Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges by William Makepeace Thackeray
George The First
A very few years since, I knew familiarly a lady, who had been asked inmarriage by Horace Walpole, who had been patted on the head by George I.This lady had knocked at Johnson's door; had been intimate with Fox, thebeautiful Georgina of Devonshire, and that brilliant Whig society of thereign of George III; had known the Duchess of Queensberry, the patronessof Gay and Prior, the admired young beauty of the Court of Queen Anne. Ioften thought as I took my kind old friend's hand, how with it I held onto the old society of wits and men of the world. I could travel back forsevenscore years of time--have glimpses of Brummell, Selwyn, Chesterfieldand the men of pleasure; of Walpole and Conway; of Johnson, Reynolds,Goldsmith; of North, Chatham, Newcastle; of the fair maids of honour ofGeorge II's Court; of the German retainers of George I's; where Addisonwas secretary of state; where Dick Steele held a place; whither the greatMarlborough came with his fiery spouse; when Pope, and Swift, andBolingbroke yet lived and wrote. Of a society so vast, busy, brilliant, itis impossible in four brief chapters to give a complete notion; but we maypeep here and there into that bygone world of the Georges, see what theyand their Courts were like; glance at the people round about them; look atpast manners, fashions, pleasures, and contrast them with our own. I haveto say thus much by way of preface, because the subject of these lectureshas been misunderstood, and I have been taken to task for not having givengrave historical treatises, which it never was my intention to attempt.Not about battles, about politics, about statesmen and measures of state,did I ever think to lecture you: but to sketch the manners and life of theold world; to amuse for a few hours with talk about the old society; and,with the result of many a day's and night's pleasant reading, to try andwile away a few winter evenings for my hearers.
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Among the German princes who sat under Luther at Wittenberg, was DukeErnest of Celle, whose younger son, William of Lueneburg, was theprogenitor of the illustrious Hanoverian house at present reigning inGreat Britain. Duke William held his Court at Celle, a little town of tenthousand people that lies on the railway line between Hamburg and Hanover,in the midst of great plains of sand, upon the river Aller. When DukeWilliam had it, it was a very humble wood-built place, with a great brickchurch, which he sedulously frequented, and in which he and others of hishouse lie buried. He was a very religious lord, and called William thePious by his small circle of subjects, over whom he ruled till fatedeprived him both of sight and reason. Sometimes, in his latter days, thegood duke had glimpses of mental light, when he would bid his musiciansplay the psalm-tunes which he loved. One thinks of a descendant of his,two hundred years afterwards, blind, old, and lost of wits, singing Handelin Windsor Tower.
William the Pious had fifteen children, eight daughters and seven sons,who, as the property left among them was small, drew lots to determinewhich one of them should marry, and continue the stout race of theGuelphs. The lot fell on Duke George, the sixth brother. The othersremained single, or contracted left-handed marriages after the princelyfashion of those days. It is a queer picture--that of the old prince dyingin his little wood-built capital, and his seven sons tossing up whichshould inherit and transmit the crown of Brentford. Duke George, the luckyprizeman, made the tour of Europe, during which he visited the Court ofQueen Elizabeth; and in the year 1617, came back and settled at Zell, witha wife out of Darmstadt. His remaining brothers all kept their house atZell, for economy's sake. And presently, in due course, they all died--allthe honest dukes; Ernest, and Christian, and Augustus, and Magnus, andGeorge, and John--and they are buried in the brick church of Brentfordyonder, by the sandy banks of the Aller.
Dr. Vehse gives a pleasant glimpse of the way of life of our dukes inZell. "When the trumpeter on the tower has blown," Duke Christianorders--viz. at nine o'clock in the morning, and four in the evening, everyone must be present at meals, and those who are not must go without. Noneof the servants, unless it be a knave who has been ordered to ride out,shall eat or drink in the kitchen or cellar; or, without special leave,fodder his horses at the prince's cost. When the meal is served in theCourt-room, a page shall go round and bid every one be quiet and orderly,forbidding all cursing, swearing, and rudeness; all throwing about ofbread, bones, or roast, or pocketing of the same. Every morning, at seven,the squires shall have their morning soup, along with which, and dinner,they shall be served with their under-drink--every morning, except Fridaymorning, when there was sermon, and no drink. Every evening they shallhave their beer, and at night their sleep-drink. The butler is especiallywarned not to allow noble or simple to go into the cellar: wine shall onlybe served at the prince's or councillor's table; and every Monday, thehonest old Duke Christian ordains the accounts shall be ready, and theexpenses in the kitchen, the wine and beer cellar, the bakehouse andstable, made out.
Duke George, the marrying duke, did not stop at home to partake of thebeer and wine, and the sermons. He went about fighting wherever there wasprofit to be had. He served as general in the army of the circle of LowerSaxony, the Protestant army; then he went over to the emperor, and foughtin his armies in Germany and Italy; and when Gustavus Adolphus appeared inGermany, George took service as a Swedish general, and seized the Abbey ofHildesheim, as his share of the plunder. Here, in the year 1641, DukeGeorge died, leaving four sons behind him, from the youngest of whomdescend our royal Georges.
