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rheinsberg2021-08-05 05:24 pm
selenak) wrote in rheinsberg2021-08-05 05:24 pm
The First Iron Lady: A Life of Caroline of Ansbach
...by Matthew Dennison. A very readable and recent biography of Queen Caroline. Dennison would get the Horowski seal of approval: he spells all the German names correctly (which is a true challenge in the case of the Countess of Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg), is aware that the Countess of Kielmansegg was G1's half sister, not mistress, and while sympathetic to his main subject is able to investigate her less than stellar sides as well. (Though he thinks Wilhelmine has no idea what she's talking about with her powerhungry-as-Agrippina comparison, since she never met Caroline.) This is especially notable in the description of the increasingly toxic breakdown of the (non-)relationship between Caroline and her oldest son, but more about this in a moment.
The bibliography is impressive. (No books in German, but he's read all the English translations of Sophie's various correspondences he got his hands on, for example, as well as translated into English or French biographies.) I haven't come across an immediately noticeable error save one, and because he's so good otherwise, I'm now actually confused and uncertain whether he could have been right.
In every book except for this that I've read touching on the English Marriage Project, the cousin intended for Fritz (of Prussia) is named as Amelia/Emily. Dennison says it was her older sister Anne, and that Fritz of Wales and Anne as the oldest were intended for their counterparts Wilhelmine and Fritz of Prussia, also the oldest surviving kids. Like I said - I've always read that it was Amelia. I mean, even her wiki entry claims she kept a miniature of Fritz. And the famous letter Fritz was talked into writing to Caroline about vowingn to only marry her daughter I recalled as naming Amelia as well, but now I'm not sure anymore. Miiiiiiildred - could it have been Anne? (Until her marriage to yet another William of Orange, that is.)
mildred_of_midgard: whaaaaat?
I recall Amelia being named in that letter too! Yep, Mitchell--admittedly reporting decades later, but you wouldn't expect him to get it wrong--names Amelia when he has Fritz saying he shouldn't have written that letter.
Oncken definitely quotes from primary sources naming Amelia. One is Hotham, and one--I think, my German isn't quite up to reading as quickly as I'm being forced to right now, I'd get it if I slowed down--Reichenbach. That's in addition to Oncken's summaries of primary sources naming Amelia.
Koser also names Amelia. Once in a direct quote from a letter from Seckendorff to Eugene, which is in Förster. Yep, there it is, right there in Förster, July 1733, when the English decided they wanted the marriage after all, just as Fritz was getting married to EC: "que le Roy d'Angleterre donnera la main au marriage de Son Altesse Royale avec la Princess Amelie."
Also, Wilhelmine certainly thinks it's Amelia, and I'd think she would know! Even writing 10-20 years later, she's not likely to forget the double marriage project. [ETA: Yep, she's another source for the famous letter. She quotes from a followup letter at length, and reports Fritz writing, "I have already pledged my word of honor to your majesty never to marry any other but the princess Amelia your daughter."]
So I'm going to go with it being Amelia and resume reading your write-up.
On to the life of Caroline.
Her father, the Margrave of Ansbach, already had several sons when remarrying Caroline's mother, so that marriage was seen as a love match Alas he died just a few years later, and Caroline's mother could not handle widowhood at all, hence Caroline's education being neglected to the degree that she had to teach herself how to write and read. (Dennison gives a few examples for the fact she was never able to spell well in any of the languages she spoke - German, French and English - despite being a passionate reader and lover of scholarly debates - which was the long term result.) Her mother eventually married again, another widower, which was social step up and a human step down, for her second husband Johann Georg was the older brother of August the Strong, Prince Elector of Saxony before him. Johann Georg had a mistress, Magdalen Sybille, aka Billa, whom he had no intention of giving up and insisted on being treated as the true spouse. Her mother, Ursula, had been his father's mistress as well, and the question mark as to whether or not Billa could have been his half sister didn't seem to bother him. (One can see the family resemblance to August.) Billa eventually got infected by smallpox and died, Johann Georg, who had insisted on being with her, also got infected and died, and August the Strong started his ascendancy to the throne by putting about a hundred Bill-related people on trial for corruption and her mother Ursula for witchcraft (she'd been massively unpopular, so this was a cheap popularity gesture, and one of the last prominent witch trials).
What all this meant for Caroline was that she kept being shuffled between courts in her childhood: her mother's, her older half brother's at Ansbach (said older half brother, btw, eventually produced the son who'd marry Wilhelmine's and Fritz' sister Friederike, the first of the siblings to get married, and make her miserable), her stepfather's - and always in between the one of Sophie Charlotte and F1 in Berlin. The full name of Caroline's dad had been von Brandenburg-Ansbach, as the Margraves of Ansbach were an offshot of the Hohenzollern, too, so F1 was the ultimate overlord of the family, so to speak, and had offered her a home to stay. Caroline first did this at eight, but more long term and for years as a teenager, where, says Dennison, she adopted Sophie Charlotte - whom Dennison refers to by her family nickname of Figuelotte, presumably to cut down the number of Sophies and Charlottes in this book - as a life long heroine and role model.
Sidenote: this made me recall my puzzlement at Hervey claiming that Caroline told him Figuelotte had been 'a vain, good for nothing woman', as opposed to G2 admiring her. Dennison - who quotes a lot from Hervey on other matters - never mentions this one. He does quote many positive and admiring statements from Caroline about Figuelotte from her own letters to back up his claim of Figuelotte - who was the first to encourage Caroline's hunger for books and to provide her with education and who had created the first intellectual court in Berlin - as her heroine. Now, could the letters have been for show and Caroline voiced towards Hervey her true feelings? Sure. But I suspect that Hervey, who self confessedly tuned out whenever G2 and Caroline talked about their German relations and couldn't be bothered to memorize who was related to whom, simply confused Prussian queens, and the one whom Caroline had been uncomplimentary about was in fact her sister-in-law Sophia Dorothea. (With whom she lived in Hannover close-up between marrying G2 and SD marrying FW.) After all, Caroline was writing positive things about the late Figuelotte even when she herself was Queen and the late Sophie Charlotte had probably been forgotten my many, i.e. when there was no profit to claim the connection.
Through Figuelotte, Caroline also attracted the attention of Sophie of Hannover. (BTW, Dennison chronicles Sophie's changing emotions about Caroline - first very positive - she definitely wanted her for grandson G2 - , then cooling off after the marriage, than positive again , but doesn't quote or explain the letter from Sophie to SD where she refers to Caroline as a habitual liar. I was hoping he'd explain the occasion and/or lie, but no. His explanation for the cooling off period on Sophie's part is that she was mourning for her then very recently dead daughter, had been hoping Caroline would be a second Figuelotte, which of course no one could have been, was disappointed and held it against her, with relationships improving again once Sophie had worked through her immediate grief. For Caroline's part, she seems to sincerely have attached herself to Sophie and learned a lot from her. One of Dennison's proofs for this is that after Sophie had died, Caroline started to correspond with Liselotte, and an intense correspondence it was, too, twice weekly, according to Liselotte. The two of them had never met, and all they shared was Sophie; also, Sophie's death was quickly followed by Queen Anne's, which meant Caroline became Princess of Wales and moved to Britain, so it wasn't like she didn't have other things to do, while Liselotte was an old widow without political influence (yes, she was the mother of the French Regent, but no one thought Philippe II consulted her about politics), so writing to her was most likely out of the genuine need to have a maternal confidant whom the Sophies had previously filled. With the caveat that how we present ourselves in letters isn't necessarily how we're perceived in person, Dennison adds it's also worth noting down that Liselotte - who in her long life at Versailles had experienced all types of people - quickly took to Caroline and considered her both smart and engaging.
But back to Caroline, young princess of tiny Ansbach with no big heritage (remember, product of second marriage) hanging out a lot at Berlin. She was a youthful beauty by the standards of her age - bright blond hair, white, luminous skin, a good figure which only later would get heavy, but would almost to the end be perceived as voluptous -, and an impressive conversationalist. Given the lack of a dowry, the amazing thing is that her first proposal should come from a very impressive source - young Archduke Charles, future Dad of Maria Theresa.
