and her grandson had done otherwise—from identifying the interests of her House with either of the two Parliamentary parties, both of which had had a part in the Act of Settlement. No doubt it was the Whigs who had most warmly supported the insertion of her name in that Act; the embassy which had brought it over to Hanover had been exclusively made up of Whigs; and, writing to Leibniz towards the close of 1701, Sophia, apparently with reference to the approaching English elections, excusably lets slip the phrase: ‘_le parti des Whigs qui est le nostre_.’ But, already in the following year, when annoyed by the officious importunities of Toland and that other _grand fâcheux_, Sir Peter Fraiser, she confided to her niece Elizabeth Charlotte her resolution not to mix herself up with the manœuvres of the Presbyterians and Whigs, which, as we have seen, were at that time agitating Scotland. ‘Besides,’ she observed, with a fastidiousness not inexplicable when the composition of Macclesfield’s embassy is remembered, ‘the Whigs that came to me here I found anything but charming.’ And, again in 1703, she ordered Baron Brauns not to answer one of Toland’s long diatribes against the Tories by more than a simple acknowledgment. There was no fear, she remarked, of their supporting the Pretender; no person of substance, in fact nobody but Catholics and adventurers set on making their fortunes, were on his side; for the rest, she found as many honest men among the Tories as elsewhere. She had, as a matter of fact, certain affinities with this party; while some of their opponents in the House of Commons offended her, as a true Stewart who remembered the excesses of the Commonwealth days, by comparing the Prince of Wales to Perkin Warbeck and branding him as a bastard—all in order to tickle the ears of _le petit peuple_. There could be no question, she told Leibniz in the same letter, as to the Prince’s claims interfering with her own; her right was based on her Protestantism; except for this, many others stood between the Crown and herself. While, then, she adhered to her determination to place herself in the hands of neither party, there was no reason why the Tories should not in their turn seek to make her listen to their charming. When, about the end of 1704, it had become known through Marlborough that the Electress would be pleased to receive a formal invitation to England, both parties seem to have risen to the occasion; but, while the Whigs returned to the notion of bringing over the Electoral Prince, some of the Tories became intent on the Electress herself being invited. Partly to ingratiate themselves with her, partly to spite Queen Anne, who preferred to their guidance that of the moderates of both sides under the leadership of Marlborough, Godolphin, and Harley, the malcontent Tories, led by Rochester and known as the ‘High-fliers,’ resolved on an attempt to take the game into their own hands. With Rochester she had been on friendly terms from the first; in June, 1702, she writes that he was among the first to vote for the Act of Settlement, and that she had always mentioned this to those who wished to set her against him.[163] Towards the end of September, 1705, a correspondent informed Rochester of the cordial response returned by the Electress to certain overtures made on his behalf; he declared himself convinced that, whenever the Queen and Parliament called upon her, the Electress would, in the face of all difficulties, wait upon Her Majesty in England; and, more than this, she had told him, and those in attendance on her, that, so soon as the Parliament summoned her, she was ready to obey. (In a letter to Schütz of about the same date, Sophia, however, qualifies this consent by requiring a proviso that she should be supplied with means of living in England as became a Princess of Wales.) Though, Rochester’s correspondent added, the Elector was exceeding modest on the subject of some of his family coming to England, the Electress spoke as the Elector thought. Sophia was on friendly terms with other members of the Tory party besides Rochester. With Ormonde, for instance, she kept up a correspondence both in this and in the following year. But the task of moving an address to the Crown, in which it was proposed that the Heiress Presumptive should be invited to England, was committed to a quite recent convert to the ranks of the High-flyers, Lord Haversham. He displayed a proper zeal by hazarding the suggestion that it would be of the greatest advantage for the Electress to make the personal acquaintance of the Bench of Bishops. The comedy ended in the rejection of Haversham’s motion by a majority of Peers; but he returned to the fray in a pamphlet. In the Commons a letter advocating the proposal, hinting that it was approved by the Electress and censuring the Whigs for opposing it, was voted libellous. This much-vext letter was signed by Sir Rowland Gwynne, who was at the time residing at Hanover; but its real author was Leibniz. Towards the close of 1705, Marlborough made use of the opportunity of another visit paid by him to Hanover for explaining the situation to the Elector. Marlborough, who, while anxious both to please the Queen and to keep the game so far as possible in his own hands, was more and more identifying his own interests with the ascendancy of the Whigs, easily succeeded in making clear to the Elector, how it was not in his interest that his mother should at present proceed to England; and he was able to add effect to his arguments by exhibiting an official notice of the intention of the English Cabinet to introduce Naturalisation and Regency Bills in the interests of the Electoral House. The understanding between the Elector and Marlborough now became better than ever, while the Elector’s confidence in the Whigs steadily grew. It is impossible to say whether this was the time when Marlborough proffered at Hanover a loan of £20,000 in return for a blank commission signed by the Electress Sophia, which conferred on him the supreme command of the military and naval forces of the three kingdoms after the death of Queen Anne.
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Footnote 163:
On Rochester’s sudden death, in 1711, Sophia expresses her deep regret for him as her friend—‘he had plenty of _esprit_, and was in no way a republican.’
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The High-fliers had thus merely played into the hands of the Whigs, who were in the majority in the new House of Commons that met in October, 1705. The Address to the Queen had warmly thanked her for her great care and endeavour to settle the Succession of the kingdom of Scotland in the House of Hanover; and soon afterwards the Bills were brought in which Marlborough had announced at Hanover. By the first of these, the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and her issue were naturalised as English subjects; and it is strange that the legal status thus secured to her should have been so persistently ignored in English national biography.[164] The second of these Bills, purporting to provide for the better security of the Queen’s person and Government, was introduced in the Lords with much eloquence by the ever-young Lord Wharton. This Bill made it high treason to assert in writing, and attached the penalties of a _præmunire_ to the assertion by word of mouth, that the Queen was not a lawful Sovereign, or that the Sovereign in Parliament could not limit the descent of the Crown; and it further appointed seven great officers of State, and certain other persons, to administer the government of the realm in the event of the Queen’s demise and the absence from England of her lawful successor. The Bill met with no opposition in the Lords, though Rochester contrived to carry a limitation, supposed to safeguard the Act of Uniformity; but in the House of Commons it lay long on the table. The High-fliers, putting forward as their spokesman Sir Thomas Hanmer (who up to the last professed the deepest devotion to the interests of the Electress Sophia), were once more attempting to take the game out of the hands of the Whigs by proposing that the Electress should be brought over. Much use was made, as appears from a passage in Burnet’s inaccurate narrative, of a letter written in November by the Electress Sophia to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which she had reiterated the position consistently maintained by her, that she was prepared to come to England, should both the Queen and Parliament desire it. This position was alike logical and appropriate; but the letter did not suit the Whigs, who were well aware that Queen Anne would never be brought to express such a desire. On the rejection of Hanmer’s motion the Electress informed Burnet with much dignity that, should it prove to be in the interests of State and religion, she remained ready to cross to England if invited, provided she were created Princess of Wales. But, at the same time, she expressed to Marlborough her conviction that her intentions had been so misrepresented to the Queen that her coming to England now would be superfluous. There is no reason for accepting Burnet’s statement that her letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury had been instigated by the Tories; but neither did she show any disposition towards encouraging the Whigs. In truth, though Sophia was not destined to mount a royal throne, and though what might be termed her monarchical apprenticeship had been served in a State that had but recently ceased to be petty and whose system of government was to all intents and purposes absolute, she displayed a higher capacity for constitutional rule than Queen Anne, who could only maintain a balance between factions by subjecting herself to their leaders in turn. It cannot be satisfactorily shown that the Electress definitely preferred the Tories, while the Elector favoured the Whigs. In fact, she remained on good terms with both the leading parties; although she did not turn a deaf ear even to overtures from so unsafe a politician as Buckingham, who, after taking a leading part in the attempt to bring her over to England, tried to engage her in a fresh intrigue to that end.[165] The Regency Bill, as it was shortly called, in the end became law; and Parliament, which had further shown its goodwill to the House of Hanover by voting a modest subsidy for the payment of additional Hanoverian and Celle troops, was prorogued in March, 1706.
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Footnote 164:
She told Schütz (January 1st, 1706) that she thought the naturalisation unnecessary, as it had been held to be in the case of King William III and in those of her late brothers, but that she was quite prepared to act as the Queen and Parliament wished. She would have preferred the name ‘Brunswick-Lüneburg’ to be substituted for ‘Hanover,’ and the style ‘_Sérénissime_’ in lieu of ‘Excellent.’ The former of these criticisms, at all events, was perfectly just.
Footnote 165:
I have modified some expressions in my first edition, after comparing the account of F. Salomon, _Die letzten Regierungsjahre der Königin Anna_, pp. 276-7; but I cannot come to the conclusion that the attitude of the Electress as between the parties was even at this time incorrect.
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In the following May, Lord Halifax, who as Charles Montagu had been a leading Whig statesman already under William III and had quite recently been appointed one of the Commissioners for the Union with Scotland, was chosen, no doubt on account of his position and accomplishments rather than because of any personal attractiveness, to proceed to Hanover, there to present the Naturalisation and Regency Acts to the Electress Sophia, now the first subject of the English Crown.[166] Halifax was also the bearer of a Garter for the Electoral Prince, on whom a few weeks later the Queen conferred the title of Duke of Cambridge. On his way Halifax had secured the inclusion of a guarantee of the established Succession in future treaties with the United Provinces. In his suite was Addison, now one of the Under-Secretaries of State; but the reticence of this celebrated personage seems to have disappointed the Electress.
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Footnote 166:
This visit synchronised very nearly with the coming of age of the Pretender (June), who seized the opportunity to assure Pope Clement XI that ‘no temptation of this world, and no desire to reign, should ever make him wander from the right path of the Catholic faith.’ The anecdote must go for what it is worth, which was said to have been related by Halifax to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her husband: how, at his first formal audience with the Electress, she ran across the room in order to place herself in front of a portrait of the Pretender, and thus screen it from the ambassador’s eyes.
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From a later remark of Leibniz we gather that, on the occasion of Halifax’s embassy, the Electress made no secret of the view held by her and the Elector with reference to the Succession. It rested, she considered, on hereditary right; though, in the interests of the nation, certain persons possessed of claims prior to her own had been excluded. In other words, she acknowledged that Parliament had a right to exclude Catholics from the Succession, but declined to regard her title to the Crown as primarily a Parliamentary one. As a matter of fact, neither the Electress nor the Elector was much edified by the embassy of Halifax. He submitted to her a list of twenty-one persons, whom according to the Regency Act she was called upon to appoint as Lords Justices, in addition to the great officers of the Crown, for carrying on the government after Queen Anne’s death in the event of her own absence from England. Of these twenty-one names, as it afterwards appeared, she struck out seven, one of which was that of Halifax himself.[167] As to the titles conferred upon the Electoral Prince (which, Sophia said, were so many that she had to write them down in her almanack lest she should forget them), the grant of an annual income to herself as Heiress Presumptive would have been more to the point; inasmuch as the titles were given to enable the Prince to take his seat in Parliament, from which Hanover was a long way off.
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Footnote 167:
It was said that, when, after the death of Sophia, it fell to the Elector, her son, to substitute his nominations of additional Lords Justices for hers, and the original document was accordingly produced in London, the cover enclosing it was found to have been broken open. It was further reported that, after much wrangling with her ministers, Queen Anne cut the discussion short by taking upon herself the blame of having opened the cover.
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The elements of satisfaction contained in the Acts brought to Hanover by Halifax were not over-estimated by the Electress, to whom it must by this time have become clear that the real difficulty in placing the House of Hanover in its proper position towards the country with which it was to be inseparably connected, lay with Queen Anne herself. More especially after the publication of Sir Rowland Gwynne’s unfortunate letter, the Queen thought that explanations were due to her from the Electress, who in truth had none to give. Marlborough had been wise enough to abstain from delivering at Hanover a letter written by the Queen in this sense and entrusted by her to him, and, instead, had held conciliatory language, advising both Electress and Elector to declare themselves absolute strangers to the obnoxious manifesto. The advice was judicious; for, as Marlborough had predicted, the original proposal did not die out. In 1707, one Scott, an Englishman or Scotchman in the service of the Elector, entered, according to Marlborough with the cognisance of the Electress, into a negotiation with the High-fliers; but he was stopped by the Elector himself. In July of the same year, the Earl of Peterborough, when returning to England from Spain to give an account of his proceedings there, spent some days at Hanover and Herrenhausen, where he addressed a letter to the Elector and another to the Electress, in which he insisted on the necessity of the residence of a member of the Electoral House in England. Sophia handed the letter intended for herself to her son, who, in the plainest terms, expressed his determination to take no steps in this direction, unless with the approval of the Queen and her ministers. Meanwhile, though perfectly prudent in her own conduct, the Electress could not altogether conceal the annoyance caused to her by the cold and suspicious attitude maintained by Queen Anne towards everything connected with the Succession. Sophia complained repeatedly that from England came nothing but titles and compliments, and declared that she would not be made to pay for any more special ambassadors from the Court of St. James. (Her present of gold plate to Halifax had cost her some 30,000 florins.) For the conveyance of honours that cost nothing she was, she said, perfectly content with Mr. Howe.[168] When Leibniz reported to her as to prospects of the Union between England and Scotland, which was actually achieved early in 1707, she rather sharply replied that she had no wish to discuss the affairs of either kingdom: ‘_comme je n’en tire rien, je n’y suis point intéressée_.’ She can, however, hardly have been so indifferent to the subject as she pretended to be; since a clause in the Act of Union definitively settled the Scottish Succession upon herself and her descendants. Nor can she have remained unaware that, as Queen Anne’s reign continued and the apprehensions excited by the growing intolerance of the Church of England more and more endangered the maintenance of the Union, Scottish Presbyterianism was, irrespective of this consideration, obliged to look to the Hanoverian Succession as the best guarantee of its own security.
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Footnote 168:
Brigadier-General Emmanuel Scroope Howe was English resident at Hanover from 1705 till his death in 1709. He was, as mentioned on a previous page, the husband of Ruperta, Prince Rupert’s daughter by Margaret Howes. Ruperta seems herself to have helped to embroil matters by writing some highly indiscreet letters to England, in which she dwelt on the apathy of the House of Hanover towards the Succession.
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We know for certain that the Electress was well informed as to the existence of a secret sympathy on Queen Anne’s part with the Pretender; since we have the explicit statement of the Duchess of Orleans that her aunt believed the Queen to be secretly desirous of the accession of her half-brother, and further believed ‘that she would some day bestow the Crown upon him.’ Nor can we regard the latter clause a mere phrase, when we remember the earlier communications in this sense between Anne and her exiled father. But it by no means follows from this that this solution was one desired by the Electress Sophia herself. According to a fairly well authenticated anecdote, a bundle of letters was, some time in the reign of George III, found in Kensington Palace, endorsed in William III’s own handwriting ‘_Letters of the Electress Sophia to the Court of St. Germains_’; and a plan which had been formed for publishing these letters was frustrated through their being destroyed by George III’s orders. But as to the contents of these letters there is no satisfactory evidence at all. Again, it is no doubt true, and of a piece with George I’s habitual method of dealing with inconvenient evidence, that, in 1714, he requested the Duchess of Orleans to destroy all the letters received by her from the Electress which contained any reference to the House of Stewart; and, though the Duchess of Orleans, who made no secret of her own sympathies, and whose portrait quite appropriately found a place in the Stewart family museum at Caillot, says that her aunt did not obey this wish, no such letters have been found, with a single exception. In this letter, dated March 21st, 1708, after mentioning that the ‘Prince of Wales’ was at Dunkirk (whence he afterwards started on his brief expedition to Scotland), the Electress Sophia indulges in the reflexion: ‘Who knows whether God will not elevate him who suffers so innocently?’ But though, in matters concerning the line from which she was descended, as well as with regard to her own immediate family, Sophia’s nature was very far from being untouched by sentiment, she never allowed herself to be subdued by it. In her tenderness of feeling towards the House of Stewart she set an example followed by the Hanoverian dynasty when in possession of the British throne—from George I downwards, of whose kindliness of feeling towards the exiled House instances might easily be cited.[169]
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Footnote 169:
The same feeling notably descended to George III, who granted an ‘apanage’ to the Cardinal of York in his last years; to George IV, who as Prince Regent provided a solemn sepulture for the remains of James II, and erected a monument to the last of his descendants; and, as is well known, to the last and most illustrious sovereign of the Hanoverian dynasty.
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Thus, in this period Sophia returned to Queen Anne coolness for coolness, and though at times she might almost have seemed to herself indifferent to her prospects and those of her posterity, while at other times she thought of herself as ‘a candidate for Sion’ rather than as the heiress to a throne, she was content to avoid any false step, and to leave unjeopardised a future which she could not control. As late as September, 1708, in mentioning the visit of Lord Hereford and two Whig M.P.s, she writes that she found them very warm for the Succession, and that she supposed they would always continue of the same mind, so long as it paid them; at present it did not seem to pay _her_, for she was not treated as its Princess of Wales. But, in the course of this year, the Whigs were fully established in power; and, when the death, in the autumn, of Prince George of Denmark, together with the subsequent refusal of Queen Anne to remarry, had removed the last possibility of issue from the reigning sovereign, the Hanoverian prospects of course grew brighter. The House stood well at this season in the eyes of Europe and of England. George Lewis’ envoy at Ratisbon in this very year at last gained admittance into the Electoral College; and in the previous year (1707) the Elector had assumed the command of the army of the Lower Rhine, though his unswerving loyalty to the cause of the Grand Alliance had met with an incomplete response of confidence on the part of its military leaders. Courtiers and others cultivating a consciousness of coming events began to recognise the necessity of turning their faces towards the rising sun. Mrs. Charles Howard, for instance, had the honour of being (with her husband) presented to the Electress Dowager, and of receiving particular notice, both from her and from the Electoral Princess—as one of whose bed-chamber women she was in later days to play so conspicuous a part at the British Court. But Queen Anne persisted in the attitude which she had assumed, and in the autumn of this year frankly told Lord Haversham that she could not tolerate the notion of the presence in this country of any successor, even were it to last no longer than a week.
When the approach of the great ministerial crisis of 1710 first announced itself by the dismissal of Sunderland, the Elector was moved to perhaps the most distinct expression of political opinion in British affairs to which he committed himself at any time before his accession to the throne. In a spirited remonstrance addressed by him to the Queen, he gave words to the hope that she would enter into no further changes in the present Ministry and Parliament. The Electress in the meantime remained mistress of herself; and George Lewis followed her example, when the crisis reached its height, and the wheel of fortune once more brought the Tories uppermost. Neither Sophia nor her confidential counsellor Leibniz looked with fear or even with disfavour upon the transactions which seemed to have put a new face on the entire scheme of British State policy. The leading spirit of the new combination was Robert Harley, who possessed many valuable political qualities, but who was above all a born intriguer. The moderation of his conduct was set off by his personal merits, among which, in a brilliant literary age, his genuine love of literature was by no means the least important.[170] Leibniz, whose own political influence at Hanover had of late visibly declined, was much gratified by the marked civility shown to him by one of his London correspondents, Dr. Hutton, a follower of Harley.
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Footnote 170:
The latest tribute to it is the conjecture crediting him with the original authorship of _Robinson Crusoe_.
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Queen Anne herself lost no time in communicating to the House of Hanover her own view of the political changes which opened the concluding period of her reign. In the autumn of 1710, Earl Rivers (by whose appointment to the constableship of the Tower these changes had been heralded) made his appearance at Hanover. His personal reputation was far from immaculate; but he had been a successful general. At the time of his arrival at Hanover, Sunderland’s dismissal had been succeeded by no further ministerial changes. That Queen Anne should not have resented the protest against this step transmitted by the Elector through Bothmer at the Hague, indicates her hesitancy in the process. But, when a further series of ministerial changes had been accomplished in England, Rivers, who had made himself very acceptable at Hanover even to the Elector, began to develop the ulterior purpose of his mission. Unmistakably, it was intended to facilitate the overthrow of Marlborough, without which these changes would remain incomplete, by putting the Elector in his place as commander-in-chief in the war, which, as Rivers assured him, the new British Government intended to carry on with undiminished vigour. The ambassador was instructed to state that the Queen could no longer suffer the insolence of those whom she had raised to the highest pitch of power and authority. But, before Rivers reached the Electoral Court, Marlborough had already conveyed to George Lewis assurances of his fidelity to the Hanoverian Succession; and the House of Hanover was thus confirmed in the attitude of caution which it maintained in this very trying turn of affairs. There was no reason why Elector and Electress should remain deaf to the blandishments of the well-affected and reasonable Tories, whose theory of the Succession harmonised with Sophia’s own. But, at the same time, it would have been not less unwise to court the goodwill of the Queen and her new ministers by cutting communications with Marlborough and the Whigs, than it would have been to yield to the Whig proposal, communicated through Robethon, to base the claims of the House of Hanover on the principles of the Revolution of 1688. Leibniz was able to demonstrate the perfect consistency of the course pursued by the House he served; and the firmness and prudence with which the Elector resisted perhaps the single temptation which, in the whole course of these transactions, he personally found it hard to withstand—the offer of the supreme command in the war—deserves a fuller recognition than has usually been accorded to it.
