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ITALIAN AND ITALIAN AMERICAN STUDIES

Revolutionary Domesticity
in the Italian Risorgimento
Transnational Victorian
Feminism, 1850–1890
Diana Moore
Italian and Italian American Studies

Series Editor
Stanislao G. Pugliese
Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY, USA
This series brings the latest scholarship in Italian and Italian American
­history, literature, cinema, and cultural studies to a large audience of
­specialists, general readers, and students. Featuring works on modern Italy
(Renaissance to the present) and Italian American culture and society by
established scholars as well as new voices, it has been a longstanding force
in shaping the evolving fields of Italian and Italian American Studies by
re-emphasizing their connection to one another.

Editorial Board
Rebecca West, University of Chicago, USA
Josephine Gattuso Hendin, New York University, USA
Fred Gardaphé, Queens College, CUNY, USA
Phillip V. Cannistraro†, Queens College and the Graduate School,
CUNY, USA
Alessandro Portelli, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Italy
William J. Connell, Seton Hall University, USA

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14835
 Diana Moore

Revolutionary
Domesticity in the
Italian Risorgimento
Transnational Victorian Feminism, 1850–1890
Diana Moore
City University of New York
New York, NY, USA

ISSN 2635-2931     ISSN 2635-294X (electronic)

Italian and Italian American Studies
ISBN 978-3-030-75544-7    ISBN 978-3-030-75545-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75545-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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To Bretton, with all my love.
 Acknowledgments

Though I have been working on this project in one form or another for
over seven years at this point, I still sometimes cannot believe that I wrote
a book. My parents, however, are not surprised. Though neither of them
graduated from college, they always made it clear to me that they believed
I could reach the greatest heights of academic excellence. When I went off
to school in the mornings, my mother would casually call to me, “Be bril-
liant!”—fully expecting that I would be. Their unstinting emotional and
financial support allowed me to attend Fordham University, where I devel-
oped my first real sense of a scholarly community in the Honors Program
at the Rose Hill campus. The immersive interdisciplinary curriculum of
the Honors Program gave me the solid foundation I needed to pursue my
work as a historian and made me an all-around better thinker and writer. I
would particularly like to express my gratitude to our director Harry
Nasuti, who cultivated a strong community of friendship and intellectual
curiosity, as well as my history professors Sarah Peirce, Nicholas Paul,
David Myers, and David Hamlin. I must also thank Silvana Patriarca for
guiding me through my senior thesis and for later serving on my disserta-
tion committee as well.
The greatest influence on this project and book has been my advisor,
Mary Gibson. Not only did she see my potential as an undergraduate and
support my admission to the Graduate Center but she also provided con-
stant guidance throughout the many phases of this project, from research
proposal through book manuscript. Moreover, through the model she
provided of her own career and scholarship, as well as her careful and

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

heartfelt mentoring, she has reinforced my belief in the importance of the

fields of Italian history and women’s history.
I would also like to thank the other brilliant professors who shaped this
work while I was a graduate student. My dissertation committee of
Kathleen McCarthy, Timothy Alborn, Silvana Patriarca, and Francesca
Bregoli provided insightful comments and criticisms at the defense.
Randolph Trumbach served as a wonderful mentor while I worked as his
research assistant. He allowed me to see what advanced scholarly work
looked like, nurtured my academic curiosity over our many lunches, and
helped me to develop my interest in religious history. This project would
also not have been possible without the guidance of my other professors
at the Graduate Center, including Dagmar Herzog, Benjamin Hett, and
Helena Rosenblatt.
In many ways, my work is a product of the collaborative environment
of the Graduate Center. Though we had to navigate high teaching loads
while finding time to do our own research and develop our voices as schol-
ars, we always did it together. My first-year cohort, Kat Mahaney, Chelsea
Schields, Ky Woltering, and Greg Zucker, provided much-needed friend-
ship when I was overwhelmed by academia. My fellow adjuncts at John
Jay, including Kyle Francis, Katrina Wheeler, Arman Azimi, and Jeremy
Randall, helped sustain me while I learned to balance teaching and
research. Finally, the members of our Italian history dissertation group,
Francesca Vassalle, Antonella Vitale, Sultana Banulescu, Victoria Calabrese,
and Davide Colasanto, provided excellent feedback on my chapters, even
when they were long and messy, as well as so many wonderful models for
me to emulate.
I developed my work through numerous conferences, workshops, and
talks. The New York State Association of European Historians was an early
supporter of my work and allowed me to present multiple times, as did the
Society for Italian Historical Studies, the Nineteenth-Century Studies
Association, and the Calandra Italian American Institute. Most recently,
the Interdisciplinary Network for Nineteenth-Century Italian Studies has
helped me develop my research. The New York Historical Society Center
for Women’s History Early Career Workshop not only introduced me to
an amazing group of scholars of women’s history but helped me to reframe
my dissertation project for a larger audience. I must also thank Konstantina
Zanou for giving me an opportunity to present on my work and rethink
its potential focus at the Italian and Mediterranean Colloquium at
Columbia University.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

I have been lucky enough to find myself in another writing group as I

revised the dissertation into a manuscript. Victoria Calabrese stuck with
me through so many versions of the same argument and always helpfully
stayed one step ahead of me so I could follow in her example. Kara
Peruccio allowed me to benefit from her insight, perspective, and amazing
copy-editing skills. Finally, I in some ways owe this work to Jessica Strom,
my first friend in Italy and constant ally on research trips. I will never tire
of our discussions of obscure Risorgimento figures or how much we love
Aurelio Saffi’s handwriting.
I am also grateful to the organizations and institutions that have finan-
cially supported my writing, research trips to Italian archives, and atten-
dance at conferences. The Graduate Center was generous enough to offer
not only a Provost’s Summer Research Award and Doctoral Student
Research Grant but also a Carell Dissertation Fellowship and the Cammett
Award for Italian Studies. Within the Graduate Center, the Center on
Philanthropy and Civil Society’s William Randolph Hearst Endowment
Fund Graduate Assistantship also helped to fund a much-needed trip for
research in Milan. Finally, the Adjunct Faculty Travel Award from the
CUNY Academy funded my attendance at conferences and helped me feel
as though I could still produce scholarship and contribute to my field
while working as contingent faculty.
All the staff, archivists, and librarians who assisted me during my
research trips to Italy and helped me work through the variety of different
Italian bureaucratic systems also made this book possible. I would espe-
cially like to thank those at the Museo Centrale Risorgimento di Roma,
the Archivio Museo Risorgimento di Milano, the Archivio Centrale dello
Stato di Roma, the Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna, and the
Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome.
I cannot fail to mention the family and friends who have kept me going
during this journey with their love and understanding. My beloved friends,
many of whom have been with me since our days in the Honors Program
at Fordham, have been a constant source of affection and inspiration. In
particular, the models my female friends provide of strong and indepen-
dent twenty-first-century women making careers as educators, philanthro-
pists, activists, and lawyers have fueled my studies of their nineteenth-century
equivalents. I also thank my parents, Frank and Adrianne, for their unceas-
ing support. My mother, who shares my love of travel, was always willing
to tag along on a research trip, keep me company, and make sure I ate
more than cured meats and cheese in my room for dinner.
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My greatest source of support and my number one fan, however, has

been my husband Brett. I could not have completed this project without
him. I wrote most of this book as an adjunct and parent, first with minimal
childcare and then entirely without it due to the pandemic, which has
been difficult to say the least. I will always appreciate how he let me run
off to Starbucks on weekend mornings to write in caffeinated peace before
the world shut down and how he never made me feel like my work was
unimportant, even when it was unpaid and largely unread. Lastly, I want
to acknowledge Jane, my feisty, determined, clever girl. Though I am
proud of this book, she is my greatest creation.
 Praise for Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian
Risorgimento

