Lives of the queens of England of the House of Hanover

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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Chapter II. Wives And Fatoeites

I THINK it is the remark of Madame de Stael, — a lady, by the way, whom the Messrs. Goncourt in their one-sided history of French society, have described as having " the face of a lion ; purple, pimpled, and dry-lipped, rude in body as in ideas, masculuie in gesture, uttering in the voice of a boy her vigorous and swelling phraseology'' — ^nothing of which would be believed by those who have seen her only in Girard's picture, holding in her hand that little branch without which she knew not how to be eloquent ; — it is, I repeat, the remark of Madame de Stael, that society, and perhaps even Providence, vouchsafes but a single blessing to women — the being loved after marriage. Whether this be true or not, the blessing here named appears to have been the undisputed possession of the Lady of Harburg.

Such a household as that maintained in sober happiness and freedom from anxiety by herself and the duke was a rare sight, if not in Germany at least in German courts. The duke was broadly ridiculed because of his faithful affection for one who was worthy of all the truth and esteem which a true-hearted wife could claim. He could well afford to allow the unprincipled ,to ridicule what they could not realize ; and he held, with more honesty than ever distinguished knight in chivalrous tunes, that if it were disgraceful to commit a breach of faith even in gaming, it was doubly so to be guilty of such treachery in marriage.

It may well be imagined how hilariously this sentiment was contemplated by the princes of Germany, who aped Louis XIV. only in his vices and his arrogance, and who, while professing to be as wise as Solomon, followed the example of that monarch only in the matter of concubines.

The only fault that was ever brought by the bitterest of the enemies of the wife of the Duke of Zell against that unexceptionable lady was, that she was over-fond of nominating natives of France to little places in her husband's little court. Considering that the Germans, who looked upon her as an intruder, would not recognize her as having become naturalized by marriage, it is hardly to be wondered at that she gathered as much of France around her as she could assemble in another land. This done, her husband approving, and her child creating for her a new world of emotions and delights, she let those who envied her rail on, having neither time nor inclination to heed them.

But the sunshine was not all unclouded. Three other children were the fruit of this marriage, whose early deaths were deplored as so many calamities. Their mother lived long enough to deplore that Sophia Dorothea had survived them. This was the real sorrow of the mother's life ; and stupendous indeed must be the maternal aifliction which is based upon the fact that a beloved and only child does not lie coifined at her parents' feet.

The merits of the mother won, as they deserved to do increase of esteem and affection on the part of the duke. His most natural wish was to raise her to a rank equal to his own, as far as a mere name could make assertion of such equality. This, however, could not be effected but gradually and with a world of trouble, delay, disappointment, petitioning, and expense. It was thought a wonderful act of condescension on the part of the emperor, that he gave his imperial sanction to the elevation of the Lady of Harburg to the rank and title of Countess of Wilhelmsburg.

The Bishop of Osnaburgh was harder to treat with than the emperor. He bound down his brother by stringent engagements, solemnly engrossed in lengthy phrases, guarding against all mistake by horribly technical tautology, to agree that the encircling his wife with the coronet of a countess bestowed upon her no legal rights, and conferred no shadow of legitimacy, in the eye of the law, on the children of the marriage, actual or prospective. For such children, modest yet sufficient provision was secured; but they were never to dream of claiming cousinship with the alleged better-born descendants of Henry the Dog, or Magnus the Irascible.

George Wilham and Eleanora mildly acquiesced, and the Bishop of Osnaburgh turned the key of his family muniment chest, with the comfortable feeling of a man who has fenced his dignity and prospects with a safeguard that could not possibly be violated. George William looked at his wife with a smile, and uttered, in something of the fashion of the prophetic persons in Shakespeare's tragedy, — " Hail, Countess of Wilhelmsburg, Duchess of ZeU, hereafter ! "