The final period in the history of the Hanoverian Succession—though even during this period the question had, as will be seen, still to pass through a series of stages before it was solved—began with the transformation of the British Ministry into a Tory Government, and the overthrow of the Marlborough influence, which, with that of Godolphin, had so long cast its spell over Queen Anne. During the last month or two of 1710,[171] Schütz having died in the previous August, Bothmer was performing the duties of envoy extraordinary in London, where he remained till the following March. The Electress was extremely desirous that he should, unlike Schütz and Kreyenberg, refrain from showing any inclination towards either of the political parties; here in Hanover, she assured him in January, 1711, ‘we do not know the meaning of the terms Whig and Tory, and decline to distinguish individuals under those names’; and she applauds him for having already, as she hears, managed to create a far more agreeable impression than that made by his predecessor. But this attempt on the part of the Electress to hold the balance between the two parties, and to make Bothmer do the same, could not be of long endurance. On April 17th, 1711, the Emperor Joseph I died; there could be no reasonable doubt as to the succession of his brother, the titular King Charles III of Spain, to the Imperial throne; and an irresistible impulse was given to the desire for peace, with which the new British Ministry was known to be in sympathy.
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Footnote 171:
The Electress wishes him a happy voyage on October 29th.
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Henceforth, until the Peace had been actually concluded, the question of its conclusion dominated all others, and that of the Succession among the rest. It might suit the purposes of the Whigs, who were opposed to the Peace, to represent the desire of bringing it about as put forward with a view to covering Jacobite designs with regard to the Succession; as a matter of fact, the Tory leaders, though they might amuse Berwick—or others who were as ignorant of England as he was—with proposals about bringing over the Pretender to reside in England on his half-sister’s invitation, were very careful not to allow any premature Jacobite outbreak to interrupt the peace negotiations. When, in October, 1711, Bothmer returned to London as envoy extraordinary, the situation had, for better or for worse, cleared up; and it would have been impossible for the most skilful of diplomatists, with the strongest wish to carry out the conciliatory intentions cherished by the good Electress, to avoid an early collision with the Queen’s ministers, and, in consequence, to place in his own way an insuperable obstacle against securing her own goodwill. For the Elector was, heart and soul, in favour of the continuance of the war; and the immediate purpose of Bothmer’s present mission was to overthrow the peace policy to which the Queen’s ministers had made up their minds. He brought with him an elaborate memorandum from the Elector, dated November 28th, 1711, against the conclusion of peace with France; and in January, 1712, this memorandum was supported by a letter from the Elector asking for a hearing for his envoy. These documents were presented to the Queen on February 14th. As a matter of course, they were ascribed by the ministerialists to Whig influence, and represented as implying an attempt to bring about the continuance of Marlborough in the command. There was no warrant for either assumption; and it may be added that the Electress instructed Bothmer to express to Ormonde, as a tried friend of hers, the particular gratification with which she had heard of his appointment.
Violent altercations in Parliament ensued; and Bothmer clearly perceived that any attempt to renew at present the proposal of inviting over the Electress and the Electoral Prince, if not the Elector himself, could have no other effect than that of uniting with the Jacobite wing of the Tory party the followers of Harley, with whom it was a cardinal principle to ‘use the Queen with all duty and respect imaginable.’ On the representations of Bothmer, Somers, Sunderland, and Godolphin agreed not to move in the matter without the Elector’s assent; and this was sure not to be given, until an invitation should have been approved by Queen and Parliament. Thus a blunder was avoided which must have proved more disastrous to the prospects of the House of Hanover than that actually committed three years later.
Both in 1710 and 1711 the air was full of more or less unsubstantial schemes for bringing about, at what already seemed the eleventh hour, the succession of the Pretender; and rumours were rife as to the gradual transformation of the Ministry into a Jacobite Cabal. Though Leibniz was no doubt right in saying that the question of inviting to England, or (as the Electress so consistently repeated) of granting an income to, one or more members of the Electoral family, was the touchstone of the real intentions of the British Government, and though this may, as he asserts, have also been the opinion of the Elector, yet there was no question at Hanover of claiming any such concession. In April, 1711, the Electress declared herself wholly uncertain of what would happen even in the event of Queen Anne’s death—for ‘what Parliament does one day, it undoes the next.’ Thus, when, in the autumn of the same year, Lord Rivers made his second appearance at Hanover, the letter which he brought with him from Queen Anne, and his assurances of her care for the interests of the Electoral family, were received by Sophia with proper expressions of gratitude, whatever she might privately say as to the expense which this mission entailed upon the Hanoverian Court, with little prospect of return. There was, indeed, some talk of the Elector being offered the chief command in Flanders after Marlborough’s dismissal in December, 1711; but nothing came of the suggestion, and in January, 1712, the Electress is found expressing her satisfaction at the appointment of Ormonde, who had always been so friendly to her. But as to the main object of his mission Rivers completely failed; for George Lewis firmly declined to give his approval to the British overtures of peace to France, at the risk of deeply annoying the Queen and her ministers by thus falling in with the wishes of the Whigs. He took his stand on the principles of the Grand Alliance, from which he had never swerved; while his mother judiciously held the balance by refusing to accept the insinuations of her correspondent at the Hague, Lord Strafford, against the inclinations of her House and Bothmer towards the Whigs, and appealing with much dignity to her conviction that, beyond the devices of Whigs and Tories, the Protestant Succession could depend on the support of the nation. Meanwhile, the two parties were alike striving to apprise the Hanoverian Court of the direction in which to look for its friends. The anxiety of the Whigs to identify their party with the Electoral House is at the same time proved by the motion of the Duke of Devonshire to give precedence to the Duke of Cambridge over other Peers.[172] The Ministry overtrumped this modest effort by a Bill giving precedence to the entire Electoral family, which was passed in two days (January, 1712), and which the minister’s kinsman, Thomas Harley, was in July specially sent over to present to the Electress. She took the announcement of this new visit very coolly, regretting the expense to which she was put by it, and observing that, if the British throne were for sale, France on behalf of its client could afford the purchase better than the House of Hanover, which had no intention of imitating the prodigality of Augustus II of Poland.[173] Her instinct was correct, for Thomas Harley had instructions which, while pretending to put the blame on Bothmer, seriously reflected on the Elector’s opposition to the peace policy pursued by the British Government. In the course of the negotiations carried on at Paris in August, 1712, between Torcy and Bolingbroke, the latter on one occasion even went so far as to hint at the despatch of a British fleet into the Baltic, with a view not only to controlling the northern troubles, but also to frustrating possible designs on the part of the Dutch _and of Hanover_.[174]
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Footnote 172:
He had been created a Knight of the Garter in 1706, but not installed till December, 1710, Lord Halifax acting as his proxy.
Footnote 173:
_À propos_ of the mention of this sovereign it may be noted that about this time Queen Anne thought fit to impose upon the Electress the task (specially disagreeable because she specially disliked him) of dissuading King Augustus from forcing his son and namesake to follow him into the Church of Rome. Augustus II actually promised Queen Anne to send his son to England; but in the meantime the latter had been received into the Catholic Church at Bologna.
Footnote 174:
O. Weber, _Der Friede von Utrecht_, p. 313.
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Meanwhile the Court of Hanover, while maintaining unchanged its attitude towards the general question of war or peace, had immediate interests of its own to watch besides such as might be involved in the question of the English Succession. The recognition of the Hanoverian Electorship, for instance, was demanded from France, _pari passu_ with that of the Prussian Kingship. Early in the year, in the negotiations already in progress, Bothmer, whom Oxford and Bolingbroke persisted in treating as antagonistic to their Government,[175] returned to his post at the Hague. In December, 1712, Baron Thomas von Grote, who belonged to a family of high distinction in the Hanoverian service, arrived in London, nominally with the special charge of returning thanks for the Act of Precedence. His instructions, drawn up by Robethon in the name of the Electress Sophia, illustrate the penultimate stage in the final period of the transactions concerning the Succession. He was to be polite to all, and not to consider himself debarred from taking counsel with the old friends of the House—in other words, with Marlborough and the Whig leaders—so long as this was done privately and secretly; and he was to avoid giving umbrage to the Queen’s ministers, and above all to the Queen herself. The Elector furnished him with a special commendatory letter to Oxford. He was to make friends with the clergy, and to reassure them by pointing out that the ecclesiastical system of the German Lutherans was to all intents and purposes an episcopal one. The everlasting delicate question as to the summoning of the Electress or another member of the Electoral family to England he was to treat as if this event might any day come to pass; and, at the same time, he was to press for a proposal to Parliament on the subject of an establishment—say at Somerset House. The Elector, while of opinion that such a proposal would furnish the best means of testing the sincerity of the Queen’s and her advisers’ intentions, declined to influence Parliamentary opinion by means of any expenditure of his own, though it would seem that he had previously not objected to Bothmer’s attempting to gain over some noble Lords against the Peace by similar inducements. But, though he still abstained from any intervention in British home affairs, his own instructions to Grote were less carefully balanced than those of the Electress, and left no doubt as to its being the leading Whigs on whom he reckoned as the true friends of the House of Hanover.
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Footnote 175:
Bolingbroke hated Bothmer, and described him as, ‘notwithstanding that air of coldness and caution which he wore, the most inveterate party man that I ever saw, and the most capable of giving _tête baissée_ into the most extravagant measures that faction could propose.’ (Cf. Salomon, p. 239, and note.)
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Both at Hanover and elsewhere, however, eager friends of the dynasty advocated a more expeditious procedure. In September, 1712, the indefatigable Leibniz submitted a scheme, concocted by busy brains in London, for including the demand for establishing the Electress in England among the conditions of the Peace of Utrecht. But, though both in her correspondence, and in conversation with Thomas Harley, she had given considerable attention to the scheme, she ultimately declared it impracticable. The unsatisfactory action of the English ministers in the matter of the Dutch guarantee of the Hanoverian Succession had once more rendered her diffident; she was, she said, so old that there was no reality in all her talk; were she younger, she added with a touch of her old spirit, the sovereignty of England should not pass by her.
The Peace of Utrecht, when actually concluded in the spring of 1713, was in many respects unsatisfactory to the Elector; and as an Estate of the Empire, he must have been well content to withhold his signature from it. But it contained a very explicit recognition of the Hanoverian Succession by France and the other signatory Powers; so that, in this respect at all events, Bothmer’s exertions had been entirely successful. Yet the tone prevailing at court and in ministerial circles in London very imperfectly agreed with this result; and in Hanover there was a growing disbelief in the sincerity of the sentiments entertained in these quarters. Grote found himself coolly received, and his attempts to obtain assurances baffled. Various suggestions offered by him were ignored; and in a lengthy despatch which he sent home in February (a few weeks before his death) he drew the darkest picture of the political situation which had as yet reached Hanover. He considered that, in spite of the generalities in which Oxford shrouded himself, he had gradually gone over to the Jacobites in order to please the Queen, while Bolingbroke he regarded as an open Jacobite on his own account. He thought that, as to the Pretender, there was reason for fearing the worst; he had heard that the Queen had expressed a wish to see her half-brother in England after the conclusion of the Peace, while the question of inviting over a member of the Electoral family had been indefinitely postponed. Part of this report sufficiently tallies with the information with which about this time the Pretender was being constantly supplied by his illegitimate half-brother, the Duke of Berwick. Though sanguine as to methods of action, Berwick never minimised the chances of the Hanoverian Succession; the first thing requisite, he wrote to James in November, 1712, was to checkmate Hanover; the rest could then be easily accomplished without mentioning the name of the legitimate claimant. Both Oxford and Bolingbroke, Berwick wrote in May, 1713, were heartily resolved to go forward; in July, he reported them to be rather less ardent; but these were mere fluctuations. From all this it is tolerably clear that Oxford, in trying to deceive others, deceived himself. Much of his political life had consisted in a successful endeavour to face both ways without laying himself open to the charge of double-dealing. He now persuaded himself that he was throwing dust in the eyes of the Elector and Electress and the friends of the Hanoverian Succession, while at the same time drawing as near to the Jacobite projects as safety permitted. He was, above all things, a Parliamentary statesman, and nothing but the decision of Parliament would determine his ultimate choice of sides; but, as the majority was at present constituted, while the great achievement of the Peace assured the advance of Tory ascendancy, and the Queen seemed less and less inclined to reconcile herself to the Succession of the House of Hanover, he looked to the triumph of the Jacobite cause as the event towards which his course would be most safely shaped. With Bolingbroke, the case was wholly different. Oxford was prepared to be in the end guided by the Parliamentary majority; Bolingbroke was prepared to educate it up to that end—only he used a more sportsmanlike phraseology. For himself, he made no secret whatever of his likes and dislikes; kept up a constant intercourse with Jacobites and Frenchmen; and at times, as Grote complained, did him the honour of treating him ‘_de coquin ou de fou_.’[176]
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Footnote 176:
Salomon, _u.s._, p. 223, from the Hanover Archives.
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Meanwhile, the Queen and the Lord Treasurer continued their _banales_ expressions of friendship and goodwill at Hanover, where, on March 17th, 1713, the useful Thomas Harley presented a letter from the Queen, declaring her intention of treating the interests of the House of Hanover as her own. But neither this letter, nor the amicable phrases with which in April she opened Parliament after its adjournment, evoked any warm response at Hanover. Sophia, indeed, wrote to Strafford at the Hague, begging him to thank the Queen, and adding that, as she had no expectation of ever ascending the throne herself, she hoped that Her Majesty would entertain no aversion to her on that score. But, as she told Bothmer, she only paid back Strafford in the coin she received from England—words, not deeds; and, on the whole, Leibniz’s epigram not unaptly summed up the situation—
_‘Hannoverana domus magnâ me gaudet amicâ,’ Anna refert; tacita est Hannoverana domus._
An attempt had been indeed made, or suggested, to utilise the Queen’s friendly expressions for a bold venture on the part of the House of Hanover; but it had been still-born. After Grote’s death in March, Kreyenberg had carried on the affairs of the Hanoverian Legation in London; and reports were also from time to time sent to Hanover by the Dutch resident in London, L’Hermitage. In one of these (dated May 9th, 1713)[177] the very important proposal was made that the Electoral Prince should come over to England on his own account, inasmuch as the Queen would never send for him. The notion found the utmost favour with the Whig leaders, who knew how much depended on the issue of the approaching election, and who hoped that it might be influenced by so bold a step on the part of the Hanoverian family. But Bernstorff, who was in favour of the scheme and without whose persuasion there was no prospect at all of the Elector approving it, was ill at the time; and, when he recovered, the Elector was found to be entirely under the influence of advice against action. An attempt to bring about the repeal of the Union with Scotland was defeated, without the question of the Hanoverian Succession playing more than a subsidiary part in the dispute.
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Footnote 177:
Printed in Macpherson, Vol. ii. pp. 792-3. See on this transaction Salomon, _u.s._, pp. 225 _sqq._
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When, in the following July, Parliament, after approving a number of the Treaties which formed the Peace of Utrecht,[178] was prorogued, on the eve of a General Election, the Queen’s Speech significantly omitted the usual announcement of her readiness to support the Protestant Succession. While the versatile intellect of Leibniz was still devising new schemes for bringing about the desired result, the Elector adhered more closely than ever to his original policy. In August, 1713, Baron von Schütz the younger (George William Helwig Sinold), the son of the former envoy of the Court of St. James and the grandson of the Celle Chancellor, arrived in London as envoy. The choice of this agent was at the time unfavourably criticised by some of the Whigs, who thought that a politician of greater experience should have been selected. Sophia would not commit herself to Bothmer on the question whether Schütz would be better liked than her correspondent had been in England; ‘at all events,’ she said, ‘nobody will be attracted by his appearance’ (_il ne payera pas de mine_). We shall have to enquire immediately whether, in the great diplomatic catastrophe which befell him, the younger Schütz was himself deserving of blame. He was instructed by the Elector in the sense of an absolute abstinence from interference in British affairs. Even as to the question of inviting a member of the Electoral family to England he was to take up a distinctly negative position; but, at the same time, he was to treat as indispensable measures the removal of the Pretender from Lorraine and a provision for the Electress as Heiress Presumptive of Great Britain. The envoy’s reports were far from encouraging, and his information as to the views and intentions of the Queen and her advisers again agrees with that transmitted by Berwick to the Pretender.
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Footnote 178:
By composing the _Te Deum und Jubilate_ for the celebration of the Peace at St. Paul’s on July 7th, Handel gave great offence to the Hanoverian Court; nor was he readmitted to favour till some little time after the accession of George I.
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The tide of danger was unmistakably rising. Parliament was dissolved in August, 1713; and a proposal was on foot to bring to bear upon Queen Anne at the opening of the new Parliament the direct personal influence of the presence of her half-brother in England. In the attitude of Oxford and Bolingbroke no hopeful alteration occurred. In defiance of the manifest irritation of the Queen, the Elector coldly declared himself unsatisfied with the guarantees which he had so far received, and declined to sanction any expenditure on pamphlets or newspapers, or on more direct means of influencing elections or gaining over necessitous Peers. Yet, to the amusement of Sophia, whose sense of humour never deserted her, Hanover and Herrenhausen continued to attract not a few Englishmen desirous of being found in this vicinity at the critical moment. They were, however, she thought, reckoning without their host in hoping to strew palms before her on her entrance into London; she feared that she could not contrive to live as long as Queen Anne, so as to prove to them her gratitude. And yet, when in the last days of the year Queen Anne herself fell ill, and the agitation in England was raised to an unprecedented pitch, it seemed as if, notwithstanding what Sophia described as her ‘incurable malady of having passed her eighty-fourth year,’ her repeated prediction that she would never herself mount the British throne would after all be falsified. In November she had herself been ill, suffering so seriously from an affection (erysipelas) to which she was subject, that fears were entertained for her life. But she soon recovered sufficiently to write to the Duchess of Orleans, and with her usual spirit she insisted on following the Elector to the Göhrde.
The situation was now coming to be one of a very high tension. On the one hand, Strafford, who never ceased from trying to persuade the Electress that the Tories were her friends, and that there was not a Jacobite left in the party, assured her that what he had observed during the Queen’s illness had convinced him of the strength of popular opinion in England in favour of the Protestant Succession. And Steinghens, the Elector Palatine’s minister in London, who was on a footing of intimacy with Oxford, declared to his correspondent, General von der Schulenburg, that had Queen Anne died during her illness the Princess Sophia would have been proclaimed on the same day. Assurances of devotion poured in from every side; in February, Secretary Bromley laid himself at the Electress’ feet; and Archbishop Dawes entreated attention to his own humble endeavours and to the faithfulness and zeal of the whole body of the clergy. On the other hand, the demeanour and utterances of those in power were not growing more propitious as the new year came in. Cautious as Oxford was in his utterances, perhaps the most striking of all the self-revelations reported of him at this critical time was that which, in December, 1713, he made to the Abbé Gaultier, according to the statement of the latter to De Torcy: ‘So long as I live, England shall not be governed by a German.’ Except through Gaultier, however, Oxford was inaccessible on the subject, and though, in January, 1714, he was said to have sent a private messenger to the Pretender, in the following month Berwick heard that the Lord Treasurer’s intentions were still quite unknown, and suggested to James to make sure of the Queen and Bolingbroke by writing to them himself. Berwick’s scheme of the Pretender coming over to England in secret, so as to enable the Queen to declare in his favour at the opening of Parliament, was quite visionary; for Louis XIV was not inclined to make any move in his support, except by placing two men-of-war at Havre at his disposal; and the Tory leaders were wholly intent upon removing, in the first instance, the insuperable obstacle to any chance of the Pretender’s success by inducing him to come over—to the Church of England. As for Bolingbroke, who must have known that such a solution was not to be looked for, he seems to have been willing to depend on the double chance of something unexpected happening at the critical moment, and of the Hanoverian successor proving unable to maintain herself—or himself—on the throne even after mounting it. Thus, as the crisis drew nearer and nearer, the Tory leaders were becoming less and less prepared to meet it.[179]
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Footnote 179:
These conclusions seem irresistible in view of the documents, especially the despatches of Ibberville, collected by Grimblot and reviewed by Salomon, _u.s._, pp. 235-64.
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And so it came to pass that, when, in February, 1714, the new Parliament met, with a Tory majority in the Commons outnumbering their opponents by at least two to one, the Queen’s Speech could hardly have been more ambiguous in tone than it actually proved. She, like her ministers, had no wish for the House of Hanover, and saw no present chance for the Stewarts. While, therefore, discrediting all reports implying that the Protestant Succession, as settled in the House of Hanover, was in danger, the Speech also referred to the attempts ‘to weaken the Queen’s authority or to render the possession of the Crown uneasy to her’—obviously alluding to the design of bringing over a member of the Electoral family. While Bolingbroke may have been prepared to make use of this design so as to bring about a complete rupture between the Queen and the House of Hanover, Oxford could not but directly oppose a step which would have forced the hands of the Government, and removed the ultimate use of the situation out of his own wary hands. Yet nothing could have been more distinctly double-faced than his action in the early months of 1714. He dangled before Schütz the offer of a revision of the Regency Bill of 1705, which was to enable the court of Hanover to name the whole body of Regents, but which also might have furnished an opportunity for giving the _quietus_ to the entire Bill. Not long afterwards, in March, he expressed his intention to bring in a Bill declaring the introduction of foreign troops into England an act of high treason. But ‘under which King,’ or under what Government, could the foreign troops whose arrival was thus to be prevented have been levied?[180]
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Footnote 180:
Salomon, _u.s._, p. 272. Klopp, vol. xiv. p. 540, gives a summary of the discussion of Oxford’s announcement from the Lords’ Debates.
