IV THE ELECTORAL HOUSE OF HANOVER (HANOVER AND HERRENHAUSEN, 1688-1701) (continued 2)

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 282the 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.

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 283Hanover, 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 284his 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.

That the unfortunate prisoner should have gained the active goodwill, which the fair young Princess had never conciliated, of her mother-in-law, 285the 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.

286There 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 287with 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 288one, 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 289displayed 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 290follow 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.

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 291reason 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 292whisper 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 293assumed 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.

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 294intellectual 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 295simplicity, 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 296been 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 297illustration 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 298to 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]

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 299to 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 300Wartenberg 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.

301To 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; 302and, 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.

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 303proclamation 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 304agents—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.

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, 305in 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 306III 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 307be 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 308still-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, 309and 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 310had 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.

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 311of 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 312of 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 313have 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 314have 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.

At Aix-la-Chapelle Sophia had received a remarkable letter from Stepney, written from 315London 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 316young 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 317James 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 318Treaty 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 319Electress, 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.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 320purporting 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.

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 321Scottish 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 322William, 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 323France. 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 324onwards) 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 325eyes 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.

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 326upon 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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