Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

XIV.

1727.

his brother the Prince-Bishop, and immediately CHAP. blooded; but all attempts to recover him were useless. His interment took place at Hanover, in the vault of his ancestors. And thus suddenly closed his checkered and eventful, but, on the whole, prosperous, constitutional, and indulgent reign.

An express was sent with the fatal news to Lord Townshend, and another to the Duchess of Kendal, who were both at different places in the rear. The minister, after proceeding to Osnabruck, and finding that all was over, hastened back to England. The favourite tore her hair and beat her breast, with other signs of extreme grief, and then dismissing the English ladies who attended her, travelled onwards to Brunswick. She did not disdain, however, again to honour England with her presence, residing chiefly at Kendal House, near Twickenham, till her death, in 1743, when she left enormous wealth to be divided amongst her German relatives.

The reader, who in the reign of George the First has seen his mistresses so often mentioned and his consort not once, will be surprised to learn that the latter had died only seven months before her husband. Sophia-Dorothea of Zell was the name and lineage of this unfortunate princess. When married, in 1682, she was young, accomplished, beautiful. But with indiscretion, though probably no more than indiscretion, she received the attentions of Count Konigsmark, a Swedish noble.

1727.

CHAP. man who had come on a visit to Hanover. Her XIV. husband was absent at the army; her father-in-law, the old Elector, was prepossessed against her, partly by the cabals of his mistress, and partly by her own imprudence of behaviour. The details of this transaction, and of the black deed that followed it, are shrouded in mystery; thus much only is certain, that one evening as Konigsmark had come out of the apartment of the Princess, and was crossing a passage in the palace, several persons, who had been ready posted, rushed upon and despatched him. The spot of this murder is still shown; and many years afterwards, in some repairs, the bones of the unhappy man were discovered beneath the floor. The Princess was placed under arrest; the Prince, on his return, was convinced of her guilt, and concurred in her imprisonment, and obtained from the Consistory a divorce in December, 1694. Sophia was closely confined to the solitary castle of Ahlen, where she dragged on a miserable existence for thirty-two years, till, on the 13th of November, 1726, she was released by death, when she was mentioned in the Gazette as Electress-Dowager of Hanover. During her confinement she used to receive the sacrament every week, and never failed on those occasions to make a solemn protestation of her innocence. Her son, afterwards George the Second, was fully convinced of it; once, it is said, he made a romantic attempt to see her, crossing the river opposite the castle on horseback, but was pre

XIV.

1727.

vented by Baron Bulow, to whose care she was CHAP. committed. He secretly kept her picture, and had determined, in the event of her surviving his accession, to have restored her to liberty, and acknowledged her as Queen-Dowager.

If we may trust some rumours whispered at the time in Germany, the death of this ill-fated Princess hastened that of George. It is said that in her last illness she had delivered to a faithful attendant a letter to her husband, upon promise that it should be given into his own hands. It contained a protestation of her innocence, a reproach for his hard usage, and a citation or summons to appear within a year and a day at the Divine tribunal, and there to answer for the long and many injuries she had received from him. As this letter could not with safety to the bearer be delivered in England, it was given to the King in his coach, on his entering Germany. He opened it immediately, and, it is added, was so struck with the unexpected contents and fatal citation, as to fall at once into the convulsion of which he died.*

Another rumour, not incompatible with the former, states, that Sophia having made a will, bequeathing her personal property to her son, the document was taken to her husband in England, and by him destroyed. Such a story, however,

* See Lockhart's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 352. The letter containing this account was shown him in the same year by Count Welling, Governor of Luxemburg. But some people believed the whole to be a fabrication.

CHAP. rests only on Court gossip, and seems quite at vaXIV. riance with the honesty of purpose, and love of 1727. justice, which eminently distinguished George the

First. If it be really true, the act was very speedily retaliated upon him who wrought it. For George the First, himself, had made a will, with large legacies, as was believed, to the Duchess of Kendal, and her niece (some said her daughter) Lady Walsingham. One copy of this will he had intrusted to Dr. Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, who produced it at the very first Council attended by the new King, expecting that His Majesty would immediately open and read it. But George the Second, without saying a single word, put it in his pocket, and strode out of the apartment; the Archbishop was too courtly or too timid to complain, and the whole transaction remained buried in silence. Another copy, it is said, had been deposited with the Duke of Brunswick, but His Highness was silenced by a well timed subsidy; and Lord Chesterfield, who married Lady Walsingham in 1733, and who threatened a suit in Chancery for her supposed legacy, received, it is reported, in lieu of it, the sum of 20,000l.*

* Walpole's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 459., and Reminiscences, Works, vol. iv. p. 295. In her later years, Lady Suffolk lived in a villa close to Horace Walpole's; and this old woman (I mean the former) communicated many curious anecdotes.

[ocr errors]

CHAP. XV.

XV.

1727.

GEORGE the Second was born in 1683, and had CHAP. married in 1705 Princess Caroline of Anspach, by whom he had four daughters and two sons; Frederick Prince of Wales, born in 1707, and William Duke of Cumberland in 1721. His parts, I think, were not so good as his father's, but on the other hand he had much less reserve and shyness, and he possessed another inestimable advantage over him, he could speak English fluently, though not without a foreign accent. His diminutive person, pinched features, and frequent starts of passion, were not favourable to the Royal dignity, and his mind still less. He had scarcely one kingly quality, except personal courage and justice. The former he had highly signalised at the battle of Oudenarde as a volunteer, and was destined to display again as sovereign at Dettingen; and even in peace he was so fond of the army, and of military details, that his nickname among the Jacobites was the Captain. A love of justice was apparent in all the natural movements of his mind. But avarice,

« ForrigeFortsett »