Now, this proposal and Caroline's eventual refusal became quickly the stuff of legend, and in later years it cemented her standing as a Protestant heroine - the princess who had "scorned an empire for her faith" - so it's worth pointing out, as Dennison does, that when Charles proposed, he wasn't the Emperor yet, nor was it all that likely he'd be. He was the second son of the Emperor, there was no reason to assume his older brother Joseph wouldn't produce heirs, and the best he could hope for was being King of Spain. This still made him a likely monarch to be when proposing to Caroline and as Habsburg, he was pretty much the best she could hope to get in the marriage market. She wavered at first. Figuelotte and Sophie were conspiciously neutral about the prospect, which made Dennison wonder whether Figuelotte wanted Caroline for her son FW while Sophie wanted her for grandson future G2 already, but neither prospect was voiced, so he says it's also possible that they didn't, or that Figuelotte also thought G2 was a better match but didn't say so because FW was her son. They were neither encouraging nor discouraging about the Habsburg match, and Team Vienna did sent a Jesuit to convert Caroline, but talks with Father Orban had the opposite effect on her: they likely as not made her decide that no, becoming Queen of Spain wasn't worth this, she'd rather stay a Protestant, thanks, Charles.
It was an audacious gesture for a minor German princess - as I said, looking at the logistics of the time, it wasn't likely she could have hoped for a better proposal -, but it would pay off in dividends for the rest of her life, and not just because Sophie used it to sell her son on a Caroline/future G2 match.
As for whqt caused the Habsburg proposal in the first place: it seems to have been political, given that Leipniz, none other, first suggests the idea of such a match when Charles is all of thirteen years old (and Caroline is fifteen) in 1698) to Benedicta of Brunswick-Lüneburg, a lady who was both cousin to Figuelotte and the aunt of Charles. This then remains super hush hush and Caroline has no idea until the idea gets revived again five years later when Charles is en route to claim Spain (well, as in he doesn't, but you know, HE DID NOT KNOW THAT!), and Caroline receives a breathless letter she's to visit her maternal aunt the Duchess of Weissenfels AT ONCE. Which she does, and where she meets young Charles who is now eighteen and as presentable as can be expected. They talk for five hours, he really likes her and tells his aide-de-camp people back at home should go ahead and negotiate for the match, he's proposing, while continuing his travels.
Given whom Charles would end up marrying - original Elisabeth Christine - and that she was also a Protestant princess (who did agree to being converted), I would say that the Habsburgs were ready to freshen up the gene pool did want a princess from one of the Protestant principalities because they expected trouble from Louis re: Spain, the French had a nasty habit of teaming up with some of the German princes against the HRE rulership, and it probably seemed a good idea to strengthen ties there ahead of time. Caroline might not have had a large dowry, but she had good connections due to both Brandenburg/Prussia and Hannover (due to Figuelotte sort of adopting her) and Saxony, in the sense that her late mother had been miserably married there to the previous Elector, granted, but August the Strong did have some sympathy for his late sister-in-law and had granted her a good pension for her remaining years, and sent Caroline some nice presents now and then. Added to which was Caroline being a beauty, with parents who both had produced various children (important, that), and a good reputation, all of which are good factors, and who knows, young Charles might really have been smitten. But I do think strengthening ties between the imperial house and the Protestant principalities was the basic idea.
Like I said, Caroline milked the propaganda value of her rejection of Charles' proposal for the rest of her life. Never more entertainingly (to me) than when the Archbishop of Canterbury after her coronation as Queen of England thought he needed to explain CoE theology to her some more (despite Caroline having converted along with G2 years earlier), and Caroline retorted: "Does he really believe I do not understand Protestantism, I, who rejected an Empire for it?"
On to the Georges: in order to make it always clear who is who, Dennison calls G1 George Louis both before and after his becoming King, and G2 George Augustus (ditto). Why was Caroline's attachment to the Protestant faith a good selling point to convince George Louis she could make a good match for his son, despite the lack of a dowry? Because at this point, the prospect of the British succession became increasingly real. Cousins William and Mary had produced no living offspring. Cousin Anne's children had all died. And the reason why the ca. 50 people between Sophie and Anne were disqualified from the succession in the eyes of Protestant England was that they were all Catholics. Now, George Louis and Sophie cunningly let young George Augustus believe this was all his idea, and he went through that romantic undercover mission where he under a pseudonym showed up at Ansbach (Caroline after Figuelotte's death had gone to her half brother's court) and fell in love at first sight. But there was a lot of stage management behind the scenes there.
As we've learned in the Schnath edited correspondence, F1 was miffed about this because he'd been toying with the idea of a Caroline/FW match (Dennison assumes, though F1 would deny it later), and if Morgenstern is to be believed, young FW was heartbroken. But Dennison thinks Caroline didn't consider him even for a microsecond, and I'm with him there. Otoh, Dennison also thinks George Augustus did know FW was interested in Caroline and that this - like the rejected Habsburg proposal - heightened her allure in his eyes. Then again, by the evidence of their remaining lives together, he was well and truly smitten. He adored her and would do so till her dying day and beyond, ordering that after his own burial the parting wood between their coffins would be lifted so that their dust could mingle.
Was Caroline felt is harder to say. Dennison doesn't think it was all power hunger and calculation that made her become the perfect wife to G2. On the one hand, he didn't share some of her most important interests - notably books (G2 liked music but not reading, and Caroline could only read when he was sleeping or otherwise not requiring her company) -, he could be petty, and his ego required constant massaging. Dennison along with Hervey thinks that while G2 clearly liked sex, his open preference for his wife over his mistress demonstrates that he mostly took a maitresse because a) it's what Kings post Louis XIV did, and b) people were noting his uxoriousness and making jokes that it was Caroline who was wearing the pants in the marriage, so taking a mistress was supposed to show he was the boss. Given such scenes as the one where when his mistress, Henrietta Howard, as lady-in-waiting was dressing his wife:
G2: *snatches the hankerchief covering Caroline's shoulders while her hair was being dressed* : "Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you love to hide the Queen's!"
and the thirty pages love letters he wrote to Caroline from Hannover when not with her, his British subjects were less than convinced by this strategem of his.
Another thing re: G2 being uxurious: it's slightly mentioned in Sophie's letters but can be missed there - when Caroline got smallpox, George Augustus remained at her side and caught it as well. This is how her stepfather had died (only her stepfather had caught it from his mistress, not wife), which must have been on everyone's mind, so it was both a courageous and devoted thing of future G2 to do.
I think I quoted the famous lampoon about their marriage which was sung shortly after their coronation in London when reviewing Hervey's memoirs (because of course Hervey quotes it): "You may strutt, dapper George, but 'twill all be vain;/We know 'tis Caroline, not you, that reign."
On the other hand: after a childhood and youth for Caroline as the poor relation with ever changing guardians, a husband who, whatever other faults he had, really is constant in his conviction that you are the best, sexiest, most wonderful woman on the planet and loves you - let's not forget, George Augustus, whose mother had disappeared into captivity when he was 11 and whose father was famouly a cold fish to almost anyone other than his mistress and illegitimate kids even before that frosty attitude would devolve into father/son warfare later, was something of a love starved teen himself - may have been someone made for Caroline in more ways than by eventually making her Queen. Among their contemporaries there was the wide spectrum of "she adores him, too" to "totally faking it for power's sake!" in how their marriage was seen from her side.
When the British parliament produced the Act of Settlement (which made it law that any successor to Anne had to be Sophie or a PROTESTANT descendant of Sophie), Caroline, who definitely had the brains of the marriage, inmmediately started an Anglisation project, learning English, cultivating the increasing number of British visitors now showing up at Hannover, reading up on English literature, and on English history. (She became an early member of Tudor fandom, which the poets cultivating her later noted, pleasing her by comparing her to Elizabeth, not more recent Queens like Anne or Mary II.) Among the Brits showing up at Hannover were the Howards. Charles Howard was a louse, and a physically abusive husband, and his wife, Henrietta, had come here with one aim in mind: get a job from the future British monarchs that would get her away from her husband. Her original idea had been becoming lady in waiting to Caroline, which she did, but she also ended up as future G2's first mistress.
Caroline: ?
Sophie (I'm not making this up, she really said this): Look at it this way: It will improve his English.