“This book captures the lure and romance of Italy for British women during the
struggle for Italian Unification. Presenting the perspectives of five very different
women, all active in the cause, Revolutionary Domesticity provides a fascinating
re-interpretation both of Victorian feminism and the key role of women fighting
for the cause of a united Italy.”
—Sarah Richardson, University of Warwick, UK

“Exploring how a small group of English and Italian women activists in the cause
of Italian independence in the mid-19th century came to have an influence that
went far beyond conventional Victorian gender boundaries, Diana Moore’s
brilliant study is a major and innovative contribution to our understanding of the
role of women in shaping the transnational political cultures of 19th century
nation building.”
—John Davis, Emeritus Professor of History at University of Connecticut, USA

“Making excellent use of untapped archives, Moore demonstrates how the ‘revo-
lutionary domesticity’ of the women who form this collective biography inspired
material and emotional support for the Risorgimento alongside of British work-
ing-class support of Mazzini and Garibaldi. All played integral roles in the Italian
imperial phenomenon that was the Risorgimento; even if these Anglo-Italian
women activists could not always reconcile ‘the apparent contradiction’ of their
‘support for the politics of emancipation and revolution and simultaneous use of
domestic and imperial discourses.”
—Maura O’Connor, University of Cincinnati, USA
 Contents

1 Introduction: British Women in the Italian Risorgimento  1

2 Presents and Passports: Friendship and the Formation of

Revolutionary Networks 29

3 Bazaars for Bullets: Fundraising for the Revolution 65

4 Reforming Revolution: Cultural Translation in the

Propaganda Campaign101

5 Emancipating Education: Primary Education in the New

Italian State139

6 The Personal is Political: Companionate Marriage,

Republican Motherhood, and the Campaign Against
State-Regulated Prostitution177

7 From Scrapbooks to State Archives: Memorializing the

Radical Risorgimento213

xiii
xiv Contents

8 Conclusion: Continuing the Legacy After 1890245

Bibliography253

Index269
 Archival Abbreviations

ACS Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Central State Archives)

BAB Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna
(Library of the Archiginnasio of Bologna)
MCRR Museo Centrale del Risorgimento di Roma
(Central Museum of the Risorgimento in Rome)
MRM Museo del Risorgimento di Milano
(Risorgimento Museum of Milan)

xv
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: British Women in the Italian

Risorgimento

In January 1862, Julia Salis Schwabe, the widow of a Manchester factory

owner, wrote to Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi about her plans to send
him stockings, stating, “I wish to send you a dozen pairs of our English
manufacture, so as to put you at once into marching order- Tell me
whether you prefer woolen thread or cotton?”1 Schwabe intended these
stockings to be used by Garibaldi in his future military endeavors, noting
in another letter that she was sending “one dozen pair thin thread socks
for the warm weather and six pair of fine and 6 pair of thicker woolen
ones,” which “I hope will still reach you on your glorious march to review
and animate the victorious armies of the future.”2 She also planned for
these socks, along with the silk handkerchiefs she was sending, to be used
in cultivating and maintaining Garibaldi’s celebrity. Recognizing that
many of the frequent visitors to Garibaldi’s island home of Caprera
demanded souvenirs of their encounter with the famed patriot, Schwabe
determined the best way she could support him was by ensuring a ready
supply of those personal mementos. She explained that, “knowing that the
relic hunters who pursue you, in taking leave, ‘leave not a rock behind,”
she was sending, “a packet of seven silk pocket handkerchiefs to help in
supplying the continual diminution of those articles by means of your

1
Julia Salis Schwabe to Giuseppe Garibaldi, 31 January 1862, MCRR, Busta 890, N.43(3).
2
Schwabe to Garibaldi, 18 April 1862, MCRR, Busta 890, N. 43(5).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
D. Moore, Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento,
Italian and Italian American Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75545-4_1
2 D. MOORE

generous gifts to all who like a remembrance of you.”3 Through the pur-
chase of these gifts, Schwabe used her domestic skills as a consumer to
involve herself in radical foreign politics.
While the connection between a middle-class English widow and a radi-
cal Italian patriot may seem tenuous or unusual, Schwabe was actually one
of many middle-class British women in the nineteenth century who con-
tributed to the process of Italian Unification and state-building, more
often referred to as the Risorgimento. This book explores the connections
between Victorian feminism and the Italian Risorgimento by examining
the interrelated lives of five of these women: Jessie White Mario
(1832–1906), Giorgina Saffi (1827–1911), Sara Nathan (1819–82), Julia
Salis Schwabe (1819–96), and Mary Chambers (c.1823–81). All of these
women were living in Great Britain in the 1850s when they came into
contact with exiled Italian patriots, most notably the left-wing revolution-
aries Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) and Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–82).
Inspired by the feminism of Mazzini, and to a lesser extent of Garibaldi, as
well as the emancipatory and civilizing discourse of the Risorgimento,
these women became deeply involved in the cause and developed a life-
long connection to Italy.
Like many women of their class, these reformers felt confined by tradi-
tional expectations of femininity and used the Protestant rhetoric of a
woman’s civilizing mission to organize and involve themselves in local,
national, and foreign politics. Finding a surprising welcome for their activ-
ity and initiative among the patriots of the Italian left, they repurposed
traditionally feminine behaviors for revolutionary ends and made substan-
tial contributions to the Italian Risorgimento. White Mario, Saffi, and
Nathan constructed quasi-familial bonds of trust with Italian exiles
through a network of gift exchanges and emotional support, which they
then used to plan patriotic uprisings in the Italian peninsula. Chambers
and the others funded these uprisings through seemingly commonplace
and innocuous behaviors like fundraising subscriptions and charitable
bazaars. After the creation of the Italian state, Nathan, Saffi, and White
Mario then nationalized the feminine domestic practice of memory collec-
tion and scrapbooking by publishing Mazzini’s letters, writing biographies
of their comrades, and constructing archives to ensure that their radical
legacy was not forgotten in a more moderate political era. In doing so,
they transcended the boundaries of acceptable behavior for respectable

3
Schwabe to Garibaldi, 14 March 1862, from Berlin, MCRR, Busta 890, N. 43(4).
 1 INTRODUCTION: BRITISH WOMEN IN THE ITALIAN RISORGIMENTO 3

middle-class women and engaged in feminist practices currently under-

studied in traditional histories of Victorian feminism. By drawing atten-
tion to their activities, this book adds to our understandings of Victorian
feminism and reveals how these activists achieved their most revolutionary
goals under a veil of more conservative language.

