129. Sophia’s love of walking seems to have been inherited by her eldest son. Marshal Schulenburg, when on a visit to his sister, the Duchess of Kendal, at Kensington, in 1727, describes his life there as fatiguing, inasmuch as he had to promenade with the King in the gardens every evening for three or four hours.

130. See A. Haupt, u.s.

131. She expresses extreme delight with the changes effected by Count Rochus Quirini zu Lynar, who directed the building operations of the Hanoverian Court, in the hunting-box of the Göhrde.

132. A copy of a portrait of her nephew, Raugrave Maurice, is attributed to her.

133. The coverings of the chairs in the presence-chamber at Hanover, as well as those of the altar in the palace chapel there, were embroidered by her hands. She also embroidered a chair-cover for Baroness Kielmannsegg—an attention bearing out the statement as to the relations between that lady and the Electoral family given above. King Frederick I of Prussia mentions his mother-in-law’s beautiful cabinet of china at Herrenhausen.

134. He seems to have frequented her society up to a late date. In 1696 the Duchess of Orleans expresses her pleasure that her aunt should have his philosophy to amuse her—though, for her part, she ‘does not see how one can understand anything of which one knows nothing.’ The younger Helmont’s doctrine of metempsychosis was not in the long run satisfactory to Sophia, who had once said that it might account for her unlucky son Maximilian’s resemblance to the ‘seven old Dukes of Brunswick,’ who called all their servants ‘thou’ and occupied themselves with making nets and drinking warm beer.

135. See H. Forst, u.s., p. 378.

136. Of course, she had to read the Mesopotamian Shepherdess of the interminable Duke Anthony Ulric; but she compendiously set it down as a burlesque on the Bible.

137. In The Freeholder, No. 30, April 2nd, 1716, Addison quotes, à propos of offensive French criticisms of the English and other nations, a passage from Chevreana, the amusing anthology of Urban Chevreau mentioned on another page, in which the very sensible proposition that ‘one ought not to judge well or ill of a nation from a particular person, nor of a particular person from his nation,’ is illustrated by the assertion that there are Germans, as there are Frenchmen, who have no wit, and Germans who are better skilled in Greek or Hebrew than either Scaliger or the Cardinal du Perron—‘there is not in all France a person of more wit than the present Duchess of Hanover, nor more thoroughly knowing in philosophy than was the late Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia.’ ‘Prejudiced’ witnesses are not always in the wrong.

138. It seems right to observe that, though the tone of refinement characteristic of the Hanoverian Court was largely due to the Electress Sophia, the Elector George Lewis was by no means insensible to her example. Toland speaks of the liberty of conversation, ‘that nobody who deserves it will abuse,’ allowed at the Elector’s table. And (which is a more entirely trustworthy statement, and one which Toland would hardly have made had there really been no contrast observable on this score with contemporary English habits) he adds that the vice of drinking, for which the German nation is so much branded, is so far from reigning at the Hanoverian court, that he never knew greater sobriety than is to be found there.

139. I have already touched on her grief at her son Prince Christian’s death by drowning in 1703; but the passage in which she refers to it in a letter to the elder Schütz should be read as giving proof not only of her maternal affection, but of the deep religious feeling at the bottom of her heart. (See Briefe an Hannoversche Diplomaten (1905), p. 175.)

140. Among such passages can hardly be excluded her finding fault with the Apostles, none of whom had been at the pains of eliciting from Lazarus his experiences after death. Had anyone brought him to court, her own natural inquisitiveness would certainly have prompted her to ask him so obvious a question.

141. It has been seen earlier in this volume how she declined to be edified by the peculiarities of Labadie and Labadism, and how sceptical she had proved as to some new method of ‘healing’ imported from Holland at the time of her husband’s final illness. Both she and Leibniz, however, showed some interest in the vagaries of Rosemunde von Assing, a young lady whose pretensions caused a good deal of trouble at Lüneburg, and whom Molanus and the orthodox clergy proposed to clap into prison. Leibniz thought the case worth attention, though its phenomena might be ascribed to natural causes.

142. ‘They say,’ she writes in 1711, ‘that the Bishops are busily preaching Passive Obedience, although they had much better hold their tongues and not interfere in matters of State.’ Thus, notwithstanding her Stewart blood and her own protestations of impartiality, she had something of the Whig in her, after all.

