PRISON AND PALACE.
The prison of the captive Sophia Dorothea--Employment of her
time--The church of Ahlden repaired by her--Cut off from her
children--Sympathy of Ernest Augustus for his daughter-in-law
--Her father’s returning affection for her--Opening prospects of
the House of Hanover--Lord Macclesfield’s embassy to Hanover,
and his right-royal reception--Description of the Electress--
Toland’s description of Prince George Louis--Magnificent present
to Lord Macclesfield--The Princess Sophia and the English liturgy
--Death of the Duke of Zell--Visit of Prince George to his
captive mother prevented.
The castle of Ahlden is situated on the small and sluggish stream, the
Aller; and seems to guard, as it once oppressed, the little village
sloping at its feet. This edifice was appointed as the prison-place
of Sophia Dorothea; and from the territory she acquired a title, that
of Duchess of Ahlden. She was mockingly called sovereign lady of a
locality where all were free but herself!
On looking over the list of the household which was formed for the
service, if the phrase be one that may be admitted, of her captivity,
the first thing which strikes us as singular is the presence of ‘three
cooks’--a triad of ‘ministers of the mouth’ for one poor imprisoned
lady!
The singularity vanishes when we find that around this encaged duchess
there circled a really extensive household, and there lived a world
of ceremony, of which no one was so much the slave as she was. Her
captivity in its commencement was decked with a certain sort of
splendour, about which _she_, who was its object, cared by far the
least. There was a military governor of the castle, gentlemen and
ladies in waiting--spies all. Among the honester servants of the house
were a brace of pages and as many valets, a dozen female domestics, and
fourteen footmen, who had to undergo the intense labour of doing very
little in a very lengthened space of time. To supply the material wants
of these, the three cooks, one confectioner, a baker, and a butler,
were provided. There was, besides, a military force, consisting of
infantry and artillery. Altogether, there must have been work enough
for the three cooks.
The forms of a court were long maintained, although only on a small
scale. The duchess held her little levées, and the local authorities,
clergy, and neighbouring nobility and gentry offered her such respect
as could be manifested by paying her visits on certain appointed days.
These visits, however, were always narrowly watched by the officials,
whose office lay in such service and was hid beneath a show of duty.
The successive governors of the castle were men of note, and their
presence betokened the importance attached to the person and
safe keeping of the captive. During the first three years of her
imprisonment, the post of governor was held by the Hof Grand-Marshal
von Bothmar. He was succeeded by the Count Bergest, who enjoyed his
equivocal dignity of gaoler-governor about a quarter of a century.
During the concluding years of the imprisonment of Sophia, her
seneschal was a relative of one of her judges, Georg von Busche.
These men behaved to their prisoner with as much courtesy as they
dared to show; nor was her captivity severe in anything but the
actual deprivation of liberty, and of all intercourse with those she
best loved, until after the first few years. The escape of Fräulein
Knesebeck from her place of confinement appears to have given the
husband of Sophia Dorothea an affectionate uneasiness, which he
evidenced by giving orders that his wife’s safe-keeping should be
maintained with greater stringency.
From the day of the issuing of that order, she was never allowed to
walk, even in the garden of the castle, without a guard. She never rode
out, or drove through the neighbouring woods, without a strong escort.
Even parts of the castle were prohibited from being intruded upon by
her; and so much severity was shown in this respect, that when, on one
occasion, a fire broke out in the edifice, to escape from which she
must have traversed a gallery which she was forbidden to pass, she
stood short of the proscribed limit, her jewel-box in her arms, and
herself in almost speechless terror, but refusing to advance beyond the
prohibited line until permission reached her from the proper authority.
On such a prisoner time must have hung especially heavy. She had,
however, many resources, and every hour, with her, had its occupation.
She was the land-steward of her little ducal estate, and performed all
the duties of that office. She kept a diary of her thoughts as well
as actions; and if this be extant it would be well worthy of being
published. The one which has been put forth as hers is a poor work of
fancy by some writer unknown, set in dramatic scenes, and altogether to
be rejected. Her correspondence, during the period she was permitted
to write, was extensive. Every day she had interviews with, and gave
instructions to, each of her servants, from the chief of the three
cooks downwards. With this, she was personally active in charity.
Finally, she was the Lady Bountiful of the district, laying out half
her income in charitable uses for the good of her neighbours, and, as
Boniface said of the good lady of Lichfield, ‘curing more people in
and about the place within ten years, than the doctors had killed in
twenty; and that’s a bold word.’