Under these children of Duke George, the old God-fearing, simple ways ofZell appear to have gone out of mode. The second brother was constantlyvisiting Venice, and leading a jolly, wicked life there. It was the mostjovial of all places at the end of the seventeenth century; and militarymen, after a campaign, rushed thither, as the warriors of the Alliesrushed to Paris in 1814, to gamble, and rejoice, and partake of all sortsof godless delights. This prince, then, loving Venice and its pleasures,brought Italian singers and dancers back with him to quiet old Zell; and,worse still, demeaned himself by marrying a French lady of birth quiteinferior to his own--Eleanor d'Olbreuse, from whom our queen is descended.Eleanor had a pretty daughter, who inherited a great fortune, whichinflamed her cousin, George Louis of Hanover, with a desire to marry her;and so, with her beauty and her riches, she came to a sad end.
It is too long to tell how the four sons of Duke George divided histerritories amongst them, and how, finally, they came into possession ofthe son of the youngest of the four. In this generation the Protestantfaith was very nearly extinguished in the family: and then where should wein England have gone for a king? The third brother also took delight inItaly, where the priests converted him and his Protestant chaplain too.Mass was said in Hanover once more; and Italian soprani piped their Latinrhymes in place of the hymns which William the Pious and Dr. Luther sang.Louis XIV gave this and other converts a splendid pension. Crowds ofFrenchmen and brilliant French fashions came into his Court. It isincalculable how much that royal bigwig cost Germany. Every princeimitated the French king, and had his Versailles, his Wilhelmshoehe orLudwigslust; his court and its splendours; his gardens laid out withstatues; his fountains, and waterworks, and Tritons; his actors, anddancers, and singers, and fiddlers; his harem, with its inhabitants; hisdiamonds and duchies for these latter; his enormous festivities, hisgaming-tables, tournaments, masquerades, and banquets lasting a week long,for which the people paid with their money, when the poor wretches had it;with their bodies and very blood when they had none; being sold inthousands by their lords and masters, who gaily dealt in soldiers, stakeda regiment upon the red at the gambling-table; swapped a battalion againsta dancing-girl's diamond necklace; and, as it were, pocketed their people.
As one views Europe, through contemporary books of travel in the earlypart of the last century, the landscape is awful--wretched wastes, beggarlyand plundered; half-burned cottages and trembling peasants gatheringpiteous harvests; gangs of such tramping along with bayonets behind them,and corporals with canes and cats-of-nine-tails to flog them to barracks.By these passes my lord's gilt carriage f
Two Portraits
It was the first Elector of Hanover who made the fortunate match whichbestowed the race of Hanoverian Sovereigns upon us Britons. Nine yearsafter Charles Stuart lost his head, his niece Sophia, one of many childrenof another luckless dethroned sovereign, the Elector Palatine, marriedErnest Augustus of Brunswick, and brought the reversion to the crown ofthe three kingdoms in her scanty trousseau. One of the handsomest, themost cheerful, sensible, shrewd, accomplished of women was Sophia,(186)daughter of poor Frederick, the winter king of Bohemia. The otherdaughters of lovely, unhappy Elizabeth Stuart went off into the CatholicChurch; this one, luckily for her family, remained, I cannot say faithfulto the Reformed Religion, but at least she adopted no other. An agent ofthe French king's, Gourville, a convert himself, strove to bring her andher husband to a sense of the truth; and tells us that he one day askedmadame the Duchess of Hanover, of what religion her daughter was, then apretty girl of thirteen years old. The duchess replied that the princess_was of no religion as yet_. They were waiting to know of what religionher husband would be, Protestant or Catholic, before instructing her! Andthe Duke of Hanover having heard all Gourville's proposal, said that achange would be advantageous to his house, but that he himself was too oldto change.
This shrewd woman had such keen eyes that she knew how to shut them uponoccasion, and was blind to many faults which it appeared that her husbandthe Bishop of Osnaburg and Duke of Hanover committed. He loved to take hispleasure like other sovereigns--was a merry prince, fond of dinner and thebottle; liked to go to Italy, as his brothers had done before him; and weread how he jovially sold 6,700 of his Hanoverians to the seigniory ofVenice. They went bravely off to the Morea, under command of Ernest's son,Prince Max, and only 1,400 of them ever came home again. The Germanprinces sold a good deal of this kind of stock. You may remember howGeorge III's Government purchased Hessians, and the use we made of themduring the War of Independence.
The ducats Duke Ernest got for his soldiers he spent in a series of themost brilliant entertainments. Nevertheless, the jovial prince waseconomical, and kept a steady eye upon his own interests. He achieved theelectoral dignity for himself: he married his eldest son George to hisbeautiful cousin of Zell; and sending his sons out in command of armies tofight--now on this side, now on that--he lived on, taking his pleasure, andscheming his schemes, a merry, wise prince enough, not, I fear, a moralprince, of which kind we shall have but very few specimens in the courseof these lectures.
Ernest Augustus had seven children in all, some of whom were scapegraces,and rebelled against the parental system of primogeniture and non-divisionof property which the Elector ordained. "Gustchen," the Electress writesabout her second son:--"Poor Gus is thrust out, and his father will givehim no more keep. I laugh in the day, and cry all night about it; for I ama fool with my children." Three of the six died fighting against Turks,Tartars, Frenchmen. One of them conspired, revolted, fled to Rome, leavingan agent behind him, whose head was taken off. The daughter, of whoseearly education we have made mention, was married to the Elector ofBrandenburg, and so her religion settled finally on the Protestant side.