Caroline and Henrietta Howard (later Lady Suffolk) (& G2): the entire relationship is its own kind of odd. Like I said, Henrietta mainly wanted a job that would protect her against her husband. And to be fair, Caroline did that whenever Charles Howard tried to re-insert himself in his wife's life (with an eye to the money she now earned). And when George Augustus became Prince of Wales, some nobles thought cultivating his mistress was a good idea (which also was financially rewarding and got you lots of presents and invites), since usually the mistress has more influence than the wife - only not in this case. (Sir Robert Walpole, otoh, from the get go had the right instinct, cultivated Caroline instead and became PM.) On the downside, G2 had two main subjects, German genealogy and military tales, especially but not only his glorious six months as Young Hannover Brave. And droned on about them since he couldn't think of anything else to talk about with his mistress, other than sex. And made no secret of prefering his wife. As soon as Charles Howard finally had died, Henrietta declared she had enough, retired as mistress and married a nice guy from the gentry. (She was over 40 at this point and half deaf, but still pretty and clever, and had accumulated a nice funding, so that worked out well.) Caroline, who had treasured the time G2 spent with his mistress as her preferred reading hours, was most put off and wrote a tart letter Lady Suffolk (as she was then) going on about how at their age, Henrietta should be past behaving like the heroine of a novel. But Lady Suffolk ignored this.
(Caroline hadn't been jealous of Henrietta Howard on account of G2 - she knew she had the upper hand there - but she did resent that Henrietta Howard became a sought after patroness as well and was preferred by both Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. BTW, I had forgotten, but the book reminded me again - the Liliputians from "Gullivers Travels" would have been understood by Swifts contemporaries as a satire on all the small German principalities, especially Hannnover.)
Caroline had another reason than her suddenly cut short leisure time, which was that she knew G2 wasn't in love with Henrietta Howard, whereas now that he was sans mistress there was the chance he'd come across someone he actually would care for. And sure enough, on his next visit to Hannover, he did, one Countess Wallmoden, who even got pregnant and had a kid by him and became his next official mistress. Whom he described en detail in his letters to Caroline (well enough she could paint the lady's portrait, as she snarked to Hervey), because Caroline was his best friend in addition to his wife and of course he had to tell her about his exciting new mistress, there were no secrets between them. That was G2 for you.
(He did care about Wallmoden more than about Suffolk and after Caroline's death had her come from Hannover to Britain, but she never was a true rival in terms of his affections, either.More on this below.
Back to the Hannover days when they were all still young.
George Augustus, like FW, had a hell of a time getting his father to permit him to join team Eugene & Marlborough on campain. Unlike FW, this was because George Louis - who'd done ample soldiering in his own father's life time - didn't want his disliked son to distinguish himself. Like FW, eventually permission was granted, and George Augustus got to go soldiering for six months, which included the Battle of Oudenaard and future G2 distinguishing himself by personal bravery - a horse was shot under him and he still went on fighting. This got him praise from Marlborough and some mention from British poets who called him "Young Hannover Brave", a description he would relish for the rest of his life.
Anne: *still not impressed and refusing to allow any Hannover cousins to set foot on British shore while she's alive*
Dennison: I'm with Anne here, not with Sophie. It wasn't personal - Anne knew that any successor in residence would esssentially become a second, alternative court, and she already had to deal with one in Paris courtesy of her father and half brother.
Sophie: Then it wasn't personal on my part, either. You may think it was must wounded vanity that made me roll my eyes at Anne, Dennison, but I've been ruling Hannover whenever my husband did his regular trips to Venice, I know something about governing, and I tell you, if Grandson had been able to take his seat in the House of Lords as Duke of Cambridge, it would have allowed him to learn about Britain and English politics ahead of time, which could only have been good for the country in the long term.
Caroline & motherhood: Dennison points out that in addition to the usual royal set up where a nurse and governess are in charge of the day to day caring of the kids, Caroline got smallpox when Fritz of Wales as six months, and then, barely recoverd, she got pneumonia. During this time, she wasn't allowed any contact with the baby at all for obvious reasons. So there was a disruption of this particular relationship from the get go. Also, while paying lip duties to believing in the highest calling for a woman being a wife and mother, she even according to an admiring and sympathetic observer had a perference for "settling points of controversional divinity" (Caroline was very much interested in philosophical and religious debates and later would be involved in a big Leipniz vs Newton and Clarke clash) over child play. She made sure her children would be educated from the get go, unlike her (lessons in Latin, German, French, Italian and the works ofancient historians were on the schedule), but as for day to day visits even when she was healthy, well...
Quoth Dennison: Caroline's apparant failure to react either swiftly or effectively to the infant Frederick developing rickets suggests negligence, but should be read within the context of contemporary parenting habits and widespread medical ignorance (...) In the event, credit for Frederick's recovery mostly belongs to Sophia, who, by directing that "Fritzchen" spend time outdoors in the gardens at Herrenhausen, exposed him to the light and fresh air which effected a cure around the time of his third birthday. In her lietters, Sophia intimated that her contribution extended to supervising Fritzchen's wetnurse and feeding regimen: first smallpox then pneunomonia had separated Caroline from her baby. (...) Frederick did benefit from the doting ministrations of his still energetic great-grandmother.
(Who took him along on her garden walks, she didn't just tell the nurse to take him outside. You might recall she does mention him a lot in her letters to SD.) All this might still have been recoverable within an 18th century context, but then when "Fritzchen" is seven, the family moves to Britain, except him.
On George Louis' instructions, Frederick stayed behind in Hannover with hish great-uncle, Ernest Augustus. His grandfather had decided that Frederick would serve as the family's permanent representative in the electorate. He was seven years old. Only in January, Sophia had written to Liselotte of his excitement that Christmas. 'I have no doubt that your Prince Fritzchen is absolutely delighted with the Christchild, because I still remember so well how I loved it,' Liselotte replied. To enforce a permanent separation from his parents and siblings on so young a child was an act of terrible cruelty, from which neither prince nor parents would recover.
Early on, Caroline kept asking British visitors to the continent who'd been in Hannover to tell her how her son was doing, and to be fair, future G2 made at least two attempts to persuade his father to let "Fritzchen" join the the rest of the clan in said early years. But at some point, at the very latest when his brother William was born, they emotionally cut him off in their minds and hearts, and for good. Dennison points out that both Caroline and her oldest son were passionate letter writers, child!Fritz of Wales was definitely able to write letters to other relations (we have some of his letters to his sister Anne, for example) and yet no letter from Caroline during the 14 years the absence would eventually last exists. This could be because the correspondence was lost, or destroyed when mother and son became enemies, but even in the case of the only three years of Hervey/Fritz of Wales relationship, who were in the same country and the same town most of the time, some letters survive the subsequent breakdown, so Dennison speculates that Caroline may have never written, either because she could cope better this way or because there was something performative in her motherhood to "Fritzchen" from the get go, acting how she thought she ought to feel (a doting mother, asking questions about her child) rather than how she actually felt (not having been bonded with her oldest due to unfortunate circumstance).
Relations between George Louis and George Augustus had never been warm - Dennison thinks that maybe because of George Augustus' physical resemblance to the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea the Older -, though like FW with AW, George Louis could be a doting parent - to his illegitimate children with Melusine von der Schulenburg. Whereas with his two legitimate ones, he was cool, and after everyone moved to Britain, things between him and his son got steadily worse, which very much affected Caroline.
It has to be praised here that Dennison doesn't repeat old English clichés about G1. Who like grandson Fritz didn't like being undressed and dressed by his courtiers, so he changed this ceremonial, cut the office of the "Groom of the stool" entirely, and kept as his personal servants his two Turkish valets Mohammed and Mustafa. (Remember, his sister Sophie Charlotte, Figuelotte, also had brought two Turkish servants with her to Berlin from Hannover, and they were the last people she talked to on her death bed - "Adieu Ali, adieu Hassan".)
Brits: What kind of foreign weirdo keeps Turks around him? Who does he think he is, a sultan? No talking to Turks on our part.
Mohammed & Mustafa: Have it your way. We're not shopping in London, then, we're still ordering G1's wardrobe in Hannover.
G1: Which is how I like it. Mustafa, I'm ennobling you. You're allowed to choose your title.
Mustafa: Count von Königstreu.
Unlike G1, who was too set in his ways, Caroline and George Augustus cultivated the English which was very much Caroline's idea and strategem. She only kept two German ladies-in-waiting and otherwise appointed only British nobility. She and future G2 with and without their younger children were seen regularly taking strolls through St. James Park by the population. (Such a wholesome family, unlike the last Stuarts!). She and George Augustus learned English country dances and danced them at balls to the amazement of the nobility and delight of the population. Caroline became a patron of poets and artists. That all this enthusiasm for all things British was on G2's part not entirely sincere would only be revealed once he got on the throne, but for now, it was a very effective way to become popular and seen as the opposite of Dear Old Dad with his German mistress and Turkish valets and German officials and regular trips to Hannover. Oh, and this also happened:
1715 Jacobite rising: *happens*
George Augustus: Sounds like a job for me! I'm Young Hannover Brave, remember!