There was a church in the village, which was in rather ruinous
condition when her captivity commenced; but this she put in thorough
repair, decorated it handsomely, presented it with an organ, and was
refused permission to attend there after it had been reopened for
public service. For her religious consolation a chaplain had been
provided, and she was never trusted, even under guard, to join with
the villagers in common worship in the church of the village below.
In this respect a somewhat royal etiquette was observed. The chaplain
read prayers to the garrison and household in one room, to which the
princess and her ladies listened rather than therewith joined, placed
as they were in an adjacent room, where they could hear without being
seen.
With no relative was she allowed to hold never so brief an interview;
and at last even her mother was not permitted to soften by her presence
for an hour the rigid and ceremonious captivity of her luckless
daughter. Mother and child were allowed to correspond at stated
periods, their letters passing open. The princess herself was as much
cut off from her own children as if these had been dead and entombed.
The little prince and princess were expressly ordered to utterly forget
that they had a mother--her very name on their lips would have been
condemned as a grievous fault. The boy, George Augustus, was in many
points of character similar to his father, and, accordingly, being
commanded to forget his mother, he obstinately bore her in memory; and
when he was told that he would never have an opportunity afforded him
to see her, mentally resolved to make one for himself.
It is but justice to the old Elector to say that in his advanced years,
when pleasant sins were no longer profitable to him, he gave them up;
and when the youngest of his mistresses had ceased to be attractive,
he began to think such appendages little worth the hanging on to his
Electoral dignity. For, ceasing to love and live with his ‘favourites,’
he did not the more respect, or hold closer intercourse with, his wife
--a course about which the Electress Sophia troubled herself very
little.
Ernest Augustus, when he ceased to be under the influence of the
disgraced Countess von Platen, began to be sensible of some sympathy
for his daughter-in-law, Sophia. He softened in some degree the
rigour of her imprisonment and corresponded with her by letter; a
correspondence which inspired her with hope that her freedom might
result from it. This hope was, however, frustrated by the death of
Ernest Augustus, on the 20th of January 1698. From that time the rigour
of her imprisonment was increased fourfold.
If the heart of her old father-in-law began to incline towards her
as he increased in years, it is not to be wondered at that the heart
of her aged father melted towards her as time began to press heavily
upon him. But it was the weakest of hearts allied to the weakest
of minds. In the comfortlessness of his great age he sought to be
comforted by loving her whom he had insanely and unnaturally oppressed
--the sole child of his heart and house. In his weakness he addressed
himself to that tool of Hanover at Zell, the minister Bernstorf; and
that individual so terrified the poor old man by details of the ill
consequences which might ensue if the wrath of the new Elector, George
Louis, were aroused by the interference of the Duke of Zell in matters
which concerned the Elector and his wife, that the old man, feeble in
mind and body, yielded, and for a time at least left his daughter to
her fate. He thought to compensate for the wrong which he inflicted
on her under the impulse of his evil genius, Bernstorf, by adding a
codicil to his will.
By this codicil he bequeathed to the daughter whom he had wronged all
that it was in his power to leave, in jewels, moneys, and lands; but
liberty he could _not_ give her, and so his love could do little more
than try to lighten the fetters which he had aided to put on. But there
was a short-lived joy in store, both for child and parents. The fetters
were to be cast aside for a brief season, and the poor captive was to
enjoy an hour of home, of love, and of liberty.