I, of course, do not mean to imply that this was more than mentally uttered. That the idea possessed the duke, and that he acted upon it quite as much as if he had given it expression, and bound himself by its utterance, is clearly distinguishable by his subsequent action. He was resolved not to rest until his wife should also be his duchess. A " star-chamber matter" has been made of many a simpler thing, but a smile is allowable when we read of the fact that the Estates of Germany gravely discussed the subject as to whether a worthy wife should be permitted to wear the title which was commonly worn by her husband. This had once before been permitted to a single lady, who had given her hand, or, to speak more in the spirit of Brunswick court lawyers, whose hand had been graciously taken by a Brunswick duke. In the case, furnishing a precedent, the lady in question was at least a native of the duchy ; but in the present case a great difficulty presented itself, the lady was a foreigner with nothing ennobling her but her virtues. The Estates thought long, and adjourned often ere they came to a tardy and reluctant conclusion, by which the boon sought was at length conceded. When the emperor added his consent, there was many a princess in the various German courts who became tremblingly sensible that Teutonic greatness had been shattered for ever.

The concession made by the Estates, and the sanction superadded by the emperor, were, however, only obtained upon the mihtary bishop withholding all opposition. The princely prelate was, in fact, bought off. Again his muniment-box was unlocked ; once more he and his staff of lawyers were deep in parchments, and curious in the geography of territorial maps and plans. The result of much dry labor and heavy speculation was an agreement entered into by the two brothers. The Duke of Zell contracted that the children of his marriage, with the daughter of the Poitevin marquis, should inherit only his private property, and the empty title of Counts, or Countesses, of Wilhelmsburg. The territory of Zell with other estates added to the sovereign dukedom were to pass to the prince-bishop or his heirs. On these terms Eleanora of Olbreuse, Lady of Harburg, and Countess of Wilhelmsburg, became Duchess of Zell.

" Ah ! " exclaimed the very apostolic bishop to the dissolute disciples at his court, on the night that the family compact was made an accomplished fact, " my brother's French Madame, is not a jot the more his wife, for being duchess,"— which was true, for married is married, and there is no comparative degree of intensity which can be applied to the circumstance. " But she has a dif^nity the more, and therewith may Madame rest content," — which was not true, for no new title could add dignity to a woman like the wife of Duke George William. As to being content, she knew not what it was to lack content until after the period when Brunswick greeted her by an empty name.

As yet, however, all went, — if I may employ a simile much cracked by wear, — all went as merry as a marriage bell ; — save when the knell tolled for the three happy children who were summoned early to occupy graves over which their mistaken parents long and deeply mourned. Sophia Dorothea was the sole daughter then of their house, if not of their hearts, and she was a " thing of beauty," beloved by all, because of her worth, and flattered by none, because she was nobody's heiress.

Of the personal history of her youth, the most salient circumstance is, that when she was yet but seven years old, she had for an occasional playfellow in the galleries and gardens of Zell and Calenberg, a handsome lad, Swedish by birth, but German by descent, whose name was Philip Christopher von Konigsmark. He was in ZeU for the purpose of education, and many of his vacation hours were spent with the child of George William, who was his father's friend. When gossips saw the two handsome children, buoyant of spirit, beaming with health, and ignorant of care, playing hand in hand at sports natural to their age, those gossips prophesied " in bated breath,'' of future marriage. They could foretell " circumstance," like our laureate, and prattle in reference to these happy children, of

" Two lovers whisp'ring by an orchard wall, Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease : Two graves grass-green beside a gray church tower, Wash'd with still rains and daisy-blossomed ;" —

but their "circumstance" was as aerial as that of the poet, and they could not foresee the dark reality, — one child in a dungeon, the other in a blood}' grave.

Lideed their speculation in this direction had soon no food whereon to live, for the young Konigsmark was speedily withdrawn from Zell, and Sophia bloomed on alone, or with other companions, good, graceful, fair, accomphshed, and supremely happy.