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Though the calculated untrustworthiness of Oxford, and the reckless speculativeness of Bolingbroke, had by this time become as much of an open secret as had the consuming desire of the Secretary of State to supplant the Lord Treasurer, there was even now no disposition on the part of the court of Hanover to commit itself by any rash act. There had never been any real divergence of policy between the Electress and her son, the Elector, though his consistency of conduct had perhaps been the more formally complete, and we cannot follow him, as we can the Electress, in his private comments on the angular points which from time to time presented themselves in the situation. Now, they were more than ever at one in their determination to abstain from precipitate action. Robethon’s memorandum of _Reasons for not sending the Electoral Prince to England_ (January, 1714), whether or not the Elector’s dislike of his son had anything to do with the conclusions reached, reiterated the old objection of the Electress to a course which would appear to be dictated by a desire to gratify the Whigs by offending the Tories, instead of uniting the moderate men of both parties in support of the Succession. Sophia had, by this time, come to have so little faith in either of the English political parties that, as she told Strafford, she disliked the very names of Whig and Tory; and, as an octogenarian, she was inevitably indisposed to run any great personal risk or court any serious personal change. She gave Schulenburg to understand that she would never consent to proceed to England without the Elector. Yet neither she nor her son, who might be depended upon not to start for England a day too soon, affected indifference towards the Succession; and even on the question of sending the Electoral Prince to England, there were signs that, in deference to Bothmer’s advice, this course might after all be adopted, so soon as the Emperor should have concluded his peace with France.[181] It is no doubt in this connexion that, in the very last letter to Leibniz preserved from the hand of the Electress Sophia—which bears the date of May 20th, 1714 (N.S.)—she refers to a step which, as we shall see, she had just taken, and which Queen Anne had chosen to regard as a provocation offered to herself.
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Footnote 181:
Bothmer to Robethon, January 2nd, 1714. (Cited by Salomon, _u.s._, p. 232, from the Stowe MSS. in Brit. Mus.)
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We must go back for a moment to the previous month of April, in which the relations between Queen Anne and the House of Hanover seemed to have become rather easier. Had she and her advisers—Oxford in
## particular—gained some special insight into the fundamental weakness of
the Jacobite position? Though the secret was open enough, one is almost inclined to some conclusion of the kind, in view of a communication from Berwick to James, dated April 11th, which describes the situation so lucidly that it seems worth while to extract from it the following passage (substituting real names for the transparent pseudonyms):—
I discours’d de Torcy about the King [James]’s resolution to be taken in case Queen Anne should break. I find he knows not what to advise; and in truth it is to be wish’d one could have some newse of Ormonde [now Commander-in-chief], and see what disposition the Parliament will be in, before one comes to a positive determination. The point is very nice; on one side it would look odd in the world that King James should see the Elector of Hannover quietly gett Queen Anne’s throne without making the least opposition; on the other side to beginn an expedition there must be money, provision of arms, and all many other things which I fear the King [James] wants, besides that there can be no hopes of success unless one can gett some officers of the army. A great many of the Scotch will oppose the business and ’tis much feared the Highlanders will have but very small means for so great an undertaking. The Elector has actually the law for him; the United Provinces are engaged to support him; the Kings of France and Spain have promis’d not to meddle in it; and I find the English [i.e. the English friends of the King] so very slow and cautious that ‘tis much to be doubted their giving any helping hand.
Not long afterwards, Berwick had no better advice to give his royal kinsman, than that he should keep his own counsel as to the point on which he had made up his mind, and not allow his friends in England to think the desired consummation (his adoption of the Protestant faith) an event altogether out of the question. When the signs of the times seemed so unpromising to those who watched them with the most direct and personal interest, and when, as to the problem on which chances mainly turned, they could only advise a policy of temporising and dissimulation, Oxford may well have been more desirous than ever to safeguard his own future by seeking to maintain a good understanding with the other side. In this month of April, he is accordingly found tendering assurances not only of his own devotion, but also of Lady Masham’s, to the Hanoverian Succession, and declaring his conviction that the Queen was for it; though, as towards her, he again guarded himself by deprecating the establishment of a second Court in England. About the same time, his kinsman Thomas Harley again arrived at Hanover, with a letter from the Queen to the Electress, blandly enquiring whether there was anything which in her judgment would further secure the Succession of her House. Should she have no suggestion of further guarantees to offer, this would be taken as implying that the existing guarantees were regarded as sufficient. At the same time, the House of Hanover was warned against giving any encouragement, directly or indirectly, to a faction which was working for its own advantage only. Harley brought no message from the Queen inviting any member of the House to England; and the above-mentioned enquiry, as Bolingbroke’s comments on it to Strafford implied, suggested a defiance rather than an invitation. He was specifically instructed to offer her on the part of the Queen an annuity (_pension_) for herself; but this the Electress, with her usual quickness of insight, declined. The revenue desired by her was, she said, one that should be granted to her in due form as Heiress Presumptive by Queen and Parliament, in accordance with the precedent of the allowance made to Queen Anne herself, when Princess of Denmark in the preceding reign. Either before or after the Electress sent this reply—on May 7th—both she and the Elector attached their signatures to a formal answer to the enquiry brought by Thomas Harley. In this important memorandum they reiterated the view which had been expressed in Schütz’s instructions, that the Succession could not be held to be really assured unless an end were put to the danger of invasion by the Pretender by his being made to leave his present residence in Lorraine, and that it was desirable to secure a revenue to the Electress by Act of Parliament. They further declared it to be desirable that a member of the House of Hanover should be established in England, in order to watch over the important interests at issue. There can be no doubt but that the Electoral Prince was the member of the family whom the memorandum had in view. The document was signed and sealed by both the Elector and the Electress; and a covering letter from the former to the Queen thanked her in the most conciliatory tone for her continued care for the Protestant Succession. This memorandum, for which the Elector was directly responsible in conjunction with his mother, takes the bottom out of the supposition that he was at this time ready, if he could do so with honour, to relinquish his claims.
But before the memorandum was actually transmitted, a cold blast had suddenly blown athwart the relations between the House of Hanover and Queen Anne. In the ordinary course of things the Electoral Prince, as Duke of Cambridge, would have, like any other English Peer, received his writ of summons to attend the Queen in Parliament. Aware, however, of her sensitiveness on the subject of the presence of a member of the Hanoverian family in England, the Lord Chancellor (Lord Harcourt) had thought proper to delay indefinitely the issue of the writ. The demand for it had originally been suggested to Schütz by the Earl of Nottingham, who, though a High Church Tory, had long broken with the court; and, though an attempt to obtain the writ from the Lord Chancellor made at the instigation of the Whig Lord Cowper had failed, Schütz had naturally felt uneasy at its issue being delayed. When, in a letter to him, the Electress Sophia had given vent to her astonishment at the fact that the patent of the Duke of Cambridge had not been in due course followed by a writ, and had expressed her opinion that the Lord Chancellor would not object to Schütz’s ‘_asking for it and the reason_’ (of the delay), he had interpreted this expression of opinion as a command. The Whig leaders, including the Duke of Somerset, to whom Schütz had shown the Electress’ ‘order,’ had, according to his own account, been delighted with it, and had approved of his proposal to take action upon it. In the Electress’ letter to Leibniz of May 20th, already mentioned, she explicitly states, not, as Schütz puts it, that she had ‘ordered the writ,’ but that she had directed him to enquire from the Lord Chancellor whether the Electoral Prince ought not to receive it—which is not quite the same thing. But her letter to Schütz, on which the whole matter turns, cannot be said to be ambiguous, or to allow of any interpretation but that put upon it by him.[182] Even if it be the case that the memoranda of Hoffmann, the Imperial resident at the Court of St. James’, imply that, so far as he knew, there was no intention at Hanover of actually demanding the writ till the meeting of the next Parliament, this would not make it necessary to place a forced interpretation upon the Electress’ letter, with which in any case the Elector had no concern, and which can hardly have referred to the next Parliament, when the present was little more than two months old. The Hanoverian court had been pressed both by Marlborough and by Prince Eugene (who never believed in a policy of masterly inaction) to do what it could to obtain a summons for the Electoral Prince, and the Electress is known to have had this matter at heart, while the Elector’s feelings towards his son made him from first to last averse to carrying it into execution.
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Footnote 182:
It seems necessary to quote the actual text of this much-vext letter: ‘_Je vous prie de dire à Monsieur le chancelier Mylord Harcourt qu’on est fort étonné ici qu’on n’a pas envoyé un writ à mon petit-fils le prince électoral pour pouvoir entrer au parlement comme duc de Cambridge, comme cela lui est dû par la patente que la reine lui a donnée. Comme il a toujours été de mes amis aussi bien que son cousin, je crois qu’il ne trouvera pas mauvais que vous le lui demandiez et la raison._’ (_Briefe der Kurfürstin Sophie an Hannoversche Diplomaten_, p. 213.)
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Schütz, who, it must be remembered, was accredited from the Electress as well as from the Elector, had acted in accordance with his instructions; but he can hardly be acquitted of precipitancy, and of an excessive readiness to listen to the opinion of the Whig leaders before assuring himself of the approval of the Elector. In any case, the die had now been cast. Harcourt had replied that the writ was quite ready, but that it was not customary for Peers to demand their writ except when on the spot; he would, however, mention the subject to the Queen. The Cabinet, summoned to deal with the envoy’s demand, decided that the writ could not be refused, though, according to Gaultier’s information, Bolingbroke had supported the Queen’s opinion in favour of refusing it. On April 17th, it was handed to Schütz by the Lord Chancellor, or in accordance with his orders. Being requested to state by whom he had been directed to demand the writ, Schütz seems to have mentioned the name of the Electress; but this is not attested by evidence at first hand. Schütz was speedily informed by Oxford that he would do well not to show himself at Court, and was afterwards formally prohibited from appearing there; but, as a matter of course, there was no question whatever of breaking off diplomatic relations, these being carried on for the time by Kreyenberg. Presently—on April 22nd—the envoy took his departure. On his arrival at Hanover, the Elector made a point of declining to receive Schütz; censured him for having obeyed any orders but the Elector’s; and told Thomas Harley, who, before taking his departure from Hanover, waited on him, with his whole _posse_ of Englishmen, that Schütz had never been instructed to demand the writ, and that he (the Elector) had never intended to send his son to England without the knowledge of the Queen. This formula may perhaps be reconcilable with the information given by Robethon to Lord Polwarth,[183] according to which the Elector, though he knew nothing about the demand for the writ, would have sent the Electoral Prince to England in the end, had it not been for the Queen’s letter to be mentioned immediately, which ‘changed the entire system.’ There seems to have been a good deal of feeling at Hanover—a feeling shared both by the Whig leaders in England and by Bothmer at the Hague—that, the writ having been now secured, the Electoral Prince should be sent over. But this the Elector refused to do; and the success with which he had thus kept out of the whole of this transaction—the single wrong move made on the Hanoverian side in the whole course of the game—must be placed to the credit of his judgment, whatever course he may have intended to take at a later date. But how far both he and the Electress were from being intimidated by the displeasure of the Queen, is shown by the fact that at Thomas Harley’s farewell audience the Elector placed in his hands the outspoken memorandum signed by the Electress and himself on May 7th. As for Sophia, the tone of her letter to Leibniz containing a narrative of the entire transaction is perfectly cool; and in it she as usual expresses the belief that, in spite of her recent illness, Queen Anne will outlive her Heiress Presumptive, and cites the proverb, ‘_krakende Wagens gân lang_.’[184] Her reply to Strafford’s letter entreating her to signify her disapproval of Schütz’s
## action is unfortunately lost, though its purport was said to have been
the same as that of the Elector’s parting declaration to Thomas Harley. The situation seemed far less terrific at Hanover than it did in London, where the Queen’s wrath was visibly ablaze, so that the House of Commons deferred voting payment of the arrears due to the Hanoverian troops, and where it was believed that if the Electoral Prince were after all sent over an invitation to the Pretender would follow. Moreover (though this is a matter into which it is impossible to enter here), the opposite views taken by Oxford and Bolingbroke as to the final issue of the writ undoubtedly helped materially to hasten the fleeting triumph of the younger over the older minister.
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Footnote 183:
Lord Polwarth, eldest son of the Earl of Marchmont and member for Berwick-on-Tweed (who afterwards became an intimate friend of Bolingbroke), had kept up a correspondence with the court of Hanover since his visit there in 1712.
Footnote 184:
I do not know whether anything on the subject is mentioned in the fifteen letters from Sophia to Lady Colt, said to range from 1681 to May 15th, 1714, and to have been sold by auction in 1905.
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From what has been said it will appear how greatly the facts of the case are exaggerated and distorted in the tradition attributing the death of the Electress Sophia, which took place at Herrenhausen on June 8th, 1714, to the agitation caused by the letter addressed to her by Queen Anne in connexion with the affair of the writ, and accompanied by two letters from the Queen on the same subject to the Elector and the Electoral Prince. Undeniably, the Queen’s letter to the Electress Sophia, though taking a less severe form of reprimand than the companion missive to the Electoral Prince, was both offensive and insolent; for Queen Anne, who (with the exception of the Prayer-book Order) had taken no step towards admitting the Electress and her descendants into the royal family, could not lay claim to any formal authority over them. That this view was widely taken of the letters may be gathered from the fact that Boyer (Swift’s ‘Whig dog’), who had been taken into custody on a warrant from Bolingbroke for publishing them, was, a few months after the accession of George I, discharged—so that their publication was evidently regarded as having proved serviceable towards that result. Nor was the effect of the letters likely to be mitigated by the honeyed protestations of Oxford, whose system of procedure the letters almost hopelessly traversed, in a communication to the Elector accompanying them. The sharp wit of the Electoral Princess Caroline suspected that it was not he, but Bolingbroke, who was their draughtsman; and there can be little or no doubt as to the correctness of this surmise. It cannot but have been shared by the old Electress, and must have contributed to make her stand firm against a blow contrived by an all but avowed adversary of the lawful claims of herself and her House.
Yet there can be no doubt that at the time the death of the Electress Sophia was very generally connected with, if not directly attributed to, the advent of the Queen’s letters. The very straightforward account transmitted to Marlborough by Molyneux, who had been sent to Hanover by the Duke to counteract the effects of Thomas Harley’s mission, shows the Electress to have been much agitated on the evening of the day (Wednesday, June 6th) on which, about noon, the letters had been delivered to her at Herrenhausen. On the following day, though Molyneux was told she was not well, she ordered him to send copies of the letters to Marlborough;[185] on Friday, June 8th, she seemed well, but was still occupied with the subject and ordering fresh copies of the letters; she dined with the Elector, and in the evening was, according to her habit, walking in the gardens, when rain suddenly fell. As she quickened her speed in order to find a shelter, she dropped down and rapidly passed away. The letters of the Countess of Bückeburg[186] to the Electress’ niece and constant companion during the last fifteen years, the Raugravine Louisa, corroborates this account, and adds one or two significant touches. On the Wednesday the Electress said to the writer of the letter: ‘This affair will certainly make me ill—I shall never get over it’ (_j’y succombrai_). ‘But,’ she added, ‘I shall have this gracious letter printed, so that all the world may see that it will not have been by my fault, if my children lose the three Kingdoms.’ And, on the Friday, though to all appearance in her usual strength, she continued to talk of English affairs with the Electoral Princess. And, since the Electoral Princess Caroline herself informed Leibniz, on June 7th, that the Electress and the Electoral Prince intended to send the Queen’s letters to England, it may be concluded that this high-spirited but rather venturesome design still further excited the old lady. Although the outer world had continued to believe her to be as full of vigour as ever, she had of late begun to take some thought of her health—a notable sign, inasmuch as ordinarily she set no high value on medical advice, being of opinion that no doctor can predict anything with certainty except that a person who died in February will not be ill in March. Probably, she was aware of the tendency to apoplexy which, already thirteen years earlier, her faithful friend Leibniz had observed in her. On the whole, the natural conclusion appears to be that the agitation produced in her by the Queen’s letters, together with her own resolution not to sit still under the affront, contributed to the collapse of a frame enfeebled by advanced old age, but that this trouble was the occasion rather than the cause of her decease. For her epitaph seems to tell the truth when, in perfect agreement with the Countess of Bückeburg’s statement that ‘never was there seen a death more gentle or more happy,’ it describes the Electress’ death as having been not less peaceful than sudden. Her character lies almost open to us in her private letters, and, as she told Leibniz in April, 1713, she had made it a principle to keep her mind tranquil, and not to allow it to be affected by either public or private troubles. As to her death, she had written to him a little later, it would no doubt be a finer affair if, in accordance with his wishes, her remains were interred at Westminster; ‘but the truth is that my mind, which hitherto has managed to rule my body, at present suggests no such sad thoughts to me, and that the talk about the Succession annoys me.’ Read in the way in which so many of her letters ought to be read, as half-ironical, the words just quoted attest the self-control and self-possession that were on the whole the most noteworthy features in the character of this remarkable woman. But neither this passage, nor anything else that remains from her hand, contradicts the belief which is derived from a review of her entire career, that from first to last she proved herself equal to the responsibilities of her life, and that, had she been actually called to the throne, she would have been not less ready than worthy to reign as a Queen.
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Footnote 185:
It was through these copies that the letters seem afterwards to have become known.
Footnote 186:
This appears to have been the Countess Johanna von der Lippe-Bückeburg, who, on being divorced from her husband, was besieged by him in her residence at Stadthagen near Bückeburg, from which he thought himself entitled to expel her. She appears to have been a welcome visitor at Herrenhausen, where she told the story of this siege ‘_fort joliment_.’
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We possess a minute official account of the proceedings after the Electress Sophia’s death—of the sealing-up of her personal effects by the Elector’s orders; of the embalming of the corpse, the night-watch over it, and its transportation on the evening of the following day to Hanover.[187] Unfortunately, the list of those who paid her the last honours at Herrenhausen does not include the names of the ladies and ‘_cavaliers_’ who had been in personal attendance upon her.[188] Her remains were deposited in the chapel of the royal palace—the old church of the Minorites—at Hanover, with proper care and decorum, but, as is formally stated, ‘without ceremony,’ i.e. without any religious service. A record likewise exists of the Court-mourning ordered, and the black draping of the chapel and of the apartments of the late Electress and the members of the Electoral family at Herrenhausen. To make the formal announcement of his mother’s death and of his own assumption of her claims to the British Succession, the Elector George Lewis once more sent Bothmer to London, the real object of the choice being of course the intention that this most capable diplomatist should, while keeping on good terms with the Queen’s ministers, concert further action with the Whig leaders. On June 15th, the Elector signed certain powers for the event of the Queen’s death, which would have given to his envoy an authority superior to that of the Lords Justices; but, as theirs rested on an Act of Parliament, the special authority entrusted to Bothmer was really as futile as that which had in similar terms been previously conferred on the elder Schütz, Grote, and the younger Schütz in turn. Bothmer’s reports show that Bolingbroke was believed to be acting in the interest of the Pretender; and of the truth of this charge, after he had succeeded in ousting Oxford from office, the latter, who had himself continued to be suspected of Jacobitism, personally assured the Elector’s envoy. On the part of Queen Anne, the Earl of Clarendon, a Tory Peer of high connexion, but of marked incapacity,[189] arrived at Hanover on July 7th to express to the Elector the Queen’s sympathy with his loss. Clarendon, who had been entrusted with an extraordinary mission to Hanover before the occurrence of the Electress’ death, also brought with him an answer to the Electoral memorandum of May 7th, drafted by Bolingbroke, which declined all the demands made in the memorandum. Clarendon was charged with some polite explanations; but the Elector had no intention of trusting either to these or to the chapter of accidents. With an alertness rarely shown by him before his mother’s death in regard to matters connected with the Succession, he promptly caused a fresh instrument of Regency comprising his own nominations of Lords Justices to be prepared: and from this revised list Marlborough was omitted—either because he was not in England, or in consequence of a knowledge on the part of the Elector of the double game which even now the Duke was playing. At Hanover things seemed to be taking their usual course; but the visit paid to the Elector early in August by his nephew, the new King Frederick William I of Prussia, was not without its significance. For George Lewis was already taking thought of the safety of his Electorate in the event of his being called to England, and welcomed the assurances of support received by him from the King of Prussia and other German Princes. They could not know, but they might well suspect, the secret offers of assistance which Louis XIV had made to Queen Anne through Bolingbroke, and which the latter had contingently accepted. It was a few days after the termination of the King of Prussia’s visit that the news arrived in Hanover of the death of Queen Anne on August 1st.
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Footnote 187:
Malortie, _Der Hannoversche Hof_, &c., pp. 225 _sqq._
Footnote 188:
The continuous series of the letters addressed by her youngest son, Duke Ernest Augustus, to his friend J. F. D. von Wendt, breaks off in November 1713.