143. ‘In all countries of the world,’ she wrote in 1703, ‘religion serves the ends of morality. It is only in England that religion, I am sorry to say, serves to create cabals.’

144. Perhaps it may be well not to enquire too closely as to their behaviour when they got there. Sometimes, we are told, the Electress fell asleep; occasionally, she wrote letters to her brother, taking care, however, not to disturb her husband when engaged in reading a play, which he did audibly.

145. Owing, however, to the different forms of faith professed by Court and people in Prussia, the tolerance practised at Berlin was even ampler than that prevailing at Hanover; and the subsequent marriage-treaty between the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick William and Sophia Dorothea the younger, the only daughter of the Elector George Lewis of Hanover, provided for her being allowed to adhere to the Lutheran form of faith.

146. Gerhard Wolter Molanus, who held the Abbacy of the secularised Cistercian foundation of Loccum, situate in the forest solitude near Rehburg and the celebrated Steinhuder Lake, plays a considerable part in Sophia’s correspondence. He exercised a great influence in the direction of toleration and irenic ideals, more, however, by his hierarchical position and personality than by his writings. The motto of his life, ‘Beati pacifici,’ admirably accorded with Cistercian principles. He lived to an advanced age—so advanced, that his mental powers at last collapsed, and the good old man is said to have fancied himself a barley-corn. At the small watering-place of Rehburg, the Hanoverian Court held a villeggiatura—or rather a sojourn under tents—as early as 1691.

147. The scheme tempted him, not only as likely to approve itself to the Emperor and the Catholic Electors, but also as one which would practically have secured the see of Osnabrück in perpetuity to his House. It illustrates the popular ignorance in England concerning the House of Hanover, that, if Toland is to be trusted, a report was current that this House ‘was so indifferent in point of religion, as generally to breed up one of their sons a Papist, in order to qualify him for Bishop of Osnabrug.’

148. To these persecutions she repeatedly returns. In 1709, we find her expressing the opinion that the ‘poor’ French ‘galley-slaves’ should not be forgotten in the peace negotiations then on foot.

149. Besides these, Count Ernest Augustus von Platen came over on two ceremonial occasions. (See the List of Diplomatic Representatives and Agents, England and North Germany, 1687-1727, contributed by J. F. Chance to Notes on the Diplomatic Relations of England and Germany; ed. C. H. Firth. Oxford, 1907.)

150. See E. Pfleiderer, Leibniz als Patriot, Staatsmann, und Bildungsträger (Leipzig, 1870), and, of course, Kuno Fischer’s great work.—Perhaps the most signal instance of the way in which in the political thought of Leibniz past and future came into contact (he says himself: ‘le présent est chargé du passé et gros de l’avenir’) is, as Ernst Curtius says (Alterthum und Gegenwart, pp. 219 sqq.), his famous Egyptian plan, of which an account was published in a pamphlet in London, à propos of the French invasion of 1803, and as to which see Guhrauer’s Life, and K. G. Blumenthal, Leibnizens Ægyptischer Plan (Leipzig, 1869).

151. Nothing need be said here of his minor literary efforts, such as his tributes in verse to the Electress Sophia.

152. In 1688, Leibniz prepared the counter-manifesto to Louis XIV’s declaration of war in that year.

153. See L. Keller, Leibniz u. die Deutschen Sozietäten des 17 Jahrh., in Jahrgang x. of Vorträge u. Aufsätze a. d. Comenius-Gesellschaft (Berlin).

154. After Queen Sophia Charlotte’s death there was less love lost than ever between the King, her husband, and the Elector, her brother. In 1711, the Electress Sophia, speaking of a melancholy journey of her son-in-law’s, observes that it was a Divine punishment on him that he should hate the Elector without any reason whatever.

155. In a letter from the Electress to Bothmer (Briefe an Hannoversche Diplomaten, p. 319) she mentions some money of hers in England; but the passage seems to refer to a private investment.

156. This letter is translated from one of the unpublished letters to the Earl of Portland mentioned in the Preface.

157. She also renewed the assent given by William III to the measures of force adopted at this time by the Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Celle against the Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

158. In September, Sophia writes that Lord Stamford has been good enough to transmit to her a dozen copies of the Prayer-book, with her name inserted in it; but that there are not a dozen persons in Hanover able to join her in using them.