But even daughter as she was of a left-handed marriage, there was hanging to her name a dower sufficiently costly to dazzle and allure even princely suitors. To one of these she was betrothed before she was ten years old. The suitor was a soldier and a prince, and ahhough not as much older than his little lady, than Richard II. was when at the age of nine and twenty, he espoused

■ the French Princess Isabella of Valois, with no more years upon her sunny brow than nine, — a child whom he married politically, loved paternally, and was beloved by filially, as he well merited ; — although the disparity was not so great, it was enough to bar anything beyond betrothment.

The princely lover in question was the cousin of the quasi princely lady, Augustus Frederick, Crown- Prince of Brunswick- Wolfenbuttel. This crown prince was allured by the "beaux yeux de la casette" of the little heiress. If Mr. Justice Alderson takes license to make puns when the court is dull and cases heavy, it may be pardoned a poor chronicler, if he marks down in his record, that the Crown Prince of Brunswick- Wolfenbuttel was mightily moved by the crowns sets down as the dower that was to go with the hand of the Duke's daughter. These were little better than half-crowns after all, — thalers worth about three shillings each, and of them one hundred thousand. The lover possibly exclaimed as Boileau's celebrated gentleman did —

EUe a cent mille vertus en louis bien comptees.

But for louis here were only thalers; and a hundred thousand thalers is at the most but fifteen thousand pounds sterling, and that was but an humble dower for a Duke's only daughter. In the country, where merchants are " princes," sires give as much to e?.ch of a whole circle of daughters ; but George William was cnly Duke of Zell.

In the meantime, the afiianced lover had to prove himself, by force of arms, worthy of his lady and her fortune. The latter, at least, was hardly worth the risk he ran to show himself deserving, and which deprived hun of that in honor of which he put himself in peril. At the time of which I am speaking there was as much murderous bad ambition abroad in the world as there now is heaping a mountain of responsibility for murder upon the head of the late Czar Nicholas. One of the consequences thereof was the noted siege of Philipsburg, in the year 1676. Thither repaired the chivalrous Augustus of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel. He went to the bloody work proudly, plume m helm, scarf on breast, and all the insignia of greatness about him. There was nothing in his nature of that humility, so selfish in aspect, which distinguishea Russian ofl5cers going into action, — gallant leaders, who deck themselves in the great coats of private soldiers, in order to avoid mortal honor from those opponents who seek to cross swords with men supposed to be worthy of their steel. This novel phasis of strategy, of Eussian introduction, was not yet known in the days of Augustus of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel. He was accordingly content to take his chance honestly and valiantly, and he bore himself with a dignity and daring that entitled him to respect. "With regret it must be added, that the fortune of war deprived him of that which he hoped to reap with the hand of Sophia Dorothea. A fatal bullet slew him suddenly ; a brief notice in a despatch was his soldierly requiem, and when the affianced child-bride was solemnly informed by circumstance of Hof-Marshal that her lord was slain and her heart was free, she was too young to be sorry, and too unconscious to be glad. But glad she would' not have been, had she known that by the slaying of one lover at Philipsburg she was ultimately to gain another, the gain of whom would prove a bitter loss.

Meanwhile, the two courts of the Bishop of Osnaburgh and the Duke of Zell, continued to present a striking contrast. At the latter, harmony and respectability reigned in common. At that of the Bishop there was little of either, even the ostentatious patronage bestowed on literature was not respectable, because it was ostentatious. It was, however, the best feature of which the Court had to boast.

The Bishop was one of those men who think themselves nothing unless they are imitating some greater man, not in his virtues but his vices. There was one man in Europe whom Ernest Augustus described as a " paragon," and that distinguished personage was Louis XIV. The vices, extravagance, the pomposity of the great king, were the dear delights of the little prince. As Louis neglected his wife, so Ernest Augustus disregarded his. Fortunately, Sophia, the wife of the latter, had resources in her mind, which made her consider with exemplary indifference the faithlessness of her lord. Assuredly, his, like Israel's incense, was too often cast upon unworthy shrines, and the goddesses who received it were in every respect unworthy of the homage. Every prince is not a Pericles, and if he were, he would find that every Lais, for being the favorite of a prince, is not necessarily as intellectually gifted as the extravagant and accomplished lady of old.