Footnote 189:
He had, as Lord Cornbury, been Governor of New Jersey and New York, where he left no honoured name behind him.
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The events which had crowded on one another between the death of the Electress Sophia and that of Queen Anne belong, not to Sophia’s biography, but to that of the sovereign whose Heir Presumptive was now Sophia’s son. That this heir was a ruling foreign prince, whom no immediate descent or early associations connected with the House of Stewart, and whose own dealings (apart from his mother’s) with English politicians had been to all intents and purposes entirely with Whigs, could not but intensify the aversion from the Hanoverian Succession entertained not only by the Jacobites but also, though in a less degree, by those of the Tories whose political sentiments were in nearest touch with theirs. The bonds of party union had just been drawn closer among the Tories at large by the Schism Act, and the Church had been more decisively than before rallied to the Government. But even so, Oxford was still unable to make up his mind to risk everything by inviting or allowing the Pretender to appear on English ground. Hence, not quite a fortnight after the Electress Sophia’s death, the proclamation against the Pretender was issued, and, a fortnight later (July 9th), Parliament was prorogued to an early date in August.
During the interval, it was manifest, the Queen must make up her mind between her two chief counsellors, of whom one still thought it possible to tack and tack about, while the other was still hoping for a wind so strong and straight that he might drift before it into the desired port. The Queen decided for Bolingbroke, and, on July 27th, Oxford was dismissed from office. Bolingbroke’s moment had come, but he was unequal to its call. Instead of bringing the Pretender to England, he thought that even now there remained time for him to weld the Tory party still more closely together, by means of his Church policy above all, and to form a Jacobite Ministry that would be in readiness at the critical moment, while in any case the Whigs must be prevented from bringing over the Elector or the Electoral Prince in the interval. Bolingbroke and those in his confidence were very hopeful in this their brief day of authority; but the Whigs were more than hopeful—they were prepared.[190] The organisation set on foot by their leaders overspread the country, and the very symbol or token of action was agreed upon, while Marlborough was waiting at Ostend to resume the command of the army. And, throughout the great body of the middle classes in England—among the Nonconformists in particular—a ready expectancy awaited the accomplishment of the Protestant Succession.
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Footnote 190:
The Whig ‘plot’ to which Mr. Sichel refers in his _Life of Bolingbroke_ p. 351, as revealed by Chesterfield at a later date, seems to belong to March 1714, when the Queen had (on the 11th) a sudden attack of erysipelas.
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At last, and with a most extraordinary rapidity in the sequence of its events, the end came. The malady to which Queen Anne was to succumb announced itself on July 27th. By July 30th the anxiety had become so grave that, at a meeting of the Cabinet and of a few Privy Councillors not forming part of it, presided over by Shrewsbury, orders were issued to close the ports, to hold twenty men-of-war in readiness, and to make the Lord Mayor responsible for the safety of the City of London. On the following day, the control of affairs finally passed out of Bolingbroke’s hands, when, after a meeting of the whole Privy Council, at which Bothmer and Kreyenberg were present, the Queen, in accordance with the Council’s recommendation, placed the Lord Treasurer’s staff in Shrewsbury’s hands. A courier was sent to Strafford at the Hague, to remind the authorities there of the guarantee to which they were bound by treaty; and the British troops were recalled from the Netherlands. Early in the morning of August 1st, the Queen lay dead. Everything was in readiness. Kreyenberg made his appearance with a box containing the commission of the Lords Justices; and of the eighteen names included in it thirteen were found to be those of Whigs. During the morning, Peers, Privy Councillors, and Members of the House of Commons flocked in to append their signatures to the proclamation notifying the death of Queen Anne and the accession of King George. It was read by the heralds at Charing Cross and Temple Bar, and within the City; and a few days later the King was again proclaimed there, as well as at Edinburgh and Dublin. The Houses of Parliament, which had assembled for formal business on the day of the Queen’s death, four days later voted loyal addresses to her successor.
Bothmer, who had controlled the entire process of these transactions,[191] had promptly despatched his secretary, Goedeke, to carry to King George the great news of his accession. He arrived at Hanover on the morning of August 6th, just a day after Secretary Craggs, who brought, with other missives, a letter addressed to the Elector on the day before the Queen’s death, and informing him that everything was in readiness for his immediate journey to England so soon as that death should actually have taken place. On August 8th, the Earl of Dorset—a young Whig Lord, described, in his later days, by a severe critic as ‘a perfect English courtier’—arrived from England with his suite, to make the official announcement on behalf of the Lords Justices. Doubt has been thrown on the statement that Goedeke, having reached Hanover, communicated the news to Clarendon, who had returned from dining with the Elector and Baroness von Kielmannsegg at her villa, Fantaisie, and who at once bore the tidings to George I at Herrenhausen. In any case, the formal announcement to the new King was made by Dorset on August 9th, when he was received by George in the flower-garden of the Orangery at Herrenhausen. Inasmuch as, on that very day, the Earl of Berkeley assumed the command of the imposing naval squadron which, a little more than a week afterwards, anchored off the Dutch coast, there was no reason why the new King should delay his departure. Whether, however, because of his confidence in the circumspection of his English friends, or because of his attachment to his Electorate, George I was in no hurry. To be in no hurry may be accounted one of the minor virtues in a monarch. He left Herrenhausen on the morning of August 31st, bidding farewell to his and his mother’s favourite place of sojourn in words which, if the court chronicler is to be trusted, betray more of sentiment than he was in the habit of expressing, but at the same time show him to have had no intention of breaking with the traditions of the past. ‘Farewell, dear place, where I have spent so many enjoyable and tranquil hours. I leave you, but not for ever; _for I hope to see you again from time to time_.’
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Footnote 191:
It was Bothmer who advised the destruction of a packet of letters found in the Queen’s private apartments by the Lords Justices and himself, and who, during the burning of them, thought that he recognised the handwriting of the Pretender.
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In the same spirit, George I’s departure was left unmarked by any solemnity or ceremonial whatever. He was accompanied on his journey by his son, with whom the death of the old Electress seems to have furnished him with an opportunity of placing himself for the time on seemlier terms. The Princess (Caroline of Ansbach) followed rather later, with her children.[192] The King’s favourite brother, Prince Ernest Augustus, remained behind in Hanover, chiefly, no doubt, in order that he might fill the Elector’s place at the Privy Council there, and also for the purpose of taking care of his expectations at Osnabrück, which were realised a year later, when he succeeded to the bishopric formerly held by his father, his elder brother, Maximilian William, being, as a convert to Rome, left out in the cold. Six months later, the Bishop[193] was created Duke of York. At the Hague, the royal party was joined by Baroness von Kielmannsegg; Melusina von der Schulenburg followed in due course. With the King were his prime minister, Bernstorff, and Baron von Schlitz-Görz, who was to succeed Bernstorff in the same capacity at Hanover, besides three Privy Councillors, of whom Robethon was one, and a small Chancery staff. The chief officers of the Hanoverian Court, and a fairly ample household, including ‘Mr. Mehmet and Mr. Mustapha,’ live remembrances of the King’s Turkish campaigns, raised the royal retinue to the moderate total of something less than one hundred persons.
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Footnote 192:
So late as a fortnight after Queen Anne’s death, the Duchess of Orleans mentions a report that the English people were quite contented to have George I for their King, but on condition that the Electoral Prince should never be his successor. Probably, Elizabeth Charlotte’s personal prejudices inclined her to give credit to this ridiculous rumour; for she is unable to forego the opportunity of alluding to George Augustus’ ‘ill ancestry.’—O. von Heinemann, _Geschichte von Braunschweig und Hannover_, vol. iii. p. 228, mentions, without reprobating, the mendacious ‘Court scandal,’ explaining the quarrel between father and son by a supposed passion of the former for his daughter-in-law!
Footnote 193:
His letter describing his early days in his episcopal city gives a delightful picture of still life. ‘I have allowed myself the pleasure of taking a walk along the ramparts, in which all the small boys of the town have accompanied me.’
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Bolingbroke afterwards asserted that King George, though he had quitted Hanover in the apparent resolution of leaving the Tory Government in England unmolested, had during his stay in Holland, in consequence of earnest importunities on the part of the Allies, and particularly of Heinsius and some of the Whigs, come to a contrary decision. How far this assertion, and the belief that the impeachment of the Tory leaders was due more particularly to the inspiration of Bothmer, are correct, the present is not an occasion for enquiring; but enough has been said in the course of this narrative to indicate that George I was not easily led, or easily turned.
On September 16th, 1714, the new King of Great Britain sailed from Oranie Polder; on the 18th he landed at Greenwich; and two days later he held his entry into London. His Coronation took place at Westminster Abbey on October 18th. Few men who have laid claim to so dazzling and so elusive a prize as that which fell to his lot have maintained their claim with so calm a resolve and so consistent a self-restraint. Whether or not circumstances—such as an armed landing on the English coast by the Pretender, or merely his personal appearance on English soil—might have led to a counter-attempt on the part of the Heir Presumptive to assert his claim to the throne in person, who shall say? And who will lay it down whether in putting his right to the test, even at the risk of civil war, he would have done wrong? Such a step he had not been called upon to take; and his course of conduct had remained consistent throughout. Although he had little personal inclination for the change which his accession to the British throne involved, this should not detract from the tribute due to his conduct before that accession. As his claim descended to him from his mother, so he had inherited from her some, though not all, of the qualities which, in her, well became the Heiress of Great Britain. True to the friends of his House, and without fear of its enemies, he professed no feeling which he did not entertain, and shrank from no duty that was imposed upon him.
The princely sense of honour to which the Electress Sophia and her son were true in accepting the great responsibility to which they were called by the Act of Settlement was beyond a doubt their primary motive in meeting it. But, at the same time, they were alike fully conscious of the significance of the cause embodied in the Protestant Succession; nor was the triumph of that cause, to which Sophia looked forward with hardly a thought of self, merely or mainly the fulfilment of a great dynastic ambition.
APPENDIX A
GENEALOGICAL TABLES
I. FAMILY OF FREDERICK V, ELECTOR PALATINE.
FREDERICK V (1596-1632) m. ELIZABETH (1596-1632). | +-----------------------+------------------------+ | | | (1) (2) (3) _Henry Frederick_ _Charles Lewis_ _Elizabeth_ (1614-1629). (1617-1680), (1618-1680), Elector Palatine Abbess of Herford (1648); (1667). m. (1) Charlotte, d. of William Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel; (2) Maria Louisa, d. of Baron Christopher von Degenfeld. | By (1) | By (2) +-----------------------+------------------------+ | | | _Charles_ _Elizabeth Charlotte_ Eight Raugraves and Elector Palatine (1652-1721); five Raugravines. (1651-1685). m. Philip Duke of Orleans.
+-----------------------+------------------------+ | | | (4) (5) (6) _Rupert_ _Maurice_ _Louisa Hollandina_ (1619-1682). (1620-1652). (1622-1709). Abbess of Maubuisson (1664).
+-----------------------+------------------------+ | | | (7) (8) (9) _Lewis_ _Edward_ _Henrietta Maria_ (August-September (1625-1663); (1626-1651); 1623). m. Anna Gonzaga, d. of m. Sigismund Duke Charles of Nevers. Rákóczi, s. of Prince George I of Transylvania.
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+ | | | | (10) (11) (12) (13) _Philip_ _Charlotte_ SOPHIA _Gustavus_ (1627-1655). (1628-1631). (1630-1714); (1632-1641). m. Ernest Augustus, afterwards Elector of Hanover.
Cf. Voigtel-Cohn’s _Stammtafeln zur Gesch. d. deutschen Staaten u. d. Niederlande_ (1871), _Tafel_ 51. Feder, pp. 3-4, has gratuitously shortened the lives of not less than three of the Palatine children.
II. DESCENDANTS OF DUKE GEORGE OF BRUNSWICK-LÜNEBURG.
GEORGE (1582-1641) m. ANNA ELEONORA of Hesse-Darmstadt. | +----------+---------+-----------+---------------+ | | | | | _Christian | _John Frederick_ | _Ernest Lewis_ | (1625-1679); | Augustus_ (1622-1665); | m. _Benedicta | (1629-1698); m. _Dorothea_ of | Henrietta_ of | m. Sophia Holstein-Glucksburg.| the Palatinate. | of the _George | | Palatinate. William_ | _Sophia Amelia_ | (1624-1705); | (1628-1670); | m. Eleonora | m. Frederick III | d’Olbreus. | of Denmark. | | | | _Sophia +-+-----+------+-------+ | Dorothea_ | | | | | m. George _Anna | _Henrietta | | Lewis of Sophia._ | Maria | | Hanover | Josepha._ | | | | | _Charlotte _Wilhelmina | Felicitas_; Amalia_; | m. _Rinaldo_ m. Emperor | of Modena. Joseph I. | | +----------+--------+----------+---------+------+----+--+ | | | | | | | | _Frederick | _Sophia | _Christian_ | | Augustus_ | Charlotte_ | (1671-1703). | | (1661-1691). | (1668-1705); | _Ernest | | m. Frederick I | Augustus_ _George Lewis_ | of Prussia. | 1674-1728). (_George I_) | | | (1660-1727); _Maximilian | _Charles m. Sophia William_ | Philip_ Dorothea of (1666-1726). | (1669-1690). Celle. _Frederick | William I_ +--+----------------+ of Prussia. | | _George _Sophia Augustus_ Dorothea_ (_George II_) (1687-1757); (1683-1760); m. _Frederick m. Caroline of William I_ Ansbach. of Prussia.
APPENDIX B CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN PRINCESS SOPHIA DOROTHEA AND COUNT KÖNIGSMARCK IN THE ROYAL SECRET ARCHIVES OF STATE AT BERLIN
The original French text of the Letters which the liberal courtesy of the authorities of the Royal Secret Archives of State at Berlin enables me to reproduce in this place is here printed as supplied by their copyist. The packet containing the Letters is inscribed in the handwriting of Frederick the Great in the words of the title here prefixed to them. The spelling of the words in the Letters, the way in which those words are run into one another, and the sequence of the Letters, have (except in one instance in which there had been an evident misplacement of manuscript) been left as they stand in the transcript. The words ciphered in numbers, whether in whole or letter by letter, have been deciphered—each deciphered word, whether proper or common, being distinguished by italics. The nicknames (or designations applied to particular persons by the writers of the letters, in accordance with a mutual understanding between them) are left as they stand; their equivalents, so far as known, being mentioned at the end of this introductory note.
An English translation is appended, in which an attempt has been made, besides assigning the Letters to their respective writers, to supply dates, where possible, to those which are undated, and to place them in their probable chronological sequence. This attempt is based in the main on a comparison of the Berlin with the Lund Letters. It could not be carried very far without establishing beyond all possibility of doubt the fact that the two series form an organic whole, and that each of them proves incontestably the genuineness of the other. A few brief notes have been added, identifying names of persons or places, where this could be done.
The original (French) letters are numbered consecutively (1-34); the English versions are arranged so far as possible chronologically, and numbered so as to correspond with the originals (F 1-F 34).
Nothing is actually known as to the way in which the Berlin Letters, whose number is less than one-tenth of that of the Letters preserved at Lund, came into the hands of King Frederick II of Prussia, the son of Sophia Dorothea’s daughter and namesake and of her consort King Frederick William I. It is proved by fragments of the proceedings for a divorce against the Electoral Princess that letters which had passed between the lovers had been seized already in the course of the two months (May and June, 1694) preceding the disappearance of Königsmarck, and had thus come to the knowledge of the Electoral Government. (One of the letters here printed shows how apprehensive the guilty pair had been of such an occurrence.)
In Cramer’s _Memoirs of Countess Maria Aurora Königsmarck and the Königsmarck family_ (1837), a book which, notwithstanding the addition of a great deal of second-hand matter, is beyond a doubt largely based upon original documents, will be found an apparently authentic report of Auditeur Rüdiger (dated July 1, 1695). He states that after Königsmarck’s disappearance on July 1, 1694, a certain von Metsch (who was married to the sister of Eleonora von dem Knesebeck, and had served as intermediary at some stages of Königsmarck’s secret correspondence with the Princess) was frequently in the company of Königsmarck’s secretary, Hildebrandt. In reply to an enquiry from the latter, Metsch stated that on the Count’s journey to Dresden he had seen in his possession a packet of letters tied together with yellow ribbon in a little box, of which the Count took particular care. This packet, by Hildebrandt’s advice, Metsch now sent unopened by the hands of a servant to Celle. If this statement is correct, there is much probability in the conjecture that these were some of the letters which found their way to the sisters of Königsmarck, and ultimately into the library at Lund.
Two days later, again according to the statement of Rüdiger, who had it from Hildebrandt, the latter was ordered by an official personage (Secretary Zacharias) to open Königsmarck’s apartments for a thorough examination of them and of all the furniture. In the course of the examination of the Count’s bedroom (_Cabinet_) Rüdiger was called to summon a locksmith to open the writing-table; but during the actual opening of it he remained in an ante-room. After this the rooms were sealed up, and the flow of talk began.
Possibly this was the way in which the Hanoverian Government obtained possession of the letters which, in the opinion of Leibniz, brought home conviction of Sophia Dorothea’s guilt to her parents at Celle; though after the divorce the Elector Ernest Augustus refused either to allow the letters to be kept at Celle, or to have them burnt _instanter_. In any case, there would thus be no difficulty in accounting for the preservation of evidence which could afterwards be sent by the Hanoverian court to that of Berlin, in order to convince Sophia Dorothea’s daughter, who is said to have desired the liberation of the ‘Duchess of Ahlden’ from her imprisonment, of her unhappy mother’s guilt.[194]
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Footnote 194:
In the above, which it will be observed hardly passes out of the region of conjecture, I have followed the argument of Dr. G. R. Geerds, comparing Cramer as to the basis of fact.
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I subjoin so much of Count Schulenburg’s key to designations and numerical ciphers for names, as applies to the Berlin Letters; it is supplemented in their case by Dr. Geerds and myself:
100 = Elector (Duke) of Hanover. 101 = Duke of Celle. 102 = Electoral (Hereditary) Prince (George Lewis). 103 = ? Fieldmarshal Podewils. 112 = Prince Maximilian. 120 = Königsmarck. 200 = Electress (Duchess) of Hanover. 201 = Electoral (Hereditary) Princess (Sophia Dorothea). 202 = Countess Platen. 214 = Fräulein von dem Knesebeck. 227 = Duchess of Celle. 300 = Hanover. 301 = Luisburg. 305 = Celle.
La Romaine = Electress (Duchess) of Hanover. Le Reformeur = Electoral (Hereditary) Prince. L’Incommode = Electoral (Hereditary) Prince. Le Pédagogue = Duchess of Celle. Le Grondeur = Duke of Celle. La Boule = Electress of Brandenburg (Sophia Charlotte). L’Innocent = Prince Ernest Augustus. Léonisse = Electoral (Hereditary) Princess (Sophia Dorothea). Le Cœur Gauche = Electoral (Hereditary) Princess (Sophia Dorothea). La Confidante = Fräulein von dem Knesebeck. La Marionette = A sister of Landgrave Ernest Lewis of Hesse-Darmstadt.
The titles ‘Elector,’ ‘Electoral Prince,’ ‘Electoral Princess,’ could not have been formally used until after the date of the Electoral Investiture, December 19, 1692. (Cf. Königsmarck’s sarcastic letter _ap._ Wilkins, p. 258.[195]) Before the Investiture the titles were ‘Duke,’ ‘Hereditary Prince,’ and ‘Hereditary Princess,’ and these designations have accordingly been adopted in the original and in the translated letters belonging, or held assignable, to earlier dates.
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Footnote 195:
The edition of _The Love of an Uncrowned Queen_ edited by me is the revised edition of 1903. Dr. Robert Geerds’ article, as already stated, appeared in the _Beitrag zur Allgemeinen Zeitung_ for Friday, April 7th, 1902.
-----
Wilkins (p. 218, note) thinks that La Marionette was ‘probably a Princess of Hesse.’ Her brother is said (by Sophia Dorothea) to be ‘with the army,’ and by Königsmarck to be ‘near’ Sophia Dorothea, also at Wiesbaden, and ‘in his own country.’ The only Princess of Hesse whom these indications would fit would be one of the three surviving elder sisters of Landgrave Ernest Lewis of Hesse-Darmstadt, who served under Margrave Lewis William of Baden. They were Magdalena Sibylla, Duchess Dowager of Würtemberg, Maria Elizabeth, Duchess of Saxe-Römhild, and Sophia Maria, Duchess of Saxe-Eisenberg.
The above list leaves unexplained the following numerical ciphers used in the Berlin Letters: 20, 110, 127, 131, 307, 308, 2000—seven in all, as against sixteen left unexplained by Dr. Geerds. Resort is now and then had in these Letters to the extraordinary notion (it can hardly be called a cipher) of disguising a word in a crowd of _jllj_’s or _illy_’s, thus:
_jlljlandjlljgrajllivejlli_ = landgrave.
The letter-key, with which a large proportion of the words in the Letters have been deciphered at Berlin, is as follows:
22 = a 41 = n 24 = b 42 = o 25 = c 45 = p 27 = d 46 = q 29 = e 47 = r 30 = f 50 = s 32 } = g 51 = t 37 } 53 = { u 33 = h { v 35 = i 54 = { v[196] 31 = j[196] { w[196] 37 = l 55 = x 39 = m 56 = y 50 = z
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Footnote 196:
See letter F 16 below.
