We saw George I. at Berlin in October, 1723, looking out upon his
little Grandson drilling the Cadets there; but we did not mention what
important errand had brought his Majesty thither.
Visits between Hanover and Berlin had been frequent for a long time
back; the young Queen of Prussia, sometimes with her husband, sometimes
without, running often over to see her Father; who, even after his
accession to the English crown, was generally for some months every year
to be met with in those favorite regions of his. He himself did not much
visit, being of taciturn splenetic nature: but this once he had agreed
to return a visit they had lately made him,--where a certain weighty
Business had been agreed upon, withal; which his Britannic Majesty
was to consummate formally, by treaty, when the meeting in Berlin took
effect. His Britannic Majesty, accordingly, is come; the business in
hand is no other than that thrice-famous "Double-Marriage" of Prussia
with England; which once had such a sound in the ear of Rumor, and still
bulks so big in the archives of the Eighteenth Century; which worked
such woe to all parties concerned in it; and is, in fact, a first-rate
nuisance in the History of that poor Century, as written hitherto.
Nuisance demanding urgently to be abated;--were that well possible at
present. Which, alas, it is not, to any great degree; there being an
important young Friedrich inextricably wrapt up in it, to whom it was of
such vital or almost fatal importance! Without a Friedrich, the affair
could be reduced to something like its real size, and recorded in a
few pages; or might even, with advantage, be forgotten altogether, and
become zero. More gigantic instance of much ado about nothing has seldom
occurred in human annals;--had not there been a Friedrich in the heart
of it.
Crown-Prince Friedrich is still very young for marriage-speculations on
his score: but Mamma has thought good to take matters in time. And so
we shall, in the next ensuing parts of this poor History, have to hear
almost as much about Marriage as in the foolishest Three-volume Novel,
and almost to still less purpose. For indeed, in that particular,
Friedrich's young Life may be called a ROMANCE FLUNG HELLS-OVER-HEAD;
Marriage being the one event there, round which all events turn,--but
turn in the inverse or reverse way (as if the Devil were in them); not
only towards no happy goal for him or Mamma, or us, but at last towards
hardly any goal at all for anybody! So mad did the affair grow;--and is
so madly recorded in those inextricable, dateless, chaotic Books. We
have now come to regions of Narrative, which seem to consist of murky
Nothingness put on boil; not land, or water, or air, or fire, but a
tumultuously whirling commixture of all the four;--of immense extent
too. Which must be got crossed, in some human manner. Courage, patience,
good reader!
QUEEN SOPHIE DOROTHEE HAS TAKEN TIME BY THE FORELOCK.
Already, for a dozen years, this matter has been treated of. Queen
Sophie Dorothee, ever since the birth of her Wilhelmina, has had the
notion of it; and, on her first visit afterwards to Hanover, proposed
it to "Princess Caroline,"--Queen Caroline of England who was to be, and
who in due course was;--an excellent accomplished Brandenburg-Anspach
Lady, familiar from of old in the Prussian Court: "You, Caroline, Cousin
dear, have a little Prince, Fritz, or let us call him FRED, since he is
to be English; little Fred, who will one day, if all go right, be King
of England. He is two years older than my little Wilhelmina: why should
not they wed, and the two chief Protestant Houses, and Nations, thereby
be united?" Princess Caroline was very willing; so was Electress Sophie,
the Great-Grandmother of both the parties; so were the Georges, Father
and Grandfather of Fred: little Fred himself was highly charmed, when
told of it; even little Wilhelmina, with her dolls, looked pleasantly
demure on the occasion. So it remained settled in fact, though not in
form; and little Fred (a florid milk-faced foolish kind of Boy, I guess)
made presents to his little Prussian Cousin, wrote bits of love-letters
to her; and all along afterwards fancied himself, and at length ardently
enough became, her little lover and intended,--always rather a little
fellow:--to which sentiments Wilhelmina signifies that she responded
with the due maidenly indifference, but not in an offensive manner.
After our Prussian Fritz's birth, the matter took a still closer form:
"You, dear Princess Caroline, you have now two little Princesses again,
either of whom might suit my little Fritzchen; let us take Amelia, the
second of them, who is nearest his age?" "Agreed!" answered Princess
Caroline again. "Agreed!" answered all the parties interested: and so it
was settled, that the Marriage of Prussia to England should be a Double
one, Fred of Hanover and England to Wilhelmina, Fritz of Prussia to
Amelia; and children and parents lived thenceforth in the constant
understanding that such, in due course of years, was to be the case,
though nothing yet was formally concluded by treaty upon it. [Pollnitz,
_Memoiren,_ ii. 193.]