And yet, as far as regards a particular soi-t of extravagance and accomplishment, perhaps few ladies could have surpassed those known at Hanover as Catherine and Elizabeth von Meissengen. Introduced to a court of ill-dressed ladies, they set the fashion of a witchery of costume, remarkable for its taste, and sometimes for outraging it. Had they come straight from the euphuistic and gallantly attired circle of the Hotel de Kambouillet, they could not have been nicer of phrase nor more resplendent of gai'b. They possessed, too, the great talent of Madame de Sillery Genlis, and where inimitable in their ability and success in getting up little fites, at home or abroad, in the salon, or al fresco — formal and full-dressed, or rustic and easy — where major-generals were costumed as agricultural swains, and ladies of honor as nymphs or dairy-maids, with costumes rural of fashioning, but as resplendent and costly as silkman and jeweller could make them.

These young ladies came to Court precisely as knights used to do of old, — to push their fortunes, — but not exactly after a knightly fashion. They hoped in some way to serve the sovereign ; or, failing him, to be agreeable to the Crown Prince George Louis, (afterwards George I. of England). But even the Crown Prince, a little and not an attractive person, to say nothing of the Bishop, seemed for a time a flight above them. They could wait a new opportunity; for as for defeat in their aspirations, they would not think of it. They had the immense power of those persons who are possessed by one single idea, and who are under irresistible compulsion to carry it out to reality. They could not reach the Prince Bishop or his heir, and accordingly they directed the full force of their enchantments at two very unromantic-looking personages, the private tutors of the young princes of Hanover. They were soon mighty at Greek particles, learned in the aorists, fluent on the digamma, and familiar with the mysteries of the differential calculus.

Catherine and Elizabeth von Meissingen opened a new grammai- before their learned pundits, the Herrn Busche and Platen ; and truth to tell, the philosophers were nothing loth to pursue the new study taught by such professors. When this educational course had come to a close, the public recognized at once its aim, quaUty and effects, by learning that the sage preceptors had actually married two of the liveliest and lightest-footed of girls that had ever danced a hrank at the balls in Brunswick. Tlie wives, on first appearing in public after their marriage, looked radiant with joy. The tutors wore about them an air of constraint, as if they thought the world needed an apology, by way of explaining how two Elders had permitted themselves to be vanquished by a brace of Susannas. Their ideas were evidently confused, but they took courage as people cheerfully laughed, though they may have lost it again on discovering that they had been drawn into matrimony by two gracefully-graceless nymphs, whoso sole object was to use their spouses as stepping-stones to a higher greatness.

There must have been many attendant advantages in connection with such an object, or the two married philosophers would hardly have worn the air of content which they put on as soon as they saw the aim of their estimable wives, and felt the gain thence accruing.

Elizabeth von Meissengen, the wife of Platen, was the true mistress of the situation. Platen, principally through her intrigues, had been appointed prime-minister of the sovereign Bishop. The business to be transacted by potentate and premier could not have been very extensive, — but it was serious on one point, seeing that that had reference to the question of the succession of the House of Brunswick to the throne of Great Britain. But as this question was not one of a "much vexed" character, the time passed by Platen with his sovereign master afforded him ample leisure to talk of his wife, praise her political abilities, and over-eulogize her, as men and women do the consorts for whom they have no cause to bear an over-heaped measure of respect.

The Prince Bishop felt his curiosity excited to behold and study more nearly this phcenix of a woman. The curiosity of such a sovereign a loyal subject would, of course, be eager to gratify. It was, therefore, the most natural of consequences that von Platen should lead his lady to his master's feet, though it perhaps was not so natural that he should leave her there to " improve" the position thus reached.

