THE COURT OF HANOVER.
(1682-1684.)
The court’s a golden but a fatal circle,
Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils
In crystal forms sit tempting innocence,
And beckon early virtue from its centre.
LEE.
There were great rejoicings at Hanover in honour of the home-coming of
the youthful pair. The marriage was exceedingly popular among all
classes, and the people vied with the court and nobility in celebrating
an event which was to contribute so materially to the prosperity of the
duchy. George Louis and Sophie Dorothea entered Hanover in a state coach
drawn by six cream-coloured horses and preceded by a military escort,
and passed in procession through the decorated streets and shouting
multitudes to the Alte Palais (the old palace), where they were to take
up their abode. Sophie Dorothea’s parting from the home of her childhood
had been sad, but her welcome to Hanover was a warm one, and she forgot
her sadness in the general rejoicing. Yet a shadow fell across the
bride’s path on the very threshold of her new home. Madame Bussche,
though under orders to quit, had not yet left Hanover, but had the
audacity to appear with her sister, Madame Platen, at an upper window of
the palace. Tradition says that as George Louis was helping his young
wife to alight, she looked up by chance, and saw this Jezebel at the
window with her face convulsed with hate. Sophie Dorothea started and
turned pale, she guessed instinctively who it was. The Duchess Sophia
noticed her too, and was so angry her orders had been disregarded that
she sent an imperative message to Madame Bussche to leave Hanover that
very night. Her mandate was obeyed; but the mischief had been done, and
the _contretemps_ was an ill omen for the success of the marriage.
There were loyal addresses and court festivities, balls, plays, and
feastings for a week on end in Hanover, and the bride won golden
opinions by her beauty and grace. The events of the last few weeks had
tamed her spirit, and she wore an air of timid dignity which, joined to
her extreme youth, touched all hearts and even softened at first some of
the dislike of her mother-in-law and some of the roughness of her
husband. Ernest Augustus was much pleased with Sophie Dorothea, and
stood between her and her enemies. Unlike his wife, he had no prejudice
against his niece, and he never could resist a pretty face. Now that she
had come to him as his daughter-in-law, filling his coffers with her
dowry, and adding to the brightness of his court with her beauty, he was
exceedingly well disposed towards her. With all his faults, Ernest
Augustus was no tyrant, but on the whole a kind-hearted man, and
throughout Sophie Dorothea’s married life at Hanover he was perhaps her
best friend, over-indulgent in some things, culpably lax in others, but
without the malevolence of his wife or the cold brutality of his son.
To the girl bride, who had been reared under her parents’ wing in quiet
little Celle, and sheltered from the knowledge of evil, the court of
Hanover, with its meretricious gaiety and brilliance, its laxity of
morals and profligacy of manners, must have seemed like another world,
and not a better one. The Hanover[22] to which Sophie Dorothea came
could not boast of a magnificent schloss like Celle, but it had three
palaces instead of one. There was the Alte Palais, where the young
Princess lived at first, an unpretending building in the centre of the
town; across the street was the Leine Schloss, where also were
apartments for the ducal family, a larger and more imposing building,
used for state functions and entertainments; and half an hour’s drive
outside Hanover lay the country residence of Herrenhausen, a favourite
retreat of the Duchess Sophia, then a modest place, but which she later
rebuilt, beautified, and enlarged. To this day Herrenhausen retains its
charm. Its quaint, formal gardens with interminable hedges of clipped
hornbeam, its colossal fountains and monstrous stucco cupids, its
orangery, terraces, and ornamental water, make it unlike anything else
in Europe. No wonder the first two Georges were so fond of it, no wonder
they were eager to run away from gloomy London to the delights of this
homely little schloss, nestling in the midst of a great park and
approached from the outer world by a long avenue of limes. When we have
seen Herrenhausen we can understand the _heimweh_ of the earlier
Georges, and their regret at leaving the cosy delights of their snug
little principality to take up the uneasy crown of England.