Queen Sophie Dorothee of Prussia was always eager enough for treaty, and
conclusion to her scheme. True to it, she, as needle to the pole in
all weathers; sometimes in the wildest weather, poor lady. Nor did the
Hanover Serene Highnesses, at any time, draw back or falter: but
having very soon got wafted across to England, into new more complex
conditions, and wider anxieties in that new country, they were not so
impressively eager as Queen Sophie, on this interesting point. Electress
Sophie, judicious Great-Grandmother, was not now there: Electress Sophie
had died about a month before Queen Anne; and never saw the English
Canaan, much as she had longed for it. George I., her son, a taciturn,
rather splenetic elderly Gentleman, very foreign in England, and
oftenest rather sulky there and elsewhere, was not in a humor to be
forward in that particular business.
George I. had got into quarrel with his Prince of Wales, Fred's
Father,--him who is one day to be George II., always a rather foolish
little Prince, though his Wife Caroline was Wisdom's self in a
manner:--George I. had other much more urgent cares than that of
marrying his disobedient foolish little Prince of Wales's offspring; and
he always pleaded difficulties, Acts of Parliament that would be needed,
and the like, whenever Sophie Dorothee came to visit him at Hanover, and
urge this matter. The taciturn, inarticulately thoughtful, rather sulky
old Gentleman, he had weighty burdens lying on him; felt fretted and
galled, in many ways; and had found life, Electoral and even Royal,
a deceptive sumptuosity, little better than a more or less extensive
"feast of SHELLS," next to no real meat or drink left in it to the
hungry heart of man. Wife sitting half-frantic in the Castle of Ahlden,
waxing more and more into a gray-haired Megaera (with whom Sophie
Dorothee under seven seals of secrecy corresponds a little, and even
the Prince of Wales is suspected of wishing to correspond); a foolish
disobedient Prince of Wales; Jacobite Pretender people with their Mar
Rebellions, with their Alberoni combinations; an English Parliament
jangling and debating unmelodiously, whose very language is a mystery to
us, nothing but Walpole in dog-latin to help us through it: truly it is
not a Heaven-on-Earth altogether, much as Mother Sophie and her foolish
favorite, our disobedient Prince of Wales, might long for it! And the
Hanover Tail, the Robethons, Bernstorfs, Fabrices, even the Blackamoor
Porters,--they are not beautiful either, to a taciturn Majesty of some
sense, if he cared about their doings or them. Voracious, plunderous,
all of them; like hounds, long hungry, got into a rich house which has
no master, or a mere imaginary one. "MENTERIS IMPUDENTISSIME," said
Walpole in his dog-latin once, in our Royal presence, to one of these
official plunderous gentlemen, "You tell an impudent lie!"--at which we
only laughed. [Horace Walpole, _Reminiscences of George I. and George
II._ (London, 1786.)]
His Britannic Majesty by no means wanted sense, had not his situation
been incurably absurd. In his young time he had served creditably enough
against the Turks; twice commanded the REICHS-Army in the Marlborough
Wars, and did at least testify his indignation at the inefficient state
of it. His Foreign Politics, so called, were not madder than those of
others. Bremen and Verden he had bought a bargain; and it was natural to
protect them by such resources as he had, English or other. Then there
was the World-Spectre of the Pretender, stretching huge over Creation,
like the Brocken-Spectre in hazy weather;--against whom how protect
yourself, except by cannonading for the Kaiser at Messina; by rushing
into every brabble that rose, and hiring the parties with money to fight
it out well? It was the established method in that matter; method not
of George's inventing, nor did it cease with George. As to Domestic
Politics, except it were to keep quiet, and eat what the gods had
provided, one does not find that he had any.--The sage Leibnitz would
very fain have followed him to England; but, for reasons indifferently
good, could never be allowed. If the truth must be told, the sage
Leibnitz had a wisdom which now looks dreadfully like that of a
wiseacre! In Mathematics even,--he did invent the Differential Calculus,
but it is certain also he never could believe in Newton's System of the
Universe, nor would read the PRINCIPIA at all. For the rest, he was
in quarrel about Newton with the Royal Society here; ill seen, it is
probable, by this sage and the other. To the Hanover Official Gentlemen
devouring their English dead-horse, it did not appear that his presence
could be useful in these parts. [Guhrauer, _Gottfried Freiherr von
Leibnitz, eine Biographie_ (Breslau, 1842); Ker of Kersland, _Memoirs
of Secret Transactions_ (London, 1727)].