The last year of the seventeenth century (1700) brought with it an
accession of greatness to the Electoral family of Hanover, inasmuch as
in that year a bill was introduced into parliament, and accepted by
that body, which fixed the succession to the crown of England after
the Princess Anne, and in default of such princess dying without heirs
of her own body, in the person of Sophia of Hanover. William III. had
been very desirous for the introduction of this bill; but under various
pretexts it had been deferred, the commonest business being allowed
to take precedence of it, until the century had nearly expired. The
limitations to the royal action, which formed a part of the bill as
recommended in the report of the committee, were little to the King’s
taste; for they not only affected his employment of foreign troops in
England, but shackled his own free and frequent departures from the
kingdom. It was imagined by many that these limitations were designed
by the leaders in the cabinet, in order to raise disputes between the
two houses, by which the bill might be lost. Such is Burnet’s report;
and he sarcastically adds thereto, that when much time had been spent
in preliminaries, and it was necessary to come to the nomination of
the person who should be named presumptive heir next to Queen Anne,
the office of doing so was confided to ‘Sir John Bowles, who was then
disordered in his senses, and soon after quite lost them.’ ‘He was,’
says Burnet, ‘set on by the party to be the first that should name
the Electress-dowager of Brunswick, which seemed done to make it less
serious when moved by such a person.’ So that the solemn question of
naming the heir to a throne was entrusted to an idiot, who, by the
forms of the house, was appointed chairman of the committee for the
conduct of the bill. Burnet adds, that the ‘thing,’ as he calls it, was
‘still put off for many weeks at every time that it was called for;
the motion was entertained with coldness, which served to heighten
the jealousy; the committee once or twice sat upon it, but all the
members ran out of the house with so much indecency that the contrivers
seemed ashamed of this management; there were seldom fifty or sixty
at the committee, yet in conclusion it passed, and was sent up to the
Lords.’ Great opposition was expected from the peers, and many of their
lordships designedly absented themselves from the discussion. The
opposition was slight, and confined to the Marquis of Normanby, who
spoke, and the Lords Huntingdon, Plymouth, Guildford, and Jefferies,
who protested, against the bill. Burnet affirms, that those who wished
well to the Act were glad to have it passed any way, and so would not
examine the limitations that were in it, and which they thought might
be considered afterwards. ‘We reckoned it,’ says Burnet, ‘a great point
carried that we had now a law on our side for a Protestant successor.’
The law was stoutly protested against by the Duchess of Savoy,
grand-daughter of Charles I. The protest did not trouble the King, who
despatched the Act to the Electress-dowager, and the Garter to her son,
by the hands of the Earl of Macclesfield.
The earl was a fitting bearer of so costly and significant a present.
He had been attached to the service of the mother of Sophia, and was
highly esteemed by the Electress-dowager herself. The earl had no
especial commission beyond that which enjoined him to deliver the
Act, nor was he dignified by any official appellation. He was neither
ambassador, legate, plenipotentiary, nor envoy. He had with him,
however, a most splendid suite; which was in some respects strangely
constituted, for among its members was the famous Toland, whose book in
support of rationality as applied to religion had been publicly burnt
by the hangman, in Ireland.
The welcome to this body of gentlemen was right royal. It may be
said that the Electoral family had neither cared for the dignity now
rendered probable for them, nor in any way toiled or intrigued to bring
it within their grasp; but it is certain that their joy was great when
the Earl of Macclesfield appeared on the frontier of the Electorate
with the Act in one hand and the Garter in the other. He and his suite
were met there with a welcome of extraordinary magnificence, betokening
ample appreciation of the double gift he brought with him. He himself
seemed elevated by his mission, for he was in his general deportment
little distinguished by courtly manners or by ceremonious bearing;
but it was observed that, on this occasion, nothing could have been
more becoming than the way in which he acquitted himself of an office
which brought a whole family within view of succession to a royal and
powerful throne.
On reaching the confines of the Electorate, the members of the
deputation from England were received by personages of the highest
official rank, who not only escorted them to the capital, but treated
them on the way with a liberality so profuse as to be the wonder of all
beholders. They were not allowed to disburse a farthing from their own
purses; all they thought fit to order was paid for by the Electoral
government, by whose orders they were lodged in the most commodious
palace in Hanover, where as much homage was paid them as if each man
had been a Kaiser in his own person. The Hanoverian gratitude went so
far, that not only were the ambassador and suite treated as favoured
guests, and those not alone of the princess but of the people--the
latter being commanded to refrain from taking payment from any of them
for any article of refreshment they required--but for many days all
English travellers visiting the city were made equally free of its
caravansaries, and were permitted to enjoy all that the inns could
afford without being required to pay for the enjoyment.
The delicate treatment of the Electoral government extended even
to the servants of the earl and his suite. It was thought that to
require them to dine upon the fragments of their master’s banquets
would be derogatory to the splendour of the hospitality of the House
of Hanover and an insult to the domestics who followed in the train
of the earl. The government accordingly disbursed half-a-crown a day
to each liveried follower, and considered such a ‘composition’ as
glorious to the reputation of the Electoral house. The menials were
even emancipated from service during the sojourn of the deputation in
Hanover, and the Elector’s numerous servants waited upon the English
visitors zealously throughout the day, but with most splendour in the
morning; then, they were to be seen hurrying to the bed-rooms of the
different members of the suite, bearing with them silver coffee and tea
pots, and other requisites for breakfast, which meal appears to have
been lazily indulged in--as if the legation had been habitually wont
to ‘make a night of it’--in bed. And there _was_ a good deal of hard
drinking on these occasions, but all at the expense of the husband of
Sophia Dorothea, who, in her castle of Ahlden, was not even aware of
that increase of honour which had fallen upon her consort, and in which
she had a right to share.
