The Elector, meditating on this sudden development of the domestic affections of his son, resolved to aid such development, not by giving him access to his mother, but by bestowing on him the hand of a consort. Caroline of Anspach was a very accomplished young lady, owing to the careful education which she received at the hands of the best-loved child of Sophia Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg, and the first, but short-lived, Queen of Prussia. If the instructress was able, the pupil was apt. She was quick, enquiring, intelligent, and studious. Her application was great, her perseverance unwearied, and her memory excellent. She learned quickly and retained largely, seldom forgetting anything worth remembrance; and was an equally good judge of books and individuals. Her perception of character has, perhaps, never been surpassed. She had no inclination for trivial subjects, nor affection for trivial people. She had a heart and mind only for philosophers and philosophy; but she was not the less a lively girl, or the more a pedant on that account. She delighted in lively conversation, and could admirably lead or direct it. Her knowledge of languages was equal to that of Sophia of Hanover, of whom she was also the equal in wit and in repartee. But therewith she was more tender, more gentle, more generous.

The marriage of George Augustus, Electoral Prince of Brunswick-Hanover, with Caroline, daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Anspach, was solemnised in the year 1705. The wife of George Augustus was of the same age as her husband. She had had the misfortune to lose her father when she was yet extremely young, and had been brought up at the Court of Berlin under the guardianship of Sophia Charlotte, the consort of Frederick of Prussia.

The sister of George Augustus, the only daughter of Sophia Dorothea, and bearing the same baptismal names as her mother, was also married during the captivity of the latter. Three remarkable Englishmen were present at the marriage of the daughter of Sophia Dorothea with the Prince Royal of Prussia. These were Lord Halifax, Sir John Vanbrugh, and Joseph Addison. Queen Anne, who had restored Halifax to a favour from which he had fallen, entrusted him to carry the bill for the naturalisation of the Electoral family and for the better security of the Protestant line of succession, and also the Order of the Garter for the Electoral Prince. On this mission, Addison was the invited companion of the patron whom he so choicely flattered. Vanbrugh was present in his official character of Clarencieux King-at-Arms, and performed the ceremony of investiture. The little Court of Hanover was joyfully splendid on this doubly festive occasion. The nuptials were celebrated with more accompanying gladness than ever followed them. The pomp was something uncommon in its way, and the bride must have been wearied of being married long before the stupendous solemnity had at length reached its slowly-arrived-at conclusion. She became Queen of Prussia in 1712.

Honours now fell thick upon the Electoral family, but Sophia Dorothea was not permitted to have any share therein. In 1706, Queen Anne created her son, George Augustus, Baron of Tewkesbury, Viscount Northallerton, Earl of Milford Haven, Marquis and Duke of Cambridge. With these honours it was also decreed that he should enjoy full precedence over the entire peerage.

There was a strong party in England whose most earnest desire it was that the Electress Sophia, in whose person the succession to the crown of Great Britain was settled, should repair to London—not permanently to reside there, but in order that during a brief visit she might receive the homage of the Protestant party. She was, however, reluctant to move from her books, philosophy, and cards, until she could be summoned as Queen. Failing here, an attempt was made to bring over George Louis, who was nothing loth to come; but the idea of a visit from him was to poor Queen Anne the uttermost abomination. Her Majesty had some grounds for her dislike to a visit from her old wooer. She was nervously in terror of a monster popular demonstration. Such a demonstration was publicly talked of; and the enemies of the house of Stuart, by way of instruction and warning to the Queen, whose Jacobite bearing towards her brother was matter of notoriety, had determined, in the event of George Louis visiting England, to give him an escort into London that should amount to the very significant number of some forty or fifty thousand men.

The journal of the lord-keeper, Cowper, states the official answer of the princess to all the invitations which had been agitated by the Hanoverian Tories during the year 1704 and the succeeding summer. ‘At the Queen’s Cabinet Council, Sunday, the 11th of November 1705, foreign letters read in her Majesty’s presence, the substance remarkable, that at Hanover was a person, agent to the discontented party here, to invite over the Princess Sophia and the Electoral Prince (afterwards George II.) into England, assuring them that a party here was ready to propose it. That the Princess Sophia had caused the same person to be acquainted, “that she judged the message came from such as were enemies to her family; that she would never hearken to such a proposal but when it came from the Queen of England herself;” and withal she had discouraged the attempt so much that it was believed nothing more could be said in it.’