A niece of the Electress Sophia--who had been made to change her religion,and marry the Duke of Orleans, brother of the French king; a woman whosehonest heart was always with her friends and dear old Deutschland, thoughher fat little body was confined at Paris or Marly, or Versailles--has leftus, in her enormous correspondence (part of which has been printed inGerman and French), recollections of the Electress, and of George her son.Elizabeth Charlotte was at Osnaburg when George was born (1660). Shenarrowly escaped a whipping for being in the way on that auspicious day.She seems not to have liked little George, nor George grown up; andrepresents him as odiously hard, cold, and silent. Silent he may havebeen: not a jolly prince like his father before him, but a prudent, quiet,selfish potentate, going his own way, managing his own affairs, andunderstanding his own interests remarkably well.
In his father's lifetime, and at the head of the Hanover forces of 8,000or 10,000 men, George served the Emperor, on the Danube against Turks, atthe siege of Vienna, in Italy, and on the Rhine. When he succeeded to theElectorate, he handled its affairs with great prudence and dexterity. Hewas very much liked by his people of Hanover. He did not show his feelingsmuch, but he cried heartily on leaving them; as they used for joy when hecame back. He showed an uncommon prudence and coolness of behaviour whenhe came into his kingdom; exhibiting no elation; reasonably doubtfulwhether he should not be turned out some da
Having these lectures in view I made it my business to visit that uglycradle in which our Georges were nursed. The old town of Hanover must lookstill pretty much as in the time when George Louis left it. The gardensand pavilions of Herrenhausen are scarce changed since the day when thestout old Electress Sophia fell down in her last walk there, preceding butby a few weeks to the tomb James II's daughter, whose death made way forthe Brunswick Stuarts in England.
The two first royal Georges, and their father, Ernest Augustus, had quiteroyal notions regarding marriage; and Louis XIV and Charles II scarcedistinguished themselves more at Versailles or St. James's, than theseGerman sultans in their little city on the banks of the Leine. You may seeat Herrenhausen the very rustic theatre in which the Platens danced andperformed masques, and sang before the Elector and his sons. There are thevery fauns and dryads of stone still glimmering through the branches,still grinning and piping their ditties of no tone, as in the days whenpainted nymphs hung garlands round them; appeared under their leafyarcades with gilt crooks, guiding rams with gilt horns; descended from"machines" in the guise of Diana or Minerva; and delivered immenseallegorical compliments to the princes returned home from the campaign.
That was a curious state of morals and politics in Europe; a queerconsequence of the triumph of the monarchical principle. Feudalism wasbeaten down. The nobility, in its quarrels with the crown, had pretty wellsuccumbed, and the monarch was all in all. He became almost divine: theproudest and most ancient gentry of the land did menial service for him.Who should carry Louis XIV's candle when he went to bed? What prince ofthe blood should hold the king's shirt when his Most Christian Majestychanged that garment?--the French memoirs of the seventeenth century arefull of such details and squabbles. The tradition is not yet extinct inEurope. Any of you who were present, as myriads were, at that splendidpageant, the opening of our Crystal Palace in London, must have seen twonoble lords, great officers of the household, with ancient pedigrees, withembroidered coats, and stars on their breasts and wands in their hands,walking backwards for near the space of a mile, while the royal processionmade its progress. Shall we wonder--shall we be angry--shall we laugh atthese old-world ceremonies? View them as you will, according to your mood;and with scorn or with respect, or with anger and sorrow, as your temperleads you. Up goes Gesler's hat upon the pole. Salute that symbol ofsovereignty with heartfelt awe; or with a sulky shrug of acquiescence, orwith a grinning obeisance; or with a stout rebellious No--clap your ownbeaver down on your pate, and refuse to doff it, to that spangled velvetand flaunting feather. I make no comment upon the spectators' behaviour;all I say is, that Gesler's cap is still up in the market-place of Europe,and not a few folks are still kneeling to it.
Put clumsy, High Dutch statues in place of the marbles of Versailles:fancy Herrenhausen waterworks in place of those of Marly: spread thetables with _Schweinskopf_, _Specksuppe_, _Leberkuchen_, and the likedelicacies, in place of the French _cuisine_; and fancy Frau vonKielmansegge dancing with Count Kammerjunker Quirini, or singing Frenchsongs with the most awful German accent: imagine a coarse Versailles, andwe have a Hanover before us. "I am now got into the region of beauty,"writes Mary Wortley, from Hanover in 1716; "all the women have literallyrosy cheeks, snowy foreheads and necks, jet eyebrows, to which maygenerally be added coal-black hair. These perfections never leave them tothe day of their death, and have a very fine effect by candlelight; but Icould wish they were handsome with a little variety. They resemble oneanother as Mrs. Salmon's Court of Great Britain, and are in as much dangerof melting away by too nearly approaching the fire." The sly Mary Wortleysaw this painted seraglio of the first George at Hanover, the year afterhis accession to the British throne. There were great doings and feaststhere. Here Lady Mary saw George II too. "I can tell you, without flatteryor partiality," she says, "that our young prince has all theaccomplishments that it is possible to have at his age, with an air ofsprightliness and understanding, and a something so very engaging in hisbehaviour that needs not the advantage of his rank to appear charming." Ifind elsewhere similar panegyrics upon Frederick Prince of Wales, GeorgeII's son; and upon George III, of course, and upon George IV in an eminentdegree. It was the rule to be dazzled by princes, and people's eyes winkedquite honestly at that royal radiance.