For those who were, the next day, ill or indolent, there were the
ponderous state coaches to carry them whithersoever they would go.
The most gorgeous of the fêtes given on this occasion was on the
evening of the day on which the Act was solemnly presented to the
Electress-dowager. Hanover, famous as it was for its balls, had never
seen so glorious a Terpsichorean festival as marked this particular
night. At the balls in the old Elector’s time Sophia Dorothea used
to shine, first in beauty and in grace; but now her place was ill
supplied by the not fair and quite graceless Mademoiselle von der
Schulenburg. The supper which followed was Olympian in its profusion,
wit, and magnificence. This was at a time when to be sober was to
be respectable, but when to be drunk was not to be ungentlemanly.
Consequently we find Toland, who wrote an account of the achievements
of the day, congratulating himself and readers by stating that,
although it was to be expected that in so large and so jovial a party
some would be found even more ecstatic than the occasion and the
company warranted, yet that, in truth, the number of those who were
guilty of excess was but small. Even Lord Mohun kept himself sober, and
to the end was able to converse as clearly and intelligibly as Lord
Saye and Sele, and his friend ‘my Lord Tunbridge.’
This day of presentation of the Act, and of the festival in honour of
it, was one of the greatest days which Hanover had ever seen. Speaking
of the mother-in-law of Sophia Dorothea, Toland says:--‘The Electress
is three-and-seventy years old, which she bears so wonderfully well,
that, had I not many vouchers, I should scarce dare venture to relate
it. She has ever enjoyed extraordinary health, which keeps her still
very vigorous, of a cheerful countenance, and a merry disposition. She
steps as firm and erect as any young lady, has not one wrinkle in her
face, which is still very agreeable, nor one tooth out of her head,
and reads without spectacles, as I have often seen her do, letters of a
small character, in the dusk of the evening. She is as great a writer
as our late queen (Mary), and you cannot turn yourself in the palace
without meeting some monument of her industry, all the chairs of the
presence-chamber being wrought with her own hands. The ornaments of
the altar in the electoral chapel are all of her work. She bestowed
the same favour on the Protestant abbey, or college, of Lockurn, with
a thousand other instances, fitter for your lady to know than for
yourself. She is the most constant and greatest walker I ever knew,
never missing a day, if it proves fair, for one or two hours, and often
more, in the fine garden at Herrnhausen. She perfectly tires all
those of her court who attend her in that exercise but such as have
the honour to be entertained by her in discourse. She has been long
admired by all the learned world as a woman of incomparable knowledge
in divinity, philosophy, history, and the subjects of all sorts of
books, of which she has read a prodigious quantity. She speaks five
languages so well, that by her accent it might be a dispute which of
them was her first. They are Low Dutch, German, French, Italian, and
English, which last she speaks as truly and easily as any native; which
to me is a matter of amazement, whatever advantages she might have
in her youth by the conversation of her mother; for though the late
king’s (William’s) mother was likewise an Englishwoman, of the same
royal family; though he had been more than once in England before the
Revolution; though he was married there, and his court continually full
of many of that nation, yet he could never conquer his foreign accent.
But, indeed, the Electress is so entirely English in her person, in her
behaviour, in her humour, and in all her inclinations, that naturally
she could not miss of anything that peculiarly belongs to our land.
She was ever glad to see Englishmen, long before the Act of Succession.
