Chapter D: O. M (6)

Meanwhile, King William’s widowed state occupied the thoughts of the dynasty of whose close connexion with the House of Hanover we have just been treating. Immediately after the campaign of 1695 and the renewal of the Grand Alliance, the Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg had begun to sound King William, through the agency of his favourite, Keppel (soon afterwards created Earl of Albemarle), as to the royal intentions on the subject of a remarriage, with a view to directing the King’s attention to the Electoral Princess Louisa Dorothea, then fifteen years of age. In the following year, 1696, William had found himself the object of an unprecedented popularity in England, owing to the discovery of the Assassination Plot, at the time when James II was known to be preparing an invasion of these shores. The Jacobite interest, which was to have benefited by the most gracious proclamation ever drafted by the exiled King, experienced one of the most disheartening of its many rebuffs; and, instead of reconquering his kingdoms, James II informed the Abbot of La Trappe, that ‘all these attempts which seemed to be lost labour in the eyes of the world, were great advantages as he managed them in order to that great end which had now become his sole concern.’ Still, the ‘Prince of Orange’s’ weak condition of health prevented King James from regarding the chances of his restoration as at an end; and, in the event of his rival’s death, he was resolved to ‘return into England, though three men had not followed him.’[121] In May, 1696, King William resumed the command of the army in the Low Countries, but no military operations of importance took place; and, in the course of the summer, the Elector Frederick III, with his family and court, took up their residence at Cleves, whither the Duke of Celle likewise found his way, and whence in August the Electress Sophia Charlotte, with her mother the Electress Sophia, paid an _incognito_ visit to the Loo in the King’s absence. He was then invited to Cleves; but he preferred in the first instance to send two agents—an Englishman (Southwell) and a Dutchman (General Hompesch)—to report to him on the personality of the Princess Louisa Dorothea. Their reports were unfavourable, and, the King’s visit having been deferred on the plea of difficulties of ceremonial,[122] no less a personage than Portland was sent by him to Cleves to make another report. Though this again proved deterrent, William resolved to trust to his own eyes, and, in September, paid a visit to Cleves, of which a full account remains in a letter from Stepney, then in the royal suite, to Sir William Trumbull. The Princess stood, during four hours, as a spectatress of the royal game at _l’hombre_, while the favourite, Keppel, was accommodated with a seat. But the visit led to no result; and, when it became known that the two Electresses had abandoned their proposed tour through Holland, it was understood that the marriage project was for the present at an end.

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Footnote 121:

This was the time when James II refused Louis XIV’s offer of aid
towards securing for him the Polish throne, then vacant by the death
of John Sobiesky; on which occasion Sophia wrote to the Duchess of
Orleans that King James might pass for a saint, since we are told to
become as little children, or we shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven.

Footnote 122:

These were of a kind of which the Electress Sophia had, as we have
seen, had some experience. According to English usage, the King was
alone entitled to an arm-chair (_fauteuil_); but, according to the
German rule, the Electors were privileged to occupy an arm-chair even
in the presence of the Emperor. Hence the King and the Elector could
not _sit_ in one another’s company; and, when the King actually came
to Cleves, the Elector had to absent himself from the royal _partie_.

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Whether or not because of his own unwillingness to contract a second marriage, as well as on account of the secession of the House of Savoy from the Grand Alliance, the attention of William III, in the latter part of 1696, turned more decisively than before to the Electress Sophia and the House of Hanover. He interested himself directly in the still unsettled question of the admission of the Elector of Hanover into the Electoral College. About the same time (October), when George William of Celle had returned home from a long visit to the Loo, whither he had proceeded from Cleves, Leibniz (who, it must be remembered, was in the service of the entire House of Brunswick-Lüneburg) put forth one of those feelers by which he is henceforth found from time to time endeavouring to test the sentiments of the Electress Sophia on the Succession question. Though on this occasion he approaches the subject most cautiously, it may be looked upon as significant that he prophesies for Sophia’s grandson a renewal of the historic achievement of William III. Nothing, however, could be more explicit than her reply refusing to act on his insinuation. Two months later, she wrote to her niece, the Raugravine Louisa, then on a visit to London, where she had met with scant courtesy on the part of the Princess Anne, that everything ‘Palatine’ seemed to have quite fallen into oblivion in England, nor did anybody there remember her (the Electress’) existence, inasmuch as there was no apparent intention of allowing the Crown to descend to her family.