British Women and Italian Unification

The Italian Risorgimento is generally understood as the process of strug-
gle and negotiation through which the Italian state came into being. Prior
to the mid-1850s, the Risorgimento was primarily a dream of the revolu-
tionary left, with patriots like Mazzini and Garibaldi organizing uprisings
and revolutions to bring about an independent, unified, and republican
Italy. Mazzini was the preeminent intellectual of the radical left. As a
young man, Mazzini had joined the Carbonari, a secret revolutionary soci-
ety in Italy, and, after participating in one of their failed uprisings in 1827,
went into exile where he would spend most of his adult life. One of his
earliest significant achievements was the founding of Young Italy (1831),
an organization dedicated to creating a unified nation based on the ideals
of Liberty, Equality, and Humanity. Believing that every nation was “des-
tined by the law of God and humanity” to form an egalitarian republic, he
then expanded the organization into Young Europe and promoted nation-
alist movements in multiple European contexts.4 Throughout the 1830s
and early 1840s, Mazzini worked alongside other radical exiles to publish
texts calling for revolution and to organize a series of failed conspiracies.
Garibaldi was one participant in these failed revolutions. Born in Nice,
which at the time was considered part of the heterogeneous conglomera-
tion of states that made up the Italian peninsula, Garibaldi traveled as a
merchant during his youth and met numerous French political exiles and
Italian revolutionaries, including Mazzini, who inspired a heightened
political awareness in the young trader.5 This burgeoning political activism
led to participation in a failed uprising in 1834, after which Garibaldi fled

4
Giuseppe Mazzini, Joseph Mazzini: His Life, Writings and Political Principles, With an
Introduction by William Lloyd Garrison (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1872), 64.
5
In 1860, Cavour made an agreement with Napoleon III to cede Savoy and Nice to
France in exchange for the ability to annex Tuscany and Emilia to Piedmont. The loss of his
homeland infuriated Garibaldi, but he was forced to accept it as military campaigns in the
south demanded his attention and diverted his focus.
4 D. MOORE

to South America. There he met his wife Anita Garibaldi, who would act
as his partner in various revolutionary campaigns.
In 1848–49, republicans staged nationalist revolts in Milan, Venice,
and, most notably, Rome. Disappointed by Pope Pius IX’s refusal to sup-
port the Italian nationalists in the north in their fight against the Catholic
Austrian Empire, Italian patriots assassinated the Papal States’ Minister of
Justice Pellegrino Rossi on November 15, 1848, drove Pius into exile, and
declared the formation of a Roman Republic on February 9, 1849.
Mazzini, Aurelio Saffi (1819–90), and Carlo Armellini (1777–1863)
formed the Triumvirate of the Republic and attempted to usher in an era
of modernizing reforms, including the establishment of freedom of reli-
gion. Hearing of the uprisings, the Garibaldis returned to Italy to defend
the Republic. From his exile, Pius IX launched his campaign to retake the
city and found a key ally in French President Louis Napoleon, who sent
troops to Rome in April. Garibaldi led a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful
defense against the French troops and fled in early July 1849. As she had
in their previous battles, Anita Garibaldi fought alongside her husband in
the final siege and tragically died during their escape from Rome.6
Following these disappointments, radical republicans continued to
organize small-scale revolts throughout the 1850s, while more moderate
diplomats worked toward an alternate solution. It was these middle-class
liberals, after 1859 led by Count Camillo de Cavour, the Prime Minister
of Piedmont, who worked through the channels of diplomacy and con-
ventional warfare to bring about an Italian state under the auspices of
Piedmont’s monarchy. The first major step in this process came in March
1860 when the northern states of Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and the
Romagna voted in highly staged plebiscites for annexation to Piedmont.
The major turning point in the battle for Italian Unification came in
1860–61 with Garibaldi’s famed campaign of the Thousand. Though
Garibaldi’s small group of volunteer fighters was underprepared and
undersupplied, they successfully liberated the territories of southern Italy
from the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Marching across Sicily,
defeating Bourbon troops and cultivating popular support, the patriots
captured Palermo by the end of May 1860 and Naples in early September,
thereby placing all of southern Italy under Garibaldi’s control. As
Garibaldi’s victories mounted, however, Cavour sent Piedmontese troops

6
After her death she was immortalized as a martyr for Italy and reminder of all that
Garibaldi gave up for the love of his nation.
 1 INTRODUCTION: BRITISH WOMEN IN THE ITALIAN RISORGIMENTO 5

toward Naples and put pressure on Garibaldi to give up control of the

south in favor of Italian Unification. In late October, Naples and Sicily
held plebiscites leading to the unification of the majority of the Italian
peninsula under Piedmontese control.7 On March 17, 1861, the newly
formed Italian parliament declared King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-­
Sardinia the king of Italy and Cavour the first Prime Minister of Italy.
While some histories of Italian Unification stop in 1861 with this
moment of the creation of an Italian state, the process extended through-
out the 1860s as Italians worked to gain control of Venice and its sur-
rounding territories from the Austrians as well as the city of Rome from
the Papacy. Though radical forces led multiple campaigns and armed
insurrections to recapture Rome and Venice, ultimately both cities were
obtained as the result of the same moderate forces, Realpolitik strategiz-
ing, and government-mandated fighting with regular troops that had led
to unification in 1861. Venice became part of Italy in 1866 as a result of
Italy’s maneuverings during the Austro-Prussian War.8 The conquest of
Rome similarly resulted from the larger Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71,
which forced the French to call back their troops guarding the Eternal
City for the Pope. With the French removed, the Italians were able to
march in and overcome the resistance of lingering Papal forces. When the
state subsequently moved the capital from Florence to Rome, many
Italians felt that the Risorgimento was complete.
Traditional histories of the Risorgimento have focused on this narrative
of Italian male generals, diplomats, and politicians. More recent scholar-
ship, however, has acknowledged the role of transnational forces in Italian
Unification as well as that of non-traditional actors, including women.
These works move beyond the standard depiction of women as wives,
mothers, or supporters of important male actors, or as symbols in the
imagery of Italian Unification.9 Historians like Elena Doni and Laura

7
Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 (London: Penguin
Books, 2008), 208–11.
8
Duggan, 249–53.
9
Cesare Guglielmo Pini, Garibaldi (Livorno: Raffaelo Giusti Editore, 1907); Giacomo
Emilio Curàtulo, Garibaldi e le donne: Con documenti inediti (Roma: Imprimerie Polyglotte,
1913); Giacomo Emilio Curàtulo, Giuseppe Garibaldi: Lettere ad Anita e ad altre donne
(Roma: A.F. Formaggini Editore, 1926); Giuseppe Mazzatinti, Lettere di Giuseppe Mazzini
ad Aurelio Saffi e alla famiglia Craufurd (1850–1872) (Milano: Società editrice Dante
Alighieri, 1905); Giuseppe Mazzatinti, Mazzini’s Letters to an English Family, 3 vols.
(London: John Lane, 1920).
6 D. MOORE