The Electoral Court of Hanover was numerous--pretty well paid, as timeswent; above all, paid with a regularity which few other European Courtscould boast of. Perhaps you will be amused to know how the Electoral Courtwas composed. There were the princes of the house in the first class; inthe second, the single field-marshal of the army (the contingent was18,000, Poellnitz says, and the Elector had other 14,000 troops in hispay). Then follow, in due order, the authorities civil and military, theworking privy councillors, the generals of cavalry and infantry, in thethird class; the high chamberlain, high marshals of the Court, highmasters of the horse, the major-generals of cavalry and infantry, in thefourth class; down to the majors, the Hofjunkers or pages, the secretariesor assessors, of the tenth class, of whom all were noble.
We find the master of the horse had 1,090 thalers of pay; the highchamberlain, 2,000--a thaler being about three shillings of our money.There were two chamberlains, and one for the princess; five gentlemen ofthe chamber, and five gentlemen ushers; eleven pages and personages toeducate these young noblemen--such as a governor, a preceptor, a_Fechtmeister_, or fencing-master, and a dancing ditto, this latter with ahandsome salary of 400 thalers. There were three body and Courtphysicians, with 800 and 500 thalers; a Court barber, 600 thalers; a Courtorganist; two _Musikanten_; four French fiddlers; twelve trumpeters, and abugler; so that there was plenty of music, profane and pious, in Hanover.There were ten chamber waiters, and twenty-four lackeys in livery; a_maitre-d'hotel_, and attendants of the kitchen; a French cook; a bodycook; ten cooks; six cooks' assistants; two _Braten_ masters, or mastersof the roast--(one fancies enormous spits turning slowly, and the honestmasters of the roast beladling the dripping); a pastry baker; a pie baker;and finally, three scullions, at the modest remuneration of eleventhalers. In the sugar-chamber there were four pastry-cooks (for theladies, no doubt); seven officers in the wine and beer cellars; four breadbakers; and five men in the plate-room. There were 600 horses in theSerene stables--no less than twenty teams of princely carriage horses,eight to a team; sixteen coachmen; fourteen postilions; nineteen ostlers;thirteen helps, besides smiths, carriage-masters, horse-doctors, and otherattendants of the stable. The female attendants were not so numerous: Igrieve to find but a dozen or fourteen of them about the Electoralpremises, and only two washerwomen for all the Court. These functionarieshad not so much to do as in the present age. I own to finding a pleasurein these small-beer chronicles. I like to people the old world, with itseveryday figures and inhabitants--not so much with heroes fighting immensebattles and inspiring repulsed battalions to engage; or statesmen lockedup in darkling cabinets and meditating ponderous laws or direconspiracies--as with people occupied with their every-day work orpleasure: my lord and lady hunting in the forest, or dancing in the Court,or bowing to their serene highnesses as they pass in to dinner; John Cookand his procession bringing the meal from the kitchen; the jolly butlersbearing in the flagons from the cellar; the stout coachman driving theponderous gilt wagon, with eight cream-coloured horses in housings ofscarlet velvet and morocco leather; a postilion on the leaders, and a pairor a half-dozen of running footmen scudding along by the side of thevehicle, with conical caps, long silver
In the good old times of which I am treating, whilst common men weredriven off by herds, and sold to fight the emperor's enemies on theDanube, or to bayonet King Louis's troops of common men on the Rhine,noblemen passed from Court to Court, seeking service with one prince orthe other, and naturally taking command of the ignoble vulgar of soldierywhich battled and died almost without hope of promotion. Noble adventurerstravelled from Court to Court in search of employment; not merely noblemales, but noble females too; and if these latter were beauties, andobtained the favourable notice of princes, they stopped in the Courts,became the favourites of their serene or royal highnesses; and receivedgreat sums of money and splendid diamonds; and were promoted to beduchesses, marchionesses, and the like; and did not fall much in publicesteem for the manner in which they won their advancement. In this wayMdlle. de Querouailles, a beautiful French lady, came to London on aspecial mission of Louis XIV, and was adopted by our grateful country andsovereign, and figured as Duchess of Portsmouth. In this way the beautifulAurora of Koenigsmarck travelling about found favour in the eyes ofAugustus of Saxony, and became the mother of Marshal Saxe, who gave us abeating at Fontenoy; and in this manner the lovely sisters Elizabeth andMelusina of Meissenbach (who had actually been driven out of Paris,whither they had travelled on a like errand, by the wise jealousy of thefemale favourite there in possession) journeyed to Hanover, and becamefavourites of the serene house there reigning.
That beautiful Aurora von Koenigsmarck and her brother are wonderful astypes of bygone manners, and strange illustrations of the morals of olddays. The Koenigsmarcks were descended from an ancient noble family ofBrandenburgh, a branch of which passed into Sweden, where it enricheditself and produced several mighty men of valour.
The founder of the race was Hans Christof, a famous warrior and plundererof the Thirty Years' War. One of Hans's sons, Otto, appeared as ambassadorat the Court of Louis XIV, and had to make a Swedish speech at hisreception before the Most Christian King. Otto was a famous dandy andwarrior, but he forgot the speech, and what do you think he did? Far frombeing disconcerted, he recited a portion of the Swedish Catechism to HisMost Christian Majesty and his Court, not one of whom understood his lingowith the exception of his own suite, who had to keep their gravity as bestthey might.