During the period immediately ensuing, William III was necessarily occupied by the task of securing his own seat upon the English throne, rather than by that of determining its ulterior devolution. The success of the peace negotiations which opened at Ryswyk, in June, 1697, was rendered more than doubtful by the avoidance of any direct communication between the representatives of the King of France and of the King of England, whom Louis had as yet refused to recognise; and William III had accordingly taken the startling step of entering into a secret negotiation with France. Among the extraordinary rumours that hereupon spread as to the compromise contemplated by the two sovereigns, was one, wholly false, which contrived to make its way into ‘history.’ William, it was said, intended to purchase peace by promising to secure the Succession to the English Crown to the son and heir of James II. In the instrument of the peace, William was not actually recognised as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland by Louis XIV; but he was mentioned as such in the preamble, and secured in his possession of these kingdoms by a formula binding Louis XIV to refuse any direct or indirect assistance to William’s enemies. Indeed, this indirect recognition, and the check which it implied upon the original designs of Louis, constituted England’s chief gain by the peace. William’s motives for seeking, in the period next ensuing, to remain on good terms with Louis XIV, cannot be discussed here; but they help to account for a certain slackness on William’s part in his dealings with the Succession question, at a time when it was becoming of the highest importance for the future of his kingdoms.

In the autumn of 1698, however, shortly after the secret conclusion of the First Partition Treaty between Louis XIV and William III, the latter took up this question of a Succession which concerned him more nearly than that to the Spanish monarchy. He was in the habit of annually welcoming to the Loo, at this season, his old friend and fellow-sportsman, Duke George William of Celle; but on the present occasion they met in the hunting-castle of the Göbrde,[123] near Lüneburg. The Elector George Lewis also put in an appearance there, as did his son, the Electoral Prince George Augustus, and his daughter, Sophia Dorothea the younger, then eleven years of age. Although Count Tallard, the French ambassador at the Court of St. James, was thoroughly puzzled as to the purpose of the King’s journey, it could be no secret to the members of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In September, the Princess Anne, who stood next in the Succession so long as King William remained childless, had given birth to another still-born infant; and her only surviving child, the Duke of Gloucester, was known to be in weak bodily health. Nor could any reliance be placed upon Princess Anne herself, who was in constant communication with St. Germains, and who, had her father but given his assent to her mounting the throne in due course, would have been glad enough afterwards to play it into the hands of her half-brother. King William must, therefore, manifestly have visited the Brunswick-Lüneburg territories with at least a predisposition towards placing the House of Hanover in a more satisfactory position, in regard to the Succession, than it held at present; but he had no reason for supposing that the members of that House were themselves eager to meet him half-way. Strangely enough, the personage who now came forward to urge upon him a decisive course, was the Duchess Eleonora of Celle—perhaps with a view to thus recovering some of the influence lost to her through her daughter’s catastrophe, perhaps in the hope of mitigating the effects of that catastrophe for the unhappy Sophia Dorothea herself, or simply from an inborn love of diplomatic action and a general desire to make things pleasant. Leibniz afterwards assumed to himself the credit of having given her the first hint of speaking to the King. This she did before he quitted the Göhrde, representing herself as obeying an inspiration from Hanover, and begging her royal guest—now that the House of Savoy was out of the question—to promote the placing of the Electress Sophia and her descendants in the Succession. When the King pointed out that the Duke of Gloucester, though in delicate health, might imitate him by growing up into manhood, Eleonora further suggested that her grand-daughter, Sophia Dorothea the younger, would be a suitable match for the Duke. George William of course agreed _ex post facto_ to the step taken by his wife, but stipulated that it should be mentioned to his nephew, the Elector, who gave vent to his annoyance that the King should be led to suppose him to have sanctioned this manœuvre. But, when the King met the Electress Sophia at Celle, he referred to the question of establishing her and her descendants’ claim, and, as Leibniz expresses it, made considerable advances in this direction. Sophia, we may be sure, received these advances discreetly; but that she should have rejected them, or have met them with coldness, is a conjecture unwarranted by her conduct either before or after. Neither can she be shown to have viewed with displeasure the activity, restless though it undoubtedly was, of Leibniz, who about this time corresponded with London as frequently as possible and encouraged the efforts of a Hanoverian agent there. Had Sophia taken up an attitude of indifference, King William would hardly, in June, 1699, have informed her in writing that he had used his best endeavours to bring the business to a conclusion satisfactory to her, and that he felt assured of effecting his purpose within a very short space of time. It is, moreover, significant that the two branches of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg were acting in perfect harmony with one another; in May, Gargan, the Electress’ secretary, declares it impossible to listen without emotion to the conversations between the two illustrious ladies (Sophia and Eleonora), whom he describes as related to one another not less closely by blood than by friendship.

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Footnote 123:

This favourite seat of both George I and George II was in September,
1813—shortly before Leipzig—the scene of a Hanoverian success against
a French division.