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LETTRES D’AMOUR DE LA DUCHESSE D’ALLEN AU CONTE KÖNIGSMARC
1
_Princesse héréditaire_ a bien jmpatience de sauoir si _Königsmarck_ est _arivé_ hereusement il sest passé bien des choses que _Princesse héréditaire écrit sur le feuillet qui est tout blanc_ ie ne peus me consoler _d’avoir si tost perdu Königsmarck_ labsence en paroist mille fois plus cruelle ie suis _abatue_ a ne pouuoir me _soutenir l’exes des plaisirs_ et la douleur de ne plus uoir ce que j’aime me mette en cét estat quil est cruel de _se separer_ de uous uous estes le plus aimable de tous les homme plus on uous uoit plus on uous descouure de charme que ie suis heureuse d’estre aimée de vous et que ie connois bien tout mon bonheur tout ma felicité
la continuation dépend de cette tendresse charmante
si elle uient a me manquer ie ne ueus plus uiure uous me tenez lieu de tout et tout le monde ensemble ne mest rien ie souhaitte que uous soyez aussi content de moi que ie le suis de uous uous mauez enchantée et ie me sens plus tendre que jamais sojez de meme et il ne manquera rien a mon bonheur ie ne uous dirai point que toutes les actions de ma uie uous marqueront mon attachement uous deuez en estre persuadé et le tems uous fera connoistre que ie ne ueus uiure que pour uous _Princesse héréditaire part demain_.
J’ay donne ordre a 220 de m’envoier vos lettre par _nienb_.
2
_Brockhausen._ Jeudi 22 Juin.
_Princesse héréditaire ariva hier au soir_ elle est contente du _Duchesse de Celle_ ie ne doute point quelle ne fasse tout ce que lon voudra _Duc de Celle_ est bien plus difficile ie nai point encore eu de vos nouuelles dont ie suis bien triste ie me flate pourtant quil ne sest rien passé puis que ie nai rien apris _Duc de Hanovre va lundi a Hanovre_ cela sest _resolu hier_ si ie lauois seu plustost _ie ne serois pas partie_ et iaurois peu uous uoir encore quelque jours ie suis persuadée quil a attendu Expres et cela me donne un urai dépit car ie hais plus que la mort tout ce qui ueut mesloigner de uous jl faut estre bien malheureux pour passer la uie comme je le fais cependant ie ne voi point de fin a mes peines iai fait milles reflexions hier seule dans _ma chaise_ qui mont desesperée ie ne saurois penser que ie vai estre tout un mois sans vous voir sans une douleur mortelle toutes _les mesures_ quil _me faut garder_ me ... ie ne saurois me passer de uous ie ne uoudrois uoir que uous dans le monde cependant ie ne uous uoi point jl faut a tous momens men separer jl mest impossible de uiure dauantage dans cette contrainte elle me desespere ma passion augmente tous les jours ie ne sai ce que uous mauez fait mais vous mauez enchantée la derniere fois que ie vous ai ueu et ie ne uous ai jamais aimé auec tant dardeur que ie le fais jl est seur que uous me ferez tourner la teste jai fait hier une chanson et cela me fait uoir que lamour fait des miracles ie ne saurois mempecher de uous la dire cest sur lair dans mon malheur ...
sans mon ... tout le monde mennuye luy seul fait mon bonheur et mes plaisirs il est lunique charme de ma uie et en luj seul ie borne mes desirs
cest mon coeur tout seul qui parle jespere que ie nen demeurerai pas la et quauec le temps ie pourrai uous le disputer 101 [or 201] va mardi a _Celle_ cest pourquoi ne mescriuez plus que ie ny sois _Duchesse de Celle_ a promis _au pauve 2000 escus si Prince héréditaire ne revient poit_ cela redouble mon amitié _Princesse héréditaire_ a parlé hier a _Luisburg_ a 110 il en a cherché loccasion cest pour lexhorter a ne _doner aucune prise a ses ennemis_ et a se défier sur tout de _Comtesse Platen Princesse héréditaire_ la fort prié de lauertir de tout ce qui la regarderoit jl lui a promis ie ne say si tout cela ne regarde point _Königsmarck_, ie ne saurois vous parler que de la douleur ou ie suis destre si loin de uous ne uous consoler point de mon absence ie uous en conjure et najez point de joye que ie ne sois auec uous grand dieu quel charme et quels delices destre toujours auec uous plus on uous void plus on uous trouue au dessus de tous les hommes du monde je ne suis occupée que du souuenir charmant de la derniere fois que ie uous ai ueu jl ne sortira jamais de ma memoire ha mon cher enfant que uous estes tendrement aimé et quil mest jnsuportable de ne uous point voir je vai me mettre au lit jespere que mes songes uous representeront aussi charmant que uous lestes si ie ne crojois uous uoir en dormant ie ne uoudrois point dormir du tout car tant que ie suis esueillée uous moccupez entierement et ie nai dagreable dans ma uie que le tems que ie passe a penser a uous bon soir le plus aymable de tous les hommes uous estes adoré et uous le serez toute ma uie adieu encore une fois pourquoi ne suis je _pas entre vos bras_ jen mourrois.
mecredi _Princesse héréditaire_ a esté a table et parla a 110 ensuite a _Feltma_ elle _ariva tard Prince Max_ la _receut_ et _lui dona la main_ elle lui a parlé fort peu _Duc de_ Celle vint dans la chambre _Prince Max_ ny entra point du tout _Duchesse de Celle_ estoit allé _au devant dele_ et reuint tard car elle ne trouua point _Princesse héréditaire_ on soupa ensuite _Princesse héréditaire Duchesse de Celle_ et _Duc de Celle_ out esté ensemble tous seuls _Duchesse de Celle_ mene Princesse électorale _chez elle_ et personne ny a mis le pied.
3
Que ne soufertong cant jl faux se separrer de vous, tous les tourmens du monde, ne pove pas tans faire soufrir, mais je me remais de mon schagrein, puisque vous voules que je ne dois poins avoir de la jalousie, je vous avoue qui laÿ difisile, dan avoir poin cant on aÿt elonjé, de l’objaÿ que lon adore, mais mon anje vous m’aves tans promis de garder unne bonne condouite que je me fie à vous, et je vous pos assurer que dans se moment je suis san jalousie, mais non san schagrein, et vostre depars me schagrine plus que jamais je ne comprens pas se que je deviendraÿs a lafein, je say bien que je ne pos pas toujour aistre à vostre veue, et sepandans, je san que tros que je ne peus plus me separer de vous, vojes en quelle étas vos bos sieux mon mis. je vous énvois la copie de la lestre dong je vous aÿ parlée sait most en most comme l’orriginal, je vous demande pardong de la main barbouliose dong je me suis servis, je lay fais copié par mon page, qui ne saÿ se qui l’ecrist. M. Gor ma fais un compliment de la par de la Deuschaise d’Essenack elle ma fais dire que quois que j’avas éviter de luis parler, elle monstreray qu’elle sonje plus a moÿ que je ne sonje à Elle, je vous jureraÿ que se compliment ma pas fais solement plaisir, aux contraire il me fasche quelle me la fais faire je ne suis poin sortis de ma schambre toust auxjourduis et je crois que je feraÿ demaime demain; mande moÿ pour me consoler comme vous vous governes et can vous seraÿ de retour, je mor dannuis et de schagrein si je ne vous vois pas bientos; adieux mon Emable coeur, sonjes à vostre fidail amang et ne l’oblie pas parmis tous saite foule de monde, éncor unnefois adieux
jodis à 12 hor apres minuit mon mal de postrine me continue mais je naÿ point eus de fiavre.
4
jodis
il me fallais vostre lestre pour me soutenir dans le desespoir aux j’aistois, voila se que saÿ cant on agit auxvertement et si vous mavié pas parlé de ... je crois que je nauraÿ peus tenir plus longtemps, je me suis pourtang gouverné forbien, et j’ay voulus auxparavang savoir, se que vous me dirie, et je me suis point émporté, sassché dong que je fus aventhier à Linde, Mad: la Comtes: aitois fort étonné que je ne jouaÿ avec vous, je luÿ dis qui fallaist avoir permission, elle disaÿ Mad: Leonis m’à fais demander á l’Elect: et j la repondus positivement quelle pouvaÿ bien faire venir ses jouors, hiair avang que de resevoir la vostre, ji su par oberg qui avois veus M. Weÿ à Linde que S: Alt: vous l’aves dis a vous maime, le Preince Ernest august me dist avec ses mos, que M. l’Elect: vous avois dis, vous vous ennujé Mad: jl faux faire venir vos jouors, j l’auraÿ depandu de vous, si jl vous l’avois dis de la sorte, mais Mad: je fus bien soulagé, can je lus la vostre, aux vous me parlié de sait affaire, j’aÿ fais ma moralle, qui ais de ne me jamais plus énborté sur des vapors, mes ma divine, pourié vous poin nous laisser venir, afein que j’ aÿe la joÿ de vous regarder et que mes sieux et mon coeur puisse apprendre des vostres comment je suis avec os, et si vostre passion aÿ telle comme vous me l’ecrivie la vostre d ihair aÿ scharmont, an suis si tousché que je me san plus enflamée que j’amais. vous dite que vous ne voje personne, cela aÿ le plus obligan du monde, mais vous vojes autang plus le Ref: ses qui me fais craindre que vous vous acoutumeraÿ pos à pos à ses médiocres carraisses et jl vous émbrasseras si souven que je more de schagrein dÿ sonjer solement, pour lamour de vous maime, ne vous ÿ accoutumes pas, sonje toujours de qu’elle mainere j vous traite, vous qui merites tous les manieres honeste, obligant et respectouose, mais je vois le defos daustruis es je ne vois poin que sait en cela que je suis le plus criminel, vous m’aves dis vous maime que le Re: en ... en de temps n’avois pas eus les maniere si disobligante que moÿ, je more dÿ sonjer, que je suis malhoros de vous aimer si tendremens et que saite passion si éxtraordinare, me rans si odieux, ne sonjé plux aux passé je vous en conjure, adieux, adieux, helas adieux.
5
je suis bien à plaindre, et mon malhor me persecuste tros pour pouvoir l’endurer plus longtemps, les laistres d’yair nous donne poin d’esperanse que le Ref: puisse partis, et san se depar je ne puis ni dois vous voir, qu’elle cruelle destiné, oh malhor insuportable appres des schoque si terrible poje éncor respiré, la vie me devien insuportable, je ne puis, ni ne dois plus aistre aux monde, car qu’i ferage sans vous voir, j’ay eus auxjourduis dos malhor dong le dernie me paraist à présang le plus cruel mes le premié pos devenir le plus terrible, je me suis brulje ave nostre vieux bon homme, et Gor aussÿ, et comme jl vous à dis, si je redisaÿ a sos de qui S. Alt: aÿ mal contemps, jls seraÿs bien étonné, san ma passion je saÿ le partis que j’aÿ à prandre, mais ma schere comme je vous aÿ promis de ne rien faire san vostre consentemens, je vos vous en faire pars auxparavang, mon dessein aÿ de luÿ ecrire, et luÿ dire que j’aistois for fasché que mon devoir mavoit éngagé dans unne dispute, avec la personne du monde que j’honore le plus, mais comme j’avois pris garde aux mos qu’il m’avois dist jÿ aÿ observé qu’il disaÿt (si je redisaÿ à tous sos de qui nostre maistre aÿ mal contemps, j lian auraÿ beaucoup de detrompé, je crus que vost: Exce^{ḷḷ} ne le prandras pas mal, si je luy priaÿ d’avoir la bonté de m’avertis soux main, si j’aÿ assaÿ de malhor à deplair à Monsg: L’Elector, afein que je puisse prandre mon partis, car jusques ici, je lay servis que par affection, et sans aucun intaeraÿ, aÿ si j’avois le malhor d’aistre mis mal dang son Esprit, jl me serais impossible de le plus servir) voila a pos praÿ se que je vousdraÿ luÿ mander, saschong vostre avis, je pos vous assurer que j’aÿ veus positivement dans son émportement que cela s’adraissait à moÿ, j’admire ma passianse, et je ne puis pas comprandre comme j’aÿ fais pour me possedé, car j’avois forsouvang en beausche de luÿ dire, se que je vos luÿ ecrire; Le segon malhor aÿ bien plus schagrinang, j’aÿ veus vos fenaistres auxvertes, le Ref: sortais de vostre garderobe san vous j voir, quois que j’aÿ parlé assaÿ hos, passé et repassé, mais rien lon j vojaÿ ame vivante, je crois comme j laistois tars vous fute deja sche la Romaine je seraÿ inconsolable, si je n’avois l’ésperanse à vous voir se soir à 6 hors a quois suje reduis, je conte pour le plus grans bonhor du monde à vous voir de mille pas, Effectivement jl me seras dunne grande consolation, si je puis avoir se plaisir; seluÿ de vous écrire m’ais bien schaire, et ji ne donneraÿ pas pour un Rauxjomme, je crains que ma Diabolique destinée, m’en priveras, say seraÿt pour maschevée, je vous conjure prenes si bien vos messure que cela ne nous pos manquer, vous saves, j’aispaire par vous maime que lon ne saurais vivre san cela, helas pourquios ne suje pas Reden aux Hortanse tandis que vous aites la niporte si vous me haisié, j’auraÿ pourtang la joÿ de voir selle que j’adore; sai nostre passion qui nouis éloinje lun de laustre, san mon amour, je seraÿ partous aux vous aites, mes puis que je vous aime, je suis en meschang credis l’on me regarde pas, l’on mauxblie, mais n’importe, q’on me crage aux née je m’en fercheraÿs pas.
6
dimanje:
auÿ Mad: je soufriraÿ pour vous, puisque vous me l’ordonnes, mais can serage assay horos de me voir aux poin aux j’aspire, sait éntre vos bras que je vos dire, mais can aurage saite satisfaction, je pair tous l’ésperanse, car de la maniere que cela vas, je m’én pos pas flatté, j’én pair lespris et si je vous écris, san rime ni raison, ne vous en prenes pas à moÿ, say, le desespoir aux je me trouve, si vous ne croje pas je vous prie de regarde ses poils que j’aÿ fais tire de ma taiste se matein, je ne pos pas vous assurer qu’elle me song venus saite nuis, mais je pos vous juré qui lia 8 jours, qui li en avois pas, croje moÿ que mon desespoir ay grans, et que mon schagrein ait extraime, je demore pour l’amour de vous, j’hasarde honor reputation et émbisiong, car puis que je ne vas pas en campanje, qu’es que lon dira de moÿ, et pourquois aise que je l’hasarde, saÿ pour ne vous poin voire, je suis venus a saite éxtremité, qu’il faux que le veinque aux que je mors, emploÿe dong vos forse auxprais le Gro: sais qui pos nous sauver uniquement aÿ j’appelle sas veincre, je vos absolument vostre ordre, se que je dois faire, demorer à Hanno. de la sorté ait inauÿ, car appres trois semaine vous iraÿ avec le Gron. que ferage allors dans un lieux aux vous naite pas, je vous prie d’ÿ faire reflextion, et appres cela ordonnes, je suis prait à vous montrer avec mon obeïssansse que ma passion n’écouste poin de raisong. vous vojes à quois vous m’aves reduit, car je vous sacrifie mon Ambition qui aÿ la solle schose, que j’usques ici j’avois conservé, vojes aux vas ma passion, j’ugé dans quelle aitas je me trouve, ne me rouiné pas de fons en comble, saÿe plus abitios que mois, et éncourages un amang qui n’én à plus. je vous feray pitié si vous connaissié bien les schagreins qui m’acable. je vois bien le vostre aÿ ses qui me tue, car quois que nous sajons bien énsemble, nous laisong pas que d’avoir du schagrein, aÿ voila un mal san remaide; la solle consolation aÿ de jouer avec vous, mes le plaisir de vous regarder mais poin permis car tantos, la =shwarß gesicht= tanstos l’innossang tantos un austre des filjes vien nous observé, tous cela aÿ pour en mourir, consolé moÿ je vous en conjure, aux je me desespaire et ma desesparation pouraÿ m’énporter à me servir des remaide indigne d’un honest homme, vous m’attendes bien, mais mad. cant on aÿ dans le Labourint comme je suis, jl nia blus d’honnesté et plus de confianse, j laÿ bong de fenir aux je m’énporteray davantaje.
7
a 1 hor de nuit
Le bon homme aÿ revenus de la conferanse et ma faÿ ranvojer les Dragons de lordonanse sans ordre, saÿ pourquois je crois que nous raisterons éncor saite semainne et comme je vas demain diner sché luÿ je sauray qu’elque schose, dong je vous feraÿ aussitos pars énattandang prepare vous a éxecuter se que vous trouveraÿ ici jointe; _l’Électrice_ a etté a _linde_ faire _promener Comtesse Platen_, Le Comte de Stenbock que vous aves veus ici j lia 7 ans voulais faire la reveranse, comme aussi le Comte Delagardy, je laÿ mennay la, et je trouvaÿ la bonne Piesse, _eschoie_, et le _fahr_ qui _coulai_ de tous costé, _elle_ fus si decontenansé de voir arrivé tans d’éstrangé, qu’elle fus toust a fais confus, le partis qu’elle pris aitois le meiljor, car elle se _retira_, aussitos, pour se remaistre en _ordre_, j lia bien de la malisse à _l’Électrice_, et elle pos pas se vanier mieux. Sonjes je vous en conjure à _venir_ et crojaÿ que san vous _voir_, sait aistre morte, et je m’étonne comme mong destein m’aist si cruel a me laisser sur vire tous ses malhors, mais si je ne vous _vois bintos_ j nia ni guerre ni danger que je n’alje scherscher pour abrejer mes jours malhoros; je more de honte de naistre pas mors déjà, comment cela sacordetil de vous aimer eperduement, sans vous _voir_ ni san vous parler, et vivre encor, je crois que mon _foutus_ destein, me preserve, pour me schagriné davantage; vous pouves sol me tiré de ma desperation, _venez vite_ me consoler, aux je ferais un cous de desespoir dong je me repantiraÿ de ma vie, car la vie que je maine m’aist insuportable, je la haÿ a la mors, j’en suis las, et ne le pos plus suporté; je vousdraÿ que la foudre ecrasa tous sos qui énpesche à nous _voir_, et à joindre nos fos, pardonne à mon amportement que la tros violante passion me cause, jl me semble, que si je ne _dois_ voir se que _jaime_, j laÿ juste de ne poin voir le jour, je seraÿ capable dans se moment, a Masacre Paire, Maire, Frere, et soeur, si je crojais q’os m’émpesche de _voir_ mon _anje_. Leonis que ta bosté me couste des tourments, tong scharme des schagreins, _venez_ me faire _auxblier_, tous mes mos, tu le pos, par tais émbrassades, par taÿs caraisses, et jlia que tois dans le monde capable de cela. je vous _attang_ auvec la plus grande _impatians_ du _monde_, et ne souffres que je dise, que vous aites promte _a partir_, et _mang_ à _revenir_ aux L’amour vous _appemme_, j’auraÿ pourtang tor si je me plainjaÿ _du depart_, car j laistois _tendre_ et seinsaire, mais je vous conjure, donne mois pas l’occasion de me pleindre, du dernié adieux je tenbrasse mille aÿ Mille fois. _Mlle. de Knesebeck_ aÿ la meljore personne du monde, je vous prie de lui dire, l’estimme que j’aÿ pour elle je la salue avec vostre permission.
8
Atlenbourg 13^{me}
Le 12^{me} j’aÿ fais se que j’aÿ fais les austres jours, sait a dire boire manjé, et visité les poste, le 13^{me} de maime; M. le Duck de Zelle aÿ venus nous visiter, vous vojé que je puis aisement faire mes journos, je crois qu’il vous schoquerong gaire, car rien n’ay plus innossang, et sos de Hanno: seraÿ de maime amoin que d’aller souper avec les fammes ne vous deplust, se que je m’engage de laisser aussÿ, vous assuran que saÿ la moindre éprove que je vous donneraÿ, puis que je m’en passeraÿ fort aisement, san que vous l’ordones. Dieu volje que je puisse vous monstres par ma condouite, que tous mes penses, tous mes pas, ne se fong que pour vous, mais helas vous aves tans d’jnjustice, que vous ne le voules pas voire, j’aÿ mon malhor, et saÿ se qui me perdra un jour opres de vous. j’aÿ resu la 3^{me} Lestre daté le 5^{me} d’ans, 8 jours appres selle marqué 4, je ne conprans pas dous vien se delaÿ, mais je say bien, qui laÿ danjeros qu’elle demore si lon temps en schemein. je ne suis pas satisfais de vous et la meschante oppinion que vous aves de moÿ comme si je vous neglijaÿ, me schoque beaucoup, je sonje nouit aÿ jour qu’a vous, il me vien poin d’austre pensé dan l’ésprit, et sepandans, je vous oblie je vous neglige, je souis un inconstang, aise que je merite ses titres sajes en le juge vous maime. pouves vous m’accuser de ne vous plus aimer, aitil passible que s’aÿ Leonis qui le croist et qui me reproche, grandieux que vous aite plain d’injustice, et que vous me faite gran tor, je vous aimes à la follie, je vous adore san égale, ma passion surpasse tous les autres et sepandans vous douté de tous cela, vostre coeur parle gaire en ma favor, j’aÿ raison de me plaindre de luÿ, saÿ se coeur Barbare qui dois parlé pour, et saÿ luÿ qui m’accuse, je laÿ veus tendre pour mois mais pos à pos tous sette tendresse ait évanouÿ, ne revindratil poin à luÿ maime, faiste luÿ des reprosches de ma par; Le mien vous assure unne éternelle attachement, jl vous jure qui vous sera constang, et pourvos que vous dainje à sonjer à louis tous les 24 hores unnefois, j laÿ Contemps, meritil vostre souvenir je crois que sÿ, mais sait à vous d’en juger. Si j’aÿ jamais le malhor de ne vous plus aimer (qui ait un chose impossible) vostre souhaÿ me punira par, car je vous jure, que je ne schergeraÿ plus de fidellite, et quois que selle d’apresan mais plus schaire que ma vie, j’en vousdraÿ jamais d’austre, souvene vous se q’un sertain Espanjol à dis, je ne vos pas m’éncanaliser, j’apelle cela éncanaliser si je quitaÿ le plus parfait objaÿ de l’univair pour qu’elque austre, la qu’elle ne poura jamais se comparer en la ...