George Louis: I do remember. You're staying in London. Argyll, Supreme Command of my army is yours. Deal with the Jacobites.
George Augustus: I hate you.
Caroline, who was the first Princess of Wales since young Catherine of Aragon had married Henry VIII's older brother, basically recreated the job, and very successfully so, especially by the way she involved herself in cultural and social British life. As we know from the Lady Mary bio, Caroline's support of Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu in the inocculation campaign was instrumental. Reminder: Lady Mary returned from Turkey having learned about inocculation against smallpox and having had her son inocculated there. In Britain, she also inocculated her daughter (who'd still been a newborn baby in Turkey, hence too young, which caused a huge controversy and many attacks until Caroline (herself a smallpox survivor, like Mary) decided to have her own children inocculated as well. (Other than Anne, who had just survived smallpox, too, and had a scarred face to show for it.) What we hadn't known before: Caroline was cautious enough - like MT - to test this out on other people first, in her case on ten prisoners volunteering against the promise of a pardon. (Nine survived, but the one who died had been sick already.) Then she had her kids inocculated. (Including Fritz of Wales - a doctor travelled to Hannover to repeat the procedure on him.)
Voltaire dedicated the Henriad to Caroline, which tells you something about her reputation as an art patroness at this point. His dedication says that as Henri IV was protected by an English Queen - Elizabeth I - he could think of no one more suitable than the future Queen of England to protect his epic.
Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough and Anne's ex-Favourite had been in disgrace along with her husband until the Hannover succession, so Caroline thought it was a good idea to appoint her as one of the ladies of the bedchamber. (Marlborough = popular hero) As part of her "win over the Brits" campaign. However, Sarah being Sarah, she was incurably snobbish and referred to Caroline as a "little German princess" and "Madam Ansbach". Caroline then nicknamed the Churchills "the Imperial family".
So much for the fun part. Meanwhile, the G1 vs future G2 father/son cold war had become a hot one.
Things escalate to the point where, when Caroline gives birth to another son (not yet Cumberland, but another William who will die as a baby just a few months later), we get the infamous quarrel at Westminster Abbey because George Louis changes the godfather George Augustus wanted, and George Augustus and the unwanted new godfather almost come to blows. This ends with future G2 and Caroline first locked up and then kicked out of the palace, with access to their children forbidden to them. Caroline is told by G1 she can stay but only if she takes his part. Caroline replies that while she loves her children, she loves her husband more and will go with him.
(Dennison points this may have been true but was also the only thing she could do in the long term, as G2 would not have forgiven her siding with Dad against him, and he was the one she lived with and who would survive G1.)
This treatment of Caroline has the effect that Europe, which might otherwise have sided with the patriarch, now sides with the young couple, because cutting off Caroline from her children just because she's a loyal wife looks terrible. It also does lasting damage.
Caroline's relationships to her first three daughters won't ever be as close again as with the three children born after this event who grow up entirely with her. And she really did try to keep the contact, always sending little notes to the girls (which are preserved) and wearing G1 down to permitting weekly visits. She and George Augustus settled down in Leicester House, which was owned by Elizabeth Stuart the Winter Queen in the last months of her life when she had finally returned to England to die, and hence was owned by the Hannover clan. Caroline gives birth to three more children, two girls and William the future butcher of Cumberland. Who will spend seven years as the de facto only son, petted and adored, and will resent the ultimate arrival of his older brother only slightly less than Caroline and George Augustus.
When G1 finally kicks it, en route to Hannover, Fritz of Wales acts as chief mourner at the funeral in Hannover. He'd seen his grandfather during the later's regular visits to Hannover, but no other member of his family. And despite there being four months between G1's death and G2's coronation, he wasn't invited. He wasn't invited for over a year, and then, finally, only because of, surprise surprise, a certain marriage projects.
Like I said, with the birth and survival of William of Cumberland at the latest, Caroline and George Augustus emotionally buried their oldest, long before Fritz of Wales had any chance to personally piss them off. Which also can be seen by the inheritance question.
G1 in his last will, written at a point when "Fritzchen" was still the only son future G2 had, had written that if at some future point there were two male heirs in the same generation, the older should get Britain and the younger Hannover. This was intended for Fritz of Wales' future heirs, since both George Louis and George Augustus at the point when the will was written had only one son each. However, once George Augustus had actually a second son who made it out of the first few months of babyhood alive, there was suddenly a situation where this scenario could happen a generation earlier. At which point G2 and Caroline pointed out that since Fritz of Wales was educated in Hannover, it would make sense if he'd get Hannover and new beloved Bill get Britain. G1 wasn't keen on anything G2 suggested, but he said this actually made kind of sense BUT that it was unfair to do this without asking Fritz of Wales what HE wanted. (Who was raised bilingualy and trained as hard as Wilhelmine at the same time for his destiny as future King of England.) This, G2 and Caroline did not want. They wanted it to be decided, full stop. G1 didn't budge. End result: when G1 died, G2 went to some considerale effort to collect all three copies of the will and destroy them, lest it could be used to make young Cumberland go to Hannover and give Fritz of Wales Britain.
The infamous marriage project also was subject to G2's kneejerk reaction to anything his father had suggested first, to wit, the Fritz of Prussia/ Princess A? and Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales matching. G2 never liked the idea of a spawn of FW as an in-law. Dennison provides a quote from G2 on this matter which I hadn't been familiar with before, to wit: Grafting my half-witted (son) upon a madwoman would not mend the breed. (Source footnoting for this one: Hervey's memoirs, the latest non-Victorian edition we DON'T have, volume 3, and a biography of Princess Anne.) Then legend has it this happens:
Fritz of Wales: Okay, a year has passed since Granddad died, I'm still in Hannover, still single, that's it, gonna show up in Berlin and marry Wilhelmine on my lonesome.
G2 (informed by spies): No you don't! Kidnap the Prince at a masque ball, bring him here!
Whereas Dennison says this happened:
Fritz of Wales: Okay, a year has passed, I'm still in Hannover, gonna make myself useful and help arrange the marriage between my cousin of Ansbach and Friederike, my hopefully soon sister-in-law, daughter of FW.
Caroline: You what? What business is my nephew's marriage of yours? Husband, we need to bring him here.
G2: Kidnap the prince at a masque ball, bring him here!
Fritz of Wales arrives without public fanfare through the back entrance of the St. James Palace and is presented with a family who hasn't been missing him. Things go downhill from there.
As for Hervey: Dennison goes with a replacement mother/son relationship between him and Caroline, additionally ensuring the relationship between him and Fritz of Wales is doomed, though he oddly doesn't mention the fact that Caroline's disliked lady in waiting Lady Bristol was Hervey's mother, who hated him as Caroline came to hate Fritz of Wales.
Now, remember how the fervent German nationalist historian detailing Sir Charles Hotham's mission to Berlin who ranted against perfidious and doubletongued Albion had gone on about how SD had written a lovely letter to Caroline in the winter of 1729 asking what was up and how Caroline the double tongued never replied, and that Hotham never referred to this key letter towards FW etc.? In Dennison's Caroline biography, the same series of events sound like this:
A letter written by a British diplomat in December 1729 suggested that Frederick William had "forced" Sophia Dorothea "to write an insolent letter of his dictating to our Queen (Caroline), insisting on her speedy performance of hte opes she has given her of marrying Prince Frederick to her oldest daughter (Anne), and this before February next, and unconditionally, or else she cannot hinder her husband from disposing of her to someone else." In George Augustus, to whom Caroline was bound to show such a letter, such high-handedness inspired a predictable response.
Sidenote: I'm the last to believe fervent German nationalists, but I think that one quoted SD's letter, and it did sound somewhat differently as far as I recall. Anyway, that's the last we hear of the Prussian drama, since Hannover dysfunctionality is about to kick in its own big gear once Fritz of Wales does get married. No new facts here, except that Dennison interprets the famous last exchange between a dying Caroline and G2 a bit differently. To remind everyone, it was, in French:
Caroline: *tells G2 to marry again after her death*
G2: Never! I shall have mistresses.
Caroline in Hervey's memoirs: That works, too.
Caroline in Dennison's biography: That's no impediment to marriage.
