Chapter D: O. M (5)

It would be unprofitable to attempt here to follow the course of this unhappy passion, of which many incidents have now been verified as to time and place, chiefly by means of the despatches of the English envoy, while the main event of its catastrophe is lost in impenetrable gloom. Königsmarck—who asserts that, had he proceeded from Hamburg to Sweden, he would have readily been admitted into the service of that monarchy, where, on account of his numerous connexions in many lands at many Courts, he might very possibly have come to play a conspicuous part—chose, instead, to return to Hanover, probably in consequence of the favourable reception accorded by the Princess to his still hesitating written advances. His letters now begin to assume a freer tone. Temporary separations inevitably ensued. He accompanies Duke Ernest Augustus to Wolfenbüttel, while she remains behind; she joins in a visit, in which he is not included, to her father at his hunting-seat at Epsdorff, or at Wienhausen; and he has to swear eternal fidelity in a letter signed in his blood, and to protest that he will go to the Morea (whither Ernest Augustus’ son Christian was at the time intent upon proceeding), in order to relieve her of his compromising presence. It seems to have been not long after this that Sophia Dorothea succumbed to her passion; and, early in 1692, fears were already pressing upon them of discovery—in the first instance through her mother; for Königsmarck had followed her to the Court of Celle. At last, in June, 1692, he was obliged to join the Hanoverian force under the command of Sophia Dorothea’s husband in Flanders; for Ernest Augustus, resolved on striking a bargain for the Ninth Electorate, had now openly become a member of the Grand Alliance. With the opening of the Flemish campaign (during which Königsmarck took part in the battle of Steenkirke) begins the series of the Princess’ letters, several of which are dated from Brockhausen, where Prince Maximilian had taken refuge with the Duke of Celle after his trouble at Hanover, while others are written from Wiesbaden, which later in the year she visited with her mother. Many of these letters contain details that admit of verification from Colt’s despatches. The intrigue between Sophia Dorothea and Königsmarck had now passed into a phase in which expressions of love, jealousy, and haunting apprehensions, breathlessly crowd upon one another; and, after the Princess had returned to Hanover, it almost seemed as if she must listen to the advice which he had sent to her from the Low Countries, and cut the knot of their difficulties by flying with him.

We here touch one of the obscurest passages in this pitiful story, and one which must here be dealt with quite briefly. It was quite impossible that Königsmarck’s devotion to the Princess before his departure to Flanders should have remained unnoticed at the Hanoverian court; and nothing could have been more appropriate than that her mother-in-law, the Duchess Sophia, who, without at all suspecting the worst, must have been seriously annoyed by what she had observed—unless we are to adopt the absurd supposition that she was pleased to see her daughter-in-law beginning to go wrong—should have lectured the Princess on her want of _conduite_. But Sophia Dorothea was aware that there was at court another and a less straightforward influence, which she suspected would be adverse to her—that of the Countess Platen. From what followed, there can be no doubt that the Countess had reasons for bearing Königsmarck a grudge; and it has been unhesitatingly assumed, in accordance with an unauthenticated tradition, that her motive was jealousy, and that he had formerly shared her favours. On the other hand, the Duchess of Orleans deliberately states that there is no _apparentz_ of Countess Platen having sought to attract to herself so young a man, and that it is more likely that, as the Electress Sophia had been informed, the Countess cajoled Königsmarck in the hope of his marrying her daughter; ‘for he was a good match.’ This story also long found acceptance; but it does not very well suit either Königsmarck’s account of his later meeting with Countess Platen, or the jealousy of her which this account unmistakably excited in the Princess. In any case, when it occurred to Sophia Dorothea to consult the Electress Sophia Charlotte of Brandenburg on the situation—a step which at all events shows her to have been without fear of any underhand action on the part of her cousin or her mother-in-law—Sophia Charlotte counselled her to conciliate the Countess Platen; and this piece of advice was communicated by Sophia Dorothea to Königsmarck. On his return to Hanover, about November, he seems to have determined to contribute towards the appeasing of the powerful mistress; but, whether in sheer recklessness, or because he considered himself safe with the Countess, who would assuredly remain silent on the subject towards her august protector, he clearly overdid his part. After this escapade, a sort of desperate rage seems to have seized upon him, and the correspondence of the year 1692 concludes with a brutally sarcastic tirade launched against the new ‘Electoral Princess’ by her infuriated lover. It is, then, manifest that Sophia Dorothea had grounds for distrusting Countess Platen; but, how far the double insult offered to the Elector’s mistress by Königsmarck’s conduct is to be connected with the terrible events that followed, no evidence exists to show, and the part of evil genius assigned to the Countess in the tragedy has had to be written up with the aid of conjecture and fiction.