Guidi have increasingly recognized women’s agency and contributions,

revealing how women held salons where political thinkers discussed their
ideas and concepts, raised funds to support patriots, and provided emo-
tional support.10 Some recent works have even shown how women fought
in battles for the Risorgimento, assuming male roles during a time of
chaos and intensively challenging gender norms, but these works are nec-
essarily limited by the relatively small number of women who took up
arms in the military battles for unification.11
Numerous scholars have also acknowledged the general transnational
character of the Risorgimento, recognizing how international forces
impacted the development of the Italian nation and its sense of self. Works
like Silvana Patriarca’s Italian Vices have emphasized the role of interna-
tional perceptions in shaping Italian national identity, while others, like
Maurizio Isabella’s Risorgimento in Exile, highlight the importance of the
exile experience for Risorgimento patriots.12 Noting the extensive amount
of time men like Garibaldi and Mazzini spent abroad, these scholars argue
that foreign political philosophy and culture strongly impacted the

10
Elena Doni, Donne del Risorgimento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001); Marina D’Amelia, La
Mamma (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005); Gian Luca Fruci, “Cittadine senza cittadinanza. La
mobilitazione femminile nei plebiscite del Risorgimento (1848–1870),” Genesis: Rivista
della società italiana delle storiche 5, no. 2 (2006): 21–55; Laura Guidi, “Nobili o Maledette?
Passioni del Risorgimento fra tracce biografiche, narrazioni canoniche, riscritture,”
Meridiana 69 (2010): 115–22; Gianni Fazzini and Caterina Lucarelli, Cortigiane ed eroine:
Storie di un altro Risorgimento (Roma: EdUP, 2011); Isabella Fabbri and Patrizia Zani,
Anita e le altre: Amore e politica ai tempi del Risorgimento (Bologna: La Linea, 2011); Maria
Teresa Mori et al., eds., Di generazione in generazione. Le italiane dall’Unità a oggi (Roma:
Viella, 2014).
11
Laura Guidi, Vivere la guerra: Percorsi biografici e ruoli di genere tra Risorgimento e
primo conflitto mondiale (Napoli: ClioPress, 2007); Benedetta Gennaro, “Women in Arms:
Gender in the Risorgimento, 1848–1861” (Brown University, 2010).
12
C. A. Bayly and Eugenio F. Biagini, eds., Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalisation of
Democratic Nationalism 1830–1920 (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press for The
British Academy, 2008); Charles A. Coulombe, The Pope’s Legion: The Multinational Fighting
Force That Defended the Vatican, 1st ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Lucy Riall,
Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008); Maurizio Isabella,
Risorgimento in Exile: Italian Emigres and the Liberal International in the Post-Napoleonic
Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Gilles Pécout, “The International Armed
Volunteers: Pilgrims of a Transnational Risorgimento,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 14,
no. 4 (2009): 413–26; Silvana Patriarca, Italian Vices: Nation and Character from the
Risorgimento to the Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010). Coulombe’s work
is quite interesting as he has explored the transnational movement to oppose the Risorgimento
and support the Pope.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 The researches into the Chancery of Hanover, which Walpole left
to posterity, appear to have been made, and the decree of the
Consistorial Court which condemned Sophia Dorothea has been
copied and published. It is quoted in the ‘Life of the Princess,’
published anonymously in 1845, and it is inserted below for the
benefit of those who like to read history by the light of documents.
It has been said that such a decree could only have been
purchased by rank bribery, which is likely enough; for the courts of
Germany were so utterly corrupt that nothing could equal them in
infamy—except the corruption which prevailed in England.
‘In the matrimonial suit of the illustrious Prince George Louis,
Crown Prince of Hanover, against his consort, the illustrious Princess
Sophia Dorothea, we, constituted president and judges of the
Matrimonial Court of the Electorate and Duchy of Brunswick-
Lunenberg, declare and pronounce judgment, after attempts have
been tried and have failed, to settle the matter amicably, and, in
accordance with the documents and verbal declarations of the
Princess, and other detailed circumstances, we agree that her
continued denial of matrimonial duty and cohabitation is well
founded, and consequently that it is to be considered as an
intentional desertion. In consequence whereof, we consider,
sentence, and declare the ties of matrimony to be entirely dissolved
and annulled. Since, in similar cases of desertion, it has been
permitted to the innocent party to re-marry, which the other is
forbidden, the same judicial power will be exercised in the present
instance in favour of his Serene Highness the Crown Prince.
‘Published in the Consistorial Court at Hanover, December 28th,
1694.
(Signed) ‘Phillip Von Busche.
Francis Eichfeld (Pastor).
Anthony George Hildberg.
Gerhardt Art.
Gustavus Molan.
Bernhard Spilken.
Erythropal.
 David Rupertus.
H. L. Hattorf.’

The work from which the above document is extracted furnishes

also the following, as a copy of the letter written by the princess at
the request of the legal conductor of her case, as ‘security from
proceedings in relation to his connexion with her affairs:’—
‘As we have now, after being made acquainted with the
sentence, given it proper consideration, and resolved not to offer any
opposition to it, our solicitor must act accordingly, and is not to act or
proceed any further in this matter. For the rest, we hereby declare
that we are gratefully content with the conduct of our aforesaid
solicitor of the Court, Thies, and that by this we free him from all
responsibility regarding these transactions.
(Signed) ‘Sophia Dorothea.
‘Lauenau, December 31, 1694.’
By this last document it would seem that the Hof-Rath Thies
would have denied the competency of the court had he been
permitted to do so; and that he was so convinced of its illegality as to
require a written prohibition from asserting the same, and
acknowledgment of exemption from all responsibility, before he
would feel satisfied that he had accomplished his duty towards his
illustrious client.
Long before the case was heard, and four months previous to
the publication of the sentence of the Consistorial Court, the two
brothers, the Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Zell, had actually
agreed by an enactment that the unhappy marriage between the
cousins should be dissolved. The enactment provided for the means
whereby this end was to be achieved, and for the disposal of the
princess during the progress of the case. The anonymous author of
the biography of 1845 then proceeds to state that ‘It was therein
specified that her domestics should take a particular oath, and that
the princess should enjoy an annual income of eight thousand
thalers (exclusive of the wages of her household), to be increased
one-half on the death of her father, with a further increase of six
thousand thalers on her attaining the age of forty years. It was
provided that the castle of Ahlden should be her permanent
residence, where she was to remain well guarded. The domain of
Wilhelmsburg, near Hamburg, was, at the death of the Duke of Zell,
to descend to the prince, son of the Princess Sophia Dorothea—the
Crown Prince, however, during his own life retaining the revenues;
but should the grandson die before his father, the property would
then, on payment of a stipulated sum, be inherited by the successor
in the government of the son of the Elector. By a further
arrangement, the mother of the princess was to possess
Wienhausen, with an annual income of twelve thousand thalers,
secured on the estates of Schernebeck, Garze, and Bluettingen; the
castle at Lunenburg to be allowed as her residence from the
commencement of her widowhood.’
Never was so much care taken to secure property on one side,
and the person on the other. The contracting parties appear to have
been afraid lest the prisoner should ever have an opportunity of
appealing against the wrong of which she was made the victim; and
her strait imprisonment was but the effect of that fear. That nothing
might be neglected to make assurance doubly sure, and to deprive
her of any help she might hope hereafter to receive at the hands of a
father, whose heart might possibly be made to feel his own injustice
and his daughter’s sorrows, the Duke of Zell was induced to promise
that he would neither see nor hold communication with the daughter
he had repudiated.
During the so-called trial, at Lauenau, the princess resided in the
chief official residence in that place. At the close of the inquiry she
took a really final leave of her children—George Augustus and
Sophia Dorothea—with bitter tears, which would have been more
bitter still if she had thought that she was never again to look upon
them. She had concluded that she would have liberty to live with her
mother in Zell. She had no idea that her father had already agreed to
his brother the Elector’s desire that she should be shut up in the
castle of Ahlden. She found herself a state prisoner.
The oath to be taken by her appointed household, or rather by
the personal attendants—counts and countesses in waiting and
persons of similar rank—was stringent and illustrative of the
importance attached to the safe-keeping of the prisoner. It was to the
effect ‘that nothing should be wanting to prevent anticipated
intrigues; or for the perfect security of the place fixed as a residence
for the Princess Sophia Dorothea, in order to maintain tranquility,
and to prevent any opportunity occurring to an enemy for
undertaking or imagining anything which might cause a division in
the illustrious family.’
 CHAPTER IX.
PRISON AND PALACE.