Otto's nephew, Aurora's elder brother, Carl Johann of Koenigsmarck, afavourite of Charles II, a beauty, a dandy, a warrior, a rascal of morethan ordinary mark, escaped but deserved being hanged in England, for themurder of Tom Thynne of Longleat. He had a little brother in London withhim at this time,--as great a beauty, as great a dandy, as great a villainas his elder. This lad, Philip of Koenigsmarck, also was implicated in theaffair; and perhaps it is a pity he ever brought his pretty neck out ofit. He went over to Hanover, and was soon appointed colonel of a regimentof H. E. Highness's dragoons. In early life he had been page in the Courtof Celle; and it was said that he and the pretty Princess Sophia Dorothea,who by this time was married to her cousin George the Electoral prince,had been in love with each other as children. Their loves were now to berenewed, not innocently, and to come to a fearful end.
A biography of the wife of George I, by Dr. Doran, has lately appeared,and I confess I am astounded at the verdict which that writer hasdelivered, and at his acquittal of this most unfortunate lady. That shehad a cold selfish libertine of a husband no one can doubt; but that thebad husband had a bad wife is equally clear. She was married to her cousinfor money or convenience, as all princesses were married. She was mostbeautiful, lively, witty, accomplished: his brutality outraged her: hissilence and coldness chilled her: his cruelty insulted her. No wonder shedid not love him. How could love be a part of the compact in such amarriage as that? With this unlucky heart to dispose of, the poor creaturebestowed it on Philip of Koenigsmarck, than whom a greater scamp does notwalk the history of the seventeenth century. A hundred and eighty yearsafter the fellow was thrust into his unknown grave, a Swedish professorlights upon a box of letters in the University Library at Upsala, writtenby Philip and Dorothea to each other, and telling their miserable story.
The bewitching Koenigsmarck had conquered two female hearts in Hanover.Besides the Electoral prince's lovely young wife Sophia Dorothea, Philiphad inspired a passion in a hideous old Court lady, the Countess ofPlaten. The princess seems to have pursued him with the fidelity of manyyears. Heaps of letters followed him on his campaigns, and were answeredby the daring adventurer. The princess wanted to fly with him; to quit herodious husband at any rate. She besought her parents to receive her back;had a notion of taking refuge in France and going over to the Catholicreligion; had absolutely packed her jewels for flight, and very likelyarranged its details with her lover, in that last long night's interview,after which Philip of Koenigsmarck was seen no more.
Koenigsmarck, inflamed with drink--there is scarcely any vice of which,according to his own showing, this gentleman was not a practitioner--hadboasted at a supper at Dresden of his intimacy with the two Hanoverianladies, not only with the princess, but with another lady powerful inHanover. The Countess Platen, the old favourite of the Elector, hated theyoung Electoral princess. The young lady had a lively wit, and constantlymade fun of the old one. The princess's jokes were conveyed to the oldPlaten just as our idle words are carried about at this present day: andso they both hated each other.
The characters in the tragedy, of which the curtain was now about to fall,are about as dark a set as eye ever rested on. There is the jolly prince,shrewd, selfish, scheming, loving his cups and his ease (I think his goodhumour makes the tragedy but darker); his princess, who speaks little butobserves all; his old, painted Jezebel of a mistress; his son, theElectoral prince, shrewd too, quiet, selfish, not ill-humoured, andgenerally silent, except when goaded into fury by the intolerable tongueof his lovely wife; there is poor Sophia Dorothea, with her coquetry andher wrongs, and her passionate attachment to her scamp of a lover, and herwild imprudences, and her mad artifices, and her insane fidelity, and herfurious jealousy regarding her husband (though she loathed and cheatedhim), and her prodigious falsehoods; and the confidante, of course, intowhose hands the letters are slipped; and there is Lothario, finally, thanwhom, as I have said, one can't imagine a more handsome, wicked, worthlessreprobate.
A Deed Of Darkness
How that perverse fidelity of passion pursues the villain! How madly truethe woman is, and how astoundingly she lies! She has bewitched two orthree persons who have taken her up, and they won't believe in her wrong.Like Mary of Scotland, she finds adherents ready to conspire for her evenin history, and people who have to deal with her are charmed, andfascinated, and bedevilled. How devotedly Miss Strickland has stood byMary's innocence! Are there not scores of ladies in this audience whopersist in it too? Innocent! I remember as a boy how a great partypersisted in declaring Caroline of Brunswick was a martyred angel. So wasHelen of Greece innocent. She never ran away with Paris, the dangerousyoung Trojan. Menelaus, her husband, ill-used her, and there never was anysiege of Troy at all. So was Bluebeard's wife innocent. She never peepedinto the closet where the other wives were with their heads off. She neverdropped the key, or stained it with blood; and her brothers were quiteright in finishing Bluebeard, the cowardly brute! Yes, Caroline ofBrunswick was innocent: and Madame Laffarge never poisoned her husband;and Mary of Scotland never blew up hers; and poor So
George Louis has been held up to execration as a murderous Bluebeard,whereas the Electoral prince had no share in the transaction in whichPhilip of Koenigsmarck was scuffled out of this mortal scene. The princewas absent when the catastrophe came. The princess had had a hundredwarnings; mild hints from her husband's parents; grim remonstrances fromhimself--but took no more heed of this advice than such besotted poorwretches do. On the night of Sunday, the 1st of July, 1694, Koenigsmarckpaid a long visit to the princess, and left her to get ready for flight.Her husband was away at Berlin; her carriages and horses were prepared andready for the elopement. Meanwhile, the spies of Countess Platen hadbrought the news to their mistress. She went to Ernest Augustus, andprocured from the Elector an order for the arrest of the Swede. On the wayby which he was to come, four guards were commissioned to take him. Hestrove to cut his way through the four men, and wounded more than one ofthem. They fell upon him; cut him down; and, as he was lying wounded onthe ground, the countess, his enemy, whom he had betrayed and insulted,came out and beheld him prostrate. He cursed her with his dying lips, andthe furious woman stamped upon his mouth with her heel. He was dispatchedpresently; his body burnt the next day; and all traces of the mandisappeared. The guards who killed him were enjoined silence under severepenalties. The princess was reported to be ill in her apartments, fromwhich she was taken in October of the same year, being theneight-and-twenty years old, and consigned to the castle of Ahlden, whereshe remained a prisoner for no less than thirty-two years. A separationhad been pronounced previously between her and her husband. She was calledhenceforth the "Princess of Ahlden", and her silent husband no moreuttered her name.