-----
Footnote 22:
Hanover is still in some respects the same as it was in the time of
Ernest Augustus and Sophia. Until the beginning of Queen Victoria’s
reign, it must have been almost exactly the same; but the divorce from
the English crown which then ensued made a difference, and the
expulsion of the King of Hanover, in 1866, brought the town under
Prussian rule, and resulted in the abolition of many landmarks. Under
the iron heel of Prussia, Hanover is losing many of its distinctive
features. It has become much like any other modern Prussian city, with
wide streets, huge barracks, and enormous and hideous buildings, vast
manufactories and breweries. The town has advanced in prosperity, but
has lost in picturesqueness.
-----
At the court of Celle there was a comparatively modest retinue, few
festivities, and little pomp of state. Hanover, modelled on Versailles,
maintained a court out of all proportion to the importance of the duchy.
The Duchess Sophia, who was a strict upholder of dignity, established in
it rigid rules of place and precedence, and no herald’s table was ever
classed more strictly than the different orders of the court of Hanover.
First and foremost, there was the ducal family—the sacred clan, above,
apart, and beyond all meaner mortals. In the second class came the
Field-Marshal of the army, all alone, a sort of buffer between their
Serene Highnesses and their subjects. Then followed in the third class,
in order meet, the civil and military authorities, the privy councillors
and ministers, and generals of the army. The fourth class was made up of
the High Chamberlain and the marshals of the court, and so down to the
pages, all of whom were noble. After this class there was a great
gulf—the gulf between noble and simple; and then came in array a number
of lesser court officials, gentlemen ushers, physicians, musicians,
every one in nicely graduated order, even down to the cooks and footmen,
coachmen and grooms. The stables at Hanover were always a feature; they
are so to-day, and must have been well worth seeing in Sophie Dorothea’s
time. They contained some six hundred horses and a great number of
splendid equipages.
Sophie Dorothea held a high place in all this state, and as Princess of
Hanover (as she was formally styled) she was given a separate household.
Her apartments were in a wing of the old palace; but she had her own
establishment, her chamberlain, her ladies-in-waiting, and her pages.
She seldom drove out except in an enormous gilt coach, with postillions
and running footmen. We may picture her rumbling through the narrow
streets of old Hanover of an afternoon, her pretty, childish, wistful
face looking out of the window of the great coach, or driving outside
the walls to pay her respects to her haughty mother-in-law at
Herrenhausen.
The young Princess found it exceedingly hard at first to accommodate
herself to all the formalities and restrictions incidental upon her rank
at the Hanoverian court. She never quite mastered all the minutiæ of
court etiquette in which the Duchess Sophia revelled; she would forget,
and in her childish, impulsive way, greet a member of the fourth class
as though he were a member of the third, or _vice versa_. She followed
her own likes and dislikes too much, she was too friendly with one and
not friendly enough with the other, she would sometimes withdraw from
the court circle when she was bored, and did not always appear when she
was wanted. All this greatly scandalised the Duchess Sophia, who
considered court etiquette the very essence of royalty, and she often
wrote to the Duchess of Orleans complaining of the bad up-bringing of
her daughter-in-law and the way in which her education had been
neglected. Of course they both blamed “Madame” of Celle, who, being “a
nobody,” could not be expected to teach Sophie Dorothea the customs of a
court. Perhaps a little kindness and forbearance on the part of the
Duchess Sophia might have taught the young Princess how to carry her
dignity even to that female martinet’s satisfaction, for she was very
adaptive and quick to learn. But the Duchess Sophia showed her no
sympathy, and her daughter-in-law’s little slips were invariably made
the occasion of some slighting remark, either on herself or her mother.
It is no wonder, under these circumstances, that Sophie Dorothea grew
mutinous and careless, and even took a pleasure in showing her contempt
for the rules of etiquette at the Hanoverian court by wilfully
transgressing them whenever she pleased.