9
vendredis à 8 hor du soir
dans se moment je vien de resevoir unne lestre trais grande et comme je le demande de _Princesse électorale_ je naÿ pas eus le loisir de la lire, crainte que la poste ne par, et san vous assurer qu’elle joÿ elle ma faite can je laÿ resu; Le bon homme vas demain à _Engsen_, à son retour je sauraÿ ma destinée, se que je feraÿ dabor savoir a _Princesse électorale_; je ne fais que des vos pour ne poin marscher afein que je puisse émbrasser selle que j’adore, et pour la quelle je moureraÿ mille aÿ millefois Croje de mois que je vous adore de la maniere la plus violante du monde, plust aux siel davoir les aucasion à vous le bein monstre, je n’obliraÿ pas un moment, pour vous en bien persuader, quelle satisfaction seraÿ la mienne si par mon obeissanse je pouraÿ vous monstrer combien je vous aistime, et quelle plaisir je prans à aistre vostre éternelle Esclave adieux mon incomparable Leonis que je te Baiseraÿ petiste.
K.
10
Samdÿ.
j lait aisé à juger avec qu’elle satisfaction j’aÿ leus vostre tres-scharmente lestre, jl me la vallaÿ telle pour me tirer unpos de la profonde reverie aux mes malhors, et _labsense_ ma plonjé, elle aÿt grande tendre et comme je la souhaite, n’en écrives poin de plus petiste, cela vous dois soulager, et je vous jure qu’a mois aussÿ, vous ne les sauries faire assaÿ amples Vostre passion m’ais si agreable, que j’aÿ aucun plaisir dans _labsanse_ que de la voire peinte sur du papié, je conserve vos lestres comme la schose du monde la plus pressiose puis qu’elle me consolle de tous mes disgraces; j vojan que vous jure de maimér, à maistre fidaille, et a me jamais abandonner, que poje souhaiter plus de vous, vous voje dong que je suis tous à fais contemps de vous, je vous conjure de l’aistre aussi de mois et de me poin inputer que vous ne reseves pas regoulierement tous les poste de mes lestres, j’aÿ injoré un jour qui aÿ le _dimansche_, mais comme j’an suis informé mon éxactitude vous feras connaistre que j’aÿ pesché fauxte de le savoir mieux, et la neglijance me vien pas des schagreins que j’aÿ, sait allors que je sonje le plus a vous car vous me serves de consolation et le plaisir de penser à vous surpasse tous austres plaisirs que je connaisse Jdolo mio, can aurage la joÿ de te tenir íntre mes bras, n’aisse pas pour desesperer un Catong, que de voir que vous pouves _venir_, si _Prince Max_ ne l’anpeschaÿ pas, mais quois que l’anvie de vous _voir_, me fist passer ma jalousie et que je vous priai, de venir combien de temps pourage aistre avec vous, postaitre que dos jours et appraÿ je vous voiraÿ parmis des jans qui nous haisse, et d’austre qui volle sinsinuer, ne croje pas mon Ange que ma jalousie, me vien de la movaise oppinion que j’ay de vous, se seraÿ tros criminelle mais elle me vien de la violanse de ma passion, ainsi je me flatte que vous m’excuseraÿ toujours can saite follie me prans; que ne vous doige poin que vous prené tang de paine à me guerir de tous mes soupsons vos journos me console, vostre sermang me fait auxblié tous que j’avois dans la servelle, ha que ne _suige auxprai_ de _vous_ je me jaiteraÿ à vos pié, vous remersier de tous le soin que vous prenes à me randre horos et contemps, je suis persuadé de vostre bonne intasion, je ne doute pas de vostre fidailite, et je vois tres bien que si vous gouvernie la fortunne, tans d’inconvenian n’arriveraÿ pas comme je pouraÿ postaistre recevoir ordre de marcher à Lunen: mande mois si je ne puis passer a _Celle_, san donner de lombrage si _vous ni aitte pas_ la bien seanse le demande, mais apresan je ne saÿ se que je dois faire La reponse de la Boulle, ayt assaÿ pican et elle merite bien unne reponse, dans la quelle jl ne faux pas éparnier la _musique_. je ne saÿ si je me trompe mais en relisang 11^{me} lestre je ne le trouve pas si tandre ni si sainsaire que la 10^{me} mande mois si je me trompe, la 10^{me} aÿ scharmente elle marque unne veritable passion que vous aves eus en l’écrivang, pour lamour de mois, saje toujous de la sorte, et me faite poin apersevoir de la froidor, que je fais pour le merité, dite le mois, afein que je me puisse excuser. aise postaistre que vous trouve pas tendre que je vous prie pas de _venir_, mais songes se qui m’émpesche de le faire si vous le voules pourtang je vous en priraÿ mais je seraÿ postaistre 2 jour ici et puis vostre voisein aura le schang libre jl vous à aimé, ai maime jl vous a pas étté indifferang, je le crains toujour quois qui laÿ gaire à craindre, mais jl soufit qui la étté sur un pié for famillié avec vous, pour avoir juste raison de craindre son impertinanse, et maime jl seraÿ faschos, de voir un homme aupraÿ de vous, qui pourait avoir 20 petistrous par aux jl vous pouraÿ voir, austre que vous ne saurie dire un most qu’il ne puisse entendre, mais tous ses raisons ne son pas soufisang, et si j’avois l’ésperanse à demorer je vous conjureraÿ toujour de _venir_ dans l’ésperanse que vous trouveraÿ le mojein de vous en defaire, car san cela je ne pouraÿ vous voire, puisqu’il seraÿ toujour en gaÿt à Espioner. Puis que je ne puis vous abandonner saÿ pourquois je refuse tous les avantage qui se presante, je pretans vous faire voir par la mon attachement et saÿ la mon unique but pour quois je vous fais voire les lestres que lon m’écrivois de tous costé, crojé pourtan caucunne avantage aÿ capable à me faire quiter ici tandis que vous auraÿ de la bonté pour mois; je connaÿ le pouvoir d’unne _maire_ que lon aime, et can selle vous donne loccasion jl fauxtaistre aussi saje pour pouvoir resister, mon san se remus, can je pense que la vostre seraÿ capable, pour se vanjer de _Prince électoral_ que vous le _fisie coqus_ et cant jl me vien dans la taiste, si jamais vous faisié ses caraisses, à qu’elcaustre qu’a moÿ tous mon sang se tourne dans mes vaines et je ne puis demorer sur la plasse, tans que saite pensé me donne de linquiettude, ah bondieux si je vous vojaÿs émbrasser qu’elqun avec autang de passion _que vous_ me _lavez_ faite, et _monter_ à _scheval_ avec la maime énvie, je ne vos jamais voir dieux si je n’en devein pas fous, tenes en l’écrivang ma main me tramble aÿ j’aÿ de la painne à poursuivre. schangon de matiere, les amis don je vous aÿ parlé song Busch et hammerstain, l’aurié vous bien crus, se sont os qui on mis _Prince électoral_ tous les histoire de mon jos en taiste, mais ’aÿ écrit aux premié unne lestre, qui luÿ feras bien connaistre sa foseté je me flatte de reschef puis que _Duchesse de Celle_ et _Duc de Celle_ se songt accomodé, faite dong de vostre mieuxÿ La _gaire_ ne durera pas si longtemps que cela _rouinerai_ le _paix_, saÿ pourquois saite excuse ne pos longtemps passer pour unne defaite, vojes si vous tiendraÿ vostre parole, puis que vous me promaité que vous moureraÿ plusto, que de n’aistre pas _unis avec mois_, continue dans ses santiments, et vous me rande la vie, vous souije assaÿ schaire, que vous serié capable a tenir se que vous maves promis, si cela aÿ, je vous jure éncor unnefois par les astres, que rien aux monde m’éloinjeras de vous, par le lestre _ici jointe vous_ verreraÿ comme de nouvos, lon schersche à me persuader d’Épouser la Filje de M. Bielke, mais ma réponse à étté, que je moureraÿ plusto de fein que de le faire et que je le priaÿ for, de me plus parlé de mariage, car cela nous pouraÿ bruljer ensemble je me flatte que vous seraÿ contente de ma resolution; puisque nous vojang si pos d’apparanse à nous _voir_, il faux sonjer à des expedian, _vous le trouveraÿ sur se biljaÿt_, je crois que cela se pouras, pour vos que je ne parte pas, et que je vous feraÿ savoir entre ici et se temps la; si vous voules attendre jusques à ce que _Prince Max_ sannuis, je ne vous _voirai_ de longtemps, car cant j laÿt avec _l’Électrice_ et sa maigre divinité, j laÿ comptemps comme un Roÿ, je n’auraÿ pas crus que se margos m’auraÿ donné tang de schagrein, comme jl faÿ, je vousdraÿ qui fust aux _fong_ de la _hongrie_, jl me donneraÿ plus des mos de coeur comme jl faÿ presantement. Lon ne sauraÿ plus obligament, parlé comme vous le faiste sur le schapistre de mourir de fein, mais croje vous que quois qu’il meseraÿ dunne grande consolation de vous voir toujour a mon costé, que je vousdraÿ vous antrenner dans la misaire, non non ne le croje pas, vous deves vivre horos et comptemps enattandans que je scherge qu’elque mors gloriose, pour abrejer mes jours malhoros, et mourir _lament_ de _Princesse électorale_. j’aispaire que vous auraÿ resu les dos lestres dong je vous ay parlée, si non mande le mois, vous me feraÿ plus l’injustice de croire que qu’elque consideration dans le monde me post detascher de vous, l’avos ici desus vous feras voir que je moureraÿs avec mon Amour, comment pouraitong vous quiter, car tans plus que lon vous connais tan plus que lon vous adore, lon decouvre tous les jours des nouvelles merites, et vostre passion aÿ sol capable à me faire plustos tranjer la taiste que de vous abandonner, pour jamais; j’aÿ de la honte de mon pos d’exactitude, je vous en demande pardong, saite unne foste que je vous prie de ne point attribuer à la neglijance mes aux pos de memoir que j’ay, mais ma divinne Leonis, avoué à vostre tour que mes lestres son bien plus grande, et que san vous en avoir avertis, vous les aurié pas fais si émple, schaqun à son paquaÿ, ainsi je consantiraÿ jamais que vostre passion aÿ plus grande que la mienne, aÿ je seraÿ inconsolable si je ne vous en avais pas donner plus des marques essansielle, car vous pourié croire que la _vanité_, puis que vous _aite preincess_, ferait que je m’attasche, non je vous jure si vous aitié _filie_ du _bouro_, et que vous eusié les merites que vous possedes à presang, je vous aimeraÿ, avec autang d’ardor, vous me trouveraÿ gaire delicas, mais je me flatte que vous trouveraÿ mes santimens tendres; onon des dieux continues, dans les santiments aux je vous vois, si ma disgrasse me voulaÿ pouser si loin, que vous eusie de l’aversion pour mois, je me donneraÿ assurement un cous de pistolaÿ ...
11
Quo que j’avois pris la resolution de vous ecrir demain, et de vous repondre émplement sur vois lettre que j’aÿ reçu à la fois, du 13^{me} 14^{me} et 15^{me} je me vois privé de se plaisir, par la resolution que le Roy à pris, d’ataquer demain l’armée de Franse, la quelle aÿt à 2 hors de nous, le lieux se nomme Engein; Dans tout austre temps sette nouvelle m’auraÿ donné de la joÿ, mais je vous avoue qu’a lors qui laÿ elle me chagrinne, je suis aimée de vous l’unique objaÿ que j’aÿ trouvé dinje d’aimer, je me suis poin trompé dans mon opinion de croire que vous possedié, toute les Belle calité, que lon puisse trouver aux monde, mais ma chaire je dois hasarder la vie, et postaitre vous revoire jamais, à paine aije sus que vous aitié innossante, et que je vous aÿ soupsonné en fos, que je vous dois postaitre jamais plus revoir, j’aÿ hasardé ma vie sant fois, par sottise aux par geté de coeur, et je me connaÿ assaÿ, que je saÿ que lamors ma jamais éffrajé, mais ma divinité se que me rans poultrong aÿ la crainte de ne vous plus revoire, adieux dong émable jllÿdojllÿrojllÿadieuxjllÿ, que je suis a plaindre, et je suis pourtang horos, mais je ne pos profiter de mong bonheur. ne croje pourtang poin que vous aves un galang poltrong, non ma chaire, puis qu’il faut aller aux combat, je mÿ comporteraÿ comme j faux, et si je pos, j’aispaire de mi sinjaler; mais mon coeur permaitemoÿ, de vous faire unne priaire la quelle aÿ, que si mon destein me vost assaÿ de mal, d’aistre éstroppié, d’un bras, aux d’unne jambe, ne m’oblie poin, et ajé unpos de bonté pour un miserable qui, à fais son unique plaisir de vous aimer, non ma chaire ne l’oblie pas, sait un homme qui à eus un veritable attaschemens pour vous, et qui l’auras tous le reste de sa vie, quoÿ qu’estropié, mais sieux qui out aité charmé par les vostres, ne les vairerongs postaire plus, je ne pos penser en cela, sans verser des larmes, ah que je profite bien pos, d’aistre aimé de vous, et que vous me causé bien des tourmens. jl sonne 12 hors; aux closjé de Halle; lon apporte des balles poudre, et maisches saÿ le prologue pour la saine que nous devons jouer demain, jl faux me rendre à mon devoir, adieux emable enfang, ah que je suis à plaindre du cang de Halle le 23^{me}
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mais Maistresse m’aurais émpesché de sonjer à vous, aux Dieux est il possible, que vous croje cela, et si je vous avois poin écris de tous (quo que celci est la 4^{me} lettrere) vous devries jamais avoir eus telle penses, ce postil que vous croje que j’aime quel aut̂re que vous, non je vous proteste qu’apres vous je n’aimeraÿ jamais plus, il ne seras pas for difficile de tenir parolle, car appres con vous à addorer, post on trouver d’aut̂re Famme jolie, vous vous faite tors, decroire telle schose, et comment pourie vous faire une comparaison de vous et les autres et se post il c’apres avoir aimé une Deessé, lon pusse regarder les Mortels, non énverité je suis de tros bong gous, et je ne suis poin de ses jang qui voilje s’encanailjser; je vous addore scharmante brunetté, et je moureray avec ses sentiment, si vous m’oblije pas, je vous jure que je vous aimeraÿ toute ma vie je n’atten plus de vos lettres, parceque, je pretemps d’aistre bientos aupres de vous, et mon unique occupation allors seras de vous montre, que je vous aime à la follie, et que rien m’ay plus schaire que vos grace, adieux, le 3^{me}/23.
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Crainte de ne vous pouvoir parler je prens la liberte à vous montre mong schagring du malheur, qui vous est arrive Dieux sait que mon coeur me la predit, mais mon companjon na schamais voulu attendre, quo que je luÿ en aÿ pries, mais par comble de malheur jl faux que j’éttande que mon amÿ intime à eus le plaisir avec son faschos conpanjoin à vous éntretenir, jl me semble que j’ay beaucoup de raisong de me plaindre des Dieuxs, puisquil sont assay injuste de m’oter tous les mojengs à vous rendre service et én meme temps le Donne, en main à sos de qui j’ay le plus à craindre, depuis cet axcidemps je me suis mis en teste, des étranje schose, et je suis assay sos de croire que l’axcidemps arrivé, hier, cet un prognostique de mon malheur, et que cela sois le meme homme qui me coseras tous ses schagrings cela feras que je le feraÿ observer de plus pres, à mon absence et si j’attang la moindre schose, crojé moy en honesthomme que je vous reverrerai jamais, et que j’vaÿ plustos scherjé le fong de la Laplende, que de parraistre devang ses sieux qui mon scharmée. je deteste mon companjong, car sen cela j’auray éus le plaisir de vous servir, aux lieux que je vois cette joÿ dans le sains d’un homme, que j’abhorre, et qui est assay impertinang de me le venir conter luy meme, m’apprenang dans l’étas aux vous aviéz étté, vot̂re deshabiljemen, sans cornette les schevos pandus sur votre inconparable sain, aux Dieux je ne pos plus écrire de raje.
14
En faisang reflextion sur la miserable condiction dans la quelle je me trouvois lon mapporte la vot̂re pos attendu de moy, ma joy estois si grande que j’ay oblijé d’avoir du mal, en me lensang sur la lettre comme si rien me manques vous avez tous fais ce que je souhaites à vous voir faire, jl reste dong à moy à vous remercier de vos bontée, et a vous bien persuader de ma fidellite
Jo ti saro fedele, Ne mai ti tradiro. Se ben mi sei crudel, sempre t’adorero;
si vous m’en croje pas, je suis prest à abandonner Mere, Parang, Amy, Biens, et la Patrie, pour vous en mieux persuader, et il dependera que de vous, si je dois faire le vojage que vous saves bien, mon malheros étas me fournit une bonne excuse, je pouray faire le malade bien longtemps, si vous aite d’acor avec moy je vous prie à me le mander car je prendray mes messure ladesu, say la plus grande éprove que je puis vous donner à présan, acceptele dong, et rende moy par la horos car le bien de vous voire surpasse de beaucoup à Lembition que jay de faire ma fortune, je n’an sauraÿ trouver de plus considerable et seluy de vous posseder may si jaire que je ne fais plus de reflextion sur tous les autres. Vous avez par vot̂re lettre tellement purifié mon coeur que le moindre soupsong de jallosie ni reste pas, l’empressement que vous me temoinje pour savoir l’état de ma senté, me persuade assaÿ que vous maime pour contenter à vot̂re desir je vous diray que je soufre éxtremement sepandang la douleur de ne vous voir poin surpasse en beaucoup, selle de la schutte, je pouray me porter mieux en 4 jour, mais si vous accepté ma proposition, je garderay éncor 10 jour la chambre cela n’émpescheras pas qu’ossitos que je pouray marscher je pouray vous embrasser aux lieux connue; pour avoir de vos nouvelles, je crois que le plus sur mojen, est q’un de mes jangs (sur le quelle je pos me fier)....
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Un autre que moy vous metteray sur l’éprove pour voire, si votre amour vous pouseray si loin que de venir sche moy, mais moy je vous aime trops pour vous pouvoir voire dans set hasar, et votre offre me sufit, cepandan pour ne poin perdre l’occasion de vous voire (puisque j’aÿ si pos de temps à rester avec vous) je viendray se soir sche vous, si vous j consente, et jattang de vous leur du rendevous, si vous trouve bong que je parraisse à la cour je le feray, mais sans cela poin. La joÿ de vous revoir me fais oublier tous les schagrins que ma maladie ma attiré, je suis aureste assay contemps de vous, sepandang je ne pos oublier le pos d’opposition que vous faitte aux sujet de mon vojage, ajan une bonne éxcuse pour men dedire, je ne say se que j’an dois juger, Dieux volje solement que cette absence ne soy funeste pour moy. Vous m’accusé que je vous aime pas assaÿ, comment pouve vous aistre si injuste, mais je passeray se poin sans j repondre saschan bien que vous aitte tros persuade de ma passion, qui est la plus pure que jamais à étté, et qui dureras tandis que je viveray, je vous l’ay contesté souven en prosse, permaite que je le fasse pour le presang en vers.
=So lang mein herz noch ohten spüret Wiel ich _votre non_ lieben, Solange sich mein blut noch rüret Bleibt sie mir darrein geschriben, Und sol mit meines läbens lauf Bey mir die liebe nicht hören auf.=
a 6 hors mon homme seras devang la schambre de la bonne bonne amÿ.
16
Le 1^{mer} de septemb.