The last chapter of the correspondence, which extends from the early summer to the close of the year 1693 (or thereabouts), shows the fatal passion of the pair still aflame, but the clouds of danger thickening around them. In the absence of her husband during the year’s campaign in Flanders, the Electoral Princess continued to idle away her days with her parents-in-law at Luisburg, or with her own parents at Brockhausen, whither Königsmarck followed her. She took some comfort from the good humour of the Electress Sophia; though, foreseeing that, if she came to know the truth, she would show no pity, Königsmarck warned the Princess that her mother-in-law would, sooner or later, be her ruin. At Brockhausen, a nocturnal meeting between the lovers was not wholly unwatched, and the letters afterwards interchanged by them show increasing apprehension. Countess Platen herself vaguely warned the Princess as to the risk she was running—an act which it must be conceded at least admits of a kindly explanation. In her last extant letter, Sophia Dorothea utters what comes very near to a cry of hopeless despair. In the course of the month in which this letter was written (August, 1693) Königsmarck was obliged to absent himself from Court, in order to take part in a military movement intended to check a Danish _coup de main_ upon the contested duchy of Lauenburg. When he returned to Hanover, fresh warnings reached him—from old Marshal von Podewils,[110] under whom he had served, and from the youngest of the Hanoverian Princes, Ernest Augustus, whose devoted attachment to his brother, the Electoral Prince, appears not to have prevented this act of kindness. These warnings themselves, together with other indications, show that, although the actual character of the intrigue between Sophia Dorothea and Königsmarck may have remained unknown—unless indeed some letters had already fallen into the wrong hands—the _liaison_ itself was, as is, after all, usual in such cases, more or less of an open secret, and that thus the pair were rushing headlong to their ruin. Quite at the end of the year, Königsmarck had once more to go away from Hanover; and, at this point, the Lund correspondence comes to an end with a letter from him evidently addressed to the confidante, and, through her, assuring _Léonisse_ that, whatever might befall, he would not abandon her.

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Footnote 110:

‘_Le bonhomme_’ in the lovers’ cipher.

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The cessation of the correspondence leaves us in some doubt as to the precise nature of the occurrences in Hanover in the earlier half of the year 1694, which was to see the end of this lamentable history. Königsmarck, who had returned to Hanover, quitted it again in April; and, without having resigned his Hanoverian commission, betook himself to the Court of the Elector Frederick Augustus of Saxony (Augustus the Strong) at Dresden. Here he undoubtedly behaved with an indiscretion beyond that habitual to him, and it is probable enough—though this again cannot be proved—that his vaunts included some reference to his successes with Countess Platen. However this may have been, Königsmarck, though he had not accepted a commission offered him in the Saxon army and still remained a Hanoverian officer, could hardly expect on his return to Hanover to carry on his amour as before. There had been indications of an uneasy feeling at Court, which explain themselves without the supposition that a combination was at work there to drive Sophia Dorothea to her ruin, and without the wholly gratuitous assumption that, in the front of that combination, stood the Electress Sophia. Attempts were afterwards said to have been made to provoke ill-will between the Electoral Prince and his wife through the agency of her lady-in-waiting, Fräulein von dem Knesebeck; and, though there is no reason for suspecting her of any interference of the kind, it is certain that, about the early part of June, Sophia Dorothea left the Electoral Court and repaired to her parents at Brockhausen. Once more, there is nothing to show that her departure had been caused by actual ill-treatment on the part of her husband. On her way home to Hanover, she refused to alight at Herrenhausen in order to pay her respects to the Elector and Electress; and, after ascertaining at Hanover that her husband was away at Berlin, she resolved once more to join her parents at Brockhausen. But they refused to receive her; and, on the fatal night of July 1st, 1694, she was still with her faithful lady-in-waiting in the Leineschloss at Hanover.

On the same night, Count Königsmarck left his house at Hanover, never to be seen again. That his intention was to enter the Leine Palace and the apartments of the Electoral Princess, there can be no doubt; but the actual purpose of their meeting, and the plan on which they then agreed or on which they had agreed before, remain unknown. They may have merely designed to contrive her escape with his help to Wolfenbüttel, where she might rely on a welcome from Duke Antony Ulric; or they may have intended to realise the dream to which their correspondence refers, and henceforth to belong wholly to one another. But, from Sophia Dorothea, no attempt was afterwards made to extract an avowal on this head; and the confidante, Eleonora von dem Knesebeck, persisted from first to last, both during her imprisonment and after she had effected her escape from it, in asserting the innocency of her mistress. Yet Fräulein von dem Knesebeck confessed to having known of a ‘plot,’ and to having been so full of uneasiness that tears and entreaties were needed to persuade her to remain in the Princess’ service.

Some days passed before the disappearance of Königsmarck attracted public notice. The first sign that there was something wrong appears to have been the intimation, noticed in a despatch of July 3rd from Cressett (Colt’s successor), that, while the Electoral Prince remained at Berlin, the Princess was sick at Hanover. As a matter of fact, both she and her confidante had been strictly confined to her apartments; whether any letters from Königsmarck had been discovered in her keeping, we do not know. But there is evidence that, already in May and June, hands had been laid on some of the correspondence between the lovers; and the knowledge of this had probably determined the Elector Ernest Augustus to proceed against his daughter-in-law. And it is certain that some of her letters were sent by the authorities at Hanover to her parents; for Leibniz positively asserts that, had not her letters been produced, they could not have thought her so guilty at Celle. These letters must have been found in Königsmarck’s residence; and we have no reason for doubting the statement that a thorough search was made in his cabinet, in the presence of officials only, although it is added that a packet of letters thought to be incriminating was sent by persons who had been in his confidence to Celle, where his sisters soon afterwards made their appearance. These latter, in all probability, formed the correspondence which ultimately found its way to Berlin.

