Caroline of Ansbach

“ Leibniz often met the Princess of Ansbach at the Queen of Prussia’s reunions, and he noted how high she stood in the favour of his royal mistress. He became attracted to her by her wit and conversation, which were unusual in a princess of her years. He spoke of her in glowing terms to the Electress Sophia, who later made acquaintance with the young princess at Berlin, and she, too, was charmed with her talents and beauty. Leibniz, who was much at Berlin in those days, kept his venerable mistress at Hanover acquainted with the movements of the princess. ”

“ But the Electress Sophia, who was nothing if not Protestant, since her English prospects were wholly dependent on her Protestantism, greatly desired Caroline as a wife for her grandson, George Augustus, and did all she could to influence29 her against the match. She writes from Lützenburg: “Our beautiful Princess of Ansbach has not yet resolved to change her religion. If she remains firm the marriage will not take place.”4
Meanwhile Caroline, perhaps with an idea of gaining time, or forced into it, consented to receive the Jesuit priest Urban, and allow him to argue with her. ”

“ Having no heirs he sold his Margravate to the King of Prussia in 1791, and came to live in England with his second wife. He bought Brandenburg House, and was very beneficent and fond of sport, being well known on the turf. He died at a ripe old age in the reign of George IV. In 1806 Ansbach was transferred by Napoleon from Prussia to Bavaria, an act which was confirmed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and with Bavaria it has since remained. Occasionally some members of the Bavarian royal family visit Ansbach and stay at the palace, but it has long ceased to be a princely residence. ”

“ Caroline of Ansbach, birth, 3; parents, 8; betrothal, 54; marriage, 57; and the English throne, 102; lands in England, 150; enters London, 151; and Schulemburg and Kielmansegge in England, 199; popularity of, 245; and Lord Sunderland, 264; at Leicester House, 287; and Lord Chesterfield, 291; and Mrs. Howard, 309; and her children, 316; and Walpole, 334; birthday celebrations, 369. Caroline, Princess, birth, 98. Carteret, Bridget, 166. Cassel, Princess of, 27. Celle, Duchess of, 65. Celle, Duke of, 30; death, 57. Charles, Archduke, King of Spain, 26, 38. 386Charles XII., King of Sweden, 271. ”

“ The secret was well kept; even the Electress Sophia was not informed, notwithstanding that this was her darling scheme. The Elector had contempt for women’s discretion; he often declared that he could not trust a woman’s tongue, and he knew that his mother was a constant44 correspondent with the greatest gossip in Europe, her niece, Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans.
Matters being thus far advanced at Hanover, Eltz was again despatched to Ansbach. “He hath disappeared secretly,” writes the lynx-eyed Poley, who was still much mystified. ”

“ Sophia Charlotte entertained a warm affection for the young Ansbach princess, without whom Berlin seemed to her 'a desert' (see Leibniz's letter to the queen, 17 Nov. 1703, in Kemble, 322) ; and this affection was shared by the old Electress Sophia, who made Carolines acquaintance at Berlin (Correspondance, iii. 100) . Already, in October 1704, the old lady is found manifesting a wish that by marrying her grandson, the Electoral Prince of Hanover, Caroline might have been saved the trouble inflicted upon her in connection with a proposal of more brilliant promise. ”

“ CAROLINE (1683–1737) , queen of Great Britain and Ireland, was born 1 March 1683, and baptised by the names of Wilhelmina Caroline. Her father, John Frederick, margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, died when she was four years of age, and his margravate was for seven years afterwards under the rule of minors. Thus, on the marriage in 1692 of his widow, Eleonora Erdmuthe Louisa, daughter of John George, duke of Saxe-Eisenach, to the elector John George IV of Saxony, Caroline accompanied her mother to Dresden. ”

“ As the minor was her stepson, who had never shown any affection for his stepmother or her children, the position of the widowed Margravine Eleanor was not a pleasant one. She was friendly with the Elector9 and Electress of Brandenburg, and looked to them for support, and on the eve of her stepson’s majority she went to Berlin on a long visit, taking with her the little Princess Caroline, and leaving behind at Ansbach her son, William Frederick, who was heir-presumptive to the margravate. ”