Caroline dies, after that painful illness, Händel composes a new work in her honor ("The Ways of Zion to Mourn"), G2 says "I never saw a woman worth to buckle her shoe" and at the Royal Exchange, a wit posts: "Death, where is thy sting? To take the Queen, and leave the King!" (As by this time, G2 had lost all the popularity he'd had as Prince of Wales, not least because by his trips to Hannover post ascension to the throne, he'd shown that he did not, as had been expected, "hate Germany and love England". Dennison thinks it's very unfair that Caroline is forgotten today, who'd been the first Princess of Wales since a young Katherine of Aragon and who'd been the most powerful Queen Consort in many a generation, too, doing more than any other single member of the Hannover royal family to assure it became largedly accepted in GB, and he opes his biography helps bringing her memory back at least somewhat.
The bibliography is impressive. (No books in German, but he's read all the English translations of Sophie's various correspondences he got his hands on, for example, as well as translated into English or French biographies.) I haven't come across an immediately noticeable error save one, and because he's so good otherwise, I'm now actually confused and uncertain whether he could have been right.
In every book except for this that I've read touching on the English Marriage Project, the cousin intended for Fritz (of Prussia) is named as Amelia/Emily. Dennison says it was her older sister Anne, and that Fritz of Wales and Anne as the oldest were intended for their counterparts Wilhelmine and Fritz of Prussia, also the oldest surviving kids. Like I said - I've always read that it was Amelia. I mean, even her wiki entry claims she kept a miniature of Fritz. And the famous letter Fritz was talked into writing to Caroline about vowingn to only marry her daughter I recalled as naming Amelia as well, but now I'm not sure anymore. Miiiiiiildred - could it have been Anne? (Until her marriage to yet another William of Orange, that is.)
mildred_of_midgard: whaaaaat?I recall Amelia being named in that letter too! Yep, Mitchell--admittedly reporting decades later, but you wouldn't expect him to get it wrong--names Amelia when he has Fritz saying he shouldn't have written that letter.
Oncken definitely quotes from primary sources naming Amelia. One is Hotham, and one--I think, my German isn't quite up to reading as quickly as I'm being forced to right now, I'd get it if I slowed down--Reichenbach. That's in addition to Oncken's summaries of primary sources naming Amelia.
Koser also names Amelia. Once in a direct quote from a letter from Seckendorff to Eugene, which is in Förster. Yep, there it is, right there in Förster, July 1733, when the English decided they wanted the marriage after all, just as Fritz was getting married to EC: "que le Roy d'Angleterre donnera la main au marriage de Son Altesse Royale avec la Princess Amelie."
Also, Wilhelmine certainly thinks it's Amelia, and I'd think she would know! Even writing 10-20 years later, she's not likely to forget the double marriage project. [ETA: Yep, she's another source for the famous letter. She quotes from a followup letter at length, and reports Fritz writing, "I have already pledged my word of honor to your majesty never to marry any other but the princess Amelia your daughter."]
So I'm going to go with it being Amelia and resume reading your write-up.
On to the life of Caroline.
Her father, the Margrave of Ansbach, already had several sons when remarrying Caroline's mother, so that marriage was seen as a love match Alas he died just a few years later, and Caroline's mother could not handle widowhood at all, hence Caroline's education being neglected to the degree that she had to teach herself how to write and read. (Dennison gives a few examples for the fact she was never able to spell well in any of the languages she spoke - German, French and English - despite being a passionate reader and lover of scholarly debates - which was the long term result.) Her mother eventually married again, another widower, which was social step up and a human step down, for her second husband Johann Georg was the older brother of August the Strong, Prince Elector of Saxony before him. Johann Georg had a mistress, Magdalen Sybille, aka Billa, whom he had no intention of giving up and insisted on being treated as the true spouse. Her mother, Ursula, had been his father's mistress as well, and the question mark as to whether or not Billa could have been his half sister didn't seem to bother him. (One can see the family resemblance to August.) Billa eventually got infected by smallpox and died, Johann Georg, who had insisted on being with her, also got infected and died, and August the Strong started his ascendancy to the throne by putting about a hundred Bill-related people on trial for corruption and her mother Ursula for witchcraft (she'd been massively unpopular, so this was a cheap popularity gesture, and one of the last prominent witch trials).
What all this meant for Caroline was that she kept being shuffled between courts in her childhood: her mother's, her older half brother's at Ansbach (said older half brother, btw, eventually produced the son who'd marry Wilhelmine's and Fritz' sister Friederike, the first of the siblings to get married, and make her miserable), her stepfather's - and always in between the one of Sophie Charlotte and F1 in Berlin. The full name of Caroline's dad had been von Brandenburg-Ansbach, as the Margraves of Ansbach were an offshot of the Hohenzollern, too, so F1 was the ultimate overlord of the family, so to speak, and had offered her a home to stay. Caroline first did this at eight, but more long term and for years as a teenager, where, says Dennison, she adopted Sophie Charlotte - whom Dennison refers to by her family nickname of Figuelotte, presumably to cut down the number of Sophies and Charlottes in this book - as a life long heroine and role model.
Sidenote: this made me recall my puzzlement at Hervey claiming that Caroline told him Figuelotte had been 'a vain, good for nothing woman', as opposed to G2 admiring her. Dennison - who quotes a lot from Hervey on other matters - never mentions this one. He does quote many positive and admiring statements from Caroline about Figuelotte from her own letters to back up his claim of Figuelotte - who was the first to encourage Caroline's hunger for books and to provide her with education and who had created the first intellectual court in Berlin - as her heroine. Now, could the letters have been for show and Caroline voiced towards Hervey her true feelings? Sure. But I suspect that Hervey, who self confessedly tuned out whenever G2 and Caroline talked about their German relations and couldn't be bothered to memorize who was related to whom, simply confused Prussian queens, and the one whom Caroline had been uncomplimentary about was in fact her sister-in-law Sophia Dorothea. (With whom she lived in Hannover close-up between marrying G2 and SD marrying FW.) After all, Caroline was writing positive things about the late Figuelotte even when she herself was Queen and the late Sophie Charlotte had probably been forgotten my many, i.e. when there was no profit to claim the connection.
Through Figuelotte, Caroline also attracted the attention of Sophie of Hannover. (BTW, Dennison chronicles Sophie's changing emotions about Caroline - first very positive - she definitely wanted her for grandson G2 - , then cooling off after the marriage, than positive again , but doesn't quote or explain the letter from Sophie to SD where she refers to Caroline as a habitual liar. I was hoping he'd explain the occasion and/or lie, but no. His explanation for the cooling off period on Sophie's part is that she was mourning for her then very recently dead daughter, had been hoping Caroline would be a second Figuelotte, which of course no one could have been, was disappointed and held it against her, with relationships improving again once Sophie had worked through her immediate grief. For Caroline's part, she seems to sincerely have attached herself to Sophie and learned a lot from her. One of Dennison's proofs for this is that after Sophie had died, Caroline started to correspond with Liselotte, and an intense correspondence it was, too, twice weekly, according to Liselotte. The two of them had never met, and all they shared was Sophie; also, Sophie's death was quickly followed by Queen Anne's, which meant Caroline became Princess of Wales and moved to Britain, so it wasn't like she didn't have other things to do, while Liselotte was an old widow without political influence (yes, she was the mother of the French Regent, but no one thought Philippe II consulted her about politics), so writing to her was most likely out of the genuine need to have a maternal confidant whom the Sophies had previously filled. With the caveat that how we present ourselves in letters isn't necessarily how we're perceived in person, Dennison adds it's also worth noting down that Liselotte - who in her long life at Versailles had experienced all types of people - quickly took to Caroline and considered her both smart and engaging.
But back to Caroline, young princess of tiny Ansbach with no big heritage (remember, product of second marriage) hanging out a lot at Berlin. She was a youthful beauty by the standards of her age - bright blond hair, white, luminous skin, a good figure which only later would get heavy, but would almost to the end be perceived as voluptous -, and an impressive conversationalist. Given the lack of a dowry, the amazing thing is that her first proposal should come from a very impressive source - young Archduke Charles, future Dad of Maria Theresa.