Sophia, who was naturally reluctant to come to England upon a mere popular or partisan invitation, would gladly have come on the bidding of the Queen. This was never given. In one year the Queen sent a request to the Electress to aid her in promoting the peace of Europe, and a present to her god-daughter Anne, the first child of George Augustus and Caroline of Anspach. Earl Rivers carried both letter and present. The letter was acknowledged with cold courtesy by the Electress, in a communication to the Earl of Strafford, secretary of state. The communication bears date the 11th of November 1711; and, after saying that the gift is infinitely esteemed, the Electress adds—‘I would not, however, give my parchment for it, since that will be an everlasting monument in the archives of Hanover, and the present for the little princess will go, when she is grown up, into another family.’

Early in 1714 Anne addressed a powerful remonstrance to the aged Electress, complaining that ever since the Act of Succession had been settled, there had been a constant agitation, the object of which was to bring over a prince of the Hanoverian house to reside in England, even during the writer’s life. She accuses the Electress of having come, though perhaps tardily, into this sentiment, which had its origin in political pretensions, and she adds, that if persevered in, it may end in consequences dangerous to the succession itself, ‘which is not secure any other ways than as the princess who actually wears the crown maintains her authority and prerogative.’

Her Majesty addressed a second letter to George Augustus, as Duke of Cambridge, expressing her thoughts with respect to the design he had of coming into her kingdom. ‘I should tell you,’ she says, ‘nothing can be more dangerous to the tranquillity of my dominions, and the right of succession in your line, and consequently most disagreeable to me.’

The proud Dowager-Electress had declared that ‘she cared not when she died, if on her tomb could be recorded that she was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.’ These words are said to have given great offence to Queen Anne.

There is evidence that the last letters of Anne had something to do with the death of the Electress. They had hardly been received and read, when her health, which had been for some time failing, grew worse. She rallied, however, for a time, and was able to take exercise, but the blow had been given from which she never recovered.

Molyneux, an agent of the Duke of Marlborough at Hanover, says he was on his way to the country palace of the Electress, when he was suddenly informed that she had been seized with mortal illness in one of the garden-walks.

‘I ran up there, and found her fast expiring in the arms of the poor Electoral Princess (Caroline, afterwards Queen of George II.) and amidst the tears of a great many of her servants, who endeavoured in vain to help her. I can give you no account of her illness, but that I believe the chagrin of those villainous letters I sent you last post has been in a great measure the cause of it. The Rheingravine who has been with her these fifteen years has told me she never knew anything make so deep an impression on her as the affair of the prince’s journey, which I am sure she had to the last degree at heart, and she has done me the honour to tell me so twenty times. In the midst of this, however, these letters arrived, and these, I verily believe, have broken her heart and brought her with sorrow to the grave. The letters were delivered on Wednesday, at seven.

‘When I came to court she was at cards, but was so full of these letters that she got up and ordered me to follow her into the garden, where she gave them to me to read, and walked, and spoke a great deal in relation to them. I believe she walked three hours that night. The next morning, which was Thursday, I heard that she was out of order, and on going immediately to court, she ordered me to be called into her bed-chamber. She gave me the letters I sent you to copy; she bade me send them next post, and bring them afterwards to her to court. This was on Friday. In the morning, on Friday, they told me she was very well, but seemed much chagrined. She was dressed, and dined with the Elector as usual. At four, she did me the honour to send to town for some other copies of the same letters; and then she was still perfectly well. She walked and talked very heartily in the orangery. After that, about six, she went out to walk in the garden, and was still very well. A shower of rain came, and as she was walking pretty fast to get to shelter, they told her she was walking a little too fast. She answered, “I believe I do,” and dropped down on saying these words, which were her last. They raised her up, chafed her with spirits, tried to bleed her; but it was all in vain, and when I came up, she was as dead as if she had been four days so.’2 Such was the end, on the 10th of June 1714, of a very remarkable woman.