Both the Elector Ernest Augustus and Sophia Dorothea’s father, the Duke of Celle, considering her guilt to be established, the question next arose as to the way in which her case should be treated. In the first instance she was taken to Ahlden, a magistrate’s house or ‘castle’—no one who has cast eyes on it could ever think of it as anything but a ‘moated grange’—situate in a lonely marshland corner of her father’s territory, at some twenty miles’ distance from Hanover. While she was detained here in strict custody, the mode of procedure against her was arranged. It was resolved, for the honour of the House—which, for good or ill, was the dominant motive in the whole of this melancholy business—to keep the name and person of Königsmarck out of the affair altogether, and to make the desertion of her husband by the Princess the ground of a suit of divorce before a specially constituted Consistorial tribunal. This course, which could hardly have succeeded but for the attitude maintained by her, was carried through with a completeness which must have surpassed the anticipations of the astute minds that had devised it. Throughout the enquiry, the Princess made no confession whatever of any act of infidelity, adhering to the instructions conveyed to her by her father’s ministers, Bernstorff and Bülow, who, in an interview at Ahlden, had informed her that ‘everything was discovered’—manifestly another reference to the evidence of part of her correspondence with Königsmarck. Accordingly, notwithstanding the representations of the honest counsel with whom she had been provided—and to whose dissatisfaction with the proceedings and desire to preserve the proofs of his not having been responsible for their result is due the private preservation, at least in part, of the documents of the divorce-suit—she refused to swerve from her declared resolution no longer to live with the Electoral Prince as her husband. After some attempts on the part of the Duke of Celle to mitigate the rigour of the expected result, which were successfully resisted on the part of the Hanoverian Government, the sentence of the Consistorial tribunal was pronounced on December 28th, 1694, and delivered to the Princess at Lauenau, whither she had been temporarily removed, on the last day of the year. It dissolved the marriage between her and the Electoral Prince, granting him, as the innocent party, permission to remarry, but withholding this from her as the guilty party. She at once accepted the sentence; a few days later her confessor informed her father that she acknowledged ‘_sa faute_,’ and the justice of the punishment inflicted upon her; and, in 1698, on the occasion of the death of the Elector Ernest Augustus, she wrote to her former husband and to his mother, the Electress Sophia, beseeching them to pardon her faults of the past, and entreating the favour of being allowed to see her children. This favour was never granted to her.

The Hanoverian court and Government had, as has been seen, persistently striven to dissociate the disappearance of Königsmarck from the disgrace of the Princess. In the first instance, this disappearance had been simply ignored, while a circular had been issued to foreign courts, drawn up in this sense, and attributing the alienation of the Princess from her husband to the machinations of Fräulein von dem Knesebeck, who was soon afterwards clapped into a dungeon at Scharzfels in the Harz, from which she did not make her escape till four years afterwards.[111] As to the vanished Königsmarck, it had been easy to stifle the anxieties of the unhappy Sophia Dorothea, who, before she was effectually silenced, had written a letter expressive of her fear that he had fallen into the hands of a certain lady, and that his life might be in danger. There can hardly be any doubt but that this referred to Countess Platen, although it merely proves Sophia Dorothea to have been afraid of the consequences of the Countess’ anger. Nor could it be impossible to baffle the curiosity of the world at large—represented by no less august an enquirer than Louis XIV—in the assurance that the mystery would in due course be forgotten as a nine days’ wonder. But it proved a serious task to meet the pertinacious efforts of Königsmarck’s sister Aurora, who, adopting a rumour which for some time found an extraordinary amount of credit, insisted that her brother was still alive, and, while demanding that the truth should be revealed, pursued Countess Platen (with whom she had a quarrel of old standing) with special animosity. It is noteworthy that the Electress Sophia should be found taking the side of Countess Platen, who, she writes, is not accustomed to be spoken of in the terms applied to her by the Countess _Orrore_. Having been forbidden to show herself in Hanover, Königsmarck’s dauntless sister betook herself to Dresden, in order to secure the assistance of the Elector Frederick Augustus in her quest. It was on this occasion that she conquered that potentate altogether; and he espoused her cause so heartily as to send Colonel Bannier to Hanover, there to demand that Königsmarck, as an officer in the Saxon service, should be given up to him. As late as December, 1694, Bannier remained convinced that the Count was still alive, and detained as a prisoner somewhere in the Palace. Not until after some months had passed was the tempest raised by Aurora allayed, largely through the diplomatic skill of the Hanoverian minister at Dresden, Jobst von Ilten. But her passionate activity, and the widespread interest excited by so impenetrable a mystery, already in 1695 led to the publication of a narrative purporting to have been sent from Hamburg to the French minister at the Danish court, which the Duchess of Orleans characterised as impertinent and mendacious, and to which Leibniz was instructed to supply a corrective commentary. Meanwhile the Electoral Government had not only maintained an absolute silence as to the Königsmarck affair, but had resorted to the expedient of systematically destroying all evidence concerning it or in any way connected with it. This policy was carried through with extraordinary vigilance and consistency, as might be shown in various instances, of which some reach down to our own times. Above all, a systematic destruction took place of all the documents, whether public or private, at Hanover, in London—and even in Ahlden—which might have thrown light on the episode. Among the rest, the letters of the Electress Sophia bearing on it were destroyed. This was in accordance with the wish of the Duchess of Orleans, whose sagacity apprised her that there was something in the rumours which had reached her, although the excellent Frau von Harling had declared them to be all lies.[112] It would, however, appear that, whether because of a desire on the part of the Duke of Celle that some evidence should be procured which would justify his assent to the severe treatment of his daughter,[113] or because of the Electress’ own wish not to annihilate all proof, certain incriminating portions of the correspondence remained undestroyed; and these were perhaps the letters which are supposed to have been afterwards sent to Berlin, in order to remove the doubts of Sophia Dorothea’s daughter and namesake as to the misconduct of her mother, to whom she always behaved with kindness—and which, afterwards, certainly found their way into the hands of Frederick the Great and thence into the Secret Archives of State. So far as Königsmarck is concerned, the current story as to his death, and as to the horrible part played in it by the Countess Platen, still remains unauthenticated. Horace Walpole, the author of _Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard III_, was prepared to believe a story which he professed to have derived from George II, through Queen Caroline and Sir Robert Walpole, according to which, on the occasion of some repairs in the Leine Palace, the remains of Königsmarck were discovered under the floor of Sophia Dorothea’s dressing-room; and, of the assassins rumoured to have been hired by Countess Platen, one at least is said to have been enabled by his crime to found a family of much respectability at Hanover.

