Acknowledgements
Documents from the Royal Archives are quoted by kind permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. I am grateful to Her Majesty for access to the Royal Archives and to the Registrar of the Royal Archives Allison Derrett and her staff for assistance during and after my visits.
I acknowledge with great gratitude the contributions of the following to the research and writing of this book: Dr Wolfgang F. Reddig, Leiter des Margrafensmuseums und Stadtarchivs, Ansbach; Jonathan Marsden, Director the Royal Collection Trust and Surveyor of the Queen’s Works of Art; Jane Roberts; Deirdre Murphy, Historic Royal Palaces; Clarissa Campbell Orr; Dr Emrys Jones, King’s College London; Rhys Kiminski-Jones for help with the history of the Society of Antient Britons; Dr Wolf Burchard; Dr Karin Shrader; Dr Mark Chambers, University of Durham; Timothy Morgan-Owen; Dr Lyn Williams, Honorary Secretary, The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion; Patricia Plagemann, Landesarchiv – Standort Hannover; Dr Susan Frane, Department of Culture and Education, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany; Selina Schoelles for her reading at Shropshire Archives; Aidan Haley, The Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth; Mrs Clare Brown, archivist, Lambeth Palace Library; Christopher Hunwick, archivist, Northumberland Estates.
I am grateful indeed for the contributions of my editor Arabella Pike, Robert Lacey and Jordan Mulligan at William Collins and, as always, my exceptional agent, Georgina Capel.
And heartfelt thanks, as ever, are due to my parents and, above all, my miraculous wife, Gráinne, rightly this book’s dedicatee. As George Augustus told Caroline, ‘The peace of my life depends upon … the conviction of your continued affection for me.’
Matthew Dennison
Montgomeryshire
Feast of St Cuthbert, 2017
Notes
Introduction
1. Worsley, Lucy, Courtiers: The Secret History of Kensington Palace (Faber & Faber, London, 2010), p.102
2. Sedgwick, Romney, ed., Some materials towards memoirs of the reign of George II, by John, Lord Hervey, 3 vols (London, 1931), Vol. 1, p.69
3. See Royal Collection, RCIN 31317, Caroline, Consort of George II, by John Michael Rysbrack, c. 1739
4. Rosenthal, Norman, ed., The Misfortunate Margravine: The Early Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Bayreuth (Macmillan, London, 1970), p.160
5. See Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet, Letters on the English (London, 1733), Letter XI
6. Rosenthal, op. cit., p.84; Thomson, Mrs, ed., Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon (Henry Colburn, London, 1847), Vol. 2, p.52
7. See Jones, Huw, ed., Diddanwch Teuluaidd (London, 1763), pp.261–5
8. Prescott, Sarah, Eighteenth-Century Writing from Wales: Bards and Britons (University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 2008), pp.42–3
9. Sophie Charlotte of Prussia to Hans Caspar von Bothmer, 9 September 1704, see Doebner, Richard, ed., Briefe der Königin Sophie Charlotte von Preussen und der Kurfürstin Sophie von Hannover an hannoversche Diplomaten (G. Hirzel, Leipzig, 1905), p.57
10. Sedgwick, op. cit. (Hervey), Vol. 1, p.179
11. The Spectator, 11 January 1902
12. West, Richard, A Monody on the Death of Queen Caroline, in A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes by Several Hands, ed. Robert Dodsley (London, 1765), Vol. 2, pp.331–7
13. Harris, Frances, A Passion for Government: The Life of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991), p.204
14. See Stephen Duck, ‘Royal Benevolence’, 2 October 1730 (W. Harris, London, 1730)
15. Clarke, Alured, An Essay towards the Character of Her late Majesty Caroline, Queen-Consort of Great Britain (London, 1738), p.3
16. Thomson, Mrs, ed., op. cit. (Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon), Vol. 1, p.386
17. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Henrietta Louisa, Countess of Pomfret, 26 July 1738, see Halsband, Robert, ed., The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 3 vols (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1965), Vol. 2, p.119
18. See Black, Jeremy, George II (University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 2007); Thompson, Andrew C., George II (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2011)