The prison of the captive Sophia Dorothea—Employment of her time—The

church of Ahlden repaired by her—Cut off from her children—Sympathy of
Ernest Augustus for his daughter-in-law—Her father’s returning affection
for her—Opening prospects of the House of Hanover—Lord Macclesfield’s
embassy to Hanover, and his right-royal reception—Description of the
Electress—Toland’s description of Prince George Louis—Magnificent
present to Lord Macclesfield—The Princess Sophia and the English liturgy
—Death of the Duke of Zell—Visit of Prince George to his captive mother
prevented.

The castle of Ahlden is situated on the small and sluggish stream,

the Aller; and seems to guard, as it once oppressed, the little village
sloping at its feet. This edifice was appointed as the prison-place of
Sophia Dorothea; and from the territory she acquired a title, that of
Duchess of Ahlden. She was mockingly called sovereign lady of a
locality where all were free but herself!
On looking over the list of the household which was formed for
the service, if the phrase be one that may be admitted, of her
captivity, the first thing which strikes us as singular is the presence of
‘three cooks’—a triad of ‘ministers of the mouth’ for one poor
imprisoned lady!
The singularity vanishes when we find that around this encaged
duchess there circled a really extensive household, and there lived a
world of ceremony, of which no one was so much the slave as she
was. Her captivity in its commencement was decked with a certain
sort of splendour, about which she, who was its object, cared by far
the least. There was a military governor of the castle, gentlemen and
ladies in waiting—spies all. Among the honester servants of the
house were a brace of pages and as many valets, a dozen female
domestics, and fourteen footmen, who had to undergo the intense
labour of doing very little in a very lengthened space of time. To
supply the material wants of these, the three cooks, one
confectioner, a baker, and a butler, were provided. There was,
besides, a military force, consisting of infantry and artillery.
Altogether, there must have been work enough for the three cooks.
The forms of a court were long maintained, although only on a
small scale. The duchess held her little levées, and the local
authorities, clergy, and neighbouring nobility and gentry offered her
such respect as could be manifested by paying her visits on certain
appointed days. These visits, however, were always narrowly
watched by the officials, whose office lay in such service and was hid
beneath a show of duty.
The successive governors of the castle were men of note, and
their presence betokened the importance attached to the person and
safe keeping of the captive. During the first three years of her
imprisonment, the post of governor was held by the Hof Grand-
Marshal von Bothmar. He was succeeded by the Count Bergest, who
enjoyed his equivocal dignity of gaoler-governor about a quarter of a
century. During the concluding years of the imprisonment of Sophia,
her seneschal was a relative of one of her judges, Georg von
Busche.
These men behaved to their prisoner with as much courtesy as
they dared to show; nor was her captivity severe in anything but the
actual deprivation of liberty, and of all intercourse with those she best
loved, until after the first few years. The escape of Fräulein
Knesebeck from her place of confinement appears to have given the
husband of Sophia Dorothea an affectionate uneasiness, which he
evidenced by giving orders that his wife’s safe-keeping should be
maintained with greater stringency.
From the day of the issuing of that order, she was never allowed
to walk, even in the garden of the castle, without a guard. She never
rode out, or drove through the neighbouring woods, without a strong
escort. Even parts of the castle were prohibited from being intruded
upon by her; and so much severity was shown in this respect, that
when, on one occasion, a fire broke out in the edifice, to escape from
which she must have traversed a gallery which she was forbidden to
pass, she stood short of the proscribed limit, her jewel-box in her
arms, and herself in almost speechless terror, but refusing to
advance beyond the prohibited line until permission reached her
from the proper authority.
On such a prisoner time must have hung especially heavy. She
had, however, many resources, and every hour, with her, had its
occupation. She was the land-steward of her little ducal estate, and
performed all the duties of that office. She kept a diary of her
thoughts as well as actions; and if this be extant it would be well
worthy of being published. The one which has been put forth as hers
is a poor work of fancy by some writer unknown, set in dramatic
scenes, and altogether to be rejected. Her correspondence, during
the period she was permitted to write, was extensive. Every day she
had interviews with, and gave instructions to, each of her servants,
from the chief of the three cooks downwards. With this, she was
personally active in charity. Finally, she was the Lady Bountiful of the
district, laying out half her income in charitable uses for the good of
her neighbours, and, as Boniface said of the good lady of Lichfield,
‘curing more people in and about the place within ten years, than the
doctors had killed in twenty; and that’s a bold word.’
There was a church in the village, which was in rather ruinous
condition when her captivity commenced; but this she put in
thorough repair, decorated it handsomely, presented it with an organ,
and was refused permission to attend there after it had been
reopened for public service. For her religious consolation a chaplain
had been provided, and she was never trusted, even under guard, to
join with the villagers in common worship in the church of the village
below. In this respect a somewhat royal etiquette was observed. The
chaplain read prayers to the garrison and household in one room, to
which the princess and her ladies listened rather than therewith
joined, placed as they were in an adjacent room, where they could
hear without being seen.
 With no relative was she allowed to hold never so brief an
interview; and at last even her mother was not permitted to soften by
her presence for an hour the rigid and ceremonious captivity of her
luckless daughter. Mother and child were allowed to correspond at
stated periods, their letters passing open. The princess herself was
as much cut off from her own children as if these had been dead and
entombed. The little prince and princess were expressly ordered to
utterly forget that they had a mother—her very name on their lips
would have been condemned as a grievous fault. The boy, George
Augustus, was in many points of character similar to his father, and,
accordingly, being commanded to forget his mother, he obstinately
bore her in memory; and when he was told that he would never have
an opportunity afforded him to see her, mentally resolved to make
one for himself.
It is but justice to the old Elector to say that in his advanced
years, when pleasant sins were no longer profitable to him, he gave
them up; and when the youngest of his mistresses had ceased to be
attractive, he began to think such appendages little worth the
hanging on to his Electoral dignity. For, ceasing to love and live with
his ‘favourites,’ he did not the more respect, or hold closer
intercourse with, his wife—a course about which the Electress
Sophia troubled herself very little.
Ernest Augustus, when he ceased to be under the influence of
the disgraced Countess von Platen, began to be sensible of some
sympathy for his daughter-in-law, Sophia. He softened in some
degree the rigour of her imprisonment and corresponded with her by
letter; a correspondence which inspired her with hope that her
freedom might result from it. This hope was, however, frustrated by
the death of Ernest Augustus, on the 20th of January 1698. From
that time the rigour of her imprisonment was increased fourfold.
If the heart of her old father-in-law began to incline towards her
as he increased in years, it is not to be wondered at that the heart of