Nor are the Hanover womankind his Majesty has about him, quasi-wives or
not, of a soul-entrancing character; far indeed from that. Two in chief
there are, a fat and a lean: the lean, called "Maypole" by the English
populace, is "Duchess of Kendal," with excellent pension, in the
English Peeragy; Schulenburg the former German name of her; decidedly
a quasi-wife (influential, against her will, in that sad Konigsmark
Tragedy, at Hanover long since), who is fallen thin and old.
"Maypole,"--or bare Hop-pole, with the leaves all stript; lean, long,
hard;--though she once had her summer verdures too; and still, as an
old quasi-wife, or were it only as an old article of furniture, has her
worth to the royal mind, Schulenburgs, kindred of hers, are high in the
military line; some of whom we may meet.
Then besides this lean one, there is a fat; of whom Walpole (Horace, who
had seen her in boyhood) gives description. Big staring black eyes, with
rim of circular eyebrow, like a coach-wheel round its nave, very
black the eyebrows also; vast red face; cheeks running into neck, neck
blending indistinguishably with stomach,--a mere cataract of fluid
tallow, skinned over and curiously dizened, according to Walpole's
portraiture. This charming creature, Kielmannsegge by German name, was
called "Countess of Darlington" in this country--with excellent pension,
as was natural. They all had pensions: even Queen Sophie Dorothee, I
have noticed in our State-Paper Office, has her small pension, "800
pounds a year on the Irish Establishment:" Irish Establishment will
never miss such a pittance for our poor Child, and it may be useful
over yonder!--This Kielmannsegge, Countess of Darlington was, and is,
believed by the gossiping English to have been a second simultaneous
Mistress of his Majesty's; but seems, after all, to have been his
Half-Sister and nothing more. Half-Sister (due to Gentleman Ernst and
a Countess Platen of bad Hanover fame); grown dreadfully fat; but not
without shrewdness, perhaps affection; and worth something in this dull
foreign country, mere cataract of animal oils as she has become. These
Two are the amount of his Britannic Majesty's resources in that matter;
resources surely not extensive, after all!--
His Britannic Majesty's day, in St. James's, is not of an interesting
sort to him; and every evening he comes precisely at a certain hour to
drink beer, seasoned with a little tobacco, and the company of these two
women. Drinks diligently in a sipping way, says Horace; and smokes,
with such dull speech as there may be,--not till he is drunk, but only
perceptibly drunkish; raised into a kind of cloudy narcotic Olympus,
and opaquely superior to the ills of life; in which state he walks
uncomplainingly to bed. Government, when it can by any art be avoided,
he rarely meddles with; shows a rugged sagacity, where he does and must
meddle: consigns it to Walpole in dog-latin,--laughs at his "MENTIRIS."
This is the First George; first triumph of the Constitutional Principle,
which has since gone to such sublime heights among us,--heights which we
at last begin to suspect might be depths, leading down, all men now ask:
Whitherwards? A much-admired invention in its time, that of letting
go the rudder, or setting a wooden figure expensively dressed to take
charge of it, and discerning that the ship would sail of itself so much
more easily! Which it will, if a peculiarly good seaboat, in certain
kinds of sea,--for a time. Till the Sinbad "Magnetic Mountains" begin to
be felt pulling, or the circles of Charybdis get you in their sweep; and
then what an invention it was!--This, we say, is the new Sovereign Man,
whom the English People, being in some perplexity about the Pope and
other points, have called in from Hanover, to walk before them in the
ways of heroism, and by command and by example guide Heavenwards their
affairs and them. And they hope that he will do it? Or perhaps that
their affairs will go thither of their own accord? Always a singular
People!--
Poor George, careless of these ulterior issues, has always trouble
enough with the mere daily details, Parliamentary insolences, Jacobite
plottings, South-Sea Bubbles; and wishes to hunt, when he gets over to
Hanover, rather than to make Marriage-Treaties. Besides, as Wilhelmina
tells us, they have filled him with lies, these Hanover Women and
their emissaries: "Your Princess Wilhelmina is a monster of ill-temper,
crooked in the back and what not," say they. If there is to be a
Marriage, double or single, these Improper Females must first be
persuaded to consent. [_Memoires de Bareith._] Difficulties enough. And
there is none to help; Friedrich Wilhelm cares little about the matter,
though he has given his Yes,--Yes, since you will.