She professes to admire our form of government, and understands it
mighty well, yet she asks so many questions about families, customs,
laws, and the like, as sufficiently demonstrate her profound wisdom
and experience. She has a deep veneration for the Church of England,
without losing affection or charity for any other sort of Protestants,
and appears charmed with the moderate temper of our present bishops and
other of our learned clergy, especially for their approbation of the
liberty allowed by law to Protestant Dissenters. She is adored for her
goodness among the inhabitants of the country, and gains the hearts of
all strangers by her unparalleled affability. No distinction is ever
made in her court concerning the parties into which Englishmen are
divided, and whereof they carry the effects and impressions with them
whithersoever they go, which makes others sometimes uneasy as well as
themselves. There it is enough that you are an Englishman; nor can you
ever discover by your treatment which are better liked, the Whigs or
the Tories. These are the instructions given to all the servants, and
they take care to execute them with the utmost exactness. I was the
first who had the honour of kneeling and kissing her hand on account
of the Act of Succession; and she said, among other discourse, that
she was afraid the nation had already repented their choice of an old
woman, but that she hoped none of her posterity would give her any
reasons to grow weary of their dominion. I answered, that the English
had too well considered what they did to change their minds so soon,
and they still remembered they were never so happy as when they were
last under a woman’s government. Since that time, sir,’ adds the
courtly but unorthodox Toland to the ‘Minister of State in Holland,’
to whom his letter is addressed, ‘we have a further confirmation of
this truth by the glorious administration of Queen Anne.’
The record would be imperfect if it were not accompanied by another
‘counterfeit presentment,’ that of her son, Prince George Louis,
the husband of Sophia Dorothea. Toland describes him as ‘a proper,
middle-sized, well-proportioned man, of a genteel address, and good
appearance;’ but he adds, that his Highness ‘is reserved, and therefore
speaks little, but judiciously.’ ‘He is not to be exceeded,’ says
Toland, ‘in his zeal against the intended universal monarchy of France,
and so is most hearty for the common cause of Europe,’ for the very
good reason, that therein ‘his own is so necessarily involved.’ Toland
adds, that George Louis understood the constitution of England better
than any ‘foreigner’ he had ever met with; a very safe remark, for our
constitution was ill understood abroad; and even had the theoretical
knowledge of George Louis been ever so correct, his practice with our
constitution betrayed such ignorance that Toland’s assertion may be
taken only for what it is worth. ‘Though,’ says the writer just named,
‘though he be well versed in the art of war, and of invincible courage,
having often exposed his person to great dangers in Hungary, in the
Morea, on the Rhine, and in Flanders, yet he is naturally of peaceable
inclination; which mixture of qualities is agreed, by the experience of
all ages, to make the best and most glorious princes. He is a perfect
man of business, exactly regular in the economy of his revenues’ (which
he never was of those of England, seeing that he outran his liberal
allowance, and coolly asked the parliament to pay his debts), ‘reads
all despatches himself at first hand, writes most of his own letters,
and spends a considerable part of his time about such occupations, in
his closet, and with his ministers.’ ‘I hope,’ Toland says, ‘that none
of our countrymen will be so injudicious as to think his reservedness
the effect of sullenness or pride; nor mistake that for state which
really proceeds from modesty, caution, and deliberation; for he is very
affable to such as accost him, and expects that others should speak to
him first, which is the best information I could have from all about
him, and I partly know to be true by experience.’... ‘As to what I
said of his frugality in laying out the public money, I need not give
a more particular proof than that all the expenses of his court, as
to eating, drinking, fire, candles, and the like, are duly paid every
Saturday night; the officers of his army receive their pay every month,
so likewise his envoys in every part of Europe; and all the officers of
his household, with the rest that are on the civil list, are cleared
off every half-year.’ We are then assured that his administration was
equable, mild, and prudent--a triple assertion which his own life and
that of his hardly-used wife flatly denied. Toland, however, will have
it that there never existed a prince who was so ardently beloved by his
subjects. Hanover itself is said to be without division or faction, and
all Hanoverians as being in a condition of ecstasy at the Solomon-like
rectitude and jurisdiction of his very Serene Highness. He describes
Madame Kielmansegge as a woman of sense and wit; and of ‘Mademoiselle
Schulemberg,’ he says that she is especially worthy of the rank she
enjoys, and that ‘in the opinion of others, as well as mine, she is a
lady of extraordinary merit!’ Of Sophia Dorothea, Toland makes no note
whatever.
There only remains to be added, that the legation left Hanover loaded
with presents. The earl received the portrait of the Electress, with
an Electoral crown in diamonds by way of mounting to the frame. George
Louis bestowed upon him a gold basin and ewer. Gold medals and
snuffboxes were showered among the other members. The chaplain, Dr.