her aged father melted towards her as time began to press heavily
upon him. But it was the weakest of hearts allied to the weakest of
minds. In the comfortlessness of his great age he sought to be
comforted by loving her whom he had insanely and unnaturally
oppressed—the sole child of his heart and house. In his weakness
he addressed himself to that tool of Hanover at Zell, the minister
Bernstorf; and that individual so terrified the poor old man by details
of the ill consequences which might ensue if the wrath of the new
Elector, George Louis, were aroused by the interference of the Duke
of Zell in matters which concerned the Elector and his wife, that the
old man, feeble in mind and body, yielded, and for a time at least left
his daughter to her fate. He thought to compensate for the wrong
which he inflicted on her under the impulse of his evil genius,
Bernstorf, by adding a codicil to his will.
By this codicil he bequeathed to the daughter whom he had
wronged all that it was in his power to leave, in jewels, moneys, and
lands; but liberty he could not give her, and so his love could do little
more than try to lighten the fetters which he had aided to put on. But
there was a short-lived joy in store, both for child and parents. The
fetters were to be cast aside for a brief season, and the poor captive
was to enjoy an hour of home, of love, and of liberty.
The last year of the seventeenth century (1700) brought with it
an accession of greatness to the Electoral family of Hanover,
inasmuch as in that year a bill was introduced into parliament, and
accepted by that body, which fixed the succession to the crown of
England after the Princess Anne, and in default of such princess
dying without heirs of her own body, in the person of Sophia of
Hanover. William III. had been very desirous for the introduction of
this bill; but under various pretexts it had been deferred, the
commonest business being allowed to take precedence of it, until the
century had nearly expired. The limitations to the royal action, which
formed a part of the bill as recommended in the report of the
committee, were little to the King’s taste; for they not only affected
his employment of foreign troops in England, but shackled his own
free and frequent departures from the kingdom. It was imagined by
many that these limitations were designed by the leaders in the
cabinet, in order to raise disputes between the two houses, by which
the bill might be lost. Such is Burnet’s report; and he sarcastically
adds thereto, that when much time had been spent in preliminaries,
and it was necessary to come to the nomination of the person who
should be named presumptive heir next to Queen Anne, the office of
doing so was confided to ‘Sir John Bowles, who was then disordered
in his senses, and soon after quite lost them.’ ‘He was,’ says Burnet,
‘set on by the party to be the first that should name the Electress-
dowager of Brunswick, which seemed done to make it less serious
when moved by such a person.’ So that the solemn question of
naming the heir to a throne was entrusted to an idiot, who, by the
forms of the house, was appointed chairman of the committee for the
conduct of the bill. Burnet adds, that the ‘thing,’ as he calls it, was
‘still put off for many weeks at every time that it was called for; the
motion was entertained with coldness, which served to heighten the
jealousy; the committee once or twice sat upon it, but all the
members ran out of the house with so much indecency that the
contrivers seemed ashamed of this management; there were seldom
fifty or sixty at the committee, yet in conclusion it passed, and was
sent up to the Lords.’ Great opposition was expected from the peers,
and many of their lordships designedly absented themselves from
the discussion. The opposition was slight, and confined to the
Marquis of Normanby, who spoke, and the Lords Huntingdon,
Plymouth, Guildford, and Jefferies, who protested, against the bill.
Burnet affirms, that those who wished well to the Act were glad to
have it passed any way, and so would not examine the limitations
that were in it, and which they thought might be considered
afterwards. ‘We reckoned it,’ says Burnet, ‘a great point carried that
we had now a law on our side for a Protestant successor.’ The law
was stoutly protested against by the Duchess of Savoy, grand-
daughter of Charles I. The protest did not trouble the King, who
despatched the Act to the Electress-dowager, and the Garter to her
son, by the hands of the Earl of Macclesfield.
The earl was a fitting bearer of so costly and significant a
present. He had been attached to the service of the mother of
Sophia, and was highly esteemed by the Electress-dowager herself.
The earl had no especial commission beyond that which enjoined
him to deliver the Act, nor was he dignified by any official appellation.
He was neither ambassador, legate, plenipotentiary, nor envoy. He
had with him, however, a most splendid suite; which was in some
respects strangely constituted, for among its members was the
famous Toland, whose book in support of rationality as applied to
religion had been publicly burnt by the hangman, in Ireland.
The welcome to this body of gentlemen was right royal. It may
be said that the Electoral family had neither cared for the dignity now
rendered probable for them, nor in any way toiled or intrigued to
bring it within their grasp; but it is certain that their joy was great
when the Earl of Macclesfield appeared on the frontier of the
Electorate with the Act in one hand and the Garter in the other. He
and his suite were met there with a welcome of extraordinary
magnificence, betokening ample appreciation of the double gift he
brought with him. He himself seemed elevated by his mission, for he
was in his general deportment little distinguished by courtly manners
or by ceremonious bearing; but it was observed that, on this
occasion, nothing could have been more becoming than the way in
which he acquitted himself of an office which brought a whole family
within view of succession to a royal and powerful throne.
On reaching the confines of the Electorate, the members of the
deputation from England were received by personages of the highest
official rank, who not only escorted them to the capital, but treated
them on the way with a liberality so profuse as to be the wonder of
all beholders. They were not allowed to disburse a farthing from their
own purses; all they thought fit to order was paid for by the Electoral
government, by whose orders they were lodged in the most
commodious palace in Hanover, where as much homage was paid
them as if each man had been a Kaiser in his own person. The
Hanoverian gratitude went so far, that not only were the ambassador
and suite treated as favoured guests, and those not alone of the
princess but of the people—the latter being commanded to refrain
from taking payment from any of them for any article of refreshment
they required—but for many days all English travellers visiting the
city were made equally free of its caravansaries, and were permitted
to enjoy all that the inns could afford without being required to pay
for the enjoyment.
The delicate treatment of the Electoral government extended
even to the servants of the earl and his suite. It was thought that to
require them to dine upon the fragments of their master’s banquets
would be derogatory to the splendour of the hospitality of the House
of Hanover and an insult to the domestics who followed in the train of
the earl. The government accordingly disbursed half-a-crown a day
to each liveried follower, and considered such a ‘composition’ as
glorious to the reputation of the Electoral house. The menials were
even emancipated from service during the sojourn of the deputation
in Hanover, and the Elector’s numerous servants waited upon the
English visitors zealously throughout the day, but with most
splendour in the morning; then, they were to be seen hurrying to the
bed-rooms of the different members of the suite, bearing with them
silver coffee and tea pots, and other requisites for breakfast, which