But Sophie Dorothee is diligent and urgent, by all opportunities;--and,
at length, in 1723, the conjuncture is propitious. Domestic Jacobitism,
in the shape of Bishop Atterbury, has got, itself well banished;
Alberoni and his big schemes, years ago they are blown into outer
darkness; Charles XII. is well dead, and of our Bremen and Verden no
question henceforth; even the Kaiser's Spectre-Hunt, or Spanish Duel,
is at rest for the present, and the Congress of Cambrai is sitting, or
trying all it can to sit: at home or abroad, there is nothing, not even
Wood's Irish Halfpence, as yet making noise. And on the other hand, Czar
Peter is rumored (not without foundation) to be coming westward, with
some huge armament; which, whether "intended for Sweden" or not, renders
a Prussian alliance doubly valuable.
And so now at last, in this favorable aspect of the stars, King George,
over at Herrenhausen, was by much management of his Daughter Sophie's,
and after many hitches, brought to the mark. And Friedrich Wilhelm came
over too; ostensibly to bring home his Queen, but in reality to hear
his Father-in-law's compliance to the Double-Marriage,--for which his
Prussian Majesty is willing enough, if others are willing. Praised be
Heaven, King George has agreed to everything; consents, one propitious
day (Autumn 1723, day not otherwise dated),--Czar Peter's Armament, and
the questionable aspects in France, perhaps quickening his volitions
a little. Upon which Friedrich Wilhelm and Queen Sophie have returned
home, content in that matter; and expect shortly his Britannic Majesty's
counter-visit, to perfect the details, and make a Treaty of it.
His Britannic Majesty, we say, has in substance agreed to everything.
And now, in the silence of Nature, the brown leaves of October still
hanging to the trees in a picturesque manner, and Wood's Halfpence
not yet begun to jingle in the Drapier's Letters of Dean Swift,--his
Britannic Majesty is expected at Berlin. At Berlin; properly at
Charlottenburg a pleasant rural or suburban Palace (built by his
Britannic Majesty's late noble Sister, Sophie Charlotte, "the Republican
Queen," and named after her, as was once mentioned), a mile or two
Southwest of that City. There they await King George's counter-visit.
Poor Wilhelmina is in much trepidation about it; and imparts her poor
little feelings, her anticipations and experiences, in readable terms:--
"There came, in those weeks, one of the Duke of Gloucester's gentlemen
to Berlin,"--DUKE OF GLOUCESTER is Fred our intended, not yet Prince of
Wales, and if the reader should ever hear of a DUKE OF EDINBURGH,
that too is Fred,--"Duke of Gloucester's gentlemen to Berlin," says
Wilhelmina: "the Queen had Soiree (APPARTEMENT); he was presented to her
as well as to me. He made me a very obliging compliment on his Master's
part; I blushed, and answered only by a courtesy. The Queen, who had her
eye on me, was very angry I had answered the Duke's compliments in mere
silence; and rated me sharply (ME LAVA LA TETE D'IMPORTANCE) for it;
and ordered me, under pain of her indignation, to repair that fault
to-morrow. I retired, all in tears, to my room; exasperated against the
Queen and against the Duke; I swore I would never marry him, would throw
myself at the feet--" And so on, as young ladies of vivacious temper,
in extreme circumstances, are wont:--did speak, however, next day, to
my Hanover gentleman about his Duke, a little, though in an embarrassed
manner. Alas, I am yet but fourteen, gone the 3d of July last: tremulous
as aspen-leaves; or say, as sheet-lightning bottled in one of the
thinnest human skins; and have no experience of foolish Dukes and
affairs!--
"Meanwhile," continues Wilhelmina, "the King of England's time of
arrival was drawing nigh. We repaired, on the 6th of October, to
Charlottenburg to receive him. The heart of me kept beating, and I
was in cruel agitations. King George [my Grandfather, and Grand Uncle]
arrived on the 8th, about seven in the evening;"--dusky shades already
sinking over Nature everywhere, and all paths growing dim. Abundant
flunkies, of course, rush out with torches or what is needful. "The King
of Prussia, the Queen and all their Suite received him in the Court of
the Palace, the 'Apartments' being on the ground-floor. So soon as he
had saluted the King and Queen, I was presented to him. He embraced me;
and turning to the Queen said to her, 'Your daughter is very big of
her age!' He gave the Queen his hand, and led her into her apartment,
whither everybody followed them. As soon as I came in, he took a light
from the table, and surveyed me from head to foot. I stood motionless as
a statue, and was much put out of countenance. All this went on without
his uttering the least word. Having thus passed me in review, he
addressed himself to my Brother, whom he caressed much, and amused
himself with, for a good while." Pretty little Grandson this, your
Majesty;--any future of history in this one, think you? "I," says
Wilhelmina, "took the opportunity of slipping out;"--hopeful to get
away; but could not, the Queen having noticed.