19. Rosenthal, op. cit., p.84
20. Clarke, Alured, op. cit., pp.44–5
Prologue
1. Smollett, Tobias, Humphrey Clinker, p.117
2. Fielding, Sarah, The Adventures of David Simple, p.77
3. Swift, Jonathan, ‘A Description of a City Shower’
4. Anonymous, ‘An Excellent New Ballad’, Bodleian Library broadsheet ballads collection, MS. Rawl. poet. 207 (136, 137)
5. Walpole, Horace, Reminiscences, written in 1788, for the amusement of Miss Mary and Miss Agnes B***y (Oxford, 1924), p.60; see Borman, Tracy, King’s Mistress, Queen’s Servant: The Life and Times of Henrietta Howard (Pimlico paperback, London, 2008), p.99; Sedgwick, op. cit. (Hervey), Vol. 1, p.41
6. See Black, Jeremy, A Subject for Taste: Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (Hambledon & London, London, 2005), p.26
7. ‘The Happy Marriage and The Unhappy Marriage’, print, published by John King, c. 1690, see British Museum, collection number 1906,0823.4
8. Anonymous, ‘An Elegy upon the Young Prince’, Bodleian Library broadsheet ballads collection, MS. Rawl. poet. 207 (151–153)
9. Anonymous, ‘An Excellent New Ballad’, Bodleian Library broadsheet ballads collection, MS. Rawl. poet. 207 (136, 137)
10. Lord Hervey to Henry Fox, 1 September 1734, see Ilchester, Earl of, ed., Lord Hervey and his Friends (John Murray, London, 1950), p.205
11. White, Jerry, London in the Eighteenth Century: A Great and Monstrous Thing (Vintage, London, 2012), p.10
12. Worsley, op. cit., p.358, note 42
13. Sheppard, Edgar, Memorial of St James’s Palace (Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1894), p.48
14. Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans, to Raugravine Luise von Degenfeld, 23 December 1717, see Kroll, Maria, Letters from Liselotte (McCall Publishing, New York, 1971), p.191
15. Thomson, Mrs, ed., op. cit. (Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon), p.29
16. Quennell, Peter, Caroline of England (Collins, London, 1939), p.72
17. Worsley, op. cit., pp.38–9
18. See Ilchester, Earl of, ed., op. cit., p.ix
19. Anonymous, ‘An Elegy upon the Young Prince’, Bodleian Library broadsheet ballads collection, MS. Rawl. poet. 207 (151–153)
20. Melville, Lewis, Maids of Honour (Hutchinson & Co., London, 1927), p.26
21. George Augustus, Prince of Wales to George I, undated, Royal Archives RA GEO/MAIN/54046
22. Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans, to Raugravine Luise von Degenfeld, 23 December 1717, see Kroll, op. cit., p.191
23. Arkell, R.L., Caroline of Ansbach: George the Second’s Queen (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1939), p.103
PART ONE: GERMANY
Chapter I: Princess of Ansbach
1. See British Museum, Wenceslaus Hollar, Ansbach, from the Town Atlases, etching c. 1630s, collection number 1852,0612.136
2. See British Museum: Cooper, collection number 1888,0515.51; Bowles, collection number 1902,1011.1274
3. For information about Ansbach’s ruling family and court life, I am grateful to Dr Wolfgang F. Reddig, Leiter des Margrafensmuseums und Stadtarchivs, Ansbach
4. See Yorke-Long, Alan, George II and Handel, History Today, 10 October 1951
5. Sharp, Tony, Pleasures and Ambition: The Life, Loves and Wars of Augustus the Strong (I.B. Tauris, London, 2001), p.22
6. Blesendorff, see Royal Collection, RCIN607275; Wissing, see National Portrait Gallery, NPG/D20409
7. Gufer, see Royal Collection, RCIN607270 and RCIN607271&2
8. Worsley, op. cit., p.355, note 7
9. Hatton, Ragnhild, George I (Thames & Hudson, London, 1978), p.15
10. Clarke, Alured, op. cit., p.5
11. Sharp, op. cit., p.22
12. Adamson, John, The Princely Courts of Europe 1500–1750 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1999), p.190
13. Elisabeth Cha
rlotte, Duchess of Orléans, to Raugravine Luise von Degenfeld, 27 August 1719, see Kroll, op. cit., p.214
14. ‘like a cat’, RA GEO/ADD/28/52, Caroline to Charlotte Clayton, 1 March 1719; ‘Lady Bomfrit’, RA GEO/ADD/28/61, Caroline to Charlotte Clayton, 18 October 1725; ‘Claiton’ and ‘Klethen’ also occur in letters from Caroline to Charlotte Clayton, RA GEO/ADD/28/74 and RA GEO/ADD/28/76 respectively
15. George Smalridge, Bishop of Bristol; quoted by Leibniz in a letter to Caroline, Princess of Wales, 4 March 1715, G.W. Leibniz Bibliothek, Hanover, shelfmark LH 4, 4, 1 Bl.7–8
16. Marschner, Joanna, Queen Caroline: Cultural Politics at the Early Eighteenth-Century Court (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2014), pp.3–4