The poor little Princess, in these first months of her married life at
Hanover, surrounded by spies and enemies, must often have longed to flee
from the hollow splendours of the court to the home life at Celle and
the arms of her loving mother. While all this importance was attached to
the outward semblance, no one at Hanover heeded, and no one cared,
whether she was happy or not. It was hardly possible for her to have
been happy. Sophie Dorothea was the victim of one of the cruellest of
state marriages, and her only hope of happiness lay in the chance of
some love and forbearance on the part of her husband. In these first
months of marriage her nature was plastic to her husband’s touch. A kind
word might have wrought her to love, as a harsh one often drove her to
tears and anger. With a little kindness, a little sympathy, all the
misery and mistakes of later years might have been averted, but George
Louis had no kind words for the daughter of “Madame” of Celle, and even
thus early in her married life she was neglected, insulted, and forced
through experiences from which her girlish purity recoiled. Even if she
had no claim on his affection, she might have had some on his pity. She
was all alone and with none to help or advise her, for though Celle was
only twenty miles away, the strained relations between the two courts
were not at this date so relaxed as to admit of much visiting between
them, and the means of communication were so bad that her father’s
principality seemed another country.
Sophie Dorothea had brought with her from Celle a trusted friend, if not
a very wise one, in a young lady, Fräulein Eléonore Knesebeck, who
followed her to Hanover, as confidential lady-in-waiting. She was a few
years older than the Princess, and the daughter of one of the
councillors at Celle, whose name appears as signing the marriage
contract between Duke George William and Duchess Eléonore. She was a
woman of some ability, and though no beauty, had a fair share of good
looks. Her devotion to the Princess was beyond doubt, but her
discretion, unfortunately, was doubtful indeed, and even in these early
days she repeated to Sophie Dorothea many things that would have been
better ignored, and incited her against her enemies.
We obtain a fairly good idea of the way in which Sophie Dorothea spent
her day from her journals, or diaries, and if her record may be taken as
a sample of the life of a German princess at the end of the seventeenth
century, there was nothing very edifying or enlivening about it, even in
so gay a court as that of Hanover. The forenoon would be spent by the
Princess either in bed (she was not an early riser) or in her apartments
writing letters, or working with her needle. If the weather were fine,
she might take a walk in the gardens of the palace, unless it were a
morning on which she “took her bath”. In that case she kept her room
most of the day for fear of a chill; but the bath does not seem to have
occurred too frequently.[23] Sophie Dorothea would spend the greater
part of the forenoon in dressing, or rather in being dressed—a lengthy
operation, for she was fond of attiring herself. When this was over to
her satisfaction, attended by her lady-in-waiting, and preceded by a
page, she would go down in state to the substantial mid-day dinner, of
which her mother has given so vivacious an account. Ernest Augustus
would descend in state from his apartments, the Duchess Sophia from
hers, with her daughter, Sophia Charlotte. The Prince of Hanover (as
George Louis was styled) would arrive; and the younger princes would
also appear upon the scene, and, when all were assembled in the great
hall, they would sit in order of rank, and the most rigid etiquette
prevailed throughout. It must have been a funny sight, the bowing and
curtseying, the devouring of great dishes of heavy food, the copious
drinking of wine and beer. After the dinner was over, their Highnesses
retired to their respective apartments, and very often (not unnaturally)
Sophie Dorothea would return to bed for a period. When she arose, if the
day were not too far gone, she would take an airing in her gilded coach,
or pay some calls on ladies she wished to honour with a visit, or
receive some visitors, never alone, always in the presence of her
lady-in-waiting. By this time it was necessary to dress again for
supper, often an occasion of great ceremony, when rich robes and costly
jewels were donned. Again the Prince and Princess would repair to the
great hall, and again meet the Duke and Duchess and members of the ducal
family in order of rank. When supper was over, the great personages
would join the general circle of the nobility; there might be music and
conversation, but more likely they would play cards, ombre and
quadrille, and large sums would be lost and won, for play was high at
Hanover in those days. Then the Duchess Sophia and the Princess would
retire to their apartments, and the company broke up. The next day, _da
capo_. On occasions of importance, as, for instance, the arrival of
foreign princes or ambassadors at Hanover (and many arrived at that
time, for there was much buying and selling of troops, and many
intrigues), there would be more ceremony, larger banquets, balls and
comedies and plays. But the above record forms a fair specimen of the
average day at the court of Hanover.
-----
Footnote 23:
The morning bath was not a daily institution at the end of the
seventeenth century, even with princesses; for aught I know, it may
not be in Germany to-day. Cleanliness was not a prominent virtue, and
in the long list of servants at the court of Hanover there appear to
have been only two washerwomen employed!