Pardonnes si le schagrein et le desespoir m’a fais faire la foste à ne vous point écrire depuis dos jour cant on aÿ dans l’état aux je souis lon ne saÿ se que lon fais. je commenseraÿ par vous dire que j’aÿ schangé dos schifres dans nostre Clée, qui ay, j, se marque 31/ i, se marque 35, u, se marque 53, v, se marque 53, v, se marque 54/ je vous d’opserver sesÿ; Appraÿ cela je vous diraÿ que vous aves marqué dos lestres, 10^{me} ainsy que la 14^{me} devraes aistrÿ la 15^{me} mais continues solement apresan, car j lia poin d’austre mal, que la segonde, aux premiere 10^{me} auray peus se perdre san que lon eus seus, solement, que lon en eus perdue unne. J’aÿ éncor à vous dire, que je vous aÿ écrit dos lestres, adraissé, à 131, que j’aÿ crus à _Celle_, jl faux savoir si vous les aves reseus; 3 lestres ont été adraissé, aux _maistre de poste de Celle_ qui son daté le 20^{me} et aÿ la 9^{me} lestre, le 26^{me} et aÿ la 12^{me} lestre elle aÿ de _consequense_ le 30^{me} et ay la 14^{me} lestre; j laÿ bong aussÿ de regarder si vous aves la 13^{me} lestre, je vous prie manques pas à me repondre ici desu, vous pouves tous voir par la souite car je souis bien sure que j’aÿ ette exacte saite fois ici. Vous seraÿ surpris de me voire faire des reflextions pareilje, dans l’état aux je souis, mes ma schere nous avons tant des malhors, qu’il ne faux pas s’en faire sois maime; j’aÿ resu la vostre daté le 26^{me} mais vous saves quelle accidans m’ayt arrivé, en prenan unne boutelje pour laustre, je vous laÿ mandé dans mes presedantes je vois pourtang, dans vos daté 28^{me} 29^{me} et la 30^{me} se que vous m’aves voulus dire dans la 26^{me}, j’ay unne joÿ tres grande de vous savoir, hor _de crainte_ et je me vos du mal d’aistre cause, de vostre inquiettude, qui a contribué _beaucous a votre mal_; presantements que vous aites _hor de crainte_ j’aispaire que _la fievre vous quitera aussi_; Que je vous plain d’avoir tant soufer, _sis hors l’axaÿ_ je ne comprans pas comme _vous aves asay_ de _forse_ à _m’ecrire_ éncor, je le reconnaÿ comme je dois, et je souis persuadé que l’amour vous, en rang; mes a quelle poin vous souige point obligé pour se marque de vostre tendraisse, j’amais j’obliraÿ des telles bonté. Si mes _lestres_ avois assaÿ de _forse_ à _soulajer vos mos_; je feraÿs en sorte que vous _en eusie_, tous _les hores_, mes je prans se compliment pour un aiffaÿ de vostre bonté, sepandans je pos vous jurer que les vostres me consolle beaucoup, et san les trois derniés daté 28^{me} 29^{me} et 30^{me} je seraÿ aux tombos à lheur qui laÿ. Se seraÿ la plus grande sottise appraÿ tous que je pouraÿ faire, car quois que cela seraÿ tendre, je vous perdraÿ; et vous dite forbien dans unne des vostre qu’elle desespoir de ne se poin voir pour jamais, vivons dons énsembles, aimons nous éternellement et jurong nous de nouvos, unne constance à ne jamais finir, et qu’aparÿ le trepas si nous avon le sang, que cela dois durer aussÿ; Pour vivre énsemble prenes tous les soins imaginable, à vous _conserver_, sonjes que mon repos en depans; Si vostre _mal continue_, j laÿ seure que je deviendraÿ fous. La fievre rainje beaucoup ici, nous avons praÿ de 200 malades, de nos troupes mes domestique le devienne un appraÿ l’austre, j’aÿ etté obligé, d’anvojer mon valaÿ de chambre à Zelle, les austres sont à Lunenb: si cela continue, le tous viendra à moÿ aussÿ.
17
Le 3^{me}
jaÿ pensé tumber en apoplexie can j’aÿ auver vostre lestre, san voir vostre mains j’aispairaÿ d’attendre _que vous vous porterie mieux_, et vous faite tous le contraire, j’ay crus du comensemens, que _saitais fais avec vous_ ne croje pas que je souis fasché que cela ne soÿ de vostre main, bien loin de la, je vous conjure de continuer, de la sorte car je ne vos absoluments pas, que vous vous _fa .. ge_. je vous plein autang q’un ... tendre aÿ passionée, le pos faire, faut il que le plus parfaist objaÿ de l’univair soufre _si cruellament_, Dieuxs pour quois aites vous si injuste, mes mon coeur, je saÿ pourquois, _se malhor tarrive_, pour me randre plus malhoros, le destein te _rang mallade_, lon _te fais suffrir_ pour me crucifier, L’on j reusit car on pos pas, m’envojer un plus grans malhors vous m’ordonnes de me poin _inquietter_, jl faudrois vous gaire aimer, pour ne le pas aistre à la mors; je souis a tous moments à _genous_ faire _des veux_ pour vostre éntiere _retablissements_, je me flatte qua la fein on aura pitié de mois, mes vos son tros devoste, pour ne pas aistre éxhosé, Dieux volje que _cla sois bintos_ que vous seray _quite ... vos mos_ et moÿ de mes _crain ... s_ et de mon _inquetude_ avec qu’elle joÿ vous embrasserage, can j’auraÿ selouis de vous voir je ne saÿ can je le pouraÿs, mes mon dessien aÿ de _faire en sorte comme si un acsai de fievre me prenais_, je diraÿ os bon homme, que je vousdraÿ bien allé pour _tros jour_ à 317 pour éviter que la fievre n’aye poin de prise, sait a dire prendre des remaides, aux Lieux de demorer à 317 je _prandray la poste_ et je _voleray_ à _Celle_, je pourais aistre _dos nuis avec vous_ quelle joÿ qu’elle satisfaction je pouraÿs aistre à vos pié les beinger de mes larmes, vous voiraÿs dans qu’elle éttas pitojable, _votre mal ma mis_; Mes je me flatte postaistre envein, car avan que je pouraÿ _juer_ se _role_ jl faux premierements que le bon homme se porte mieux ... depans encor de la fortunne de la 9 ... je n’aÿ rien de bong à Esperer, La rage le desespoir, le schagrein l’inquiettude la Passions, tous ses schoses énsemble font un aifaÿ sur moÿ, que je souis comme ses jans que lon voist à Amsterdam dans le =Dulhaus=, Dieux sait qu’elle feins que cela auras; Les maladie hogmante de jour en jour, mon vieux Lieute C: et dos Lietenang le song devenus aujourdoÿ, je ne saÿ comments j’an éschappe, sait un miracle car avec tous les schagreins, qui m’abastes je le devraÿs avoir; adieux mon Ange je ne pouis vous Mander davantage, l’expraÿ qui m’a été envojé, du bon homme par, crojes que vous aves un amang, qui prang tang de ... r à tous se qui vous tousche que vous le ... ie faire vous maimes, j laÿ seinsaire vous adore, et à autang de Respect pour vous que qui que se soit; je merite toute vostre tendraisse, et tous les soins oblijan que vous aves pour mois, si je ne vous donne pas assaÿ d’assuranses, de ma passion, et de ma fidelité, se n’aÿ pas ma fostre, saÿ que j’en aÿ pas l’occasion; je vous annueraÿ avec mes protestations, car je le repaiste dans tous mes lestres, je me flatte que vous aite comme mois je ne les sauraÿ trop attendre et tous vos lestres fusetelles ramplis daustre chose elles me seray toujo ... ... reable et plus que comme si j liavois rien.
18
Je suis bien aise, que vous aites unnefois contemps de moÿ, mais jl me semble que cela vous rejouis poin car vous me donne toujours des mattiere, à vous faire des reprojes; et par la vous m’oté la joy d’aistre satisfait de vous, vous vous plainjé que vostre passion vous trouble vostre repos, je le vos croire mes saite passion vous tient pas tang aux coeur, que vous retranjeraÿ les moindre plaisirs pour cela, non non sait a moÿ a me blaindre, ma passion me trouble poin solement, mais me desespaire, Dieux comme je fie les éndrois aux je saÿ que les divertissemens song, je vousdraÿ bien vous voir à la Porte de Brusels, aux de Gens sans j maistre le pie, plustos de faire cela vous m’abandonnerie, et dis austre galang, vous trouve vostre conduite bonne, moÿ aussÿ, mais je seraÿ hors deséspoir que la mienne ne fus pas meljor je suis bien aise que vous ne s’ajé, tombé malade, jen aurais etté inconsolable, quoÿ que je ne suis poin contente de vous, vous aves étté contente de ma lettre, j’en aÿ de la joÿ, vous j aves veus les santimens de mon coeur, sans faintes; je vous remersie bien, humblement, que vous me promaistes, de ne poin donner vostre portraÿ, à la personne connue Pourquoÿ me flatté vous tang dans vos lettres, can vous sonjes si pos a me tenir vos promess, vous m’assurés que rien vous seras dificille et que vous feraÿ tous pour me plaire, saÿ for bien dis mes for mal tenus; helas vous me dite flattong nous le temps nous poura randre horos, mais saschés que le temps me rendra le plus malhoros de tous les hommes, je naÿ poin la hardiesse à vous dire se que je saÿ deja, mais ma chaire je crois, que lon moblijera a vous quiter, je ne pos finir saite lettre, de schagrein, tristesse et collaire adieux, ne me haijsé dumoin pas, car sur mon dieux je ne le merite en fason du monde.
19
14^{me}.
Assurement san la vostre du 12^{me} le Bastement de Coeur que 127 m’avois causé, mauraÿt aschevé, mais Pour mon bonhor, je laÿ resu dans le temps que mon coeur allais craiver, et comme j’ÿ vois que sa nouvelle aÿ traÿ fose, je commense aussi à me remaistre, jl me disaÿ pour tres assuré, que _votre fievre_ vous aves, _repris_, assurement je n’auraÿ peus passer la nouit, avec saite inquiettude san mourir, et alor que je vous écris, j’aÿ encor lohs de la Raine d’hongrie sur le née, je crois pourtang que cela se passera, je me san Pourtang alterré, et éschofé, si cela se passe pas la nouit je me seinjeraÿ pour prevenir le mal, qui pouraÿ m’en arriver; M. de sporque Mourera selon tous les apparance encor aujourdouis, j’aÿ 3 Captaine, 5 Lieutenans, et 4 Enseinges mal à lamors, plus de 300, fantasein aÿ Dragons, de nos troupes sol, son sur les dans, sait un air infecté, les plus sain j deviene malade, toustefois je me flatte de ne le poin devenir _vous saschang, hor daffaire_. Vous auraÿ veus par ma lestre daté le 12^{me} combien je souis contemps de vous, ne prene pas mal que je vous aÿ prié de me marquer dos mos par vostre main, je savois que vous vous portié unpos mieux san cela je ne l’auraÿ pas fais, mais mon incomparable coeur vous en faite tros, car vous m’écrives dos foiljes éntieres, se que je vous prie très instament de ne poin faire plus, ni plustos que vous aites tout à fais bien. Le _sieje_ de _Scharleroi_ feras que _Prince électoral_ seras pas si tos ici, gran Dieux fais que se _sieje_ nous _delivre_ des _faschos_. Lon dis pour sertein que les affaires s’acomode, mais les ordres que lon donne pour soinjer les malades, me fong trambler de pur, que nous quiteron pas sitos se poste; je souis agité du maime desespoir que vous, de passer ma vie avec des jans pour les quelles j’aÿ unne aversion et de la passer si pos avec selle que j’adore, sepandans vous aites plus à plaindre car je pos forsouvang m’en dispensér, et vous poin, austre les _embrasades_ que vous aites obligé à essujer, jl me semble si j’aÿtais obligé a soufrir la maime schose, je ne pouraÿ m’énpescher de vosmir tous les fois que cela m’ariveraÿt, ah qu’elle horor de _caraisser_ se que lon hait mortellement, je crois fortement que le pourgatoire ne donne poin tans de tourments, que des pareiljes _caraisses_. si j laÿ vraÿ que _Électeur de Hanovre_ vas pas a 308, je pouraÿ bein j venir, mes nous pouvons pas prendre des mesures avang, que lon sasche, se que deviendra _Prince électoral la Dujais d’Hanovre n’arrivera_, que _ver la fein du mois_ qui _vient_ et allors _Prince électoral_ sera deja de retour, et les _schases_ finÿ. Dieux volje solement que nous les comension bientos, et que _vous_ fusies _en etas de vous rendre_. Je vous plains que vous _aites_ tan _maigri_ mes (avec vostre permission) je trouve redicule, et absourde, la question que vous me faite, si je n’aimes en vous que vostre bosté je vous le pardonneraj mes vous aites persuadé, que se n’aÿ pas solement cela que j’adore, se son vos merites vostre humor, je vous avoue que de vous voire belle cela aÿ scharmang pour la veus, mes je vous proteste que fusie vous laide comme Mad: Kopstein, je vous aimeraÿ pas un brein de moin; du degous pour vous, ah postong faire unne question pareile à selle ici, à un amang qui vous aime tendrement, non non Leonis vous n’aite pas persuadé de ma sainsaire passion, que fostil que je fasse pour vous en bien conveincre je n’auraÿ du repos, que j’usques à se que je sache que vous laite toust à fais; croje vous q’unne passion pareilje à la mienne, saÿ formée sur unne schose si passaschaire que la bosté, quois que vous en aje beaucoup, et plus coqunne de vostre sexe, je vous pos dire que se n’ay pas elles qui ma mis dans l’estas aux je souis, j laÿ vraÿ que la Bosté que vous possedé, mas énflame, et sans elles je n’auraÿ postaire pas étté si huros que je souis, mes se qui ma randu comme je souis saÿ vostre ésprit, vostre seinserité, vos maniere de vivre, et a lafein saÿ saite ame si bien née, et si juste, la quelle prodouit en vous unne dousor non pareilje, unne jenerosité sans égale, de la Clemanse, au dela de l’imagination, se son saÿs vertues qui mon mis dans saite aimable Esclavage dans la qu’elle je me fois à sait hors, et dans la quelle je pretans mourir aussÿ. En verité Leonis vous me schagrines beaucoup, avec vos questions, vous crainjes que je deviendrays invidelle à la plus grande Boté du siecle, et à la vertue maime, pour qu’elque gose de _preinsaises_ qui n’aurong poin d’austre merite que selle de _venir de Paris_ encore unne fois, je vois que tros que vous n’aite pas éncor bien persuadé de mon amour, je me flatte qu’a la fein je vous en donneraÿ tans de marques que vous n’en saurie plus douster. Pour prendre des messures juste jl faux se parler, nous avon du temps jusques à _la fein_ du _moi_ qui _viens_ et avang se temps nous avons point à craindre le _retour_ de _Prince électoral_ et de _la Dujaiÿse_ vous entames encor des _preinsai_ crojes vous postaitre que j’aime tans la nouvosté, le schangementes, et les jans qui vienne de _Paris_ comme vous, vous vous trompes beaucoup, je porte mes schaines avec beaucoup de plaisir, et je ne les janjeraÿ pas, pour le Raujome du grand mogol. La lestre de la Lieutenan Colonelle ay for sotte mes la personne aÿt assaÿ resonable, elle à randus un for galant homme aux baÿ bas, de grande Calité, fort amouros, jl sapelle le marquis de Spinosa, saÿt un des galans de se paÿ la; mais pouis que je vous aÿ énvojes unne tres sotte lestre, je le recompenseraÿs par unne qui aÿ forbien écrit; si elle n’aitois écrit d’un livre, on la doist, admirer
## particoulierement venan de saite personne, mes sasche qu’elle se
trouve mot en mot dans un livre, sepandans elle ne laisse pas, que d’aistre tourné assaÿ aprospos, je vous prie de me la ranvojé, je vous l’envois parse que jè crois que cela vous divertiras adieux.
20
je vois que le plaisir que je maitait fais à vous émbrasser s’évanuit entieremens puisque l’incomode à paru si brusquement, je vous avoue que se visaje m’a bien deplus can je lay appersu, un cous de foudre m’auray pas plus pus surprendre, mais jl faux qui lÿ aÿe toujor des faschos visajes qui empesche, un doux éntretien comme celuÿ que nous devien croir, selong tous épparance devray aître, ouÿ j’an nay eus l’idé si remplis de joÿ, que je naÿ pus dormir toute la nuit, mais helas tout est vanuis, et il faux que je passe la seconde nuit sans dormir, et avec du jagrein aux lieux que la premiere me rejouissay, j laÿ sur qu’a moin que vous n’aje la bonté de me consoler, je me beinjeray dans mes larmes, consolé moy dong divine bosté, et soulajes un homme qui se mor pour vous, et qui est si éntesté de vos merite que la servelle luy en tourne.
Pour unné joué merveilje je brule d’un fos si beaux que ma raison ma conseilje De l’aimer jusques aux tombos
Voila ma maxime, et vous me le vairreraÿ éxecuter éxactement, ma plus grande satexfaction seras de vous montrer, que la mort sol est sollement capable d’éfasser mon amour. mais pour l’amour de Dieux sonjes à la divise, rien d’inpure mallume, adieux.
21
à 6 heurs.
je ne sauraÿ partir dici sans vous remersier, de l’ambaras aux vous maves tiré, assurement j’aitois un homme fricassé sans la conversation d’hier aux soir, je pars aussi contemps, q’un homme qui laisse ce qui addore, le pos faire, mais se qui me consolle, ces que je suis bien persuadé de vôtre amitié, et que mon absance me fais poin de tors, j’ay lame si reposé que je suis tout autre que je naÿs étté; je vous prie, poin de tait à tet, avec personne, particulierment avec M. R: je sauraÿ tout, car j’ay des bons amÿ ici que vous soupsonne poin. adieux Bella dea, sonjé autang à moy que je sonje à vous, je vous émbrasse les jenous un million de fois, et suis eternellement vôtre esclave.
22
ce 25 aoust 4 septembre
Je prens tant de plaisir a vous entretenir que dabord que jai un moment de liberté je lemploȳe a vous assurer de ma tendresse je vous aȳ escrit hier mais jl me semble que ie ne vous aȳ pas assez marqué linquietude ou je suis sur ce que vous me dites je nen aȳ pas dormi toute la nuit j aȳ repassé toute mes actions et plus ie mexamine et moins je deuine ce que vous pouuez auoir contre moi il est seur que vous deuez estre content de ma conduite ma passion la regle et cela suffit je vous conjure encore une fois de me mander tout le plus tost que vous pourrez ce que ce peut estre jl me sera fort aisé de me justifier puis que ie naȳ jamais pense qua vous plaire et je vous feraȳ auec plaisir tous les sermens les plus affreus sur mon jnnocence mais je vous demande jnstamment de me dire qui sont ceus qui vous disent de semblables Calomnies jls ont sans doute leurs raisons pour nous brouiller et selon toutes les aparences ils nen demeureront pas la soȳez persuadé je vous en conjure que je suis jncapable de rien faire qui vous déplaise mes manieres vous lont fait voir jusques icȳ et jen feraȳ encore plus a lauenir je suis au desespoir de ne pouuoir vous faire connoistre au tant que ie le voudrois mon attachement pour vous les occasions me manque et point la volonté et je ne seraȳ point contente que ie naȳe fait voir a toute la terre que vous me tenez lieu de grandeurs de plaisirs et de tous les agremens du monde le seul que je souhaitte est celuj de posseder vostre coeur je nen demande point dautre et ce seul bonheur me rendra toujours tous les autres jndifferens je suis persuadée que si jestois a han. on me feroit bien des histoires de vous mais je me fie trop a vous pour croire legerement ce que lon me pourroit dire faites en de mesme et croȳez fortement que rien nest capable de me faire changer je suis dans un chagrin mortel on dit quil sest donné un combat depuis peu et je ne saȳ encore ce qui en est je tremble que vous ne vous exposiez sans necessité et quil ne vous soit arriué quelque accident conseruez vous je vous en conjure sil vous reste encore quelque tendresse moȳ que deuiendrois je si japrenois que vous fussiez blessé ie croȳ que ien mourois.