meal appears to have been lazily indulged in—as if the legation had
been habitually wont to ‘make a night of it’—in bed. And there was a
good deal of hard drinking on these occasions, but all at the expense
of the husband of Sophia Dorothea, who, in her castle of Ahlden,
was not even aware of that increase of honour which had fallen upon
her consort, and in which she had a right to share.
For those who were, the next day, ill or indolent, there were the
ponderous state coaches to carry them whithersoever they would go.
The most gorgeous of the fêtes given on this occasion was on the
evening of the day on which the Act was solemnly presented to the
Electress-dowager. Hanover, famous as it was for its balls, had
never seen so glorious a Terpsichorean festival as marked this
particular night. At the balls in the old Elector’s time Sophia Dorothea
used to shine, first in beauty and in grace; but now her place was ill
supplied by the not fair and quite graceless Mademoiselle von der
Schulenburg. The supper which followed was Olympian in its
profusion, wit, and magnificence. This was at a time when to be
sober was to be respectable, but when to be drunk was not to be
ungentlemanly. Consequently we find Toland, who wrote an account
of the achievements of the day, congratulating himself and readers
by stating that, although it was to be expected that in so large and so
jovial a party some would be found even more ecstatic than the
occasion and the company warranted, yet that, in truth, the number
of those who were guilty of excess was but small. Even Lord Mohun
kept himself sober, and to the end was able to converse as clearly
and intelligibly as Lord Saye and Sele, and his friend ‘my Lord
Tunbridge.’
This day of presentation of the Act, and of the festival in honour
of it, was one of the greatest days which Hanover had ever seen.
Speaking of the mother-in-law of Sophia Dorothea, Toland says:
—‘The Electress is three-and-seventy years old, which she bears so
wonderfully well, that, had I not many vouchers, I should scarce dare
venture to relate it. She has ever enjoyed extraordinary health, which
keeps her still very vigorous, of a cheerful countenance, and a merry
disposition. She steps as firm and erect as any young lady, has not
one wrinkle in her face, which is still very agreeable, nor one tooth
out of her head, and reads without spectacles, as I have often seen
her do, letters of a small character, in the dusk of the evening. She is
as great a writer as our late queen (Mary), and you cannot turn
yourself in the palace without meeting some monument of her
industry, all the chairs of the presence-chamber being wrought with
her own hands. The ornaments of the altar in the electoral chapel
are all of her work. She bestowed the same favour on the Protestant
abbey, or college, of Lockurn, with a thousand other instances, fitter
for your lady to know than for yourself. She is the most constant and
greatest walker I ever knew, never missing a day, if it proves fair, for
one or two hours, and often more, in the fine garden at Herrnhausen.
She perfectly tires all those of her court who attend her in that
exercise but such as have the honour to be entertained by her in
discourse. She has been long admired by all the learned world as a
woman of incomparable knowledge in divinity, philosophy, history,
and the subjects of all sorts of books, of which she has read a
prodigious quantity. She speaks five languages so well, that by her
accent it might be a dispute which of them was her first. They are
Low Dutch, German, French, Italian, and English, which last she
speaks as truly and easily as any native; which to me is a matter of
amazement, whatever advantages she might have in her youth by
the conversation of her mother; for though the late king’s (William’s)
mother was likewise an Englishwoman, of the same royal family;
though he had been more than once in England before the
Revolution; though he was married there, and his court continually
full of many of that nation, yet he could never conquer his foreign
accent. But, indeed, the Electress is so entirely English in her
person, in her behaviour, in her humour, and in all her inclinations,
that naturally she could not miss of anything that peculiarly belongs
to our land. She was ever glad to see Englishmen, long before the
Act of Succession. She professes to admire our form of government,
and understands it mighty well, yet she asks so many questions
about families, customs, laws, and the like, as sufficiently
demonstrate her profound wisdom and experience. She has a deep
veneration for the Church of England, without losing affection or
charity for any other sort of Protestants, and appears charmed with
the moderate temper of our present bishops and other of our learned
clergy, especially for their approbation of the liberty allowed by law to
Protestant Dissenters. She is adored for her goodness among the
inhabitants of the country, and gains the hearts of all strangers by
her unparalleled affability. No distinction is ever made in her court
concerning the parties into which Englishmen are divided, and
whereof they carry the effects and impressions with them
whithersoever they go, which makes others sometimes uneasy as
well as themselves. There it is enough that you are an Englishman;
nor can you ever discover by your treatment which are better liked,
the Whigs or the Tories. These are the instructions given to all the
servants, and they take care to execute them with the utmost
exactness. I was the first who had the honour of kneeling and kissing
her hand on account of the Act of Succession; and she said, among
other discourse, that she was afraid the nation had already repented
their choice of an old woman, but that she hoped none of her
posterity would give her any reasons to grow weary of their
dominion. I answered, that the English had too well considered what
they did to change their minds so soon, and they still remembered
they were never so happy as when they were last under a woman’s
government. Since that time, sir,’ adds the courtly but unorthodox
Toland to the ‘Minister of State in Holland,’ to whom his letter is
addressed, ‘we have a further confirmation of this truth by the
glorious administration of Queen Anne.’
The record would be imperfect if it were not accompanied by
another ‘counterfeit presentment,’ that of her son, Prince George
Louis, the husband of Sophia Dorothea. Toland describes him as ‘a
proper, middle-sized, well-proportioned man, of a genteel address,
and good appearance;’ but he adds, that his Highness ‘is reserved,
and therefore speaks little, but judiciously.’ ‘He is not to be
exceeded,’ says Toland, ‘in his zeal against the intended universal
monarchy of France, and so is most hearty for the common cause of
Europe,’ for the very good reason, that therein ‘his own is so
necessarily involved.’ Toland adds, that George Louis understood
the constitution of England better than any ‘foreigner’ he had ever
met with; a very safe remark, for our constitution was ill understood
abroad; and even had the theoretical knowledge of George Louis
been ever so correct, his practice with our constitution betrayed such
ignorance that Toland’s assertion may be taken only for what it is
worth. ‘Though,’ says the writer just named, ‘though he be well
versed in the art of war, and of invincible courage, having often
exposed his person to great dangers in Hungary, in the Morea, on
the Rhine, and in Flanders, yet he is naturally of peaceable
inclination; which mixture of qualities is agreed, by the experience of
all ages, to make the best and most glorious princes. He is a perfect
man of business, exactly regular in the economy of his revenues’
(which he never was of those of England, seeing that he outran his
liberal allowance, and coolly asked the parliament to pay his debts),
‘reads all despatches himself at first hand, writes most of his own
letters, and spends a considerable part of his time about such
occupations, in his closet, and with his ministers.’ ‘I hope,’ Toland
says, ‘that none of our countrymen will be so injudicious as to think