Sandys, was especially honoured by rich gifts in medals and books. He
was the first who ever read the service of our Church in the presence
of the Electress. She joined in it with apparent fervour, and admired
it generally; but when a hint was conveyed to her that it might be
well were she to introduce it in place of the Calvinistic form used in
her chapel, as of the Lutheran in that of the Elector, she shook her
head, with a smile; said that there was no difference between the three
forms, in essentials, and that episcopacy was merely the established
form in England. She thought for the present she would ‘let well
alone.’ And it was done accordingly!
In the year 1705 the war was raging which France was carrying on for
the purpose of extending her limits and influence, and which England
and her allies had entered into in order to resist such aggression
and restore that terribly oscillating matter--the balance of European
power. The Duke of Marlborough had, at the prayer of the Dutch States,
left the banks of the Moselle, in order to help Holland, menaced
on the side of Liège by a strong French force. Our great duke left
General D’Aubach at Trèves to secure the magazines which the English
and Dutch had laid up there; but upon the approach of Marshal Villars,
D’Aubach destroyed the magazines and abandoned Trèves, of which the
French immediately took possession. This put an end to all the schemes
which had been laid for attacking France on the side of the Moselle,
where her frontiers were but weak, and carried her confederates back
to Flanders, where, as the old-fashioned chronicler, Salmon, remarks,
‘they yearly threw away thousands of brave fellows against stone
walls.’ Thereupon, Hanover became menaced. On this, Horace Walpole has
something in point:
‘As the genuine wife was always detained in her husband’s power, he
seems not to have wholly dissolved their union; for on the approach
of the French army towards Hanover, during Queen Anne’s reign, the
Duchess of Halle (Ahlden) was sent home to her father and mother, who
doted on their only child, and did retain her for a whole year, and
did implore, though in vain, that she might continue to reside with
them.’ On the return of ‘the genuine wife’ to captivity some of the old
restrictions were taken off. There was no prohibition of intercourse
with the parents; for the Duke of Zell had resolved on proceeding to
visit his daughter, but only deferred his visit until the conclusion of
a grand hunt in which he was anxious to take part. He went; and between
fatigue, exposure to inclement weather, and neglect on his return, he
became seriously ill, rapidly grew worse, died on the 28th of August
1705, and by his death gave the domains of a dukedom to Hanover and
deprived his daughter of a newly-acquired friend.
The death of the Duke of Zell was followed by honour to Bernstorf.
George Louis appointed him to the post of prime-minister of Hanover,
and at the same time made him a count. The death of the father of
Sophia Dorothea was, however, followed by consequences more fatal than
those just named. The severity of the imprisonment of the princess was
much aggravated; and though she was permitted to have an occasional
interview with her mother, all application to be allowed to see her two
children was sternly refused--and this refusal, as the poor prisoner
used to remark, was the bitterest portion of her misery.
It was of her son that George Louis used to say, in later years, ‘Il
est fougueux, mais il a du cœur’--hot-headed but not heartless. George
Augustus manifested this disposition very early in life. He was on one
occasion hunting in the neighbourhood of Luisberg, not many miles
from the scene of his mother’s imprisonment, when he made a sudden
resolution to visit her, regardless of the strict prohibition against
such a course laid on him by his father and the Hanoverian government.
Laying spurs to his horse, he galloped at full speed from the field,
and in the direction of Ahlden. His astonished suite, seeing the
direction which he was following at so furious a rate, immediately
suspected his design and became legally determined to frustrate it.
They left pursuing the stag and took to chasing the prince. The
heir-apparent led them far away over field and furrow, to the great
detriment of the wind and persons of his pursuers; and he would have
distanced the whole body of flying huntsmen, but that his steed was
less fleet than those of two officers of the Electoral household, who
kept close to the fugitive, and at last came up with him on the skirts
of a wood adjacent to Ahlden. With mingled courtesy and firmness they
represented to him that he could not be permitted to go further in a
direction which was forbidden, as by so doing he would not only be
treating the paternal command with contempt, but would be making them
accomplices in his crime of disobedience. George Augustus, vexed and
chafed, argued the matter with them, appealed to their affections
and feelings, and endeavoured to convince them both as men and as
ministers, as human beings and as mere official red-tapists, that he
was authorised to continue his route to Ahlden by every law, earthly or
divine.
The red-tapists, however, acknowledged no law under such circumstances
but that of their Electoral lord and master, and that law they would
not permit to be broken. Laying hold of the bridle of the prince’s
steed, they turned its head homewards and rode away with George
Augustus in a state of full discontent and strict arrest.