17. Sharp, op. cit., p.22
18. See National Archives, SP105/85/44, elegy by George Stepney, dedicated to the Electress of Saxony, 1694, and SP105/82/48, James Vernon to George Stepney, June 1692
19. Sharp, op. cit., p.22
20. Ibid., p.23
21. Ibid., p.21
22. See National Archives, SP 105/58/91v, George Stepney to William Blathwayt, 28 March 1693
23. Marschner, op. cit., p.3
24. See National Archives, SP105/60/104v, George Stepney to William Blathwayt, 26 September 1693
25. Sharp, op. cit., p.22
26. See Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 1221, doc 2
27. Sharp, op. cit., p.24
28. See Massie, Robert, Peter the Great: His Life and World (Head of Zeus, London, 2012); Marschner, op. cit., p.155
29. See National Archives, SP105/60/43v, George Stepney to John Trenchard, 31 October 1693
30. See National Archives, SP105/60/100, Philip Plantamour to Leibniz, 29 December 1693
31. Sharp, op. cit., p.49
32. See National Archives, SP105/60/173, George Stepney to James Cresset, January 1694
33. See National Archives, SP105/54/68, George Stepney to William Blathwayt, August 1694
34. See Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 1221, doc 1
35. See Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 1221, doc 6
36. See National Archives, SP105/58/91v, George Stepney to William Blathwayt, 28 March 1693
37. See National Archives, SP105/60/97v, George Stepney to William Blathwayt and James Vernon, 8 January 1694
38. Sharp, op. cit., pp.55–6
39. See National Archives, SP105/84/100, Sir William Dutton Colt to George Stepney, 23 January 1693
40. Sharp, op. cit., p.73
41. See National Archives, SP105/60/247/2, George Stepney to Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, undated 1694
42. See National Archives, SP105/60/100v, George Stepney to ‘Mr Polier’ [unidentified], 8 January 1694
43. Ibid.
44. See National Archives, SP105/60/136v, George Stepney to Caspar Florentin Consbruch, April 1694
45. See National Archives, SP105/85/38/2, Frederick Augustus of Saxony to William III, 28 April 1694
46. See Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 1221, doc 8
47. See National Archives, SP105/85/37/1 and SP105/85/45/1, George Stepney papers, undated 1694
48. See National Archives, SP105/85/44, elegy by George Stepney, dedicated to the Electress of Saxony, 1694
49. See National Archives, SP105/54/68 (‘revels and dances’) and SP105/54/75v (‘frolicks and debauches’), George Stepney to William Blathwayt, August 1694
50. See Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, I. HA GR, Rep.41, Nr.1065
51. See National Archives, SP105/54/68, George Stepney to William Blathwayt, 24 August 1694
52. Sharp, op. cit., p.114
53. Ibid., p.278
54. Arkell, op. cit., (Caroline of Ansbach), p.7; note, p.307
55. Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans, to Raugravine Amalie Elisabeth von Degenfeld, 29 July 1706, see Kroll, op. cit., p.124; Adamson, op. cit., p.220
56. Zedler, Beatrice H., The Three Princesses, Hypatia, Vol. 4, no 1 (spring 1989), p.53
57. Wilkins, W.H., Caroline the Illustrious, 2 vols (Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1901), Vol. 1, p.16
58. Look, Brandon C., ed., Bloomsbury Companion to Leibniz (Bloomsbury, London, 2014), p.11
59. Brown, Michael, A Political Biography of John Toland (Routledge, London, 2016), p.73
60. Arkell, op. cit., p.64
61. See Scharmann, Rudolf G., Charlottenburg Palace: Royal Prussia in Berlin (Prestel, Munich, 2007), p.10
62. See ibid., p.4
63. Caroline to Leibniz, 28 December 1704, see Wilkins, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.31
64. Marschner, op. cit., p25; Kroll, Maria, Sophie, Electress of Hanover: A Personal Portrait (Victor Gollancz, London, 1973), p.207
65. Theatricals, see, Doebner, Richard, ed., op. cit., p.32, Sophie Charlotte to Hans Caspar von Bothmer, 19 June 1703
66. Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans, to Sophie of Hanover, 24 July 1699, Kroll, op. cit., p.88
67. See National Archives, SP90/1/257, Philip Plantamour to Sir Charles Hedges, 30 September 1702
68. Brown, Michael, op. cit., p.74
69. See National Archives, SP90/1/37, George Stepney to James Vernon, 2 August 1698