"The Queen made me a sign to follow her; and passed into a neighboring
apartment, where she had the English and Germans of King George's Suite
successively presented to her. After some talk with these gentlemen, she
withdrew; leaving me to entertain them, and saying: 'Speak English to
my Daughter; you will find she speaks it very well.' I felt much less
embarrassed, once the Queen was gone; and picking up a little courage, I
entered into conversation with these English. As I spoke their language
like my mother-tongue, I got pretty well out of the affair, and
everybody seemed charmed with me. They made my eulogy to the Queen; told
her I had quite the English air, and was made to be their Sovereign one
day. It was saying a great deal on their part: for these English think
themselves so much above all other people, that they imagine they are
paying a high compliment when they tell any one he has got English
manners.
"Their King [my Grandpapa] had got Spanish manners, I should say: he was
of an extreme gravity, and hardly spoke a word to anybody. He saluted
Madam Sonsfeld [my invaluable thrice-dear Governess] very coldly;
and asked her 'If I was always so serious, and if my humor was of the
melancholy turn?' 'Anything but that, Sire,' answered the other:
'but the respect she has for your Majesty prevents her from being as
sprightly as she commonly is.' He wagged his head, and answered nothing.
The reception he had given me, and this question, of which I heard, gave
me such a chill, that I never had the courage to speak to him,"--was
merely looked at with a candle by Grandpapa.
"We were summoned to supper at last, where this grave Sovereign still
remained dumb. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he was wrong; but I think
he followed the proverb, which says, Better hold your tongue than speak
badly. At the end of the repast he felt indisposed. The Queen would have
persuaded him to quit table; they bandied compliments a good while on
the point; but at last she threw down her napkin, and rose. The King of
England naturally rose too; but began to stagger; the King of Prussia
ran up to help him, all the company ran bustling about him; but it was
to no purpose: he sank on his knees; his peruke falling on one side, and
his hat [or at least his head, Madam!] on the other. They stretched
him softly on the floor; where he remained a good hour without
consciousness. The pains they took with him brought back his senses, by
degrees, at last. The Queen and the King [of Prussia] were in despair
all this while. Many have thought this attack was a herald of the stroke
of apoplexy which came by and by,"--within four years from this date,
and carried off his Majesty in a very gloomy manner.
"They passionately entreated him to retire now," continues Wilhelmina;
"but he would not by any means. He led out the Queen, and did the other
ceremonies, according to rule; had a very bad night, as we learned
underhand;" but persisted stoically nevertheless, being a crowned
Majesty, and bound to it. He stoically underwent four or three other
days, of festival, sight-seeing, "pleasure" so called;--among other
sights, saw little Fritz drilling his Cadets at Berlin;--and on the
fourth day (12th October, 1723, so thinks Wilhelmina) fairly "signed
the Treaty of the Double-Marriage," English Townshend and the Prussian
Ministry having settled all things. [Wilhelmina, _Memoires de Bareith,_
i. 83, 87,--In Coxe (_Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole,_ London, 1798),
ii. 266, 272, 273, are some faint hints, from Townshend, of this Berlin
journey.]
"Signed the Treaty," thinks Wilhelmina, "all things being settled."
Which is an error on the part of Wilhelmina. Settled many or all
things were by Townshend and the others: but before signing, there was
Parliament to be apprised, there were formalities, expenditure of time;
between the cup and the lip, such things to intervene;--and the sad fact
is, the Double-Marriage Treaty never was signed at all!--However, all
things being now settled ready for signing, his Britannic Majesty, next
morning, set off for the GOHRDE again, to try if there were any hunting
possible.