-----
In this way the winter passed. The spring dawned, the lime-trees and
acacias flowered along the banks of the river Leine. The summer came and
went. There were pastoral plays in the gardens of Herrenhausen, and
masques, and visits of princes and princesses. But Sophie Dorothea
gradually withdrew herself from the festivities, and with the autumn
days there came good news to the courts of Hanover and Celle. The
Princess gave birth to a son and heir, who was born at Hanover on
October 30, 1683, and who was destined forty-four years later to ascend
the mighty throne of England.[24]
-----
Footnote 24:
George II. succeeded his father in 1727.
-----
The christening was celebrated with much rejoicing, and the infant was
given the names of George Augustus, after his two grandfathers. The
event naturally increased Sophie Dorothea’s importance, and it set the
seal upon the reconciliation of the duchies of Hanover and Celle.
Henceforward we find the Duke and Duchess of Celle visiting Hanover, and
Ernest Augustus and sometimes George Louis, but rarely the Duchess
Sophia, returning the visit at Celle, or staying with George William and
his wife at their hunting-lodges of Göhre, Brockhausen, and Wienhausen.
Sophie Dorothea also visited her parents frequently, and for long
intervals.
After the birth of the son and heir, the Duchess Sophia’s manner towards
her daughter-in-law seems to have altered for the better. She apparently
determined to make the best of Sophie Dorothea, and though she never
liked her, and had little in common with her, she dissembled her
dislike, and treated her with outward courtesy. For good or evil, Sophie
Dorothea was her son’s wife, and the mother of the child on whom the
accumulated dignities of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg would one day
descend. It even seemed that the birth of the son might form a link
between George Louis and his wife; such an event surely made for greater
identity of interest between them, for a man, unless he be thoroughly
bad, can hardly withhold some sympathy from the mother of his firstborn
child, and George Louis was by no means wholly bad. He recognised the
beauty and grace of his wife, and if they had been left to themselves,
the young couple, despite their uncongenial temperaments, might have
managed to rub along together fairly well.
But they were not left to themselves; an enemy was on the alert. Sophie
Dorothea, by her amiability, had made herself generally popular in
Hanover, and, as we have noted, she was especially viewed with favour by
her uncle and father-in-law, Ernest Augustus. Her unaffected manners,
her innocence and charm, contrasted with the craft and full-blown charms
of Madame Platen, were like a cup of cold, pure water after a highly
spiced draught; and Ernest Augustus found himself attracted more and
more to the society of his daughter-in-law and away from the lures of
his mistress. Madame Platen saw this and trembled. Vice always fears
innocence, and when she noted the growing influence and importance of
Sophie Dorothea, her envy and jealousy were aroused. Yet she had no real
cause of complaint. She had been largely responsible for bringing about
the marriage, and she had been liberally rewarded for her share in the
transaction, possibly by William of Orange, certainly by a commission on
the substantial dowry; and in addition to these pecuniary rewards her
husband had been raised to the rank of Baron. On the strength of these
successes she had launched forth into a costly and extravagant style of
living. Her residence at Monplaisir, conveniently situated half-way
between Hanover and Herrenhausen, was beautified and enlarged until it
vied with the ducal palaces; her entertainments were of the most lavish
description, her liveries and equipages rivalled those of the Princess
of Hanover, while in dress and adornment she far outshone the Duchess
Sophia. At Monplaisir she held a court hardly second to that of the
Duchess and attracted all the gay cavaliers and handsome young nobles of
Hanover, who went to bask in the favour of the powerful mistress. High
play, deep drinking, and general looseness of conduct were the rule at
Monplaisir; no wonder the young bloods of Hanover found it so
attractive!
The Duchess Sophia, true to her policy, steadily ignored all these
extravagances on the part of Madame Platen, and continued to seek
distraction in the consolations of philosophy and the society of Leibniz
and other learned men, whom, to her honour be it said, she invited to
the court of Hanover. Not so Sophie Dorothea, who was first astounded
and then indignant, at the impudent display of the court mistress.