Now, this proposal and Caroline's eventual refusal became quickly the stuff of legend, and in later years it cemented her standing as a Protestant heroine - the princess who had "scorned an empire for her faith" - so it's worth pointing out, as Dennison does, that when Charles proposed, he wasn't the Emperor yet, nor was it all that likely he'd be. He was the second son of the Emperor, there was no reason to assume his older brother Joseph wouldn't produce heirs, and the best he could hope for was being King of Spain. This still made him a likely monarch to be when proposing to Caroline and as Habsburg, he was pretty much the best she could hope to get in the marriage market. She wavered at first. Figuelotte and Sophie were conspiciously neutral about the prospect, which made Dennison wonder whether Figuelotte wanted Caroline for her son FW while Sophie wanted her for grandson future G2 already, but neither prospect was voiced, so he says it's also possible that they didn't, or that Figuelotte also thought G2 was a better match but didn't say so because FW was her son. They were neither encouraging nor discouraging about the Habsburg match, and Team Vienna did sent a Jesuit to convert Caroline, but talks with Father Orban had the opposite effect on her: they likely as not made her decide that no, becoming Queen of Spain wasn't worth this, she'd rather stay a Protestant, thanks, Charles.
It was an audacious gesture for a minor German princess - as I said, looking at the logistics of the time, it wasn't likely she could have hoped for a better proposal -, but it would pay off in dividends for the rest of her life, and not just because Sophie used it to sell her son on a Caroline/future G2 match.
As for whqt caused the Habsburg proposal in the first place: it seems to have been political, given that Leipniz, none other, first suggests the idea of such a match when Charles is all of thirteen years old (and Caroline is fifteen) in 1698) to Benedicta of Brunswick-Lüneburg, a lady who was both cousin to Figuelotte and the aunt of Charles. This then remains super hush hush and Caroline has no idea until the idea gets revived again five years later when Charles is en route to claim Spain (well, as in he doesn't, but you know, HE DID NOT KNOW THAT!), and Caroline receives a breathless letter she's to visit her maternal aunt the Duchess of Weissenfels AT ONCE. Which she does, and where she meets young Charles who is now eighteen and as presentable as can be expected. They talk for five hours, he really likes her and tells his aide-de-camp people back at home should go ahead and negotiate for the match, he's proposing, while continuing his travels.
Given whom Charles would end up marrying - original Elisabeth Christine - and that she was also a Protestant princess (who did agree to being converted), I would say that the Habsburgs were ready to
Like I said, Caroline milked the propaganda value of her rejection of Charles' proposal for the rest of her life. Never more entertainingly (to me) than when the Archbishop of Canterbury after her coronation as Queen of England thought he needed to explain CoE theology to her some more (despite Caroline having converted along with G2 years earlier), and Caroline retorted: "Does he really believe I do not understand Protestantism, I, who rejected an Empire for it?"
On to the Georges: in order to make it always clear who is who, Dennison calls G1 George Louis both before and after his becoming King, and G2 George Augustus (ditto). Why was Caroline's attachment to the Protestant faith a good selling point to convince George Louis she could make a good match for his son, despite the lack of a dowry? Because at this point, the prospect of the British succession became increasingly real. Cousins William and Mary had produced no living offspring. Cousin Anne's children had all died. And the reason why the ca. 50 people between Sophie and Anne were disqualified from the succession in the eyes of Protestant England was that they were all Catholics. Now, George Louis and Sophie cunningly let young George Augustus believe this was all his idea, and he went through that romantic undercover mission where he under a pseudonym showed up at Ansbach (Caroline after Figuelotte's death had gone to her half brother's court) and fell in love at first sight. But there was a lot of stage management behind the scenes there.
As we've learned in the Schnath edited correspondence, F1 was miffed about this because he'd been toying with the idea of a Caroline/FW match (Dennison assumes, though F1 would deny it later), and if Morgenstern is to be believed, young FW was heartbroken. But Dennison thinks Caroline didn't consider him even for a microsecond, and I'm with him there. Otoh, Dennison also thinks George Augustus did know FW was interested in Caroline and that this - like the rejected Habsburg proposal - heightened her allure in his eyes. Then again, by the evidence of their remaining lives together, he was well and truly smitten. He adored her and would do so till her dying day and beyond, ordering that after his own burial the parting wood between their coffins would be lifted so that their dust could mingle.
Was Caroline felt is harder to say. Dennison doesn't think it was all power hunger and calculation that made her become the perfect wife to G2. On the one hand, he didn't share some of her most important interests - notably books (G2 liked music but not reading, and Caroline could only read when he was sleeping or otherwise not requiring her company) -, he could be petty, and his ego required constant massaging. Dennison along with Hervey thinks that while G2 clearly liked sex, his open preference for his wife over his mistress demonstrates that he mostly took a maitresse because a) it's what Kings post Louis XIV did, and b) people were noting his uxoriousness and making jokes that it was Caroline who was wearing the pants in the marriage, so taking a mistress was supposed to show he was the boss. Given such scenes as the one where when his mistress, Henrietta Howard, as lady-in-waiting was dressing his wife:
G2: *snatches the hankerchief covering Caroline's shoulders while her hair was being dressed* : "Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you love to hide the Queen's!"
and the thirty pages love letters he wrote to Caroline from Hannover when not with her, his British subjects were less than convinced by this strategem of his.
Another thing re: G2 being uxurious: it's slightly mentioned in Sophie's letters but can be missed there - when Caroline got smallpox, George Augustus remained at her side and caught it as well. This is how her stepfather had died (only her stepfather had caught it from his mistress, not wife), which must have been on everyone's mind, so it was both a courageous and devoted thing of future G2 to do.
I think I quoted the famous lampoon about their marriage which was sung shortly after their coronation in London when reviewing Hervey's memoirs (because of course Hervey quotes it): "You may strutt, dapper George, but 'twill all be vain;/We know 'tis Caroline, not you, that reign."
On the other hand: after a childhood and youth for Caroline as the poor relation with ever changing guardians, a husband who, whatever other faults he had, really is constant in his conviction that you are the best, sexiest, most wonderful woman on the planet and loves you - let's not forget, George Augustus, whose mother had disappeared into captivity when he was 11 and whose father was famouly a cold fish to almost anyone other than his mistress and illegitimate kids even before that frosty attitude would devolve into father/son warfare later, was something of a love starved teen himself - may have been someone made for Caroline in more ways than by eventually making her Queen. Among their contemporaries there was the wide spectrum of "she adores him, too" to "totally faking it for power's sake!" in how their marriage was seen from her side.
When the British parliament produced the Act of Settlement (which made it law that any successor to Anne had to be Sophie or a PROTESTANT descendant of Sophie), Caroline, who definitely had the brains of the marriage, inmmediately started an Anglisation project, learning English, cultivating the increasing number of British visitors now showing up at Hannover, reading up on English literature, and on English history. (She became an early member of Tudor fandom, which the poets cultivating her later noted, pleasing her by comparing her to Elizabeth, not more recent Queens like Anne or Mary II.) Among the Brits showing up at Hannover were the Howards. Charles Howard was a louse, and a physically abusive husband, and his wife, Henrietta, had come here with one aim in mind: get a job from the future British monarchs that would get her away from her husband. Her original idea had been becoming lady in waiting to Caroline, which she did, but she also ended up as future G2's first mistress.
Caroline: ?
Sophie (I'm not making this up, she really said this): Look at it this way: It will improve his English.
Caroline and Henrietta Howard (later Lady Suffolk) (& G2): the entire relationship is its own kind of odd. Like I said, Henrietta mainly wanted a job that would protect her against her husband. And to be fair, Caroline did that whenever Charles Howard tried to re-insert himself in his wife's life (with an eye to the money she now earned). And when George Augustus became Prince of Wales, some nobles thought cultivating his mistress was a good idea (which also was financially rewarding and got you lots of presents and invites), since usually the mistress has more influence than the wife - only not in this case. (Sir Robert Walpole, otoh, from the get go had the right instinct, cultivated Caroline instead and became PM.) On the downside, G2 had two main subjects, German genealogy and military tales, especially but not only his glorious six months as Young Hannover Brave. And droned on about them since he couldn't think of anything else to talk about with his mistress, other than sex. And made no secret of prefering his wife. As soon as Charles Howard finally had died, Henrietta declared she had enough, retired as mistress and married a nice guy from the gentry. (She was over 40 at this point and half deaf, but still pretty and clever, and had accumulated a nice funding, so that worked out well.) Caroline, who had treasured the time G2 spent with his mistress as her preferred reading hours, was most put off and wrote a tart letter Lady Suffolk (as she was then) going on about how at their age, Henrietta should be past behaving like the heroine of a novel. But Lady Suffolk ignored this.