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The reason why the Celle interview led to no immediate results in England lay, not in Sophia, but in the discordant relations between King William and his Parliament, caused mainly by his policy with regard to the Spanish Succession, into which of course the Electress and the House of Hanover had not been initiated. So late as July, 1700, she wonders what interest England and the United Provinces could have in seeking to cement the power of France. The unfriendliness of Parliament to the King had been heightened when, about a month earlier, the substance of the Second Partition Treaty had become known in this country; and, as matters now stood, there was little or no chance of the House of Commons in particular agreeing to any proposals concerning the Succession that should emanate from the King. In the midst of this trouble, less doubt than ever remained as to the decrease of his physical strength, at no time anything but precarious; so that, after Anne, the only hope for the Succession depended on the feeble vitality of the young Duke of Gloucester. Suddenly, on July 30th, 1700, the frail thread of his life was snapped, and the prospect had vanished of a successor who would have been generally acceptable, and, in all probability, have proved both an intelligent and a kindly ruler. In announcing the news to the Electress Sophia from Berlin, her vigilant monitor, Leibniz, promptly pointed out that it would now more than ever be time to think of the English Succession. But it so chanced that already, three days previously, she had written to him on the same subject from Hanover, exhibiting her usual perfect self-control. Though she took very coolly the news of the young Duke’s ‘decampment’—as she called his death, perhaps in cynical allusion to his innocent military tastes,—she by no means showed herself blind to the importance of the event. Were she younger, she told Leibniz, when informing him that, in October, 1700, the Duke of Celle was to visit King William at the Loo, she might fairly have looked forward to a Crown; as it was, had she the choice, she would rather see her years increase than her grandeur. But she well knew that persons in her station rarely have a choice, if they are resolved not to fall short of their sense of duty. She could hardly be aware of the fresh intrigues that were being carried on by the Princess Anne, or of the hopes, still entertained by certain of William’s most loyal English subjects, that he would marry again, perhaps this time choosing a Danish princess. But she could not have remained unaware that the thoughts of a wider circle of Englishmen were taking the direction of Hanover. Partly, however, under the influence of the regrets caused by the recent death of the young Duke of Gloucester, partly because of the wish to secure an heir to the throne young enough to be Anglicised and, more especially, _Anglicanised_ before his advent to it, politicians, and Tory politicians in particular, were as yet intent rather upon the ultimate succession of the Electoral Prince than upon that of his father, the Elector, or that of his grandmother, the Dowager Electress.

At the meeting of King William with the Duke of Celle at the Loo, it was arranged that he should receive there the Electress Sophia and the Electress of Brandenburg, on the occasion of the visit to the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle on which the latter had persuaded her mother to accompany her. Burnet insists that now ‘the eyes of all the Protestants of the nation turned towards the Electress of Brunswick’; but the arrival in Holland, as his mother’s and grandmother’s visit drew to a close, of the young Electoral Prince of Brandenburg (afterwards King Frederick William I of Prussia) seems to have vividly suggested to William III the notion of placing the heir of the Hohenzollerns in the position left vacant by the Duke of Gloucester. This passing fancy may be regarded as the sequel of a not less transitory ambition which appears to have flitted through the mind of the Elector Frederick III, of taking advantage of the Princess Anne’s unpopularity to endeavour himself to find his way to the English throne. The idea of including the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg in the Succession could not of course be welcome to the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg; and we accordingly find Bothmer, who was in the Celle service as envoy at Paris and was soon to play an important part in the progress of the Succession question, complaining to Ilten (August 31st, 1700) that the Berlin Ministry were preparing for their young Prince the plurality of King of Prussia, Stadholder, and King of England. Count Platen afterwards stated that he had heard it suggested that the Calvinism of Berlin might suit King William better than the Lutheranism of Hanover. Nor is it at all unlikely that he recognised in the Electoral Prince the germ of administrative powers to which full justice has only very tardily been done.[124] But, however this may have been—and perhaps something might be said as to the religious influence noticeable in this period of Hanoverian history—there is no proof that William III seriously thought of adopting the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg, or of introducing him in any other way into the English Succession. Moreover, even had this been on his part more than a passing wish, he of course possessed no right of nomination. No doubt, he would more speedily have dismissed the fancy, had he believed the House of Hanover to be very eagerly intent upon the prospect now opening before it. But, at all events it is neither proved nor probable, that at the Loo the Electress Sophia once more rejected the overtures of her host on the subject of the Succession. The question possesses so much significance, if we are desirous of forming a judgment as to the whole tenor of her conduct in this matter, that it must needs be dwelt upon at some length. What actually passed between her and the King on the occasion is unknown; and her behaviour can only be conjectured from the attitude which she maintained during a journey undertaken by her, it must be remembered, in the first instance at all events, in her daughter’s interest rather than in her own.

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Footnote 124:

It may be noted that Borkowski, _Königin Charlotte als Mutter und
Erzieherin_ (in _Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch_ for 1903), defends the Queen
against the charge of having insufficiently cared for the education of
the heir to the throne, and cites in proof letters addressed by her to
Alexander von Dohna, whom she selected and maintained against all
opposition as the supervisor of her son’s education.