159. This, too, was the impression of Queen Sophia Charlotte at Berlin. (See her letter to Bothmer, May 27th, 17021702, in Briefe an Hannoversche Diplomaten, p. 10.)

160. In June, 1702, Sophia had written that Scottish affairs seemed in a troublesome state, but that she could hardly doubt that the Queen would be prudent enough to leave the Scotch their extempore prayers ... and that there would be no attempt to impose upon them bishops and ‘common prayer,’ by which means Charles I had spoilt everything.—For an elucidation of the religious condition of Scotland as affecting the question of the Hanoverian Succession, see Mr. Rait’s paper in Appendix C.

161. The Duke, we learn inter alia, played a game at cards with the Electress and ‘Madame Bellmont.’ This Lady Bellmont or Bellamont, whom Leibniz in vain begged the Electress not to admit into her intimacy, was no other than Frances Bard, who claimed to be the widow of Prince Rupert, and whose relations with him had certainly been of the most intimate kind. She justified Leibniz by misusing her position at Hanover to engage in Jacobite intrigue, thereby giving much trouble to Cresset and to Edmund Poley, who succeeded him as envoy extraordinary in 1703; and it is just conceivable that she may have in some measure influenced the Electress in favour of the Pretender and his cause. She died in 1708.

162. He was accredited to London after the death of Schütz in August, 1710, and remained certainly till March, 1711. He reappeared there in October, and remained till January, 1711. He came back in June or July, 1714. (Chance, u.s.)

163. On Rochester’s sudden death, in 1711, Sophia expresses her deep regret for him as her friend—‘he had plenty of esprit, and was in no way a republican.’

164. She told Schütz (January 1st, 1706) that she thought the naturalisation unnecessary, as it had been held to be in the case of King William III and in those of her late brothers, but that she was quite prepared to act as the Queen and Parliament wished. She would have preferred the name ‘Brunswick-Lüneburg’ to be substituted for ‘Hanover,’ and the style ‘Sérénissime’ in lieu of ‘Excellent.’ The former of these criticisms, at all events, was perfectly just.

165. I have modified some expressions in my first edition, after comparing the account of F. Salomon, Die letzten Regierungsjahre der Königin Anna, pp. 276-7; but I cannot come to the conclusion that the attitude of the Electress as between the parties was even at this time incorrect.

166. This visit synchronised very nearly with the coming of age of the Pretender (June), who seized the opportunity to assure Pope Clement XI that ‘no temptation of this world, and no desire to reign, should ever make him wander from the right path of the Catholic faith.’ The anecdote must go for what it is worth, which was said to have been related by Halifax to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her husband: how, at his first formal audience with the Electress, she ran across the room in order to place herself in front of a portrait of the Pretender, and thus screen it from the ambassador’s eyes.

167. It was said that, when, after the death of Sophia, it fell to the Elector, her son, to substitute his nominations of additional Lords Justices for hers, and the original document was accordingly produced in London, the cover enclosing it was found to have been broken open. It was further reported that, after much wrangling with her ministers, Queen Anne cut the discussion short by taking upon herself the blame of having opened the cover.

168. Brigadier-General Emmanuel Scroope Howe was English resident at Hanover from 1705 till his death in 1709. He was, as mentioned on a previous page, the husband of Ruperta, Prince Rupert’s daughter by Margaret Howes. Ruperta seems herself to have helped to embroil matters by writing some highly indiscreet letters to England, in which she dwelt on the apathy of the House of Hanover towards the Succession.

169. The same feeling notably descended to George III, who granted an ‘apanage’ to the Cardinal of York in his last years; to George IV, who as Prince Regent provided a solemn sepulture for the remains of James II, and erected a monument to the last of his descendants; and, as is well known, to the last and most illustrious sovereign of the Hanoverian dynasty.

170. The latest tribute to it is the conjecture crediting him with the original authorship of Robinson Crusoe.

171. The Electress wishes him a happy voyage on October 29th.

172. He had been created a Knight of the Garter in 1706, but not installed till December, 1710, Lord Halifax acting as his proxy.

173. À propos of the mention of this sovereign it may be noted that about this time Queen Anne thought fit to impose upon the Electress the task (specially disagreeable because she specially disliked him) of dissuading King Augustus from forcing his son and namesake to follow him into the Church of Rome. Augustus II actually promised Queen Anne to send his son to England; but in the meantime the latter had been received into the Catholic Church at Bologna.