(Caroline hadn't been jealous of Henrietta Howard on account of G2 - she knew she had the upper hand there - but she did resent that Henrietta Howard became a sought after patroness as well and was preferred by both Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. BTW, I had forgotten, but the book reminded me again - the Liliputians from "Gullivers Travels" would have been understood by Swifts contemporaries as a satire on all the small German principalities, especially Hannnover.)
Caroline had another reason than her suddenly cut short leisure time, which was that she knew G2 wasn't in love with Henrietta Howard, whereas now that he was sans mistress there was the chance he'd come across someone he actually would care for. And sure enough, on his next visit to Hannover, he did, one Countess Wallmoden, who even got pregnant and had a kid by him and became his next official mistress. Whom he described en detail in his letters to Caroline (well enough she could paint the lady's portrait, as she snarked to Hervey), because Caroline was his best friend in addition to his wife and of course he had to tell her about his exciting new mistress, there were no secrets between them. That was G2 for you.
(He did care about Wallmoden more than about Suffolk and after Caroline's death had her come from Hannover to Britain, but she never was a true rival in terms of his affections, either.More on this below.
Back to the Hannover days when they were all still young.
George Augustus, like FW, had a hell of a time getting his father to permit him to join team Eugene & Marlborough on campain. Unlike FW, this was because George Louis - who'd done ample soldiering in his own father's life time - didn't want his disliked son to distinguish himself. Like FW, eventually permission was granted, and George Augustus got to go soldiering for six months, which included the Battle of Oudenaard and future G2 distinguishing himself by personal bravery - a horse was shot under him and he still went on fighting. This got him praise from Marlborough and some mention from British poets who called him "Young Hannover Brave", a description he would relish for the rest of his life.
Anne: *still not impressed and refusing to allow any Hannover cousins to set foot on British shore while she's alive*
Dennison: I'm with Anne here, not with Sophie. It wasn't personal - Anne knew that any successor in residence would esssentially become a second, alternative court, and she already had to deal with one in Paris courtesy of her father and half brother.
Sophie: Then it wasn't personal on my part, either. You may think it was must wounded vanity that made me roll my eyes at Anne, Dennison, but I've been ruling Hannover whenever my husband did his regular trips to Venice, I know something about governing, and I tell you, if Grandson had been able to take his seat in the House of Lords as Duke of Cambridge, it would have allowed him to learn about Britain and English politics ahead of time, which could only have been good for the country in the long term.
Caroline & motherhood: Dennison points out that in addition to the usual royal set up where a nurse and governess are in charge of the day to day caring of the kids, Caroline got smallpox when Fritz of Wales as six months, and then, barely recoverd, she got pneumonia. During this time, she wasn't allowed any contact with the baby at all for obvious reasons. So there was a disruption of this particular relationship from the get go. Also, while paying lip duties to believing in the highest calling for a woman being a wife and mother, she even according to an admiring and sympathetic observer had a perference for "settling points of controversional divinity" (Caroline was very much interested in philosophical and religious debates and later would be involved in a big Leipniz vs Newton and Clarke clash) over child play. She made sure her children would be educated from the get go, unlike her (lessons in Latin, German, French, Italian and the works ofancient historians were on the schedule), but as for day to day visits even when she was healthy, well...
Quoth Dennison: Caroline's apparant failure to react either swiftly or effectively to the infant Frederick developing rickets suggests negligence, but should be read within the context of contemporary parenting habits and widespread medical ignorance (...) In the event, credit for Frederick's recovery mostly belongs to Sophia, who, by directing that "Fritzchen" spend time outdoors in the gardens at Herrenhausen, exposed him to the light and fresh air which effected a cure around the time of his third birthday. In her lietters, Sophia intimated that her contribution extended to supervising Fritzchen's wetnurse and feeding regimen: first smallpox then pneunomonia had separated Caroline from her baby. (...) Frederick did benefit from the doting ministrations of his still energetic great-grandmother.
(Who took him along on her garden walks, she didn't just tell the nurse to take him outside. You might recall she does mention him a lot in her letters to SD.) All this might still have been recoverable within an 18th century context, but then when "Fritzchen" is seven, the family moves to Britain, except him.
On George Louis' instructions, Frederick stayed behind in Hannover with hish great-uncle, Ernest Augustus. His grandfather had decided that Frederick would serve as the family's permanent representative in the electorate. He was seven years old. Only in January, Sophia had written to Liselotte of his excitement that Christmas. 'I have no doubt that your Prince Fritzchen is absolutely delighted with the Christchild, because I still remember so well how I loved it,' Liselotte replied. To enforce a permanent separation from his parents and siblings on so young a child was an act of terrible cruelty, from which neither prince nor parents would recover.
Early on, Caroline kept asking British visitors to the continent who'd been in Hannover to tell her how her son was doing, and to be fair, future G2 made at least two attempts to persuade his father to let "Fritzchen" join the the rest of the clan in said early years. But at some point, at the very latest when his brother William was born, they emotionally cut him off in their minds and hearts, and for good. Dennison points out that both Caroline and her oldest son were passionate letter writers, child!Fritz of Wales was definitely able to write letters to other relations (we have some of his letters to his sister Anne, for example) and yet no letter from Caroline during the 14 years the absence would eventually last exists. This could be because the correspondence was lost, or destroyed when mother and son became enemies, but even in the case of the only three years of Hervey/Fritz of Wales relationship, who were in the same country and the same town most of the time, some letters survive the subsequent breakdown, so Dennison speculates that Caroline may have never written, either because she could cope better this way or because there was something performative in her motherhood to "Fritzchen" from the get go, acting how she thought she ought to feel (a doting mother, asking questions about her child) rather than how she actually felt (not having been bonded with her oldest due to unfortunate circumstance).
Relations between George Louis and George Augustus had never been warm - Dennison thinks that maybe because of George Augustus' physical resemblance to the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea the Older -, though like FW with AW, George Louis could be a doting parent - to his illegitimate children with Melusine von der Schulenburg. Whereas with his two legitimate ones, he was cool, and after everyone moved to Britain, things between him and his son got steadily worse, which very much affected Caroline.
It has to be praised here that Dennison doesn't repeat old English clichés about G1. Who like grandson Fritz didn't like being undressed and dressed by his courtiers, so he changed this ceremonial, cut the office of the "Groom of the stool" entirely, and kept as his personal servants his two Turkish valets Mohammed and Mustafa. (Remember, his sister Sophie Charlotte, Figuelotte, also had brought two Turkish servants with her to Berlin from Hannover, and they were the last people she talked to on her death bed - "Adieu Ali, adieu Hassan".)
Brits: What kind of foreign weirdo keeps Turks around him? Who does he think he is, a sultan? No talking to Turks on our part.
Mohammed & Mustafa: Have it your way. We're not shopping in London, then, we're still ordering G1's wardrobe in Hannover.
G1: Which is how I like it. Mustafa, I'm ennobling you. You're allowed to choose your title.
Mustafa: Count von Königstreu.
Unlike G1, who was too set in his ways, Caroline and George Augustus cultivated the English which was very much Caroline's idea and strategem. She only kept two German ladies-in-waiting and otherwise appointed only British nobility. She and future G2 with and without their younger children were seen regularly taking strolls through St. James Park by the population. (Such a wholesome family, unlike the last Stuarts!). She and George Augustus learned English country dances and danced them at balls to the amazement of the nobility and delight of the population. Caroline became a patron of poets and artists. That all this enthusiasm for all things British was on G2's part not entirely sincere would only be revealed once he got on the throne, but for now, it was a very effective way to become popular and seen as the opposite of Dear Old Dad with his German mistress and Turkish valets and German officials and regular trips to Hannover. Oh, and this also happened:
1715 Jacobite rising: *happens*
George Augustus: Sounds like a job for me! I'm Young Hannover Brave, remember!
George Louis: I do remember. You're staying in London. Argyll, Supreme Command of my army is yours. Deal with the Jacobites.
George Augustus: I hate you.