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Footnote 111:

Of this castle little or nothing remains at the present day but a
‘restored’ gate and staircase.

Footnote 112:

According to W. H. Wilkins, _A Queen of Tears_, George III similarly
ordered the destruction of the entire correspondence with Copenhagen
occasioned by the catastrophe of his daughter Caroline Matilda of
Denmark and Struensee.

Footnote 113:

In the spring of 1695, Cresset reports that the Duke and Duchess of
Celle feel some distaste, now, for the company of the Electress, on
account of the divorce proceedings.

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Sophia Dorothea herself was henceforth lost to the history of her House, and almost fell out of the remembrance of the world in which she might have played so prominent a part. She was now officially styled the Duchess of Ahlden, the village on the Aller over whose immediate district a certain petty jurisdiction was given to the prisoner, together with a few shadowy rights of honour. During a period of thirty-two years she lingered out here her life of durance—never being allowed to quit Ahlden, with the single exception, when a movement of Saxon-Polish troops seemed to render her place of detention unsafe, of a brief visit to Celle, where, however, her father declined to see her. Neither was she at any time permitted to go forth from her castle beyond a distance of six miles; and her carriage, closely attended by a guard of honour, had always to drive along the same road.[114] She had the occasional consolation of a visit from her mother till the Duchess Eleonora’s death in 1722; for the mother’s love never waned, and her will contributed to make the prisoner nominally the possessor of great wealth. On the other hand, she was, as already noted, never allowed to see her children. She occupied herself much with works of charity and piety. She presented an organ and candelabra to the parish church where during part of her imprisonment she worshipped—and was extremely popular in the village, which she rebuilt at her own cost after a fire in 1715; and she gave much attention to the affairs in the neighbourhood, receiving formal visits, and bestowing great care upon her personal adornment. She never quite abandoned the hope of a change in her condition, until shortly before her death she discovered that her interests had been betrayed, and (it is said) most of her large accumulated capital made away with, by an agent (a certain von Bahr), in whom she had reposed confidence. The records of the poor woman’s life during the long years of her confinement do not change our notions of her character; but the story of her solitary woe needs no deepening.

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Footnote 114:

Her habit of driving along it at a furious pace recalls the practice
of a very different captive—Napoleon at St. Helena.

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George Lewis has met with nothing but blame for his share in the whole story of Sophia Dorothea’s misfortunes. Our age happily refuses to accept the view that what is unpardonable in a wife is venial in a husband; but such was not the opinion of George Lewis’ contemporaries. On returning to Hanover, he had found the relations between his wife and Königsmarck very much of an open secret at court; and, when proofs were in his hands, a divorce was the only course open to him, if the honour of his House was to be vindicated. There was afterwards a rumour, mentioned by Elizabeth Charlotte to her aunt, that he would take back his wife on his accession to the Electorship at his father’s death; and, in 1704, a report was again current at Paris, that the Duke of Marlborough hoped to effect a reconciliation between the Elector and his discarded consort. But, as a matter of fact, he never varied his attitude towards her of absolute and immutable estrangement; and least of all did he show any inclination to invite her to share the glories of the English throne, though it is probable that he might, by such a step, have diminished the prejudices to which he was exposed in his new kingdom.[115] On the occurrence of her death on November 13th, 1726 (which, as is known, preceded his own by but a few months), he prohibited a general mourning in the Electorate, and she was buried without ceremony in the family vault at Celle, after her interment at Ahlden had proved impracticable. There can be no doubt that the bitter resentment with which her conduct had inspired him was, in a measure, continued in his feelings towards his son, the future King George II; but, though the accounts on this head are contradictory, it is at least doubtful whether Sophia Dorothea’s son ever exhibited any active sympathy for his unfortunate mother.[116] Sophia Dorothea the younger, who, in 1706, married the Crown Prince of Prussia (afterwards King Frederick William I), kept up some communication with her mother, and, after she became Queen, took Eleonora von dem Knesebeck into her service, besides entering into a more frequent correspondence with the prisoner. But mother and daughter never met; and, finally, there seems to have been a marked difference of opinion between them as to the famous Double Marriage Project between the courts of Great Britain and Prussia.