This authentic glimpse, one of the few that are attainable, of their
first Constitutional King, let English readers make the most of. The act
done proved dreadfully momentous to our little Friend, his Grandson; and
will much concern us!
Thus, at any rate, was the Treaty of the Double-Marriage settled, to the
point of signing,--thought to be as good as signed. It was at the
time when Czar Peter was making armaments to burn Sweden; when
Wood's Halfpence (on behalf of her Improper Grace of Kendal, the lean
Quasi-Wife, "Maypole" or Hop-pole, who had run short of money, as she
often did) were about beginning to jingle in Ireland; [Coxe (i. 216,
217, and SUPPLY the dates); Walpole to Townshend, 13th October, 1723
(ib. ii. 275): _"The Drapier's Letters"_ are of 1724.] when Law's Bubble
"System" had fallen, well flaccid, into Chaos again; when Dubois the
unutterable Cardinal had at length died, and d'Orleans the unutterable
Regent was unexpectedly about to do so,--in a most surprising
Sodom-and-Gomorrah manner. [2d December, 1723: Barbier, _Journal
Historique du Regne de Louis XV. _ (Paris, 1847), i. 192, 196;
Lacretelle, _Histoire de France, 18me siecle;_ &c.] Not to mention other
dull and vile phenomena of putrid fermentation, which were transpiring,
or sluttishly bubbling up, in poor benighted rotten Europe here or
there;--since these are sufficient to date the Transaction for us; and
what does not stick to our Fritz and his affairs it is more pleasant to
us to forget than to remember, of such an epoch.
Hereby, for the present, is a great load rolled from Queen Sophie
Dorothee's heart. One, and, that the highest, of her abstruse
negotiations, cherished, labored in, these fourteen years, she has
brought to a victorious issue,--has she not? Her poor Mother, once so
radiant, now so dim and angry, shut in the Castle of Ahlden, does not
approve this Double-Marriage; not she for her part;--as indeed evil to
all Hanoverian interests is now chiefly her good, poor Lady; and she is
growing more and more of a Megaera every day. With whom Sophie Dorothee
has her own difficulties and abstruse practices; but struggles always
to maintain, under seven-fold secrecy, some thread of correspondence and
pious filial ministration wherever possible; that the poor exasperated
Mother, wretchedest and angriest of women, be not quite cut off from the
kinship of the living, but that some soft breath of pity may cool her
burning heart now and then. [In _Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea_ (London,
1845), ii. 385, 393, are certain fractions of this Correspondence,
"edited" in an amazing manner.] A dark tragedy of Sophie's, this; the
Bluebeard Chamber of her mind, into which no eye but her own must ever
look.
PRINCESS AMELIA COMES INTO THE WORLD.
In reference to Queen Sophie, and chronologically if not otherwise
connected with this Double-Marriage Treaty, I will mention one
other thing. Her Majesty had been in fluctuating health, all summer;
unaccountable symptoms turning up in her Majesty's constitution,
languors, qualms, especially a tendency to swelling or increase of size,
which had puzzled and alarmed her Doctors and her. Friedrich Wilhelm,
on conclusion of the Marriage-Treaty, had been appointed to join his
Father-in-law, Britannic George, at the Gohrde, in some three weeks'
time, and have a bout of hunting. On the 8th of November, bedtime
being come, he kissed his Wilhelmina and the rest, by way of good-by;
intending to start very early on the morrow:--long journey (150 miles or
so), to be done all in one day. In the dead of the night, Queen
Sophie was seized with dreadful colics,--pangs of colic or who knows
what;--Friedrich Wilhelm is summoned; rises in the highest alarm; none
but the maids and he at hand to help; and the colic, or whatever it may
be, gets more and more dreadful.
Colic? O poor Sophie, it is travail, and no colic; and a clever young
Princess is suddenly the result! None but Friedrich Wilhelm and the maid
for midwives; mother and infant, nevertheless, doing perfectly well.
Friedrich Wilhelm did not go on the morrow, but next day; laughed, ever
and anon in loud hahas, at the part he had been playing; and was very
glad and merry. How the experienced Sophie, whose twelfth child this
is, came to commit such an oversight is unaccountable; but the fact is
certain, and made a merry noise in Court circles. [Pollnitz, ii. 199;
Wilhelmina, i. 87, 88.]
