WIVES AND FAVOURITES.
A ducal household--Elevation in rank of the mother of Sophia
Dorothea--Births and deaths--A lover for Sophia--The Bishop of
Osnaburgh an imitator of the _Grand Monarque_--Two successful
female adventurers at Osnaburgh.
Such a household as the one maintained in sober happiness and freedom
from anxiety by the duke and his wife was a rare sight in German
courts. The duke was broadly ridiculed because of his faithful
affection for one who was worthy of all the truth and esteem which
a true-hearted wife could claim. The only fault ever brought by the
bitterest of the enemies of the wife of the Duke of Zell against that
unexceptionable lady was, that she was over-fond of nominating natives
of France to little places in her husband’s little court. Considering
that the Germans, who looked upon her as an intruder, would not
recognise her as having become naturalised by marriage, it is hardly to
be wondered at that she gathered as much of France around her as she
could assemble in another land.
Three other children were the fruit of this marriage, whose early
deaths were deplored as so many calamities. Their mother lived long
enough to deplore that Sophia Dorothea had survived them. The merits
of the mother won, as they deserved to do, increase of esteem and
affection on the part of the duke. His most natural wish was to
raise her to a rank equal to his own, as far as a mere name could
make assertion of such equality. It was thought a wonderful act of
condescension on the part of the emperor, that he gave his imperial
sanction to the elevation of the Lady of Harburg to the rank and title
of Countess of Wilhelmsburg.
The Bishop of Osnaburgh was harder to treat with than the emperor. He
bound down his brother by stringent engagements, solemnly engrossed in
lengthy phrases, guarding against all mistake by horribly technical
tautology, to agree that the encircling his wife with the coronet of
a countess bestowed upon her no legal rights, and conferred no shadow
of legitimacy, in the eye of the law, on the children of the marriage,
actual or prospective. For such children, modest yet sufficient
provision was secured; but they were never to dream of claiming
cousinship with the alleged better-born descendants of Henry the Dog,
or Magnus the Irascible.
Duke George William, however, was resolved not to rest until his wife
should also be his duchess. He appealed to the Estates of Germany.
The Estates thought long and adjourned often before they came to a
tardy and reluctant conclusion, by which the boon sought was at length
conceded. The emperor added his consent. The concession made by the
Estates, and the sanction superadded by the emperor, were, however,
only obtained upon the military bishop withholding all opposition.
The princely prelate was, in fact, bought off. Again his muniment-box
was unlocked; once more he and his staff of lawyers were deep in
parchments, and curious in the geography of territorial maps and plans.
The result of much dry labour and heavy speculation was an agreement
entered into by the two brothers. The Duke of Zell contracted that the
children of his marriage with the daughter of the Poitevin seigneur
should inherit only his private property, and the empty title of
Counts, or Countesses, of Wilhelmsburg. The territory of Zell with
other estates added to the sovereign dukedom were to pass to the
prince-bishop or his heirs. On these terms Eleanora of Olbreuse, Lady
of Harburg, and Countess of Wilhelmsburg, became Duchess of Zell.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed the very apostolic bishop to the dissolute disciples
at his court, on the night that the family compact was made an
accomplished fact, ‘my brother’s French _Madame_ is not a jot the more
his wife for being duchess’--which was true, for married is married,
and there is no comparative degree of intensity which can be applied to
the circumstance. ‘But she has a dignity the more, and therewith may
_Madame_ rest content’--which was not true, for no new title could add
dignity to a woman like the wife of Duke George William.
When Sophia Dorothea was but seven years old, she had for an occasional
playfellow in the galleries and gardens of Zell and Calenberg, a
handsome lad, Swedish by birth, but German by descent, whose name was
Philip Christopher von Königsmark. He was a few years older than Sophia
Dorothea (some accounts say ten years older), and he was in Zell for
the purpose of education, and he fulfilled the office of page. Many of
his vacation hours were spent with the child of George William, who
was his father’s friend. When gossips saw the two handsome children,
buoyant of spirit, beaming with health, and ignorant of care, playing
hand in hand at sports natural to their age, those gossips prophesied
of future marriage. But their speculation had soon no food whereon to
live, for the young Königsmark was speedily withdrawn from Zell, and
Sophia bloomed on alone, or with other companions, good, graceful,
fair, accomplished, and supremely happy.
But, even daughter as she was of a left-handed marriage, there was
hanging to her name a dower sufficiently costly to dazzle and allure
even princely suitors. To one of these she was betrothed before she
was ten years old. The suitor was a soldier and a prince. Augustus
Frederick, Crown Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, was allured by the
‘beaux yeux de la casette’ of the little heiress, which contained,
after all, only one hundred thousand thalers, fifteen thousand pounds
sterling; but an humble dower for a duke’s only daughter. In the
meantime the affianced lover had to prove himself, by force of arms,
worthy of his lady and her fortune. To the siege of Philipsburg, in the
year 1676, repaired the chivalrous Augustus of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
He bore himself with a dignity and daring which entitled him to
respect, but a fatal bullet slew him suddenly: a brief notice in a
despatch was his soldierly requiem, and when the affianced child-bride
was solemnly informed by circumstance of Hof-Marshal that her lord was
slain and her heart was free, she was too young to be sorry, and too
unconscious to be glad.