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Footnote 115:

It is a curious instance of a certain cynical hauteur in George Lewis
(which, however, contains an element of manly self-possession) that he
should have supplied the Duchess of Orleans with a key to the
characters of the Supplement to the _Roman Octavia_, in which Duke
Antony Ulric had taken the opportunity, perhaps with the help of
Fräulein von dem Knesebeck’s reminiscences, of giving to the world a
version of the whole story of the Duchess of Ahlden.—A French MS.,
_Histoire de Frédegonde, Princesse de Chérusque, Duchesse d’Hanovre,
Épouse de George, Roi de la Grande Bretagne_, proposing to give an
account, _inter alia_, of ‘_sa Prison au Chateau d’Alhen, où elle a
fini ses jours_,’ supposed to date from about 1740, was not long since
advertised for sale.

Footnote 116:

Lord Hervey’s story of his having preserved his mother’s picture may
be true; but the further statement that he proposed, if she had
survived, to have brought her over and declared her Queen, needs a
stronger qualification than the ‘it was said,’ by which it is
accompanied. (_Memoirs_, Vol. iii. pp. 348-9.)

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That the unfortunate prisoner should have gained the active goodwill, which the fair young Princess had never conciliated, of her mother-in-law, the Electress Sophia, was hardly to be expected. Such advances as were made to her by the Duchess of Ahlden seem to have been coldly rejected; and the tone in which the Duchess of Orleans continues occasionally to speak of her ill-fated relative no doubt reflects, with tolerable accuracy, that adopted by her aunt in her non-extant letters. The Electress, as we now know, had verified the conclusion of Elizabeth Charlotte, that Sophia Dorothea’s case exemplified the proverb as to there being no smoke without fire; and, while we may regret that the charity which, in the matter of morals, the Electress Sophia readily showed to the shortcomings of the men of her family, was never extended by her to the daughter of Eleonora d’Olbreuze, there is in this rigour nothing unnatural or incompatible with the rules of life which she consistently observed. To argue, however, from this severity back to the unproved supposition of an active cooperation on the part of Sophia towards the ruin of her daughter-in-law, is palpably unjust. And it should always be borne in mind that the sympathy of posterity was secured to Sophia Dorothea by her misfortunes, not by her character, in which there is little or nothing to admire, while much in it may have justly repelled the sound and self-controlled nature of her mother-in-law; and that the Electress was more impressed by the Princess’ fall than by what might seem its legitimate consequences.

There seems no reason for attributing to the painful experiences through which the House of Hanover had recently passed the decline which, about this time, set in in the health of the Elector Ernest Augustus. His illness (which Cressett thought in a large measure imaginary) has quite gratuitously been brought into connexion with Sophia Dorothea’s catastrophe, the suggestion being that the wife and the mistress of the Elector had conspired to avert the consequences which might ensue, in the event of his death and the accession of a new Electress. In June, 1697, the Electress Sophia informs the Raugravine Louisa that, though the other symptoms in the Elector’s condition are good, his nervous debility is great, and that it has been resolved to try the skill of a Dutch empiric, with whose ‘_charlattaneri_’ she characteristically expresses impatience. Towards the end of the year the course of his malady seemed to have been in a measure arrested; but the decay of his powers soon set in again with alarming rapidity. His life of constant self-indulgence ended very miserably; for some time loss of sight in one eye was feared, and after this he was all but deprived of the use of speech. The Electress Sophia faithfully nursed him to the last. Even in the days of his health she had bravely accustomed herself to his habits; and she afterwards humorously related that she had made a point, in the hour of domesticity, of filling his pipe with the tobacco which she loathed. In his last illness she, during many months, never left his side, except when he was asleep. The end came on January 24th, 1698; and a letter written by Sophia a few months later shows her still in a condition of deep and unaffected grief—hopeful only ‘_que le bon Dieu me fera bientost rejoindre ce cher Électeur en l’autre monde_,’ but consoled by the attentions of her children and her brother-in-law. Ernest Augustus had well played his part as a ruler, not only providing a sure basis for the progress of his dynasty to augmented power and influence, but also strengthening and consolidating the civil as well as the military administration of the Electorate established in his person. His extravagant expenditure on himself and on his court, though no doubt largely occasioned by habits of self-indulgence and a profligate temperament, seemed in consonance with what was probably a well-merited reputation for liberality of conduct and feeling towards those who served him well. Thus he proved, in his way, an apt imitator of the great French prototype whom he, not less than his brother John Frederick, kept before his eyes; and the style in which he lived and reigned suited the interest of the dynasty as well as his own tastes. At the same time, he knew how to combine with his magnificence and generosity a self-restraint that enabled him in his will to dispose of an unencumbered personal estate. To Sophia his death, in more respects than one, brought a considerable change. She had never ruled him, not even controlled him by her influence, as Eleonora of Celle long controlled her Duke, or as, in another generation, Sophia’s favourite Caroline of Ansbach was to control King George II. But the aid of her counsel had been of great value to Ernest Augustus, both in the ordinary business of government and in great questions of state policy; and much of the authority which thus accrued to her passed away with him. George Lewis was not of a disposition likely to induce him, from motives of piety, to show to his mother a deference beyond that of ordinary custom. On the other hand, the death of Sophia’s husband gave to her more of that freedom which no princess ever used less ostentatiously or more nobly; it made her, in certain respects, more distinctly the centre of the intellectual life of the Hanoverian Court than she had cared to be, or at all events to seem, in the lifetime of Ernest Augustus; it probably brought her closer to her daughter, and certainly allowed her a fuller enjoyment of the friendship of Leibniz.