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At Aix-la-Chapelle Sophia had received a remarkable letter from Stepney, written from London about the middle of September, in which he reviewed the entire situation. Remembering that in her veins ran the blood of the Stewarts, and that her personal reminiscences mounted back to the days of Oliver Cromwell, he excused himself from offering a decided opinion of his own as to the genuineness of ‘_le Fils_,’ but pointed out that there was no chance of his ever abandoning the religion of Rome, or escaping from the political leading-strings of France. On the other hand, he assured the Electress that the English were not Republicans at heart, and that among them there was nobody capable of playing Oliver’s part over again as ‘Captain-General.’ In response to his modest appeal for a reply (by means of which he no doubt hoped to be able to clear up the situation at head-quarters), Sophia wrote the letter, undated, in which, from Lord Hardwicke downwards, so many critics have found indications of her Jacobite tendencies. In this letter she declares that, were she thirty years younger, she would have sufficient confidence in her descent and in the religion professed by her, to believe in her being thought of in England. After her death, which in the natural course of things would precede the deaths of the King and his appointed successor, her sons would be regarded as strangers. Moreover, the eldest of them was far more accustomed to sovereign authority than was the poor Prince of Wales, who was so young and would be so glad to recover what his father had thrown away that they would be able to do with him what they liked. After referring to her hope of shortly seeing the King in Holland, whither she had been induced by her daughter to accompany her, she added that she was of course neither so philosophical nor so foolish as to dislike hearing a Crown talked of, or as to refuse full consideration to her correspondent’s extremely sensible and obliging remarks on the subject, though the number of factions apparently existing in England made it difficult to feel sure about anything.

Such is the substance of what is sometimes cited as the ‘Jacobite letter’ of the Electress Sophia. Clearly, it is nothing of the kind; but at most shows that, while primarily desirous of deferring all discussion till she should meet the King, she desired to apprise him, through a safe channel, that she was alive to the _cons_ as well as the _pros_—the uncertainties as well as the opportunities—of the situation. Above all, she wished to show herself aware of the possibility of that situation being fundamentally changed by the conversion to Protestantism of the ‘Prince of Wales,’ as—assuredly without any _arrière pensée_—she naturally called the kinsman whose claim to this title she had never professed to doubt. Nor is any ‘Jacobitism’ on her aunt’s part proved by the Duchess of Orleans’ nearly contemporary graphic account of King James II’s tender sentiments towards the Electress, who, as he stammered, ‘_m’a tou-toujours aimé_.’

The visit to the Loo was succeeded by a brief meeting between the King and the two Electresses at the Hague, just before his departure for England. It was on this occasion that Sophia Charlotte was accompanied by her son Frederick William, for whom the King manifested a sudden personal fancy. Whether under its influence, or because he had resolved to respond to Sophia’s guarded attitude by maintaining a reserve of his own, or, as is most probable, because English opinion was in his judgment, as well as in hers, still unripe for action—certain passages in the Electress’ correspondence with the Raugravine Louisa, a few months later in date, show that William III had not arrived at any immediate decision as to naming the Electress and her descendants in the Succession, though he had held out to her the prospect of such a result being brought about. This implies that she had by no means refused to entertain such a proposal. In a word, the attitude of cautious expectancy maintained by her and her House, was confirmed by her brief personal intercourse with the actual occupant of the English throne.

Before the end of this year, 1700, all hesitation vanished from the policy of William III. His hopes of securing the peace of Europe by an international agreement based on the Second Partition Treaty were finally extinguished, when the death of Charles II of Spain, on November 1st, was followed by the acceptance of his will, bequeathing the whole of the Spanish monarchy to the Duke of Anjou, by that Prince’s grandfather, Louis XIV. In February, 1701, French troops surprised the Dutch garrisons in the Barrier fortresses; and the States General recognised King Philip of Spain. The question whether England would follow suit, or declare war, would have to be decided by the new Parliament, summoned for February, 1701, ‘in respect of matters of the highest importance’; which expression, as de Beyrie, the Hanoverian resident in London, informed the Electress, unmistakably applied to the choice of the Duke of Anjou, and to the English Succession. Stepney, or some other correspondent, had previously apprised her of the course which events might be expected to take in Parliament with regard to the Succession. The Whigs would press for a further limitation in the Protestant line, and, if necessary, for the exclusion of any child or pretended child of James II except the Princess Anne. An effort (proceeding from the Marlborough interest) in favour of the Princess Anne’s consort, Prince George of Denmark, would serve to lead Parliament to the direct Protestant line, beginning with the Electress Sophia, and going on to the Elector and the Electoral Prince. Early in the same month (November) the Electress, who was accompanied by Leibniz, conferred with her brother-in-law at Celle. The Elector George Lewis was not present; and the confidential memorandum on the rights of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg in respect of the English Succession drawn up immediately afterwards by Leibniz for the use of Cresset, then at Celle, contained a significant passage. The Succession, it was observed, could much more easily be secured by the House, while King William, Duke George William, and the Electress Sophia were still ‘_pleins de vie_.’ Soon afterwards, Sophia herself drafted a letter, which was approved by the Duke of Celle, asking the King’s advice as to the course of action to be pursued; and Leibniz, who thought this insufficient, was permitted to compose a supplementary letter to Stepney, for the information of Baron Schütz, who represented the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg at the Court of St. James.[125] In this it was suggested that, while the Electress wished not to appear at present to be taking any active steps, a further limitation of the Act of Settlement might advantageously be promoted in England by means of private overtures and of pamphlets not purporting to emanate from Hanover. The Electress once more showed a judgment superior to that of Leibniz, who, in his zeal, offered, if called upon, to proceed to London in person, but whom, in May, 1701, Stepney informed that, in his opinion, the English nation was so well disposed towards the Hanoverian Succession that neither pamphlets nor men of talent were needed to push it.