Four years after the Koenigsmarck catastrophe, Ernest Augustus, the firstElector of Hanover, died, and George Louis, his son, reigned in his stead.Sixteen years he reigned in Hanover, after which he became, as we know,King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith. Thewicked old Countess Platen died in the year 1706. She had lost her sight,but nevertheless the legend says that she constantly saw Koenigsmarck'sghost by her wicked old bed. And so there was an end of her.
In the year 1700, the little Duke of Gloucester, the last of poor QueenAnne's children, died, and the folks of Hanover straightway became ofprodigious importance in England. The Electress Sophia was declared thenext in succession to the English throne. George Louis was created Duke ofCambridge; grand deputations were sent over from our country toDeutschland; but Queen Anne, whose weak heart hankered after her relativesat St. Germains, never could be got to allow her cousin, the Elector Dukeof Cambridge, to come and pay his respects to her Majesty, and take hisseat in her House of Peers. Had the queen lasted a month longer; had theEnglish Tories been as bold and resolute as they were clever and crafty;had the prince whom the nation loved and pitied been equal to his fortune,George Louis had never talked German in St. James's Chapel Royal.
When the crown did come to George Louis he was in no hurry about puttingit on. He waited at home for awhile; took an affecting farewell of hisdear Hanover and Herrenhausen; and set out in the most leisurely manner toascend "the throne of his ancestors", as he called it in his first speechto Parliament. He brought with him a compact body of Germans, whosesociety he loved, and whom he kept round the royal person. He had hisfaithful German chamberlains; his German secretaries; his negroes,captives of his bow and spear in Turkish wars; his two ugly, elderlyGerman favourites, Mesdames of Kielmansegge and Schulenberg, whom hecreated respectively Countess of Darlington and Duchess of Kendal. Theduchess was tall, and lean of stature, and hence was irreverentlynicknamed the Maypole. The countess was a large-sized noblewoman, and thiselevated personage was denominated the Elephant. Both of these ladiesloved Hanover and its delights; clung round the linden-trees of the greatHerrenhausen avenue, and at first would not quit the place. Schulenberg,in fact, could not come on account of her debts; but finding the Maypolewould not come, the Elephant packed up her trunk and slipped out ofHanover unwieldy as she was. On this the Maypole straightway put herselfin motion, and followed her beloved George Louis. One seems to be speakingof Captain Macheath, and Polly, and Lucy. The king we had selected; thecourtiers who came in his train; the English nobles who came to welcomehim, and on many of whom the shrewd old cynic turned his back--I protest itis a wonderful satirical picture. I am a citizen waiting at Greenwichpier, say, and crying hurrah for King George; and yet I can scarcely keepmy countenance, and help laughing at the enormous absurdity of thisadvent!
Here we are, all on our knees. Here is the Archbishop of Canterburyprostrating himself to the head of his Church, with Kielmansegge andSchulenberg with their raddled cheeks grinning behind the Defender of theFaith. Here is my Lord Duke of Marlborough kneeling too, the greatestwarrior of all times; he who betrayed King William--betrayed King JamesII--betrayed Queen Anne--betrayed England to the French, the Elector to thePretender, the Pretender to the Elector; and here are my Lords Oxford andBolingbroke, the latter of whom has just tripped up the heels of theformer; and if a month's more time had been allowed him, would have hadKing James at Westminster. The great Whig gentlemen made their bows andcongees with proper decorum and ceremony; but yonder keen old schemerknows the value of their loyalty. "Loyalty," he must think, "as applied tome--it is absurd! There are fifty nearer heirs to the throne than I am. Iam but an accident, and you fine Whig gentlemen take me for your own sake,not for mine. You Tories hate me; you archbishop, smirking on your knees,and prating about Heaven, you know I don't care a fig for your Thirty-nineArticles, and can't understand a word of your stupid sermons. You, myLords Bolingbroke and Oxford--you know you were conspiring against me amonth ago; and you, my Lord Duke of Marlborough--you would sell me or anyman else, if you found your advantage in it. Come, my good Melusina, come,my honest Sophia, let us go into my private room, and have some oystersand some Rhine wine, and some pipes afterwards: let us make the best ofour situation; let us take what we can get, and leave these bawling,brawling, lying English to shout, and fight, and cheat, in their own way!"
If Swift had not been committed to the statesmen of the losing side, whata fine satirical picture we might have had of that general _sauve quipeut_ amongst the Tory party! How mum the Tories became; how the House ofLords and House of Commons chopped round; and how decorously themajorities welcomed King George!