Caroline, who was the first Princess of Wales since young Catherine of Aragon had married Henry VIII's older brother, basically recreated the job, and very successfully so, especially by the way she involved herself in cultural and social British life. As we know from the Lady Mary bio, Caroline's support of Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu in the inocculation campaign was instrumental. Reminder: Lady Mary returned from Turkey having learned about inocculation against smallpox and having had her son inocculated there. In Britain, she also inocculated her daughter (who'd still been a newborn baby in Turkey, hence too young, which caused a huge controversy and many attacks until Caroline (herself a smallpox survivor, like Mary) decided to have her own children inocculated as well. (Other than Anne, who had just survived smallpox, too, and had a scarred face to show for it.) What we hadn't known before: Caroline was cautious enough - like MT - to test this out on other people first, in her case on ten prisoners volunteering against the promise of a pardon. (Nine survived, but the one who died had been sick already.) Then she had her kids inocculated. (Including Fritz of Wales - a doctor travelled to Hannover to repeat the procedure on him.)
Voltaire dedicated the Henriad to Caroline, which tells you something about her reputation as an art patroness at this point. His dedication says that as Henri IV was protected by an English Queen - Elizabeth I - he could think of no one more suitable than the future Queen of England to protect his epic.
Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough and Anne's ex-Favourite had been in disgrace along with her husband until the Hannover succession, so Caroline thought it was a good idea to appoint her as one of the ladies of the bedchamber. (Marlborough = popular hero) As part of her "win over the Brits" campaign. However, Sarah being Sarah, she was incurably snobbish and referred to Caroline as a "little German princess" and "Madam Ansbach". Caroline then nicknamed the Churchills "the Imperial family".
So much for the fun part. Meanwhile, the G1 vs future G2 father/son cold war had become a hot one.
Things escalate to the point where, when Caroline gives birth to another son (not yet Cumberland, but another William who will die as a baby just a few months later), we get the infamous quarrel at Westminster Abbey because George Louis changes the godfather George Augustus wanted, and George Augustus and the unwanted new godfather almost come to blows. This ends with future G2 and Caroline first locked up and then kicked out of the palace, with access to their children forbidden to them. Caroline is told by G1 she can stay but only if she takes his part. Caroline replies that while she loves her children, she loves her husband more and will go with him.
(Dennison points this may have been true but was also the only thing she could do in the long term, as G2 would not have forgiven her siding with Dad against him, and he was the one she lived with and who would survive G1.)
This treatment of Caroline has the effect that Europe, which might otherwise have sided with the patriarch, now sides with the young couple, because cutting off Caroline from her children just because she's a loyal wife looks terrible. It also does lasting damage.
Caroline's relationships to her first three daughters won't ever be as close again as with the three children born after this event who grow up entirely with her. And she really did try to keep the contact, always sending little notes to the girls (which are preserved) and wearing G1 down to permitting weekly visits. She and George Augustus settled down in Leicester House, which was owned by Elizabeth Stuart the Winter Queen in the last months of her life when she had finally returned to England to die, and hence was owned by the Hannover clan. Caroline gives birth to three more children, two girls and William the future butcher of Cumberland. Who will spend seven years as the de facto only son, petted and adored, and will resent the ultimate arrival of his older brother only slightly less than Caroline and George Augustus.
When G1 finally kicks it, en route to Hannover, Fritz of Wales acts as chief mourner at the funeral in Hannover. He'd seen his grandfather during the later's regular visits to Hannover, but no other member of his family. And despite there being four months between G1's death and G2's coronation, he wasn't invited. He wasn't invited for over a year, and then, finally, only because of, surprise surprise, a certain marriage projects.
Like I said, with the birth and survival of William of Cumberland at the latest, Caroline and George Augustus emotionally buried their oldest, long before Fritz of Wales had any chance to personally piss them off. Which also can be seen by the inheritance question.
G1 in his last will, written at a point when "Fritzchen" was still the only son future G2 had, had written that if at some future point there were two male heirs in the same generation, the older should get Britain and the younger Hannover. This was intended for Fritz of Wales' future heirs, since both George Louis and George Augustus at the point when the will was written had only one son each. However, once George Augustus had actually a second son who made it out of the first few months of babyhood alive, there was suddenly a situation where this scenario could happen a generation earlier. At which point G2 and Caroline pointed out that since Fritz of Wales was educated in Hannover, it would make sense if he'd get Hannover and new beloved Bill get Britain. G1 wasn't keen on anything G2 suggested, but he said this actually made kind of sense BUT that it was unfair to do this without asking Fritz of Wales what HE wanted. (Who was raised bilingualy and trained as hard as Wilhelmine at the same time for his destiny as future King of England.) This, G2 and Caroline did not want. They wanted it to be decided, full stop. G1 didn't budge. End result: when G1 died, G2 went to some considerale effort to collect all three copies of the will and destroy them, lest it could be used to make young Cumberland go to Hannover and give Fritz of Wales Britain.
The infamous marriage project also was subject to G2's kneejerk reaction to anything his father had suggested first, to wit, the Fritz of Prussia/ Princess A? and Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales matching. G2 never liked the idea of a spawn of FW as an in-law. Dennison provides a quote from G2 on this matter which I hadn't been familiar with before, to wit: Grafting my half-witted (son) upon a madwoman would not mend the breed. (Source footnoting for this one: Hervey's memoirs, the latest non-Victorian edition we DON'T have, volume 3, and a biography of Princess Anne.) Then legend has it this happens:
Fritz of Wales: Okay, a year has passed since Granddad died, I'm still in Hannover, still single, that's it, gonna show up in Berlin and marry Wilhelmine on my lonesome.
G2 (informed by spies): No you don't! Kidnap the Prince at a masque ball, bring him here!
Whereas Dennison says this happened:
Fritz of Wales: Okay, a year has passed, I'm still in Hannover, gonna make myself useful and help arrange the marriage between my cousin of Ansbach and Friederike, my hopefully soon sister-in-law, daughter of FW.
Caroline: You what? What business is my nephew's marriage of yours? Husband, we need to bring him here.
G2: Kidnap the prince at a masque ball, bring him here!
Fritz of Wales arrives without public fanfare through the back entrance of the St. James Palace and is presented with a family who hasn't been missing him. Things go downhill from there.
As for Hervey: Dennison goes with a replacement mother/son relationship between him and Caroline, additionally ensuring the relationship between him and Fritz of Wales is doomed, though he oddly doesn't mention the fact that Caroline's disliked lady in waiting Lady Bristol was Hervey's mother, who hated him as Caroline came to hate Fritz of Wales.
Now, remember how the fervent German nationalist historian detailing Sir Charles Hotham's mission to Berlin who ranted against perfidious and doubletongued Albion had gone on about how SD had written a lovely letter to Caroline in the winter of 1729 asking what was up and how Caroline the double tongued never replied, and that Hotham never referred to this key letter towards FW etc.? In Dennison's Caroline biography, the same series of events sound like this:
A letter written by a British diplomat in December 1729 suggested that Frederick William had "forced" Sophia Dorothea "to write an insolent letter of his dictating to our Queen (Caroline), insisting on her speedy performance of hte opes she has given her of marrying Prince Frederick to her oldest daughter (Anne), and this before February next, and unconditionally, or else she cannot hinder her husband from disposing of her to someone else." In George Augustus, to whom Caroline was bound to show such a letter, such high-handedness inspired a predictable response.
Sidenote: I'm the last to believe fervent German nationalists, but I think that one quoted SD's letter, and it did sound somewhat differently as far as I recall. Anyway, that's the last we hear of the Prussian drama, since Hannover dysfunctionality is about to kick in its own big gear once Fritz of Wales does get married. No new facts here, except that Dennison interprets the famous last exchange between a dying Caroline and G2 a bit differently. To remind everyone, it was, in French:
Caroline: *tells G2 to marry again after her death*
G2: Never! I shall have mistresses.
Caroline in Hervey's memoirs: That works, too.
Caroline in Dennison's biography: That's no impediment to marriage.
Caroline dies, after that painful illness, Händel composes a new work in her honor ("The Ways of Zion to Mourn"), G2 says "I never saw a woman worth to buckle her shoe" and at the Royal Exchange, a wit posts: "Death, where is thy sting? To take the Queen, and leave the King!" (As by this time, G2 had lost all the popularity he'd had as Prince of Wales, not least because by his trips to Hannover post ascension to the throne, he'd shown that he did not, as had been expected, "hate Germany and love England". Dennison thinks it's very unfair that Caroline is forgotten today, who'd been the first Princess of Wales since a young Katherine of Aragon and who'd been the most powerful Queen Consort in many a generation, too, doing more than any other single member of the Hannover royal family to assure it became largedly accepted in GB, and he opes his biography helps bringing her memory back at least somewhat.