THE SUCCESSION--DEATH OF THE ELECTRESS.
Marriage of Prince George to Princess Caroline of Anspach, and of
his sister to the Crown Prince of Prussia--Honours conferred by
Queen Anne on Prince George--Intention to bring over to England
the Princess Sophia--Opposed by Queen Anne--Foundation of the
kingdom of Prussia--The establishment of this Protestant kingdom
promoted by the Jesuits--The Electress Sophia’s visit to Loo--The
law granting taxes on births, deaths, and marriages--Complaint of
Queen Anne against the Electress--Tom D’Urfey’s doggrel verses
on her--Death of the Electress--Character of her.
The Elector, meditating on this sudden development of the domestic
affections of his son, resolved to aid such development, not by
giving him access to his mother, but by bestowing on him the hand of
a consort. Caroline of Anspach was a very accomplished young lady,
owing to the careful education which she received at the hands of the
best-loved child of Sophia Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg, and the
first, but short-lived, Queen of Prussia. If the instructress was able,
the pupil was apt. She was quick, enquiring, intelligent, and studious.
Her application was great, her perseverance unwearied, and her memory
excellent. She learned quickly and retained largely, seldom forgetting
anything worth remembrance; and was an equally good judge of books
and individuals. Her perception of character has, perhaps, never been
surpassed. She had no inclination for trivial subjects, nor affection
for trivial people. She had a heart and mind only for philosophers and
philosophy; but she was not the less a lively girl, or the more a
pedant on that account. She delighted in lively conversation, and could
admirably lead or direct it. Her knowledge of languages was equal to
that of Sophia of Hanover, of whom she was also the equal in wit and in
repartee. But therewith she was more tender, more gentle, more generous.
The marriage of George Augustus, Electoral Prince of Brunswick-Hanover,
with Caroline, daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Anspach, was
solemnised in the year 1705. The wife of George Augustus was of the
same age as her husband. She had had the misfortune to lose her father
when she was yet extremely young, and had been brought up at the Court
of Berlin under the guardianship of Sophia Charlotte, the consort of
Frederick of Prussia.
The sister of George Augustus, the only daughter of Sophia Dorothea,
and bearing the same baptismal names as her mother, was also married
during the captivity of the latter. Three remarkable Englishmen were
present at the marriage of the daughter of Sophia Dorothea with the
Prince Royal of Prussia. These were Lord Halifax, Sir John Vanbrugh,
and Joseph Addison. Queen Anne, who had restored Halifax to a favour
from which he had fallen, entrusted him to carry the bill for the
naturalisation of the Electoral family and for the better security of
the Protestant line of succession, and also the Order of the Garter
for the Electoral Prince. On this mission, Addison was the invited
companion of the patron whom he so choicely flattered. Vanbrugh was
present in his official character of Clarencieux King-at-Arms, and
performed the ceremony of investiture. The little Court of Hanover was
joyfully splendid on this doubly festive occasion. The nuptials were
celebrated with more accompanying gladness than ever followed them.
The pomp was something uncommon in its way, and the bride must have
been wearied of being married long before the stupendous solemnity had
at length reached its slowly-arrived-at conclusion. She became Queen of
Prussia in 1712.
Honours now fell thick upon the Electoral family, but Sophia Dorothea
was not permitted to have any share therein. In 1706, Queen Anne
created her son, George Augustus, Baron of Tewkesbury, Viscount
Northallerton, Earl of Milford Haven, Marquis and Duke of Cambridge.
With these honours it was also decreed that he should enjoy full
precedence over the entire peerage.
There was a strong party in England whose most earnest desire it was
that the Electress Sophia, in whose person the succession to the crown
of Great Britain was settled, should repair to London--not permanently
to reside there, but in order that during a brief visit she might
receive the homage of the Protestant party. She was, however, reluctant
to move from her books, philosophy, and cards, until she could be
summoned as Queen. Failing here, an attempt was made to bring over
George Louis, who was nothing loth to come; but the idea of a visit
from him was to poor Queen Anne the uttermost abomination. Her Majesty
had some grounds for her dislike to a visit from her old wooer. She
was nervously in terror of a monster popular demonstration. Such a
demonstration was publicly talked of; and the enemies of the house of
Stuart, by way of instruction and warning to the Queen, whose Jacobite
bearing towards her brother was matter of notoriety, had determined, in
the event of George Louis visiting England, to give him an escort into
London that should amount to the very significant number of some forty
or fifty thousand men.