No sooner had the reign of Ernest Augustus come to an end, than his sons Maximilian and Christian renewed their protest against the principle of primogeniture which he had so persistently maintained;[117] and the sympathy with Maximilian displayed by his sister, the Electress Sophia Charlotte of Brandenburg, can hardly have failed to find a secret response in the maternal heart of the Electress Dowager Sophia herself. But, though there was some talk of her paying a visit at this season to Berlin, she had learnt to tutor her own wishes, and was well aware how much depended upon the maintenance of the good understanding between the two Electoral Governments, which was at the time endangered by certain territorial questions that may here be passed by. Thus George Lewis succeeded without let or hindrance to the whole of the paternal inheritance and expectancies; and, as was noted above, Hanover and Brandenburg were united by a close and ‘perpetual’ alliance at the very period when the dynastic ambition of the one seemed on the point of consummation, and that of the other was near achieving its absorbing object—the acquisition of a royal (Prussian) crown. That the Hanoverian court was filled with joy by the success of the operations which ended, early in 1701, with the coronation of the first Prussian King, Frederick I, would be an unnatural supposition. The event had, however, been rendered virtually inevitable by the accession, in 1697, of the Elector Frederick Augustus of Saxony to the Polish throne; and the Elector George Lewis was personally not so constituted as to be impelled, even by jealousy, to an eagerness to follow suit. As for the Dowager Electress Sophia, there was, to her, something more than compensation in the thought that a royal crown now surmounted the brow of her favourite child.

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Footnote 117:

Early in 1694, Cresset reports him as ‘moving heaven and earth’ on the
subject.

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Sophia Charlotte, her parents’ only daughter, had grown up in a long and unbroken intimacy with her mother. With that mother, as already noted, she had in common a clear and penetrating intelligence, a charm of manner irresistible to anyone whom she chose to admit to familiar intercourse, and a self-possession against which scandal waged war in vain. She also had her mother’s intellectual curiosity and general love of knowledge; but she must have approached more nearly to her aunt Elizabeth in her power of entering into problems of philosophy, though it is only with a grain of salt that the assertion can be accepted as to the conferences between her and Leibniz having originated his _Théodicée_. On the other hand, what little remains from her hand in the way of familiar correspondence, can scarcely be said to be lit up with the natural humour that her mother and the Duchess of Orleans always had at command. Notwithstanding her power of delighting those admitted to her society by the sunny brightness of her manner, when she was so disposed, or when she was stimulated by intellectual interest, her nature seems from early years to have possessed the tranquillity which reason and resignation enabled her mother more gradually to acquire. Probably a certain physical indolence, or phlegma, may have contributed to this result; together with a calm determination to please herself—a luxury in which her mother had rarely or never enjoyed opportunities of indulging.

Already in her childhood, benefiting by the traditions in her mother’s family as to the necessity of a good education based on linguistic knowledge, she had exhibited signs of talent; while her character probably owed much to the training of Frau von Harling (who was also Elizabeth Charlotte’s governess), one of those teachers whose destiny it is to be loved for their administration of the rule of law by pupils who, under a less vigorous influence, would certainly be inclined to remain a law to themselves. In the eleventh year of her age, Sophia Charlotte, as we saw, accompanied her mother on a visit to the French Court, while her father was recruiting his health at Ems. It was a delightful visit—perhaps one of the happiest episodes of Sophia’s life—in the mixture which it offered of pleasant retrospect under the caresses of the faithful Duchess of Orleans, and of still earlier reminiscences in the genial company of the Abbess of Maubuisson, with a hopeful looking-forward to the future in store for her charming daughter. King Louis XIV himself was the perfection of magnificent courtesy, requesting his brother, the Duke of Orleans, not to whisper in Sophia’s presence, and taking magnanimous notice of her daughter. Sophia’s quick wit helped her through every difficulty, and enabled her to avoid any mistake—even that of accepting a _tabouret_ when self-respect bade her take a _fauteuil_, or not sit at all. She knew how to meet both the stiffness of the French Queen (a Spanish princess) and the effusiveness of the Spanish Queen (a French princess); nor was her self-possession disturbed even by the splendour of Versailles, for which, as she justly observed, art had done more than nature. As for Sophia Charlotte, the impression created, both by her beauty and by the extent of her knowledge, was such as to suggest to Louis XIV the idea of a match between her and one of his princes. Nothing, however, came of the notion except, perhaps, an accentuation of the diplomatic activity of de Gourville at the Lüneburg courts. Sophia Charlotte’s quiet life continued; and, though there was some talk of a Bavarian suit for her hand, it gradually became known that her destiny was shaping itself nearer home. The establishment of relations of intimacy between the Courts of Brandenburg at Hanover had become a political necessity, and Sophia had recognised the expediency of promoting his object with the aid of her daughter’s hand. When, in 1683, the Electoral Prince Frederick of Brandenburg became a childless widower, these speculations at once assumed a practical aspect. The obstacles which had to be surmounted did not include a religious difficulty, inasmuch as the Reformed (Calvinist) faith, of which Sophia Charlotte made public profession shortly before her marriage, was a form of religion always favoured, though never actually professed, by her mother.[118] There is no reason for crediting the story (which rests only on the gossip of Pöllnitz) that it had been thought unnecessary to anticipate Sophia Charlotte’s own choice of a form of Protestantism till it was known whom she was to marry. But, whatever the daughter’s religious profession, tolerance would always have formed part of her creed, as it did of her mother’s. The marriage was celebrated at Herrenhausen on September 28th, 1684.