23
ce 2 septembre 12
Il estoit si tard quand ie vous aȳ escrit que ie naj peu repondre a tout ce que uous me dites jaȳ releu plusieurs fois vostre lettre cest un mélange de tendresse et dairs railleurs que ie trouue fort plaisant et jl me parroist quelque mine que uous fassiez que mon uoȳage ne uous plaist point uous auez cependant tous les torts du monde car selon toutes les aparances ie repartiraj dicȳ sans auoir ueu une personne raisonable et je le souhaitte de tout mon coeur. Je ne croȳ pas aller a la foire de jllifrancjllifortjlli et ie ne dirai pas un mot pour ȳ contribuer il me semble que cela uous doit persuader que ie ne cherche pas le monde et que ie suis jncapable de songer aus plaisirs quand ie ne uous uoȳ point jespere partir dicȳ en quinze jours le peda. a pris aujourdhui cette resolution ie men retourne auec elle trouuer le grondeur et je me rendrai à Han. un peu auant le retour du Reformeur ie ne saurois encore uous dire rien de positif pour ce qui regarde le _jlligörjlli_ ie ne croj pourtant pas ȳ aller car la saison sera trop auancée pour que le Reformeur en puisse estre et je me flatte pourueu que rien ne vous retienne ou vous estes que ie pourraȳ vous voir bientost je jugerai de uostre tendresse par uostre empressement mais je uous conjure de prendre si bien uos mesures que ie uous uoje en
## particulier la premiere fois. Jl me seroit jmpossible de soustenir
uostre ueue en public et mon transport me trahiroit, on dit que les françois pourroient nous enleuer aisément cela fait que ie souhaitte fort de men aller car je naȳmerois point du tout a estre prise et ie ueus uous conseruer uostre conqueste je suis charmée de uostre Careme et je uous en fais tous les remerciemens que uous meritez jen suis surprise et je ne mȳ attendois point cest en quoi la chose est plus obligeante jl nȳ a point de sentinelle au monde que uous deuiez craindre et le prisonnier doit Conter sur la prison qui sera toujours ouuerte pour luý et fermée pour toute la terre cest dequoi ie uous réponds et dune passion qui seruira dexemple ie ueus uous en persuader malgré que uous en aȳez et que ie ne trouue de bonheur nÿ de satisfaction qua vous aimer et la Estre aimée uous me paroissez si peu seur de cette uerité que ien suis sensiblement touchée dites moÿ ce quil faut faire pour que uous nen puissiez plus douter il nȳ a rien que ie ne fasse auec joȳe pour vous faire uoir que vous me tenez lieu de toutes choses et que tous mes desirs et mon ambition sont bornez a uous plaire sil ne faut que cela pour vous rendre heureus vous lestes plus que personne du monde car ie ne ueus viure que pour uous seul et ie renonce auec plaisir a toute la terre pour nestre jamais qua uous.
24
ce 13 septembre 23
au lieu de lextresme plaisir que me donnent toutes uos lettres celle que Jaý receue ce soir ma percé le cœur Lon ne peut rien jmaginer de plus offensant que ce que uous mescriuez ie ne le repeteraȳ point ie croȳ que uous uous en souuiendrez bien encore et ie donnerois tout au monde pour pouuoir loublier par quel endroit de ma uie aȳ je peu meriter lopinion que uous me tesmoignez auoir de moȳ si ie croyois ȳ auvoir donné Lieu ie uoudrois estre morte mais plus ie mexamine et plus ie me trouve esloignée de pareils sentimens et graces a dieu je me sens le coeur aussi noble que ie le dois auoir ie ne ueus plus uous rien dire sur ce suiet ie pourrois me facher et ie hais fort laigreur mais pour repondre aus quatre points qui uous ȳ tiennent si fort ie suis bien trompée si ie ne uous aȳ mandé ȳ que jliisparrjllii a esté a L. et si je ne laȳ point fait cest assurément par oublȳ et par ce que ie naȳ pas trouué quil ualust la peine que ie me souuinsse de luj. je puis uous faire tous les sermens quil uous plaira quil nȳ a aucune raison que celle la et de plus ie ne luj aÿ pas dit deus mots pour la joye que uous me reprochez dauoir eue de trouuer jliiguljlljdenjllyleujlii icȳ ie ne uous ȳ repondrez point car cest une opinion ridicule, et rien au monde n’est si mal jmaginé a lesgard de la foire ie uous assure que ie naȳ pas dit un mot pour ȳ aller mais comme ie suis de bonne foȳ ie ueus bien uous _’auouer_ et pour mon nouuel amant uous estes fou de uous jnquieter pour luj car jl est loin dicȳ et selon toutes les aparences ie ne le uerraȳ point et ses soeurs nȳ personne du monde ne me feront jamais faire aucune demarche contre la tendresse dont jaȳ le coeur si rempli ie uous aȳ déia mandé que ie suis persuadée quil ne uiendra point a han. mais si cela arriuoit pourueu que ie sois plus contente de uous que ie ne la suis ce soir ie brutaliseraȳ plustost que de soufrir ces uisites ie suis bien sotte de uous rendre raison sur toutes uos uisions uous qui en auez peu sur tout ce qui me regarde et qui mauez desesperée par uos tre belle lettre jl est uraȳ que uous uoulez ensuitte reparer uostre faute mais cela ne suffit point et ie ne suis pas contente car ie ueus uostre estime et uous ne temoignez pas en auoir pour moȳ, la Confidente en a receu hier une de laimé jlliketjllilerjlli qui lui escrit par lordre du jlljlandjlljgrajlliuejlli pour faire ses complimens a Leonisse puis que uous uoulez lappeller ainsi et pour lassurer quil fera son possible pour la uoir icȳ ou a la foire ie ne croȳ pourtant pas que cela se puisse par ce que nous partons demain et lon nȳ sera quun seul jour ie uous escriraȳ dabor, que ie seraȳ arriuée et ie uous rendrai un conte sincere et fidelle de tout ie ne uous diraj rien de tendre pour ce soir car uous ne le meritez point ie crains bien que ie nauraj pas la mesme force demain et que ie ne me souuiendrai plus de ma colere car Jai furieusement du tendre pour uous et quoi que ie ne uous le dise point ie sens bien que ie uous aime auec une passion qui neut iamais desgale.
25
fra ce 14/24
je suis ici depuis deus heures le peda. a esté descendre chez la p. jllitajllirenjllitejlli ou ie naý ueu que de soste figures de la nous auons esté a la foire ou ie naý pas ueu une personne de qualité la Marionette est icȳ et sa belle soeur ie ne les uerraȳ que demain dont ie suis bien aise car ie pourraȳ me reposer dont jaȳ grand besoin naȳant pas fermé loeil toute la nuit un aȳ passé la moitié a uous escrire et lautre a me chagriner sur ce bel endroit de uostre lettre, ie nous prie bien fort de ne me plus donner de pareils suiets dennuý car ie suis fort delicate sur le chapitre dont il est question hors ce uilain endroit que ie ne saurois oublier et qui gaste tout uostre lettre est charmante et rien nest si dous que tout ce que uous me dites. raccomodez cette affaire si uous uoulez estre bien auec moȳ car elle me tient fort au coeur le mien est si rempli de uous que quoi que jaȳe suiet de men plaindre ie ne saurois mempecher de uous dire que ie me suis faite une uiolence horrible hier au soir pour ne uous point parler de ma tendresse jamais on nen a tant eu et jamais lon a moin merité de reproches que ie le fais uous estes le plus jnjuste de tous les hommes dauoir la moindre défiance sur ce qui me regarde je suis trop ueritablement auous pour que uous aȳez rien a craindre toute mes
## actions uous en persuaderont car jl est certain que ma passion pour
uous ua jusqua lexces je uous conjure destre bien persuadé de cette uerité et quil nȳ a rien au monde que ie ne fasse pour uous faire uoir que ie suis plus a uous qua moi mesme iespere que ie ne uerraȳ nȳ le Land. nȳ personne et ie le souhaitte de tout mon coeur si uous trouuez quelque chose qui ne nous plaise point dans ce que ie uous aȳ escrit hier nen accusez que le dépit ou uous mauez mise. Il a esté jusqua me faire pleurer et tous les charmes de vostre lettre nont peu me faire pardonner larticle ofensant soȳez en repos sur ma conduite elle sera diuine ie uous en repons et pour le Riual.
26
au nom de dieu menagez vous ma uie est unie a la vostre jl me vient mille pensée desesperante dans lesprit et je suis accablée de douleur jaurois peine a vous parler dautre chose jaȳ tout loisir de nourrir mon chagrin et je suis auec une veritable joȳe dans cette solitude Jai oublié hier a vous rendre graces de ce que vous me dites au suiet de la boule rien nest si obligeant je consens a cette condition quelle deuienne ma riuale car je vous auoue que jaime le triomphe et quil est fort de mon goust adieu rien nest capable de me faire changer ie suis née pour vous aimer vous estes ma seule passion je nen aȳ jamais en auant de vous Connoistre et je mourraȳ en vous aȳmant plus que lon na jamais aime.
27
mecredi 24.
Il faut vous rendre conte de ce que jaȳ fait hier jai esté tout le jour seule il est venu un envoȳé du maistre de ce lieu faire compliment au peda. il sest si fort embarassé dans sa harangue que iaȳ eu peine a mempecher den rire jl en a fait un aussi au coeur gauche et sen est allé dabord lon sest promené a pied au retour lon a soupé et je me suis entretenue auec la Confidente cest le seul plaisir que jaȳe car nous parlons toujours de vous.
28
Quo que je vous aÿ ecrit hier aux soir je ne pos m’empescher, de vous dire que j’aÿ passé la plus meschante nuit du monde, j’ay sonjé a vous mais je vous aÿ veus infidelle, voila le sonje, il me semblais, que je vous avois prie de ne poin voir un sertain grant homme, et que malgre vos promesse vous lavie fais entré ché vous pour luÿ dire adieux, j’en fus avertis, ne pouvan énduré cette infidelité, je feinjis d’avoir une lettre de Mad: vot̂re maire pour vous donner j’entraÿ prusquement dans vostre schambre, et je vis le spectacle le plus affros du monde, ces grans M. vous tenais émbrassé, et que pis aÿ, vous aitié sol dans vostre schambre. vous faisie unpos la vasché contre vostre adonus en luÿ disant qui laitois impertinent, je voulus aussi me retire mais vous m’apellaté, je fus ravis de cela parce que cela me donna lieux de vous dire en oreilje que vous aitié la plus ingrate de tous les dames, et que ce seraÿ la dernierefois que je vous parleraÿ, en éffaÿ je fus trouver M. de Pude, pour luÿ prier de m’envojer en Hongrie, ce qu’il fit. je vous demande pardong du sonje criminel, mais je me croirais bien plus criminel si je vous en avertissaÿ poin, ne croje pas que je l’invante non j lay surmondieux vraÿ, pourlamour de tous ce qui vous aÿ le plus schaire, aje soin de me fortifier l’esprit, et tiremoÿ de ma crainte, j’ay por que ce sonje saÿ qu’elque pressage funeste, et qui ne vos dire rien de bong. Il seraÿ injuste q’un tendre amour m’attiras des infidellites, je ne l’éspaire pas car pourquoÿ voudrievous abandonner un coeur qui vous adore, et qui vous jure de vous aistre fidelle, si des telles vos vous pove attascher uniquemens à moÿ, je vous proteste devan Dieux, que jamais je vous serraÿ infidelle, et que je vous aimeray toute ma vie avec la maime passion que je fais astor. Can j’auray l’honnor de vous éntretenir de la debeausche faite hier vous riraÿ bien, la baronne si aÿ sinjales et les grande barbe suedoise, on faite le meljor ... du monde, elle a tens aites fro ... os que la planjer de song tei ... turel, à commensé à paraistre se qui à fais le plus plaisans spectacle de monde; Elle ma demande pourquoÿ je me divertissaÿ poin je luÿ respondis que j’aitois venus faire ma cour à M. Bil. et non pour me divertir, en me quitans elle ma donné le non de traiter, surquoÿ je louÿ ai repliqué, que je ne laistas pas encor mais que je le pouraÿ bien devenir. M. le Duck, a joué à l’homber hier au soir sches Elle, voila le Diable, je finiraÿ en vous prians de vous preparer à me tirer de l’inquiettudes aux je suis, et de me croire, inviolablement attasches à vous et à tous sos qui vous regarde, je vous émbrasse de tous mon coeur, et je paise un milion defois vostre portrais, adieux.
29
venes sur un vendredis au soir ici, et attandes que l’Elector vient ici, si lon oste pas _Prince Max_ vous vous pouves retourner, et cela vous servira de pretexte aupraÿ _Duc de Celle_ et _Prince électoral_ mande mois si vous agrees, ma pense, si vous le pouves faire faite que je vous vois car franjement je ne puis plus vivre de la sorte, pour la mour de mois de vous faite que je vous vois et que je vous embrasse, car san saite satisfaction la vie may rien.
30
La joÿ de voir le Ref: partÿ a étté interrompu par le schagrein de vous voir malade, j’aispaire pourtang que cela ne sera pas grans schose, car san cela je n’en pouraÿ dormir toute la nouit, j’aispaire a vous émbrasser demain aux soir, j’attemps le sinjal ordinaire, et le meschang temps m’enpescheras pas de gouter du plaisir, de vos scharmantes émbrassades, amoin que vous me l’ordonnié austrement je me flatte du contraire et j’aispaire que vostre émpressement reponderas aux mien; si vous ne sorte pas demain, sisi souffira pour vous assuré que les momens me durerong des siecles, et que le temps que je suis éloinjé de vous sont sos que je posse inutilement dans le monde et que je suis prait a venir demain aux lieux connus, j’áttemps le sinjal et je suis vostre tres-obeissant valet.
31
Lon ne pos aistre plus contemps de vous que je le suis vos mamire obligante d’hiair, vostre tres-schere lestre, enfein tous me scharme, je commense à revivre, et la journé d’hiaire et unne de sos quil fos que je marque dans mon livre; pour bien en profiter je vous prie que je vous vois se soir, j’attendraÿ le sinjal avec bien de l’impatiance car je mor d’anvie de vous temoinger ma joÿ elle ait axsaissive, et ne se post exprimer, pour lamour de vous de moÿ, et de tous se qui vous aÿ schaire, continue _de la_ sorte, vous pouraÿ allors me persuader que je n’aÿ rien à craindre, que je seraÿ toujour horos et contemps, voila le plaisir de l’amour, son la les scharmes d’un attaschement seinsaire et veritable; L’avos du Grond: me donne encor beaucoup d’ésperanse tasché de l’attendrir, vous le pouraÿ si vous voules, mais il faux vous j appliquer, et bien prendre vostre temps saye avec cela persuadé, que si le siel me destinne le bonhor de vous posseder, que j’auraÿ les maniere tous austre, que vous vous les immaginée, et je vous jure que je le regleraÿ sur les vostre, ajouté fois a set avos car j laÿ seinsaire et par d’un amme san fosseté, et san finesse; Comme le temps aÿ bos je me flatte à vous voir a la volerie, j’aispaire de vous j trouver tendre, et contemps adieux jusque la, vous me diraÿ bien un petit mos, du quel je pos voir que vous accorde ma priaire.
32
le 2^{me}
Vous me faite mourir can vous faite des complimens, parseque vous ne me reponde poin sur tous les poin des miennes je vous aÿ prié de ne poin écrire de tous, et à me fair solement savoir par _Mlle. von dem Knesebeck l’etas de votre santé_ je le repaite éncor ici, et vous conjure de ne le poin faire si cela vous donne la moindre fatigue, jl soufit pourvos que vous me marques dos mos, affein que je voje saite devinne écriture la quelle aÿ capable a bannir tous les craintes que je me forme. La resolution que je dois prendre selong l’avis de tous mes amis, me mait à l’hasar, que can _joray quité_, je feraÿ resonner tous le monde, et postaistre me feraitong dire par un troisiemme, que _lon souhaite_, que _je me retire_, que deviendrage allors, crojé moy quil fos penser a toust avan que de prandre unne ferme resolution, la schose m’aÿ de tros grande consequence; _Duc de Hanovre_ trouvera mille jans comme _Königsmarck_ mais je me flate que _Princesse héréditaire_ n’én trouveras jamais qui sois si fidelle, et que aime avec plus d’ardor que moÿ, L’exaÿ de ma passion vas à la follie, helas ma très schaire vous merites bien d’autres que _Königsmarck_, je souis tres persuadé que si lon vous devraÿ avoir donné un galang selong vos merite, je n’auraÿ pas eus le bonhor d’aistre vostre Esclave, mais si qu’elcun d’unné passion Extraordinaire d’une constanse sans Egalle auraÿ dus aistre vostre galang j lay juste que se soÿ mois, car je le desputeraÿs non pas oh Mortels, mais aux dieux maime, et je leur defie d’en faire un qui m’égalise; Que les sermans on daifaÿ cant on aÿ dans l’estas, _aux vous aites_, jamais je naÿs etté plus contemps de vous, jamais je vous aÿ plus crus, qu’a presang, vous m’aimeraÿ dong toujour jan pos aistre assuré, car vous me iuré que tan que je vous aimeraÿ, vous feraÿ demaime je vous aimeraÿ touste ma vie, et vous me jures la maime schose, que poje plus pretandre, tous mes vos sont éxhausé, je souis l’homme du monde le plus horos; _gerisse_ vous, et je pos aistre aux comble de may joÿ, je souis poin contemps, que vous preferais á m’ecrire, plus qu’a prendre du repos, je vous conjure sonjes à _prendre vostre repos_, et pouis à vostre _amang_. Que je vos du mal à vostre coeur, de son mauvaÿ gous, vous quiter pour venir sché moÿ, jl ne connais pas la diferance, laisse cela aux mien, jl faux pas schanger en mal mes en bien. Vostre resit me fait tramblé, et je crains que _la fievre_ laustre _accidans_ ne vous _abate tang_ que vous _ne saurie vous remaitre si tos_. je ne saÿ mon coeur me dis que vous _aite hor de danje_ je naÿ plus tans d’inquiettude que j’aÿ eus du comensements, je pran cela pour un traÿ bon sienge, dumoin je m’én flatte et je souhaite ardaments que cela soit einsÿ, j’espaire que mes vos sont éxhausé, et qu’a lor qui laÿ vous vous _portes mieux_. La resolution que vous aves prisse, de prandre _se que je vous avois laise_ aÿ _grande_, je vous avoue que si je l’avois seus auparavang, j’an auraÿ tramblé, mais comme toust aÿ bien allé, je souis enrepos, j lia que le schagrein, _daitre caus_ que vous _soufres bien plus_ et si vous vous _trouvie astor plus mal_ je serais inconsolable. je souis obligé d’avouer que les marques de vostre tendraise surpasse à presan beaucoup les miennes rien nay si touschang, que se que vous m’écrives ... de _devenir malade_ je ne trouveraÿ pas _locasiong_ à vous faire voire combien de tendraisse j’aÿ pour vous. Atil possible que _Duc de Hanovre_ soit assaÿ _baite de vous avoir refuser la pose_ je feray plustos, mourir 20 _feltmarescho_ que de _refuser_ unne fois à _Princesse héréditaire_ pareilje schose. Quois que _Prince héréditaire_ ne _revienne_ pas si tos et sur les ordres que lon avois devulgué con avois envojé, nous somme pourtang _deja dans le mois_ de _septembre et la campanjeay bintos finnis_ faite reflextion la desu adieux.
33
se tienne à 8 heure du soir aupres la porte de la grande salle, aux la Pr: à cutume de jouer, jla poura recevoir la en toute sureté, puisque personne j passe, Demain éstang le Dimange.
34
j lÿ sera à leur sudite ne doute pas de sa fidellite. Adieux inconparable Deesse je vous donne le bonsoir, et souhaite que vous sonjé autang à moy comme je fais à vous, appres avoir relus éncor une fois votre lettre, je m’endormiray, avec l’esperane de songer d’autre schose que de vous. je vous émbrasse un Million de fois, et suis votre tres-obeissant ser.
CORRESPONDENCE OF SOPHIA DOROTHEA AND COUNT KÖNIGSMARCK
F 3 [FROM KÖNIGSMARCK TO SOPHIA DOROTHEA]
[_Spring of 1692._]
What sufferings one has to bear when it is necessary to separate from you! All the torments in the world cannot cause such suffering! But I recover from my trouble, since you are of opinion that I ought not to have any feeling of jealousy. I must avow to you that it is difficult to feel none when one is far away from the object one adores. But, my angel, you have made me so many promises of behaving well that I place confidence in you; and I can assure you that at the present moment I am free from jealousy, but not without feeling troubled; and your departure troubles me more than ever. I cannot understand what is to become of me in the end; I well know that I cannot always be in sight of you, and yet I feel [only] too much that I cannot separate from you. See in what condition your beautiful eyes have put me. I send you a copy of the letter of which I spoke to you, word for word like the original; and I ask your pardon for the scrawling hand of which I have made use; I had it copied by my page, who does not know what he writes.
M. Gor brought me a complimentary message from the Duchess of Eisenach;[197] she sent word to me that, though I had avoided speaking to her, she would show that she takes more thought of me than I take of her. I will swear to you that not only did this compliment give me no pleasure, but, on the contrary, it vexes me that she ordered it to be delivered to me. I have not left my room all to-day, and I think that I shall do the same thing to-morrow. Let me know, by way of consolation, how you are faring and when you will return. I shall die with vexation and trouble if I do not see you soon. Good-bye, my beloved heart; think of your faithful lover, and do not forget him [?] among all this crowd of people. Once more, adieu!
_Thursday, at 12 o’clock after midnight._
My pain in the chest continues, but I have had no fever....
-----
Footnote 197:
Amalia, Duchess of Saxe-Eisenach, a born Princess of Nassau-Dietz. Cf. as to her visit to Celle in March 1692, Colt _ap._ Wilkins, p. 163.—Königsmarck mentions a “M. de Goritz” as a brother-officer in the Flemish campaign, ib. pp. 216, 232; he appears to be identical with Count Frederick von Schlitz-Goertz, who afterwards became Marshal of the Court and President of the Chamber, and, after accompanying George I to England, died as Prime Minister at Hanover. See Vehse, _Gesch. d. Höfe d. Hauses Braunschweig_, Part I . pp. 116, 187, and