The lady lost no time in justifying all that her husband had advanced in warranty of her talent, skill, and willingness to use them for the advantage of the Bishop and his dominions ; the powerful prelate was enchanted with her, — enchanted with her in every sense. Were I treating of mythic, classical, or romantic mediseval days, it would just be barely possible to throw a poetical feeling round such a " tableau " as that presented by the Bishop and the diplomatic Madame von Platen. But " Hebe in Hercules' arms " is very weU in statuary, and " Dido with -33neas " may be attractive on canvas, while the love adventures of Arthur, and the adventurous and liberal love of Guinever may amuse us in baUads, — ^but there is a light of reality that does not dazzle us like the light of romance. Full in such illumination is revealed to us the picture of Bishop Ernest and Elizabeth von Platen. A more shameless couple never stood at the tribunal of judgment ; but if they were not ashamed of their own iniquity, therein lies no reason why we should detail it. Quite sufficient will it be to remark that it had its reward ; and if the wages of sin, in this case, were not literally a death, they were at least quite as retributive, and not the more welcome.

When Alcides submitted to take the distaff of Omphale, and uncomplainingly endured to be buffeted by her slipper, he only afforded an illustration of how power may playfully make itself the slave of weakness, — there is even something pretty in the picture. It is strong man yielding to womanly influence ; and the picture only ceases to be heroic, without ceasing to be of an amiable aspect, when the chief character is poor, sickly, Cowper, winding up cotton in reels for good Mrs. Unwin.

But the obese Ernest Augustus in the hands of the youthful Elizabeth von Platen, reminds me of nothing so much as of the " Lion in Love," deservedly having his claws clipped by the clever object of his ridiculous adoration : the fate of the lion was also that of the Bishop. He was not, indeed, a man of weak mind, but that

SOPHIA IjOHOTI-IEA. 25

of Madame von Platen was still stronger. He could rule his minister, but not his minister's wife ; and most appropriately might he have made paraphrastic application of the line in Othello, and have declared his consciousness with a sigh, that his " general's wife was now the general."

CHAPTER ni.

THE BRUNSWICKER IN ENGLAND.

While all was loose and lively at the court of the Bishop, there was only tlie daily routine of simple pleasures and duties to mark tlie course of events at the modest court of the Duke of ZeU. The monotony of the latter locality was, liowever, agreeably interrupted by the arrival there of his Serene Highness Prince Augustus William of Wolfenbuttel. He had just been edified by what he had witnessed during his brief sojourn in the episcopal circle of Osnaburgh, where he had seen two ladies exercising a double influence, Madame von Platen ruling her husband and his master, while her sister Caroline von Busche was equally obeyed by Iter consort and his Highness George Louis, the Bishop's son.

Prince Augustus of Wolfenbuttel was the brother of that early suitor of the little Sophia Dorothea, who had met a soldier's death at the siege of Philipsburg. He was, like his brother, not as rich in gold pieces as in good qualities, and was more wealthy in virtues than in acres. He was a bachelor prince, with a strong inclination to lay down his bachelorship, at the feet of a lady who would, by addition of her dowry, increase the greatness and material comforts of both. Not that Augustus of WSlfenbuttel was mercenarj- ; he was simply prudent. A little princely state in Germany cost a great deal to maintain, and when the errant Prince went forth in search of a lady with a dower, his last thought was to offer himself to one who had no heart, or who had no place in his own. If there was some system, a little method, and an ^ir of business about the passion and principle of the puissant Prince Augustus, something thereof must be laid to the charge of the times, and a little to the princely matter-of-fact good sense : he is a wise and a merciful man, who, ere he comes to conclusions with a lady, on the chapter of matrimony, first weighs prospects, and estabUshes, as far as in him lies, a security of sunshine.

Augustus of Wolfenbuttel had long suspected that the sun of his future home was to be found at Zell, and in the person of his young cousin Sophia Dorothea. Even yet tradition exists among Brunswick maidens as to the love-passages of this accomplished and hand3ome young couple. Those passages have been enlarged for the purposes of romance-writers, but divested of all exaggeration, there remains enough to prove, as touching this pair, that they were well assorted both as to mind and person ; that their inclinations were towards each other ; and that they were worthy of a better fate than that which fell upon the honest and warm affection which reigned in the hearts of both.