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Footnote 125:

She told Schütz, about this time, that she was very sensible of the
kindness shown her by the English people, but very sorry that she was
so old that she would never be of any use to them, and much annoyed
that her son had not the same inclinations on this head as she had
herself, and made no secret of his sentiments.

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In the meantime, Parliament, which sat from February to June, had nearly concluded its session. The Speech from the Throne had duly recommended the further limitation of the Succession in the Protestant line; and a proposal for carrying this recommendation into effect was, without loss of time, brought forward by the Whigs in the House of Commons (March 3rd). But, though the Tory majority in the House was not as a whole unfriendly to the Hanoverian claims, the opinion prevailed that it would be well to postpone the naming of any further successor, until certain additional securities had been obtained for the rights and liberties of the subjects of the Crown. It was generally understood that the Electress Sophia should be named; but some desired to name the Elector and the Electoral Prince likewise, in the expectation that the Electress Dowager and the Elector would waive their claims. On the other hand, it was felt that such an arrangement would involve a difference between the English and the Scottish limitation, which latter had, already in 1689, been made to include Sophia’s name; and this could not have been easily set right until the anti-English feeling excited in Scotland by the Darien Settlement affair should have had time to subside.

Thus, after the eight articles had been agreed upon which were to take effect from the beginning of the new limitation to the House of Hanover, and some of which were, as a matter of fact, dictated by jealousy of the rule of a foreign line, the name of the Electress Sophia was inserted without opposition; and by the _Act for the further Limitation of the Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects_—called in short the _Act of Settlement_—the Crown of England was, in default of issue of the Princess Anne or King William III, settled upon the Electress and her posterity, being Protestants. A protest, inspired by the Duke of Berwick acting under instructions from Louis XIV was, indeed, raised by the Duchess Anna Maria of Savoy, and communicated to both Houses of Parliament by the envoy of Duke Victor Amadeus II; but no notice was taken of it.[126] On June 12th, 1701, the Act of Settlement received the royal assent, and, in his Speech from the Throne, King William, after thanking the two Houses for further securing the Protestant Succession, passed on to the subject of the Grand Alliance. The answer of the House of Commons was an Address promising to support the King in sustaining the alliances deemed necessary by him for upholding the liberty of Europe and the welfare of England, and for reducing the exorbitant power of France.

The Act of Settlement, which secured the Hanoverian Succession, accordingly at the same time imposed certain fresh restrictions of the prerogative, which had an important bearing upon the nature of the royal authority exercised by Sophia’s posterity. Furthermore, the Act, in which both the great English political parties concurred, secured the Hanoverian Succession at a time when the critical struggle was about to open between France and the renewed Grand Alliance; and thus, at the very moment when the House of Hanover acquired a Parliamentary title to the expectancy of the English throne, it was, again with the assent of both parties, identified with the adversaries of France in the great European conflict. Nor is it without significance that at this very time a Pope (Clement XI) had been seated in St. Peter’s Chair, who, in a far greater measure than his predecessor—for Innocent XII had on the whole disappointed the hopes of Louis XIV—served the interests of France. The letter addressed by Clement XI on his election in November, 1700, to James II, had, in its ‘beautiful terms of paternal tenderness,’ drawn tears ‘more from the heart than from the eyes’ of the exiled King.