“ Two names come to us out of oblivion, George the Pious, who introduced the Reformation into Franconia, and George Frederick, who was guardian to the mad Duke Albert Frederick of Prussia, and who consequently managed Prussian affairs from Ansbach. With his8 death in 1602 the elder branch of the Margraves expired.
Caroline’s father, the Margrave John Frederick, was of the younger branch, and succeeded to the margravate in 1667. John Frederick was a worthy man, who confined his ambitions solely to promoting the prosperity of his princedom, and concerned himself with little outside it. ”

“ If the pretty young Caroline, with youth, health, freshness, a fine, budding form, and wreathed in a semi-transparent haze of flounced and flowered gauze, is so vapid that we prefer to accost her with our eyes alone, and not with our tongues, is the same Caroline married into a Madame Pettitoes, and fanning herself upon a sofa,—no longer particularly fresh, nor young, nor pretty, and no longer budding but very fully blown,—likely to be fascinating in conversation? ”

“ In the month of August Queen Caroline had established herself at Brandenburg House—the Margravine of Anspach's house, by the river at Hammersmith—near enough to Kensington Palace, to judge from human nature, to disconcert and provoke a smile against the smiler's will—for Caroline's extravagances would have disturbed the gravity of a judge—in the womanly Princess at the head of the little household soberly settled there. Never were princesses and women more unlike than Caroline of Brunswick and Victoria of Coburg ”

“ Caroline was triumphant in her assurance of a well-filled purse; in her security of dominion over a dull, dogged, self-willed little husband, who was never more her slave than when he affected to act and think for himself; happy too in the knowledge that she had two of the cleverest men in England for her prime minister and her chamberlain; scornfully tolerant of a rival who helped her to bear the burden of her husband's society; indulgent to all the world, and proud of being admired and loved by the cleverest men in her dominions. ”

“ Not a bad young fellow at all, though no King. Wilhelmina, we shall find, takes charmingly to him, like a good female soul; regretless of the Four Kings;—finds her own safe little island there the prettiest in the world, after such perils of drowning in stormy seas.—Of his Brandenburg genealogy, degree of cousinship to Queen Caroline of England, and to the lately wedded young gentleman of Anspach Queen Caroline's Nephew, we shall say nothing farther, having already spoken of it, and even drawn an abstruse Diagram of it, [Antea, vol. v. p. 309c.] ”

“ The history of Ansbach strikes its roots in the soil of fable, and above ground is a gnarled and twisted growth of good and bad from the time of the Great Charles to the time of the Great Frederick. Between these times she had her various rulers, ecclesiastical and secular, in various forms of vassalage to the empire; but for nearly four centuries her sovereignty was in the hands of the margraves, who reigned in a constantly increasing splendor till the last sold her outright to the King of Prussia in 1791, and went to live in England on the proceeds. ”

“ She kept her word, and did eat a little, trying to become more cheerful by conversing with Madame von Berg about her children and her approaching reunion with her husband.
"Believe me, Caroline," she then said gravely, "it is not vanity and longing for worldly splendor that causes me to bewail our present trouble. For my part, I would gladly lead a private life, and be contented in retirement and obscurity, if I could only see my husband and my children happy at my side. But the king is not allowed to be as other men are—merely a husband and father ”

“ The hair of his head grows lower on the forehead than is common. He is committed to the care of Dr. Arbuthnot, in order to try whether he can be brought to the use of speech and made a sociable creature. He hath begun to sit for his picture.”124
Caroline may possibly have had some influence374 with the King in delaying the Queen of Prussia’s cherished scheme of the double marriage. An incident also contributed to delay it. There had always been jealousy between the Hanoverian Government and the Court of Berlin, and a very trifling matter served to stir up bad blood. ”