174. O. Weber, Der Friede von Utrecht, p. 313.

175. Bolingbroke hated Bothmer, and described him as, ‘notwithstanding that air of coldness and caution which he wore, the most inveterate party man that I ever saw, and the most capable of giving tête baissée into the most extravagant measures that faction could propose.’ (Cf. Salomon, p. 239, and note.)

176. Salomon, u.s., p. 223, from the Hanover Archives.

177. Printed in Macpherson, Vol. ii. pp. 792-3. See on this transaction Salomon, u.s., pp. 225 sqq.

178. By composing the Te Deum und Jubilate for the celebration of the Peace at St. Paul’s on July 7th, Handel gave great offence to the Hanoverian Court; nor was he readmitted to favour till some little time after the accession of George I.

179. These conclusions seem irresistible in view of the documents, especially the despatches of Ibberville, collected by Grimblot and reviewed by Salomon, u.s., pp. 235-64.

180. Salomon, u.s., p. 272. Klopp, vol. xiv. p. 540, gives a summary of the discussion of Oxford’s announcement from the Lords’ Debates.

181. Bothmer to Robethon, January 2nd, 1714. (Cited by Salomon, u.s., p. 232, from the Stowe MSS. in Brit. Mus.)

182. It seems necessary to quote the actual text of this much-vext letter: ‘Je vous prie de dire à Monsieur le chancelier Mylord Harcourt qu’on est fort étonné ici qu’on n’a pas envoyé un writ à mon petit-fils le prince électoral pour pouvoir entrer au parlement comme duc de Cambridge, comme cela lui est dû par la patente que la reine lui a donnée. Comme il a toujours été de mes amis aussi bien que son cousin, je crois qu’il ne trouvera pas mauvais que vous le lui demandiez et la raison.’ (Briefe der Kurfürstin Sophie an Hannoversche Diplomaten, p. 213.)

183. Lord Polwarth, eldest son of the Earl of Marchmont and member for Berwick-on-Tweed (who afterwards became an intimate friend of Bolingbroke), had kept up a correspondence with the court of Hanover since his visit there in 1712.

184. I do not know whether anything on the subject is mentioned in the fifteen letters from Sophia to Lady Colt, said to range from 1681 to May 15th, 1714, and to have been sold by auction in 1905.

185. It was through these copies that the letters seem afterwards to have become known.

186. This appears to have been the Countess Johanna von der Lippe-Bückeburg, who, on being divorced from her husband, was besieged by him in her residence at Stadthagen near Bückeburg, from which he thought himself entitled to expel her. She appears to have been a welcome visitor at Herrenhausen, where she told the story of this siege ‘fort joliment.’

187. Malortie, Der Hannoversche Hof, &c., pp. 225 sqq.

188. The continuous series of the letters addressed by her youngest son, Duke Ernest Augustus, to his friend J. F. D. von Wendt, breaks off in November 1713.

189. He had, as Lord Cornbury, been Governor of New Jersey and New York, where he left no honoured name behind him.

190. The Whig ‘plot’ to which Mr. Sichel refers in his Life of Bolingbroke p. 351, as revealed by Chesterfield at a later date, seems to belong to March 1714, when the Queen had (on the 11th) a sudden attack of erysipelas.

191. It was Bothmer who advised the destruction of a packet of letters found in the Queen’s private apartments by the Lords Justices and himself, and who, during the burning of them, thought that he recognised the handwriting of the Pretender.

192. So late as a fortnight after Queen Anne’s death, the Duchess of Orleans mentions a report that the English people were quite contented to have George I for their King, but on condition that the Electoral Prince should never be his successor. Probably, Elizabeth Charlotte’s personal prejudices inclined her to give credit to this ridiculous rumour; for she is unable to forego the opportunity of alluding to George Augustus’ ‘ill ancestry.’—O. von Heinemann, Geschichte von Braunschweig und Hannover, vol. iii. p. 228, mentions, without reprobating, the mendacious ‘Court scandal,’ explaining the quarrel between father and son by a supposed passion of the former for his daughter-in-law!

193. His letter describing his early days in his episcopal city gives a delightful picture of still life. ‘I have allowed myself the pleasure of taking a walk along the ramparts, in which all the small boys of the town have accompanied me.’