Throughout these transactions, the conduct of the Electress Sophia had been uniformly judicious—observing a wise mean between the adoption, as a matter of course, of the advice readily given to her by Leibniz, and an absolute impassiveness like that maintained by her eldest son. It seems unwarranted to regard her as having energetically defended her rights up to the time when policy and the condition of affairs in England imposed upon her a certain reserve, and having at the last enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing both King and Parliament sue for her acceptance of their offer. On the other hand, her conduct is misunderstood when she is supposed to have resisted so long as possible the unwelcome necessity of securing the inheritance of a throne to which she believed her kinsman, the Prince of Wales, to have had a just claim. She had frankly accepted the situation, and done her best to promote a solution in the interests of her dynasty, without going further than would have been either seemly or judicious. Her letter written on June 22nd, 1701, to Burnet (who describes himself as in more or less continuous correspondence with her from the death of the Duke of Gloucester onwards) exactly expresses her point of view. Though sensible of his affection to her in the matter of the Succession, which excluded all Catholic heirs, ‘who had always caused so many disorders in England,’ she felt herself ‘unfortunately too old ever to be useful to the nation.’ Yet she wished that ‘those who were to come after her might render themselves worthy of the honour awaiting them.’

On August 14th, 1701, the Earl of Macclesfield arrived in Hanover, in order formally to notify to the Electress Sophia the passing of the Act of Settlement, of which, kneeling before her, he presented her with a splendidly illuminated copy, still preserved in the Hanover Archives. Macclesfield appears to have been chosen for the office at his own request, as the son of a cavalier closely associated with Prince Rupert and a visitor at the Hague in Queen Elizabeth’s days, and therefore likely to be _persona gratissima_ to the Electress[127]—though his own antecedents rather associated him with the Mohocks. He was accompanied by three other Whig Lords, Say and Sele, Mohun (Macclesfield’s intimate, who is stated to have taken care to be on his best behaviour) and Tunbridge. In their suite was the ingenious Toland, with his enquiring eyes wide open, and in his pocket, according to Luttrell, a ‘treatise lately wrote in relation to the Succession, intituled _Anglia Libera_, or The Limitation and Succession of the Crown explained and asserted,’ for presentation to the Electress. With them were also ‘Mr. King the herald,’ who brought the Garter for the Elector, and Dr. Sandys, the ambassador’s chaplain, who read the common prayers of the Church of England before the Electress in her ante-chamber. ‘She made the Responses, and performed the Ceremonys as punctually as if she had been us’d to it all her life.’ These and other details may be read in Toland’s _Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover_, which he published after his return. He was particularly anxious to recount the honours which he had received at Hanover and Herrenhausen, including that of conversing with the Electress, who, on one occasion, had told him that ‘she was afraid the Nation had already repented their Choice of an old Woman, but that she hop’d none of her Posterity wou’d give them any Reason to grow weary of their Dominion’—much the same words as those which she had used to Burnet.

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Footnote 126:

‘I do not see,’ writes Sophia in April, 1701, ‘how he can claim the
English Crown before King James and his two sons, being himself as
much a papist as they are; but perhaps he is offering to have his son
educated in the Anglican religion.’

Footnote 127:

She writes that Macclesfield’s father had been most friendly to her as
well as to Prince Rupert—‘_car il voulait me donner au roi
Charles_.’—Macclesfield died shortly after his journey to Hanover.

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We need not dwell upon the solemnities at Hanover and Celle, whither the special embassy proceeded in due course, nor upon the lavish munificence bestowed upon the ambassador,[128] nor upon the medals distributed in honour of the event, among which none was more remarkable than that which exhibited the portrait of the English Matilda, the consort of Henry the Lion, and, on the reverse, that of the Electress Sophia, ‘_Angliae princeps ad successionem nominata_.’ But it may be worth our while in our next chapter to return to Toland, and to his account of the Court of Hanover, as giving an interesting, though no doubt rather rose-coloured, picture of the Electress and her surroundings, at a point of time which may be described as the climax of her fortunes.

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Footnote 128:

The Electress bestowed on him a golden ewer and her portrait in a
jewelled frame—the total expense amounting to 20,000 dollars—rather
more than two-thirds of the sum spent during twoscore years on the
maintenance of the palace buildings at Hanover. No wonder that this
profuse expenditure was looked upon without much satisfaction in the
long years of waiting that ensued.

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V
THE HEIRESS OF GREAT BRITAIN
(HERRENHAUSEN, 1701-1714)