The journal of the lord-keeper, Cowper, states the official answer of
the princess to all the invitations which had been agitated by the
Hanoverian Tories during the year 1704 and the succeeding summer. ‘At
the Queen’s Cabinet Council, Sunday, the 11th of November 1705, foreign
letters read in her Majesty’s presence, the substance remarkable, that
at Hanover was a person, agent to the discontented party here, to
invite over the Princess Sophia and the Electoral Prince (afterwards
George II.) into England, assuring them that a party here was ready to
propose it. That the Princess Sophia had caused the same person to be
acquainted, “that she judged the message came from such as were enemies
to her family; that she would never hearken to such a proposal but
when it came from the Queen of England herself;” and withal she had
discouraged the attempt so much that it was believed nothing more could
be said in it.’
Sophia, who was naturally reluctant to come to England upon a mere
popular or partisan invitation, would gladly have come on the bidding
of the Queen. This was never given. In one year the Queen sent a
request to the Electress to aid her in promoting the peace of Europe,
and a present to her god-daughter Anne, the first child of George
Augustus and Caroline of Anspach. Earl Rivers carried both letter
and present. The letter was acknowledged with cold courtesy by the
Electress, in a communication to the Earl of Strafford, secretary of
state. The communication bears date the 11th of November 1711; and,
after saying that the gift is infinitely esteemed, the Electress
adds--‘I would not, however, give my _parchment_ for it, since that
will be an everlasting monument in the archives of Hanover, and the
present for the little princess will go, when she is grown up, into
another family.’
Early in 1714 Anne addressed a powerful remonstrance to the aged
Electress, complaining that ever since the Act of Succession had been
settled, there had been a constant agitation, the object of which was
to bring over a prince of the Hanoverian house to reside in England,
even during the writer’s life. She accuses the Electress of having
come, though perhaps tardily, into this sentiment, which had its origin
in political pretensions, and she adds, that if persevered in, it may
end in consequences dangerous to the succession itself, ‘which is not
secure any other ways than as the princess who actually wears the crown
maintains her authority and prerogative.’
Her Majesty addressed a second letter to George Augustus, as Duke of
Cambridge, expressing her thoughts with respect to the design he had of
coming into her kingdom. ‘I should tell you,’ she says, ‘nothing can be
more dangerous to the tranquillity of my dominions, and the right of
succession in your line, and consequently most disagreeable to me.’
The proud Dowager-Electress had declared that ‘she cared not when she
died, if on her tomb could be recorded that she was Queen of Great
Britain and Ireland.’ These words are said to have given great offence
to Queen Anne.
There is evidence that the last letters of Anne had something to do
with the death of the Electress. They had hardly been received and
read, when her health, which had been for some time failing, grew
worse. She rallied, however, for a time, and was able to take exercise,
but the blow had been given from which she never recovered.
Molyneux, an agent of the Duke of Marlborough at Hanover, says he was
on his way to the country palace of the Electress, when he was suddenly
informed that she had been seized with mortal illness in one of the
garden-walks.
‘I ran up there, and found her fast expiring in the arms of the poor
Electoral Princess (Caroline, afterwards Queen of George II.) and
amidst the tears of a great many of her servants, who endeavoured in
vain to help her. I can give you no account of her illness, but that
I believe the chagrin of those villainous letters I sent you last post
has been in a great measure the cause of it. The Rheingravine who has
been with her these fifteen years has told me she never knew anything
make so deep an impression on her as the affair of the prince’s
journey, which I am sure she had to the last degree at heart, and she
has done me the honour to tell me so twenty times. In the midst of
this, however, these letters arrived, and these, I verily believe, have
broken her heart and brought her with sorrow to the grave. The letters
were delivered on Wednesday, at seven.
‘When I came to court she was at cards, but was so full of these
letters that she got up and ordered me to follow her into the garden,
where she gave them to me to read, and walked, and spoke a great deal
in relation to them. I believe she walked three hours that night. The
next morning, which was Thursday, I heard that she was out of order,
and on going immediately to court, she ordered me to be called into her
bed-chamber. She gave me the letters I sent you to copy; she bade me
send them next post, and bring them afterwards to her to court. This
was on Friday. In the morning, on Friday, they told me she was very
well, but seemed much chagrined. She was dressed, and dined with the
Elector as usual. At four, she did me the honour to send to town for
some other copies of the same letters; and then she was still perfectly
well. She walked and talked very heartily in the orangery. After that,
about six, she went out to walk in the garden, and was still very well.
A shower of rain came, and as she was walking pretty fast to get to
shelter, they told her she was walking a little too fast. She answered,
“I believe I do,” and dropped down on saying these words, which were
her last. They raised her up, chafed her with spirits, tried to bleed
her; but it was all in vain, and when I came up, she was as dead as if
she had been four days so.’[2] Such was the end, on the 10th of June
1714, of a very remarkable woman.