The love of these cousins was not the less ardent for the fact of its being partially discouraged. The Duke of Zell looked upon the purpose of Prince Augustus with an unfavorable eye. He had indeed nothing to object to the suitor's person, character, position, or prospects. Ho did not deny that with such a husband, his daughter might secure that which Monsieur Necker's daughter has designated as woman's sole blessing, happiness in the married state ; but then that suitor was the successor of a dead brother, who had been the prosecutor of a similar suit. The simple-minded Duke had an unfeigned superstitious awe of the new lover ; and the idea of consenting to a match under the circumstances as they presented themselves, seemed to him tantamount to a species of sacrilege outraging the ?nanes and memoiy of the defunct kinsman.

But then, on the other hand, the Duke loved his daughter, and the daughter assuredly loved Augustus of Wolfenbuttel ; and, added thereto, the good Duchess Eleanora was quite disposed to see the cherished union accomplished, and to bestow her benediction upon the well-favored pair. Altogether, there were strong odds against the opposition of a father, which rested on no better foundation than a tripod, if one may so speak, of whim, doubt, and a fear of ghosts. He was influenced, possibly, by his extensive reading in old legendary ballad-lore, metrical and melancholy German romances, the commonest incident in which is the interruption of a marriage cei'emony by a spiritual personage professing priority of right.

It was not without infinite trouble that the lovers and the Duchess succeeded in breaking do^vn the opposition of the Duke. Even when his reluctant consent had been given, he was everlastingly bringing forward the subject of the departed suitors, until his remarks became as wearisome as the verses of the German author, who wrote a poem of three hundred lines in length, all about pigs, and every word of which began with the letter P.

The opposition to the marriage was not, however, all surmounted when the antagonism of the Duke had been successfully overcome. A father may be accounted for something even in a German dukedom ; but a mistress may be stronger, and Madame von Platen has the credit of having carried out her opposition to the match to a very successful issue.

It is asserted of this clever lady, that she was the first who caused the Bishop of Osnaburgh thoroughly to comprehend that Sophia Dorothea would form a very desirable match for his son George Louis. The young lady had lands settled on her which might as well be added to the territory of that electoral Hanover of which the Prince-Bishop was soon to be the head. Every acre added to the possessions of the chief of the family would be by so nmcli an increase of dignity, and little sacrifices were worth making to etFcQt great and profitable results. The worthy pair, bishop and female prime minister, immediately proceeded to employ every conceivable engine whereby they might destroy the fortress of the hopes of Sophia Dorothea and Augustus of Wolfenbuttel. They cared for nothkig, save that the hand of the former should be conferred upon the Bishop's eldest son ; that George who was subsequently our George I., and who had as little desire to be matched with his cousin, or his cousin with him, as kinsfolk can have who cordially detest each other.

George Louis was not shaped for a lover. He was not indeed as deformed as Prince Riquet with the tuft, but neither was he possessed of that legendary prince's wit, refinement, and most winning ways. George Louis was mean in person and character.

Epaminondas was little more than a dwarf, but then he was a giant measured by the stature of his worth. Not so this heir of great hopes ; he was the lord of small virtues ; and his insigiiificance of person was insignificant only because it bore not about it any manly stamp, or outward promise of an inward merit. George was brave indeed ; to none of the princes of the House of Bninswiek can be denied the possession of bravery. In aU the bloody and useless wars of the period, he had distinguished himself by his dauntless courage and his cool self-possession. I have intimated that he was not heroic, but I may correct the phrase ; he really looked heroic at the head of bis squadron, charging across the battle-field, and carrying his sword and his fringed and feathered hat into the very thickest of the fray, where the thunder was loudest, and death revelled amid the incense of villanous saltpetre. He did not fail, it may be added, in one of the characteristics of bravery, humanity on the field. He had no great heart for the common sufferings, or the mental anguish, of others ; but for a wounded foe he had a thorough English respect, and he no more dreamed of the Muscovite officers' fashion of massacring the helpless woimded enemy than he did of the Millennium.