Bolingbroke, making his last speech in the House of Lords, pointed out theshame of peerage, where several lords concurred to condemn in one generalvote all that they had approved in former Parliaments by many particularresolutions. And so their conduct was shameful. St. John had the best ofthe argument, but the worst of the vote. Bad times were come for him. Hetalked philosophy, and professed innocence. He courted retirement, and wasready to meet persecution; but, hearing that honest Mat Prior, who hadbeen recalled from Paris, was about to peach regarding the pasttransactions, the philosopher bolted, and took that magnificent head ofhis out of the ugly reach of the axe. Oxford, the lazy and good-humoured,had more courage, and awaited the storm at home. He and Mat Prior both hadlodgings in the Tower, and both brought their heads safe out of thatdangerous menagerie. When Atterbury was carried off to the same den a fewyears afterwards, and it was asked, what next should be done with him?"Done with him? Fling him to the lions," Cadogan said, Marlborough'slieutenant. But the British lion of those days did not care much fordrinking the blood of peaceful peers and poets, or crunching the bones ofbishops. Only four men were executed in London for the rebellion of 1715;and twenty-two in Lancashire. Above a thousand taken in arms, submitted tothe king's mercy, and petitioned to be transported to his Majesty'scolonies in America. I have heard that their descendants took the loyalistside in the disputes which arose sixty years after. It is pleasant to findthat a friend of ours, worthy Dick Steele, was for letting off the rebelswith their lives.
As one thinks of what might have been, how amusing the speculation is! Weknow how the doom
You understand the distinction I would draw between history--of which I donot aspire to be an expounder--and manners and life such as these sketcheswould describe. The rebellion breaks out in the north; its story is beforeyou in a hundred volumes, in none more fairly than in the excellentnarrative of Lord Mahon, The clans are up in Scotland; Derwentwater,Nithsdale and Forster are in arms in Northumberland--these are matters ofhistory, for which you are referred to the due chroniclers. The Guards areset to watch the streets, and prevent the people wearing white roses. Iread presently of a couple of soldiers almost flogged to death for wearingoak boughs in their hats on the 29th of May--another badge of the belovedStuarts. It is with these we have to do, rather than the marches andbattles of the armies to which the poor fellows belonged--with statesmen,and how they looked, and how they lived, rather than with measures ofstate, which belong to history alone. For example, at the close of the oldqueen's reign, it is known the Duke of Marlborough left the kingdom--afterwhat menaces, after what prayers, lies, bribes offered, taken, refused,accepted; after what dark doubling and tacking, let history, if she can ordare, say. The queen dead; who so eager to return as my lord duke? Whoshouts God save the king! so lustily as the great conqueror of Blenheimand Malplaquet? (By the way, he will send over some more money for thePretender yet, on the sly.) Who lays his hand on his blue ribbon, andlifts his eyes more gracefully to heaven than this hero? He makes aquasi-triumphal entrance into London, by Temple Bar, in his enormous giltcoach--and the enormous gilt coach breaks down somewhere by Chancery Lane,and his highness is obliged to get another. There it is we have him. Weare with the mob in the crowd, not with the great folks in the procession.We are not the Historic Muse, but her ladyship's attendant,tale-bearer--valet de chambre--for whom no man is a hero; and, as yonder onesteps from his carriage to the next handy conveyance, we take the numberof the hack; we look all over at his stars, ribbons, embroidery; we thinkwithin ourselves, O you unfathomable schemer! O you warrior invincible! Oyou beautiful smiling Judas! What master would you not kiss or betray?What traitor's head, blackening on the spikes on yonder gate, ever hatcheda tithe of the treason which has worked under your periwig?
We have brought our Georges to London city, and if we would behold itsaspect, may see it in Hogarth's lively perspective of Cheapside, or readof it in a hundred contemporary books which paint the manners of that age.Our dear old _Spectator_ looks smiling upon the streets, with theirinnumerable signs, and describes them with his charming humour. "Ourstreets are filled with 'Blue Boars', 'Black Swans', and 'Red Lions', notto mention 'Flying Pigs' and 'Hogs in Armour', with other creatures moreextraordinary than any in the deserts of Africa." A few of these quaintold figures still remain in London town. You may still see there, and overits old hostel in Ludgate Hill, the "Belle Sauvage" to whom the_Spectator_ so pleasantly alludes in that paper; and who was, probably, noother than the sweet American Pocahontas, who rescued from death thedaring Captain Smith. There is the "Lion's Head'" down whose jaws the_Spectator's_ own letters were passed; and over a great banker's in FleetStreet, the effigy of the wallet, which the founder of the firm bore whenhe came into London a country boy. People this street, so ornamented withcrowds of swinging chairmen, with servants bawling to clear the way, withMr. Dean in his cassock, his lackey marching before him; or Mrs. Dinah inher sack, tripping to chapel, her footboy carrying her ladyship's greatPrayer-book; with itinerant tradesmen, singing their hundred cries (Iremember forty years ago, as a boy in London city, a score of cheery,familiar cries that are silent now). Fancy the beaux thronging to thechocolate-houses, tapping their snuff-boxes as they issue thence, theirperiwigs appearing over the red curtains. Fancy Saccharissa beckoning andsmiling from the upper windows, and a crowd of soldiers brawling andbustling at the door--gentlemen of the Life Guards, clad in scarlet, withblue facings, and laced with gold at the seams; gentlemen of the HorseGrenadiers, in their caps of sky-blue cloth, with the garter embroideredon the front in gold and silver; men of the Halberdiers, in their long redcoats, as bluff Harry left them, with their ruffs and velvet flat caps.Perhaps the king's Majesty himself is going to St. James's as we pass. Ifhe is going to Parliament, he is in his coach-and-eight, surrounded by hisguards and the high officers of his crown. Otherwise his Majesty only usesa chair, with six footmen walking before, and six yeomen of the guard atthe sides of the sedan. The officers in waiting follow the king incoaches. It must be rather slow work.