Great Britain was never to see the face of its heiress, and the widowhood of the Electress Sophia was almost entirely spent in the tranquillity of Herrenhausen. More than any other place associated with her name, this palace and its still delightful gardens, in the midst of which her statue now stands, recall her regal personality. The building of the palace that was so long her home, and the laying-out of the gardens where Leibniz was so frequent a companion of her long daily walks, were begun by Duke John Frederick as early as the year 1665, when the old hunting-box of Lauenstädt was transferred hither. Herrenhausen Palace seems to have been reconstructed, under the superintendence of Sartorio, in imitation of the new palace at Osnabrück, of which, as has been seen, the younger brother, Ernest Augustus, had more or less borrowed the design from the Luxembourg at Paris. Ernest Augustus and Sophia elaborated John Frederick’s beginnings, considerably enlarging the gardens, which were designed by the elder Charbonnier, and carried out by him and his son, in 1697, though it was not till 1705 that the Elector George Lewis caused them to be completed in their present form, which suggests Dutch influences. Thus a pleasing mixture of styles and associations is presented by the solid clipped hedges, some of which in the garden theatre serve as side-scenes and conceal dressing-rooms (these are attributed specially to Quirini), by the prim summer-houses and the wilderness, by the grottoes and the cascades with their stalactites and shells, and by the profusion of statuary in gilt lead among the hedges and in cool marble by the artificial water. It was in these gardens that, during her married life, when she was already accustomed to solitude, Sophia consoled herself with the company of the nightingales, and here that, in 1700, she is found amusing herself with her ducks and swans, and with the new lodgings erected by her for their convenience. She had a genuine fondness for innocent open-air delights; at Lützenburg she speaks of her promenades with her daughter as affording her the greatest delight, while her sons disported themselves at the opera and at comedies played by ‘noble’ comedians; and on the gravelled paths of her Herrenhausen gardens she indulged her love of walking almost literally to the moment of her death. No fine day was allowed to pass without an hour or two—or even more—of her favourite pastime; and her persistency tired out all her attendants, except, as Toland elegantly puts it, when they had the honour of enjoying her conversation.[129]

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Footnote 129:

Sophia’s love of walking seems to have been inherited by her eldest
son. Marshal Schulenburg, when on a visit to his sister, the Duchess
of Kendal, at Kensington, in 1727, describes his life there as
fatiguing, inasmuch as he had to promenade with the King in the
gardens every evening for three or four hours.

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Among the buildings at Herrenhausen, where Sophia spent the greater part of her life from 1698 to 1714, the Orangery, one of the largest of its kind in Europe, ought specially to attract the visitor, since a portion of it was the residence, modest in dimensions, but decorated in a florid Italian style, of the Electress Dowager. It had been erected in 1692; its great hall was painted by Tommaso Giusti and stuccoed by Dossa Grana. The Electress’ rooms are small and narrow, but overloaded with decorations, and not in the most perfect taste, with the exception of the fine portal into the little garden.[130] There seems no reason for crediting her with an artistic taste transcending that of most of her contemporaries, or sufficiently formed to maintain the Dutch preferences of her younger days against the more debased French and Italian, but more especially Italian, modes favoured by her husband and his brother.[131] Clever with her hands as in every other way, she understood the use of the brush[132] as well as of the embroidery needle;[133] but neither artistic industry nor art, although as a descendant of the Stewarts she had doubtless inherited some love of both, was a sphere in which she sought to shine. Her husband consistently treated art as a mere handmaid to luxurious self-indulgence; thus, while he devoted nearly 25,000 dollars to the furnishing and adornment of his new opera-house, he wasted an even larger sum in the expenditure of a single carnival season.

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Footnote 130:

See A. Haupt, _u.s._

Footnote 131:

She expresses extreme delight with the changes effected by Count
Rochus Quirini zu Lynar, who directed the building operations of the
Hanoverian Court, in the hunting-box of the Göhrde.

Footnote 132:

A copy of a portrait of her nephew, Raugrave Maurice, is attributed to
her.

Footnote 133:

The coverings of the chairs in the presence-chamber at Hanover, as
well as those of the altar in the palace chapel there, were
embroidered by her hands. She also embroidered a chair-cover for
Baroness Kielmannsegg—an attention bearing out the statement as to the
relations between that lady and the Electoral family given above. King
Frederick I of Prussia mentions his mother-in-law’s beautiful cabinet
of china at Herrenhausen.