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Footnote 118:

‘I used,’ she writes to the elder Schütz in 1703, ‘to know all the
common prayers, practically, by heart, but I was never taught that our
religion much differed from the reformed religion of France and
Germany, and I have communicated in this also;’ and, again: ‘I have
had prayers offered for the Queen’ [Anne] ‘in both the German and the
French reformed churches here’ [at Hanover], ‘with the permission of
the Elector.’—Erman, preacher at the French Reformed church in Berlin,
subsequently wrote _Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Sophie
Charlotte, Reine de Prusse_.]

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From the first, Sophia Charlotte displayed that indifference to playing any part in politics which seemed so strange in her, considering the capacity which she indisputably possessed for exerting influence alike by her personal charms and by her intellectual powers. But, during the few remaining years of the Great Elector’s life, the Electoral Prince Frederick was under a cloud; and, in 1686, he had to withdraw with his consort to Halle. In 1688 he succeeded his father as Elector, and a few months later his consort presented him with an heir to his honours (the future King Frederick William I). She continued, however, to show little disposition to assert the authority and influence which had now accrued to her; and, though, during the ensuing decade, so eventful in the history of the relations between the Houses of Hanover and Brandenburg, she was always happy to exchange visits with her parents and to listen to the advice bestowed on her by her mother, she cannot be said to have taken much trouble to use, either directly or indirectly, the power which she can hardly have lacked aught but the will to exercise. It was not that she had to contend against any great strength of character in her husband, who, if humoured in a few things, could without much difficulty be ruled in the rest. But she did not care to stoop even to the level of his rather commonplace and formal nature, in order to conquer for herself an all-controlling influence in both public and private affairs. She preferred to create a sphere or circle of her own, into which only those were admitted who approved themselves to her, more especially by their intellectual gifts. Here simplicity, typified by black dress, was the rule. The colony of French refugees, which was in these years establishing itself at Berlin and Brandenburg, was largely represented in her intimate social circle. Sophia Charlotte appreciated those gifts of conversation, of which, in her age, Frenchmen and Frenchwomen possessed, if not the monopoly, at least a predominant share; and she seems herself to have become mistress of an art which is always more easily described than reproduced. She was fond of theatrical entertainments of many kinds, and probably gave more offence to the pietism prevailing around her by these, for the most part, innocuous tastes than by her philosophising tendencies. Toland amused her, and she was not, like her mother, obliged to respect British prejudices about his views or principles, though she was indignant to have been supposed to have gone so far as to ask a man without birth or official position to dine at her table. In general, she was, no doubt, very much _sans gêne_ in her relations with persons whom she liked; but, though scandal was busy with these freedoms, she never compromised herself by indulging in them too far. The height of her personal influence seems to have been reached when, by 1696, the Elector Frederick III had fulfilled her heart’s desire by building for her a country residence in the village of Lützen on the pleasant declivities of the Spree. She had never been willing to sojourn in the castle of Copenick, where her predecessor, Frederick’s first wife, had pined away her days; and the ample gardens at Berlin, which he had presented to his Electress, she had, with intelligent philanthropy, mainly distributed in allotments among the townsfolk, with whom, for this reason, and perhaps also because of a sympathetic quickness of wit indigenous among the inhabitants of the growing capital, her reputation always stood high. Lützenburg, as the Italian villa, which gradually grew into a palace, was called, became Sophia Charlotte’s chosen abode, although the magnificence with which it was in course of time adorned, both inside and out, had not received its final touches before her death, when this famous royal residence was, in remembrance of her, rechristened Charlottenburg.

The death of Ernest Augustus, in 1698, as we saw, drew mother and daughter more closely together; and, in the same year, a very important ministerial change at Berlin, the circumstances of which to this day occupy the attention of historical students, greatly increased Sophia Charlotte’s opportunities of exercising a personal influence upon the government and policy of her husband. The fall of the hitherto omnipotent minister, Eberhard von Danckelmann, which was speedily followed by his incarceration, affords a most striking instance of the uncertainty of princely favour, and a cruel illustration of the recompense that may await great political services.[119] Here it must suffice to say, that Sophia Charlotte had certainly been jealous of Danckelmann’s influence, and that his downfall was regarded by her mother and her friends, even more decidedly than by herself, as an epoch in her personal career. Leibniz wrote to her, with rather exasperating _aplomb_, surmising that, since she had now secured the entire confidence of the Elector her husband, she would recognise the necessity of taking advantage of the situation (_ménager la conjoncture_). As there was, he continued, an identity of interest between her and her mother, it was to be hoped that they would find consolation for the evils that had befallen them (the death of Ernest Augustus) in employing their gifts so as to bring about a complete union between Sophia Charlotte’s brother and her husband. (It may perhaps be noted that the sorrow afterwards shown by George Lewis on his sister’s death indicates the existence of a genuine affection between them.) Leibniz could not think of anyone likely to manage so effectively the requisite communications between the two Electresses as it would be within his own power to do; and he suggested that this purpose would be most easily accomplished if he were to be appointed to some supervising post connected with science and art at Berlin, and thus supplied with a ready reason for occasional visits to that capital. As a matter of fact, Sophia Charlotte used her best endeavours to induce Frederick III to call into life a (prospectively) Royal Society or Academy of Science, which, as the Elector was quick to perceive, would conspicuously add to the reputation of his court and to the glory of the monarchy of which he was ambitious to become the founder; and, after Leibniz had spent several months at Berlin, and conducted the deliberations on the subject, besides participating in the intellectual delights of ‘Lustenburg’ (Lützenburg), the Society of Sciences was, in July, 1700, actually called into life, with Leibniz as its perpetual president.[120]

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Footnote 119:

See H. Breslau, _Der Fall des Oberpräsidenten E. von Danckelmann_,
1692 (H. Breslau and S. Isaacsohn, _Der Fall zweier Preuss.
Minister_). Berlin, 1878.