his reservedness the effect of sullenness or pride; nor mistake that
for state which really proceeds from modesty, caution, and
deliberation; for he is very affable to such as accost him, and
expects that others should speak to him first, which is the best
information I could have from all about him, and I partly know to be
true by experience.’... ‘As to what I said of his frugality in laying out
the public money, I need not give a more particular proof than that all
the expenses of his court, as to eating, drinking, fire, candles, and
the like, are duly paid every Saturday night; the officers of his army
receive their pay every month, so likewise his envoys in every part of
Europe; and all the officers of his household, with the rest that are on
the civil list, are cleared off every half-year.’ We are then assured
that his administration was equable, mild, and prudent—a triple
assertion which his own life and that of his hardly-used wife flatly
denied. Toland, however, will have it that there never existed a prince
who was so ardently beloved by his subjects. Hanover itself is said
to be without division or faction, and all Hanoverians as being in a
condition of ecstasy at the Solomon-like rectitude and jurisdiction of
his very Serene Highness. He describes Madame Kielmansegge as
a woman of sense and wit; and of ‘Mademoiselle Schulemberg,’ he
says that she is especially worthy of the rank she enjoys, and that ‘in
the opinion of others, as well as mine, she is a lady of extraordinary
merit!’ Of Sophia Dorothea, Toland makes no note whatever.
There only remains to be added, that the legation left Hanover
loaded with presents. The earl received the portrait of the Electress,
with an Electoral crown in diamonds by way of mounting to the
frame. George Louis bestowed upon him a gold basin and ewer.
Gold medals and snuffboxes were showered among the other
members. The chaplain, Dr. Sandys, was especially honoured by
rich gifts in medals and books. He was the first who ever read the
service of our Church in the presence of the Electress. She joined in
it with apparent fervour, and admired it generally; but when a hint
was conveyed to her that it might be well were she to introduce it in
place of the Calvinistic form used in her chapel, as of the Lutheran in
that of the Elector, she shook her head, with a smile; said that there
was no difference between the three forms, in essentials, and that
episcopacy was merely the established form in England. She
thought for the present she would ‘let well alone.’ And it was done
accordingly!
In the year 1705 the war was raging which France was carrying
on for the purpose of extending her limits and influence, and which
England and her allies had entered into in order to resist such
aggression and restore that terribly oscillating matter—the balance of
European power. The Duke of Marlborough had, at the prayer of the
Dutch States, left the banks of the Moselle, in order to help Holland,
menaced on the side of Liège by a strong French force. Our great
duke left General D’Aubach at Trèves to secure the magazines
which the English and Dutch had laid up there; but upon the
approach of Marshal Villars, D’Aubach destroyed the magazines and
abandoned Trèves, of which the French immediately took
possession. This put an end to all the schemes which had been laid
for attacking France on the side of the Moselle, where her frontiers
were but weak, and carried her confederates back to Flanders,
where, as the old-fashioned chronicler, Salmon, remarks, ‘they
yearly threw away thousands of brave fellows against stone walls.’
Thereupon, Hanover became menaced. On this, Horace Walpole
has something in point:
‘As the genuine wife was always detained in her husband’s
power, he seems not to have wholly dissolved their union; for on the
approach of the French army towards Hanover, during Queen
Anne’s reign, the Duchess of Halle (Ahlden) was sent home to her
father and mother, who doted on their only child, and did retain her
for a whole year, and did implore, though in vain, that she might
continue to reside with them.’ On the return of ‘the genuine wife’ to
captivity some of the old restrictions were taken off. There was no
prohibition of intercourse with the parents; for the Duke of Zell had
resolved on proceeding to visit his daughter, but only deferred his
visit until the conclusion of a grand hunt in which he was anxious to
take part. He went; and between fatigue, exposure to inclement
weather, and neglect on his return, he became seriously ill, rapidly
grew worse, died on the 28th of August 1705, and by his death gave
the domains of a dukedom to Hanover and deprived his daughter of
a newly-acquired friend.
The death of the Duke of Zell was followed by honour to
Bernstorf. George Louis appointed him to the post of prime-minister
of Hanover, and at the same time made him a count. The death of
the father of Sophia Dorothea was, however, followed by
consequences more fatal than those just named. The severity of the
imprisonment of the princess was much aggravated; and though she
was permitted to have an occasional interview with her mother, all
application to be allowed to see her two children was sternly refused
—and this refusal, as the poor prisoner used to remark, was the
bitterest portion of her misery.
 It was of her son that George Louis used to say, in later years, ‘Il
est fougueux, mais il a du cœur’—hot-headed but not heartless.
George Augustus manifested this disposition very early in life. He
was on one occasion hunting in the neighbourhood of Luisberg, not
many miles from the scene of his mother’s imprisonment, when he
made a sudden resolution to visit her, regardless of the strict
prohibition against such a course laid on him by his father and the
Hanoverian government. Laying spurs to his horse, he galloped at
full speed from the field, and in the direction of Ahlden. His
astonished suite, seeing the direction which he was following at so
furious a rate, immediately suspected his design and became legally
determined to frustrate it. They left pursuing the stag and took to
chasing the prince. The heir-apparent led them far away over field
and furrow, to the great detriment of the wind and persons of his
pursuers; and he would have distanced the whole body of flying
huntsmen, but that his steed was less fleet than those of two officers
of the Electoral household, who kept close to the fugitive, and at last
came up with him on the skirts of a wood adjacent to Ahlden. With
mingled courtesy and firmness they represented to him that he could
not be permitted to go further in a direction which was forbidden, as
by so doing he would not only be treating the paternal command with
contempt, but would be making them accomplices in his crime of
disobedience. George Augustus, vexed and chafed, argued the
matter with them, appealed to their affections and feelings, and
endeavoured to convince them both as men and as ministers, as
human beings and as mere official red-tapists, that he was
authorised to continue his route to Ahlden by every law, earthly or
divine.
The red-tapists, however, acknowledged no law under such
circumstances but that of their Electoral lord and master, and that
law they would not permit to be broken. Laying hold of the bridle of
the prince’s steed, they turned its head homewards and rode away
with George Augustus in a state of full discontent and strict arrest.
 CHAPTER X.
THE SUCCESSION—DEATH OF THE
ELECTRESS.

Marriage of Prince George to Princess Caroline of Anspach, and of his sister

to the Crown Prince of Prussia—Honours conferred by Queen Anne on
Prince George—Intention to bring over to England the Princess Sophia—
Opposed by Queen Anne—Foundation of the kingdom of Prussia—The
establishment of this Protestant kingdom promoted by the Jesuits—The
Electress Sophia’s visit to Loo—The law granting taxes on births, deaths,
and marriages—Complaint of Queen Anne against the Electress—Tom
D’Urfey’s doggrel verses on her—Death of the Electress—Character of
her.

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