“ The influence which Caroline wielded throughout that troublous time, and the part she played in maintaining the Hanoverian dynasty upon the throne of England,x have never been fully recognised. George the First and George the Second were not popular princes; it would be idle to pretend that they were. But Caroline’s gracious and dignified personality, her lofty ideals and pure life did much to counteract the unpopularity of her husband and father-in-law, and redeem the early Georgian era from utter grossness. ”

“ The Queens-Consort subsequent to Anne of Denmark had been Roman Catholics, and Anne and Mary the Second were Queens-Regnant. Caroline was determined that she would not be relegated to the background, and, so far as circumstances permitted, the ceremonial at this coronation followed more closely that of William and Mary than of James the First and Anne of Denmark. Yet Mary was a Queen-Regnant who placed all her power in her husband’s hands; Caroline was a Queen-Consort who took all her power from her husband’s hands. No two women could be more unlike. ”

“ There was another life, more valuable than that of the Electoral Prince, trembling in the balance. The day after Caroline wrote this letter was a fatal day to the Electress Sophia. She, the “Heiress of Britain,” had felt the Queen’s rebuff far more than her grandson or Caroline; her haughty spirit resented the manner in which she was addressed by her royal cousin of England, and her wounded pride and her thwarted ambition combined to throw her into an extraordinary state of agitation, which at her age she was unable to bear. ”

“ It is probable she will.
Did we inform the reader once about Kaiser Karl's young marriage adventures; and may we, to remind him, mention them a second time? How Imperial Majesty, some five-and-twenty years ago, then only King of Spain, asked Princess Caroline of Anspach, who was very poor, and an orphan in the world. Who at once refused, declining to think of changing her religion on such a score;—and now governs England, telegraphing with Walpole, as Queen there instead. How Karl, now Imperial Majesty, then King of Spain, next applied to Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel ”

“ As she reached the big hall, Caroline met Rupert Haverford.
"Mrs. Lancing is resting. I have persuaded her to lie down. She wants to be well for dinner."
Rupert thanked her.
"I was just coming to look for you. The children are clamouring to know why 'Caroline' has vanished? So I volunteered to find her. Are you having a happy Christmas?" he asked, with a smile.
"I am happy altogether," Caroline answered him; "it is so wonderful to find that after all I have a little place of my own in the world, and that there are people who actually care to know what is passing with me." ”

“ So she lived at Berlin brilliant though unportioned;—with the rough cub Friedrich Wilhelm much following her about, and passionately loyal to her, as the Beast was to Beauty; whom she did not mind except as a cub loyal to her; being five years older than he. [Forster, i. 107.] Indigent bright Caroline, a young lady of fine aquiline features and spirit, was applied for to be Queen of Spain; wooer a handsome man, who might even be Kaiser by and by. Indigent bright Caroline at once answered, No. She was never very orthodox in Protestant theology ”

“ Caroline had dreamed of riding on a coal-black horse, seated behind the veiled figure of a man whose face she could not see, who carried her like the wind away to the ends of the earth, and there shut her up in a mountain for ages and ages, until a bright angel cleft the rock, and, clasping her in his arms, bore her up to light and liberty in the presence of the Redeemer and of all the host of heaven. ”

“ The queen forms the centre of the group. Caroline, daughter of the Marquis of Brandenburgh-Anspach, notwithstanding her residence in England of many years, notwithstanding her having been, at the era at which this biography begins, ten years its queen—is still German in every attribute. She retains, in her fair and comely face, traces of having been handsome; but her skin is deeply scarred by the cruel small-pox. She is now at that time of life when Sir Robert Walpole even thought it expedient to reconcile her to no longer being an object of attraction to her royal consort. ”

“ Let Caroline cleverly contrive this, as she might, without any compromise, and the stay at Beckley Court would be a great gain. Yes, Caroline was still with the duke; they were talking earnestly. The Countess breathed a short appeal to Providence that Caroline might not prove a fool. Over night she had said to Caroline: “Do not be so English. Can one not enjoy friendship with a nobleman without wounding one’s conscience or breaking with the world? My dear, the duke visiting you, you cow that infamous Strike of yours. He will be utterly obsequious! ”