Footnote 120:

Curiously enough, on the day after the opening of this august
institution, Leibniz took a prominent part in a ‘Village Fair’ at the
Court, of which a graphic description remains in a letter from him to
the Electress Sophia. It seems to have been a revised edition of the
_Wirthschaften_ of her youth, and of similar Arcadian diversions of
later days.—For an interesting survey of the relations—both personal
and philosophical—between Leibniz and Sophia Charlotte, see A. Foucher
de Careil, _Leibniz et les deux Sophies_, Paris, 1876.

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Danckelmann’s fall had, however, not put an end to Sophia Charlotte’s difficulties at her husband’s court. Some of these were of much the same sort as those from which her mother had suffered so much at Hanover, and from which the more sensitive nature of her grand-daughter Wilhelmina was afterwards to suffer at Baireuth. The Elector Frederick III’s new minister-in-chief, Kolbe von Wartenberg, had himself many attractive qualities; but his wife was of humble origin and undistinguished manners. It pleased the Elector, apparently only for the sake of the completeness of the thing, to confer on her the position of his mistress _en titre_. Sophia Charlotte’s pride long rebelled against receiving this lady at her private court. Another source of anxiety to Sophia Charlotte was the training of her son Frederick William, which, during part of his fourth year, she had entrusted to the veteran Frau von Harling at the court of her mother, the Electress Sophia. But the boy, both passionate and obstinate, could not agree with his cousin George Augustus, and had to be taken back to Berlin. As he grew up he seemed to care for nothing but soldiering, while he detested the ceremonial dear to his father’s heart, and more distinctive than ever of the Court of Berlin since the manœuvres for securing a royal Crown had assumed a definite shape, and this project had come to absorb the entire policy of the Brandenburg court and Government. Neither Sophia Charlotte’s nor her mother’s intelligence could fail to grasp the situation. The Electress of Brandenburg made up her mind that no personal grievance should interfere with the maintenance of a good understanding between her consort and herself, and received the Countess of Wartenberg at Lützenburg, although, oblivious of her guest’s imperfections of education, she welcomed her there with a few words of French. The Electress Dowager Sophia was willing to cooperate; and, partly with a view to procuring for the furtherance of the project the good offices of King William III and of the Elector Maximilian Emmanuel of Bavaria, Governor of the Austrian Netherlands, it was, in the spring of 1700, arranged that the two Electresses should, on the pretext of Sophia Charlotte’s health, repair to the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle, and thence visit Brussels and Holland. They accomplished this journey, on which Leibniz was by his own ill-health prevented from accompanying them, but in the course of which they, at the Hague, made the personal acquaintance of another philosopher of European reputation—‘_l’illustre Bayle, honneur des beaux esprits_.’ And, in October, 1700, they were received at the Loo, where (as we shall see immediately) other matters were also discussed between the Electress Dowager and King William, and where he promised Sophia Charlotte to acknowledge her husband as the first King in Prussia. The desire of Sophia Charlotte’s consort (rather than her own) was consummated by their coronation as King and Queen of Prussia at Königsberg on January 18th, 1701—the year which likewise proved her mother’s conference with her host at the Loo not to have been held in vain.

To understand this result, it is necessary to go back a few years, and to recall the circumstances which, in 1696, had led to an earlier, but more transitory, visit on the part of the two Electresses to the Loo. The year 1696 was one of some importance in the history of the English Succession question. After the death of Queen Mary, on December 28th, 1694, some time had necessarily passed before even a conjecture could be formed as to the future intentions of King William, who was prostrated with grief. But he was only in his forty-fifth year, and his remarriage was therefore by no means an unlikely event. In the course of 1695, speculation was accordingly rife on the subject, and, taking time by the forelock, Louis XIV provided that any overtures made on William III’s behalf at Stockholm (for the hand of the Princess Hedwig Sophia) should meet with a cold reception. The hopes of the House of Savoy were once more aroused. The claims by descent of the Duchess Anna Maria, daughter of Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, and grand-daughter of Charles I, and of her issue, were superior to those of the Electress Sophia and the House of Hanover; and, in the twofold event of another son being born to Anna Maria and Victor Amadeus II, and of the boy being brought over to England and there educated as a Protestant, he might acquire a Parliamentary title. William III was supposed to look favourably upon this scheme; and, though, already in the summer of 1695, there were rumours of Savoy having entered into secret negotiations with France, Victor Amadeus was one of the Princes who, about this time, ratified the renewal of the Grand Alliance. But, in the following year, after France had paid the price of the restoration of Pignerol, the Duke of Savoy went over to her side (thus executing a movement of which he carried out the exact converse in 1703, early in the great War), and thereby closed any prospect of his House inheriting the English throne.