Our _Spectator_ and _Tatler_ are full of delightful glimpses of the townlife of those days. In the company of that charming guide, we may go tothe opera, the comedy, the puppet show, the auction, even the cockpit: wecan take boat at Temple Stairs, and accompany Sir Roger de Coverley andMr. Spectator to Spring Garden--it will be called Vauxhall a few yearssince, when Hogarth will paint for it. Would you not like to step backinto the past, and be introduced to Mr. Addison?--not the Right HonourableJoseph Addison, Esq., George I's Secretary of State, but to the delightfulpainter of contemporary manners; the man who, when in good humour himself,was the pleasantest companion in all England. I should like to go intoLockit's with him, and drink a bowl along with Sir R. Steele (who has justbeen knighted by King George, and who does not happen to have any money topay his share of the reckoning). I should not care to follow Mr. Addisonto his secretary's office in Whitehall. There we get into politics. Ourbusiness is pleasure, and the town, and the coffee-house, and the theatre,and the Mall. Delightful _Spectator!_ kind friend of leisure hours! happycompanion! true Christian gentleman! How much greater, better, you arethan the king Mr. Secretary kneels to!
You can have foreign testimony about old-world London, if you like; and mybefore-quoted friend, Charles Louis, Baron de Poellnitz, will conduct us toit. "A man of sense," says he, "or a fine gentleman, is never at a lossfor company in London, and this is the way the latter passes his time. Herises late, puts on a frock, and, leaving his sword at home, takes hiscane, and goes where he pleases. The Park is commonly the place where hewalks, because 'tis the Exchange for men of quality. 'Tis the same thingas the Tuileries at Paris, only the Park has a certain beauty ofsimplicity which cannot be described. The grand walk is called the Mall;is full of people at every hour of t
Delightful as London city was, King George I liked to be out of it as muchas ever he could; and when there, passed all his time with his Germans. Itwas with them as with Bluecher 100 years afterwards, when the bold oldReiter looked down from St. Paul's, and sighed out, "_Was fuer Plunder!_"The German women plundered; the German secretaries plundered; the Germancooks and intendants plundered; even Mustapha and Mahomet, the Germannegroes, had a share of the booty. Take what you can get, was the oldmonarch's maxim. He was not a lofty monarch, certainly: he was not apatron of the fine arts: but he was not a hypocrite, he was notrevengeful, he was not extravagant. Though a despot in Hanover, he was amoderate ruler in England. His aim was to leave it to itself as much aspossible, and to live out of it as much as he could. His heart was inHanover. When taken ill on his last journey, as he was passing throughHolland, he thrust his livid head out of the coach-window, and gasped out,"Osnaburg, Osnaburg!" He was more than fifty years of age when he cameamongst us: we took him because we wanted him, because he served our turn;we laughed at his uncouth German ways, and sneered at him. He took ourloyalty for what it was worth; laid hands on what money he could; kept usassuredly from Popery and wooden shoes. I, for one, would have been on hisside in those days. Cynical, and selfish, as he was, he was better than aking out of St. Germains with the French king's orders in his pocket, anda swarm of Jesuits in his train.
The Fates are supposed to interest themselves about royal personages; andso this one had omens and prophecies specially regarding him. He was saidto be much disturbed at a prophecy that he should die very soon after hiswife; and sure enough, pallid Death, having seized upon the lucklessprincess in her castle of Ahlden, presently pounced upon H.M. King GeorgeI, in his travelling chariot, on the Hanover road. What postilion canoutride that pale horseman? It is said, George promised one of hisleft-handed widows to come to her after death, if leave were granted tohim to revisit the glimpses of the moon; and soon after his demise, agreat raven actually flying or hopping in at the Duchess of Kendal'swindow at Twickenham, she chose to imagine the king's spirit inhabitedthese plumes, and took special care of her sable visitor. Affectingmetempsychosis--funereal royal bird! How pathetic is the idea of theduchess weeping over it! When this chaste addition to our Englisharistocracy died, all her jewels, her plate, her plunder went over to herrelations in Hanover. I wonder whether her heirs took the bird, andwhether it is still flapping its wings over Herrenhausen?
The days are over in England of that strange religion of king-worship,when priests flattered princes in the Temple of God; when servility washeld to be ennobling duty; when beauty and youth tried eagerly for royalfavour; and woman's shame was held to be no dishonour. Mended morals andmended manners in Courts and people, are among the priceless consequencesof the freedom which George I came to rescue and secure. He kept hiscompact with his English subjects; and if he escaped no more than othermen and monarchs from the vices of his age, at least we may thank him forpreserving and transmitting the liberties of ours. In our free air, royaland humble homes have alike been purified; and Truth, the birthright ofhigh and low among us, which quite fearlessly judges our greatestpersonages, can only speak of them now in words of respect and regard.There are stains in the portrait of the first George, and traits in itwhich none of us need admire; but, among the nobler features are justice,courage, moderation--and these we may recognize ere we turn the picture tothe wall.