70. Roinila, Markku, Leibniz and the Amour Pur Controversy, Journal of Early Modern Studies, Vol. 2 (fall 2013), p.46; Zedler, op. cit., p.57; Brown, Gregory, Leibniz’s Endgame and the Ladies of the Courts, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 65, no 1 (2004), p.80
71. Brown, Michael, op. cit., p.79
72. Kroll, op. cit. (Sophie), p.191; Look, ed., op. cit., p.11
73. Ibid., p.11
74. See Thornton, Peter, Authentic Decor: The Domestic Interior 1620–1920 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson paperback, London, 1993), p.68
75. Jay, Emma, Queen Caroline’s Library and its European Contents, Book History, Vol. 9 (2006), p.33
76. Marschner, op. cit, p.93
77. Adamson, op. cit., p.223
78. Walpole, Horace, Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George II (London, 1822), pp.158–9
79. See Smith, Hannah, Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714–1760 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006), p.45
80. Adamson, op. cit. p.219
81. Smith, op. cit., p.87; Brown, op. cit., p.63
82. Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans, to Sophie of Hanover, 30 July 1705, Kroll, op. cit., p.120
83. See National Archives, SP105/85/58/2, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Aurora von Königsmark, undated 1695
85. Arkell, op. cit., p.8
86. Ibid., p.10; Somerset, Anne, Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (HarperPress, London, 2012), p.166
87. Somerset, op. cit., p.263
88. Leibniz, see Wilkins, op. cit, Vol. 1, p.27
89. Arkell, op. cit, p.10
90. Sophie Charlotte to Hans Caspar von Bothmer, 1 October 1703, see Doebner, Richard, ed., op. cit., p.37
91. See National Archives, SP89/18/42, Paul Methuen to Sir Charles Hedges, 12 March 1704
92. Gerhard Wolter Molanus, Abbé of Loccum, to Leibniz, 4 June 1700, in Strickland, Lloyd, The Philosophy of Sophie, Electress of Hanover, Hypatia, Vol. 24 no 2 (spring 2009), p.195
93. Wilkins, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.34
94. Arkell, op. cit., p.11
95. Ibid., p.12
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid.
98. See National Archives, SP105/85/42v, Frederick III of Brandenburg to Thomas Ernest von Danckelmann, 6 December 1692
99. Arkell, op. cit., pp.11–12
100. Ibid., p.13 and p.307, note
101. Ibid., p.13
102. Ibid., pp.29–30
103. Wilkins, op. cit., Vol. 1,
p.31
104. Ibid., p.27
105. Arkell, op. cit., p.29
106. Brown, Gregory, op. cit., p.83
107. Arkell, op. cit., p.29
108. Sophie Charlotte to Hans Caspar von Bothmer, 1 November 1704, see Doebner, Richard, ed., op. cit., p.59
109. A Character of her Highness the Princess ***, attempted by Richard Hollings, MD, in Private Correspondence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, 2 vols (Henry Colburn, London, 1838), Vol. 2, p.207
110. See National Archives, SP105/60/9/2, George Stepney to James Vernon, 12 August 1693
111. Sophie Charlotte of Prussia to Hans Caspar von Bothmer, 21 June and 11 October 1704, see Doebner, Richard, ed., op. cit., p.50 and p.57
112. Ibid., Sophie Charlotte of Prussia to Hans Caspar von Bothmer, 9 September 1704, p.57
113. Hanham, Andrew, ‘Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach and the “Anglicisation” of the House of Hanover’, in Campbell Orr, Clarissa, ed., Queenship in Europe 1660–1815: The Role of the Consort (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004)
114. Wilkins, op. cit., p.29
115. See Marschner, op. cit., p.188, note 11
116. See National Archives, SP90/3/90, Thomas Wentworth, Lord Raby to Robert Harley, 4 November 1704
117. See National Archives, SP90/3/99, Thomas Wentworth, Lord Raby to Robert Harley, 11 November 1704
118. Sophie Charlotte to Hans Caspar von Bothmer, 2 December 1704, see Doebner, Richard, ed., op. cit., p.61
119. Brown, Gregory, op. cit., p.84
120. Wilkins, op. cit., p.30
121. Sophie of Hanover to Hans Caspar von Bothmer, 14 November 1704, see Doebner, Richard, ed., op. cit., p.231
122. Thompson, op. cit., p.29
123. Brown, Gregory, op. cit., p.84
124. Wilkins, op. cit., p.31
125. Sophie Charlotte to Hans Caspar von Bothmer, 6 November 1703, see Doebner, Richard, ed., op. cit., p.38
126. Ibid., Sophie of Hanover to Baron von Schütz, 28 June 1705, p.196
127. Rosenthal, op. cit., p.32
128. See National Archives, SP90/3/242, Thomas Wentworth, Lord Raby to Robert Harley, 14 March 1705, and SP90/3/280, Thomas Wentworth, Lord Raby to Robert Harley, 14 April 1705