The clever little Princess, now born in this manner, is known by name
to idle readers. She was christened AMELIA; and we shall hear of her in
time coming. But there was, as the Circulating Libraries still intimate,
a certain loud-spoken braggart of the histrionic-heroic sort, called
Baron Trenck, windy, rash, and not without mendacity, who has endeavored
to associate her with his own transcendent and not undeserved ill-luck;
hinting the poor Princess into a sad fame in that way. For which,
it would now appear, there was no basis whatever! Most condemnable
Trenck;--whom, however, Robespierre guillotined finally, and so settled
that account and others.
Of Sophie Dorothee's twelve children, including this Amelia, there are
now eight living, two boys, six girls; and after Amelia, two others,
boys, are successively to come: ten in all, who grew to be men and
women. Of whom perhaps I had better subjoin a List; now that the eldest
Boy and Girl are about to get settled in life; and therewith close this
Chapter.
FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S TEN CHILDREN.
Marriage to Sophie Dorothee, 28th November, 1706.
A little Prince, born 23d November, 1707, died in six months. Then came,
1. FREDERIKA SOPHIE WILHELMINA, ultimately Margravine of Baireuth, after
strange adventures in the marriage-treaty way. Wrote her _Memoires_
there, about 1744. Of whom we shall hear much. Left a Daughter, her one
child; Daughter badly married, to "Karl reigning Duke of Wurtemberg"
(Poet Schiller's famous Serene Highness there), from whom she had to
separate, &c., with anger enough, by and by.
After Wilhelmina in the Family series came a second Prince, who died in
the eleventh month. Then, 24th January, 1712,
2. FRIEDRICH.
After whom (1713) a little Princess, who died in few months. And then,
3. FREDERIKA LOUISA, born 28th September, 1714; age now about nine.
Margravine of Anspach, 30th May, 1729; Widow 1757. Her one Son, born
1736, was the LADY-CRAVEN'S Anspach. Frederika Louisa died 4th February,
1734.
4. PHILIPPINA CHARLOTTE, born 13th of March, 1716; became Duchess of
Brunswick (her Husband was Eldest Brother of the "Prince Ferdinand"
so famous in England in the Seven-Years War); her Son was the Duke who
invaded France in 1792, and was tragically hurled to ruin in the Battle
of Jena, 1806. The Mother lived till 1801; Widow since 1780.
After whom, in 1717, again a little Prince, who died within two years
(our Fritz then seven,--probably the first time Death ever came before
him, practically into his little thoughts in this world): then,
5. SOPHIE DOROTHEE MARIA, born 25th January, 1719; Margravine of
Schwedt, 1734 (eldest Magraf of Schwedt, mentioned above as a comrade of
the Crown-Prince). Her life not very happy; she died 1765. Left no son
(Brother-in-law succeeded, last of the Schwedt MARGRAVES): her
Daughter, wedded to Prince Friedrich Eugen, a Prussian Officer, Cadet
of Wurtemberg and ultimately Heir there, is Ancestress of the Wurtemberg
Sovereignties that now are, and also (by one of HER daughters married to
Paul of Russia) of all the Czar kindred of our time. [Preuss, iv. 278;
Erman, _Vie de Sophie Charlotte,_ p. 2722.]
6. LOUISA ULRIQUE, born 24th July, 1720; married Adolf Friedrich,
Heir-Apparent, subsequemly King of Sweden, 17th July, 1744; Queen (he
having acceded) 6th April, 1751; Widow 1771; died, at Stockholm, 16th
July, 1782. Mother of the subsequent Kings; her Grandson the DEPOSED>
[OErtel, p. 83; Hubner, tt. 91, 227.]
7. AUGUST WILHELM, born 9th August, 1722; Heir-Apparent after Friedrich
(so declared by Friedrich, 30th June, 1744); Father of the Kings who
have since followed. He himself died, in sad circumstances, as we shall
see, 12th June, 1758.
8. ANNA AMELIA, born 9th November, 1723,--on the terms we have seen.
9. FRIEDRICH HEINRICH LUDWIG, born 18th January, 1726;--the famed Prince
Henri, of whom we shall hear.
10. AUGUST FERDINAND, born 23d May, 1730: a brilliant enough little
soldier under his Brother, full of spirit and talent, but liable to weak
health;--was Father of the "Prince Louis Ferdinand," a tragic Failure
of something considerable, who went off in Liberalism, wit, in high
sentiment, expenditure and debauchery, greatly to the admiration of some
persons; and at length rushed desperate upon the Frenoh, and found his
quietus (10th October, 1806), four days before the Battle of Jena.