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Sophia had never shown much sympathy with what may be called the Venetian tastes of her husband; and, after her youth had ebbed away, had more and more come to live an intellectual life of her own. Perhaps, before recalling the political incidents of her last thirteen years in connexion with the question which invested them with an European significance, we may pause for a moment to summarise our impressions as to the most important features of her mind and character, as they present themselves to us more especially in these final years. The tragic part of her life was now over; but, as has been well said by the finest of the modern critics of her career, Professor Kuno Fischer, she had herself never played the part of a tragedy queen. Even a panegyric like that pronounced upon her by the old Hanoverian historian Spittler—by no means an undiscerning flatterer—seems too highly strung. He speaks of the ‘_Teutschgründliche überfürstliche Aufklärung_’—as who should say, the enlightenment above the ordinary enlightenment of princes, and one in its depth and thoroughness possible only to the Germanic mind—that rendered her deserving of the friendship of Leibniz. Beyond a doubt, Sophia was distinguished by an intellectual curiosity that was still uncommon, though much less so than is often supposed, among the women of her age. This curiosity her linguistic attainments (she was, as has been seen, from her youth up mistress of half a dozen languages) had long enabled her freely to satisfy. To the excellent system of education under which she had been trained she owed her acquaintance with various elements of theology, philosophy, and history. This knowledge she had improved in the course of a long life, abounding in (often involuntary) intervals of leisure, and bringing with it not a few special opportunities of learned intercourse. She had spent some years at Heidelberg, once more a fountainhead of learning; and, already at Osnabrück, she had been ambitious of converting that modest episcopal city into a centre of philosophical speculation, holding colloquies there with Francis Mercurius von Helmont, the interesting son of the great physicist.[134] At a later date she read at least one of Spinoza’s works, towards which she seems to have been drawn by ideas of moral philosophy in which some resemblance to his has been thought traceable.[135] Yet it may be doubted whether either here or afterwards at Hanover and Herrenhausen she was ever a profound student, or even so much as an ardent reader of books. She was fond of reading memoirs—such as those of Pierre Chanut, French ambassador at the Court of Christian of Sweden, or the celebrated autobiography of Marshal de Bassompierre. She had, also, a _penchant_ for novels, preferring to the fashionable long-winded romances of her youth works enlivened by a humour congenial to her own. She asked Leibniz to draw up for her a list of all the novels she had read; for she had come to an end with _Don Quixote_ and _Don Guzman d’Alfarache_, of which she preferred the former. Of German romances, it is almost equally to her credit that she mentions _Simplicissimus_, while avoiding the stagnant fashionable bombast of her age.[136] A still more striking testimony to her critical insight may be found in the remark, which the admiring Duchess of Orleans states to have been confirmed by the Elector Palatine Charles Lewis, that nobody in the world better possessed Michel de Montaigne better than her aunt Sophia. Nor was she afraid of even more potent draughts; for, during her return journey from Italy, the _Gargantua_ was read to her by Ezechiel Spanheim, divine and diplomatist. On the other hand, she does not appear to have greatly cared for historical reading on its own account; according to Leibniz, the reason why she took pleasure in Clarendon was ‘because she was acquainted with many persons mentioned by him.’ Yet she had no personal acquaintance with the Emperor Justinian, whom, as known to her from the Byzantine historian Procopius, she compares with Louis XIV. She certainly had a liking for moral theology and philosophy, which were, in general, more in the way of the ladies of the period than the historical sciences. She had read Boëtius, and was invited by Leibniz to read the Jesuit Friedrich von Spee, a leader in the crusade against that long-lived form of bigotry—the persecution of ‘witchcraft.’ Dogmatic theology had no charms for Sophia; and even the faithful Bishop Burnet’s book on a theme which ought to have interested her, namely, the Thirty-nine Articles, she put aside as ‘_bon à feuilleter, mais non pas à lire_,’ flippantly adding that the good binding of her copy would make it an ornament to her library. Philosophy, like religion, seems to have interested her primarily on the ethical side; the stoical maxims of Seneca and Epictetus had impressed her mind before it had opened itself to more comprehensive problems under the influence of Spinoza, whom, as we know, her favourite brother had sought to domesticate at Heidelberg, and afterwards, and, above all, under the influence of Leibniz. She can at no time have been very well seen in metaphysics, the study of which is held to contribute so largely to the formation of ideas on religion; she shared her eldest son’s somewhat crude notions on the origin of ideas, and would not—or could not—understand Leibniz’s argument about monads. Possibly, like many clever people of both sexes, she was rather too fond of startling her interlocutors; and the excellent Molanus respectfully shakes his reverend head at ‘_Serenissima nostra, quæ a paradoxis sibi temperare nunquam potest_.’ On the other hand, the diplomatist Thomas von Grote, another of her intimates, moved perhaps by a not unnatural jealousy, opined that the learned companions of her Herrenhausen walks would in the end take her a little out of her depth, though he had no fear that for her the consequences would be what they had been for Queen Christina of Sweden. As for the mathematical and physical sciences, she took that casual interest in them which, in the case of great personages, and of great ladies in particular, alternately makes the delight and the despair of _savants_; Leibniz distinctly states that works dealing in detail with such subjects are not among those which the Electress was fond of reading. When, in the last year of her life, the Czar Peter came to Hanover and talked mathematics to her, ‘she held her tongue.’

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Footnote 134:

He seems to have frequented her society up to a late date. In 1696 the
Duchess of Orleans expresses her pleasure that her aunt should have
his philosophy to amuse her—though, for her part, she ‘does not see
how one can understand anything of which one knows nothing.’ The
younger Helmont’s doctrine of metempsychosis was not in the long run
satisfactory to Sophia, who had once said that it might account for
her unlucky son Maximilian’s resemblance to the ‘seven old Dukes of
Brunswick,’ who called all their servants ‘thou’ and occupied
themselves with making nets and drinking warm beer.

Footnote 135:

See H. Forst, _u.s._, p. 378.

Footnote 136:

Of course, she had to read the _Mesopotamian Shepherdess_ of the
interminable Duke Anthony Ulric; but she compendiously set it down as
a burlesque on the Bible.

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