Meanwhile, the two courts of the Bishop of Osnaburgh and the Duke of
Zell continued to present a striking contrast. The bishop was one
of those men who think themselves nothing unless they are imitating
some greater man, not in his virtues but his vices. There was one man
in Europe whom Ernest Augustus described as a ‘paragon,’ and that
distinguished personage was Louis XIV. The vices, extravagance, the
pomposity of the great king, were the dear delights of the little
prince. As Louis neglected his wife, so Ernest Augustus disregarded
_his_. Fortunately, Sophia, the wife of the latter, had resources in
her mind, which made her consider with exemplary indifference the
faithlessness of her lord.
At this court of Hanover, two sisters, Catherine and Elizabeth von
Meisenbuch, had, for some time, set the fashion of a witchery of
costume, remarkable for its taste, and sometimes for outraging it.
They possessed, too, the great talent of Madame de Sillery Genlis,
and were inimitable in their ability and success in getting up little
_fêtes_, at home or abroad, in the _salon_ or _al fresco_--formal and
full-dressed, or rustic and easy--where major-generals were costumed as
agricultural swains, and ladies of honour as nymphs or dairymaids, with
costumes rural of fashioning, but as resplendent and costly as silkman
and jeweller could make them. At a sort of Masque, invented by the
sisters von Meisenbuch, one appeared as Diana, the other as Bellona,
and they captivated all hearts, from those of the prince-bishop and his
son to that of the humblest aspirant in the court circle.
These young ladies came to court to push their fortunes. They hoped
in some way to serve the sovereign bishop; or, failing him, to be
agreeable to his heir, George Louis (afterwards George I. of England).
But even this prince, a little and not an attractive person, to say
nothing of the bishop, seemed for a time a flight above them. They
could wait a new opportunity; for as for defeat in their aspirations,
they would not think of it. They had the immense power of those persons
who are possessed by one single idea, and who are under irresistible
compulsion to carry it out to reality. They could not all at once reach
the prince-bishop or his heir, and accordingly they directed the full
force of their enchantments at two very unromantic-looking personages,
the private tutors of the young princes of Hanover. The ladies were
soon mighty at Greek particles, learned in the aorists, fluent on the
digamma, and familiar with the mysteries of the differential calculus.
Catherine and Elizabeth von Meisenbuch opened a new grammar before
their learned pundits, the _Herrn_ von Busche and von Platen (the
latter was of a noble and ancient house); and truth to tell, the
philosophers were nothing loth to pursue the new study taught by such
professors. When this educational course had come to a close, the
public recognised at once its aim, quality, and effects, by learning
that the sage preceptors had actually married two of the liveliest and
lightest-footed of girls who had ever danced a _branle_ at the balls
in Brunswick. The wives, on first appearing in public after their
marriage, looked radiant with joy. The tutors wore about them an air
of constraint, as if they thought the world needed an apology, by way
of explaining how two Elders had permitted themselves to be vanquished
by a brace of Susannas. Their ideas were evidently confused, but they
took courage as people cheerfully laughed, though they may have lost
it again on discovering that they had been drawn into matrimony by two
gracefully-graceless nymphs, whose sole object was to use their spouses
as stepping-stones to a higher greatness.
There must have been many attendant advantages in connection with such
an object, or the two married philosophers would hardly have worn the
air of content which they put on as soon as they saw the aim of their
estimable wives, and felt the gain thence accruing.
Elizabeth von Meisenbuch, the wife of von Platen, was the true mistress
of the situation. Von Platen, principally through her intrigues, had
been appointed prime-minister of the sovereign bishop. The time passed
by von Platen with his sovereign master afforded him ample leisure to
talk of his wife, praise her political abilities, and over-eulogise
her. The prince-bishop felt his curiosity excited to study more
nearly this phœnix of a woman. It was, therefore, the most natural of
consequences that von Platen should lead his lady to his master’s feet,
though it perhaps was not so natural that he should leave her there to
‘improve’ the position thus reached.
The lady lost no time in justifying all that her husband had advanced
in warranty of her talent, skill, and willingness to use them for the
advantage of the bishop and his dominions; the powerful prelate was
enchanted with her--enchanted with her in every sense. To sum up all,
Madame von Platen became the mistress of her husband’s master; and her
sister, who had given her hand to von Busche, gave herself body and
soul to the bishop’s son, George Louis. This arrangement seemed in
no way to disturb the equanimity of the bishop’s wife, the prince’s
mother.