Perhaps vanity had something to do with her indignation, for she
objected to so many of the young nobles absenting themselves from her
quiet little levées to pay their respects to Madame Platen. In youth and
beauty the Princess far outshone the more mature Platen, and at the
court functions, splendidly dressed and brilliant with jewels, she was
easily first and Madame Platen nowhere. Madame Platen had so long been
the leading lady at the court of Hanover, in fact if not in name, that
she could ill brook a rival near her throne, and she had imagined, in
her ignorance, that a young girl like Sophie Dorothea would be amenable
to her wishes. But the Princess, though young, and careless enough about
etiquette in the ordinary way, was not disposed to abate any jot or
tittle of the privileges of her rank and position in favour of Madame
Platen, and quickly intimated to the woman that she must keep her place.
Perhaps Sophie Dorothea would have done better if she had imitated the
policy of her august mother-in-law, and ignored the powerful mistress,
but she was young and not altogether wise, and her heart was hot with
indignant anger at the woman’s arrogance and want of respect to herself.
She expressed herself with considerable freedom on the subject, and her
remarks, the reverse of complimentary, coming to Madame Platen’s ears,
incensed her the more against the airs and graces of “the interloper,”
as she called the Princess. Madame Platen was, in fact, wounded with her
own weapon; she had helped to bring Sophie Dorothea to Hanover, only to
find her arrayed against her.
When once Madame Platen’s jealousy was aroused there were no lengths to
which she was not ready to go. First she denounced Sophie Dorothea and
her mother as upstarts who had no right to the titles they assumed, but
this was old matter, and at the best came second-hand from the Duchess
Sophia, therefore it did no harm; then she collected and retailed to
Ernest Augustus all the ill-natured gossip she could gather about the
Princess, but the Duke laughed at it good-humouredly and would not
listen; he was quite ready to excuse his daughter-in-law any little
indiscretions on the ground of her youth and good looks, and regarded
all this tittle-tattle as mere feminine amenities. Madame Platen next
sounded the Duchess Sophia, but that lady only smiled her inscrutable
smile and pursued the even tenor of her way. Failing with the Duke and
Duchess, she had recourse to the husband, and with George Louis she was
more successful. Like most heavy and slow-witted young men, he was
peculiarly sensitive to ridicule. Sophie Dorothea had a nimble wit and a
thoughtless tongue, which were ever getting her into trouble, and she
sometimes made fun of her husband and his boorish ways, letting fall
remarks that had better have been left unsaid. These were retailed to
Madame Platen by spies, and reported again by her to George Louis with
much embroidery, thus inflaming his mind against his wife. Words
followed between them. Neither was blessed with a very good temper, nor
had much forbearance. From words they proceeded to open quarrels, which
became more and more frequent, and the relations between the young
couple were soon strained to the utmost. Madame Platen’s next move was
to recall her sister, Madame Bussche, to Hanover, and throw her once
more in the way of George Louis, but this missed its mark. Probably he
was inconstant in his amours, and perhaps he had a new favourite; at any
rate he refused to be fascinated again by the charms of Madame Bussche.
Meanwhile, his wife and he drifted more and more apart. By-and-by George
Louis turned again to his first love—military service, and the next year
or two found him far more in the camp than at the court The neglected
Sophie Dorothea found consolation in her little son and in frequent
visits to her parents at Celle, Brockhausen, and elsewhere, and spent
only a few months of the year under the same roof as her husband.
About this time (1684) there were great festivities at the court of
Hanover, for the Duchess Sophia’s matchmaking proclivities bore fruit in
the marriage of her only daughter, Sophia Charlotte, to the Elector of
Brandenburg, who later became first King of Prussia. True, the Elector
was eleven years older than his bride and a widower, but the Duchess
Sophia did not consider her daughter’s inclinations in such a matter as
her marriage, especially one so advantageous as this. Sophia Charlotte
was the young lady of whom her mother said, when sounded on the subject,
“that she was of no religion as yet,” and by this marriage her faith was
finally settled on the Protestant side. The Electress of Brandenburg
seems to have justified this up-bringing, for she was a sprightly
princess of extremely liberal and advanced views. She had inherited her
mother’s abilities and also her dislike for Sophie Dorothea. There was
never any love lost between them, so the Princess was glad when the
Electress of Brandenburg took her departure from Hanover to Berlin,
where she afterwards reigned as the first Queen of Prussia.