Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

take a mistress. This personage who was handsome, but low born, artful, and arrogant, was the wife of Count Von Wartenberg, the Elector's minister. She did the honours of the court during the self-willed absences of the Electress from her own station; and though Fredericnever permitted her to show any disrespect to his wife, yet in time the countess gained a degree of influence over him which she covertly and artfully used to thwart the wishes of the Electress.

Frederic had long cherished a desire to see his Electorate raised to the rank of a kingdon; and his mother-in-law, Sophia, warmly adopted his views, and zealously exerted herself for their accomplishment; for her husband, Ernest Augustus of Hanover, having died in 1689, she was able to devote her time and attention to the affairs of Brandenburg. Charlotte professed to despise Frederic's ambition, yet, nevertheless, strenuously co-operated with her mother; she even compromised her dignity by condescending to court and flatter Madame Von Wartenberg to induce her to influence the count (whom she ruled) to use all his diplomatic talents for the furtherance of the Elector's wishes. On this occasion the Electress invited her husband's mistress to her own particular court at Lützenberg, a compliment the lady had hitherto ardently, but vainly sought to obtain. Yet when the now gratified countess made her entrée into the envied circle, Charlotte inconsistently addressed her in French, of which the bewildered guest knew not one word; she felt herself insulted and exposed to ridicule, and became incensed; and the Electress had humbled herself in vain.

Charlotte went with her mother to different courts, to seek the interest of their princes with the emperor in favour of Frederic. To the Elector of Bavaria, whom she sought to conciliate with all her talents and all her graces, she made a speech of a very extraordinary nature for a lady of her cultivated mind. His Electress, by birth a Polish Princess, was eccentric, and very jealous of competitive beauty; and under pretence of indisposition refused to accord a gracious reception to the charming visitor; and the latter observed to the husband of the fair but sullen Pole, "Without flattering myself, I do really think I should have made you a better wife than the Electress. You like pleasure, I do not hate it; you are gallant, I am not jealous; you would never have frowned upon me; and I believe we should have lived

very happily together." To such flatteries, such arts, could she bow in order to place a crown which she professed to despise, upon the head of a man whom she incontestibly disliked. Frederic had promised, in case her exertions in his behalf proved successful, that he would pay her debts, and double her allowance. Alas! that philosophy should swallow the hook of ambition baited with mammon-but it is only consistent with human nature to be inconsistent.

At length, Frederic's wishes were literally crowned with success, and the Electorate of Brandenburg was elevated into the Kingdom of Prussia. The 18th of January, 1701, was the inauguration day of the Prussian Monarchy. Their Majesties, Frederic and Charlotte, were crowned at Königsberg, (the old capital of the Prussian provinces,) for the sake of the appropriate name, Königsberg, (the King's Mountain.) The ceremonial was long and pompous, the robes magnificent: the Queen looked so beautiful and so majestic, that she attracted the admiration of all present, but of none more than the King.

After her elevation to royalty, the Queen absented herself still more and more from the Court of Berlin, and suffered the Countess Von Wartenburg to fill her place still more prominently. Her own Court of Lutzenberg she animated and adorned by her grace, and her talents; she had the tact to draw out even dull people; so that for the time, they appeared agreeable and intelligent. Among the foreigners whom she invited thither was Toland, the English infidel, whose book, "Christianity not Mysterious," was condemned as blasphemous by the grand jury of Middlesex; and was ordered to be burned by the Irish Parliament: but he had written in favour of the Hanoverian succession to the British throne; and his political creed made amends for his theological.

As the Queen's only child grew up, he gave her great cause of vexation. He was passionate and stubborn, and rude, nay, brutal, in his manners; he detested literature, and cared for nothing that was not wholly military.

He

* He was born in Ireland, (at Innishowen, County of Londonderry,) and there is a mystery over his birth: but he is always accounted English, as he left Ireland at a very early age, adopted England as his country, and therein acquired his fame, such as it is.

showed no affection for his father, and very little for his mother. But she had left him too much in the hands of strangers; he lived at Berlin, and though it was a rule that he should visit her twice a week at Lützenberg, yet she was often a long time without seeing him, when she was absent on her travels, and on her frequent excursions to Hanover. Frederic, at the instigation of Madame Von Wartenberg, sometimes forbade these excursions; but on such occasions the Electress Sophia descended so far as to court her daughter's unworthy rival, and even invite her to her court, in order to purchase her mediation with the king.

On one of Charlotte's visits to her mother, the latter forgot her propriety and good taste, and entertained the Queen by a buffoon festival, a part of which was so coarsely indelicate that we dare not allude to it. The details were reported to the King at Berlin; and he was so much irritated by his consort's want of self-respect in witnessing such a scene, that he testified his displeasure to her for upwards of a year. Certainly there is an inconsistency in the Queen's character: virtuous and highly accomplished, she yet could tolerate grossness, such as would now disgust even the vulgar. She couldreceivethe revolting correspondence of her kinswoman, the German Duchess of Orleans,* she could write to her son's governor, relative to the young man's morals, in a tone of strange laxity: and in her billets to her confidante, Mademoiselle de Poelnitz, she could express her dislike to her husband, in tones of singular impropriety. But the root of these blemishes was the fault of her parents, in giving her hand where her heart was utterly repugnant. True and legitimate love refines: had she ever loved her husband, she would have attained to a better and purer light.

Towards the close of 1704, the Electress Sophia invited her daughter to Hanover; but Frederic, who still remembered the buffoon fête, refused his consent, and Sophia came to Berlin, to flatter her son-in-law's mistress, and wheedle her into using her influence, (her influence!) with

Elizabeth Charlotte, second wife of Monsieur, brother of Louis XIV.; she was daughter of the Elector Palatine, son of Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I., and was consequently niece to Sophia, Electress of Hanover.

On

the King for the gratification of his wife's wishes. In January, 1705, the Queen set out for Hanover; she was suffering from a tumour in the throat, but she concealed it, lest the King might require her to defer her journey. When she reached the Hanoverian Court, she strove to make light of her malady, and appeared in public: but her illness increased, and was soon pronounced to be hopeless. her dying bed, she had not the consolation of her loving mother's care, for the Electress herself was then lying in a state of great suffering, and of some danger: her cherished friend, Leibnitz, too, was absent. She heard the announcement of her approaching dissolution with calmness, took an affectionate leave of her brothers, recommending Leibnitz to their favour, and wrote a kind letter to the king: and when one of her attendants observed that the latter would be inconsolable, she replied with a smile, "no: he will find consolation in the care of arranging a magnificent funeral for me." But she refused the offices of a minister of religion, saying, "why should we quarrel at the latter end?" Why should there have been a risk of quarrelling, if she were convinced of the essentials of Christianity?*-She also remarked, that she knew very well everything that it was customary to say beside death beds, and therefore, it was unnecessary to repeat it to her; "she trusted she was well with God.'

On the 1st of February, 1705, the Queen expired. When the mournful news reached Berlin, the King fainted away; for several days he would neither speak, nor be spoken with, subsequently he employed himself, as his wife had predicted: in planning splendid ceremonies, and solemn rites for her interment. Her body was brought from Hanover, and deposited temporarily in the Chapel of the Castle of Berlin, during five months: on the 28th of June, it was laid to rest in a superb mausoleum. The King changed the name of Lutzenburg to Charlottenburg, in her honour, gave it the privileges of a city, retained her household, and kept up the

* Her son said of her in after times, "my mother was a clever woman, but not a good Christian." The principles she had imbibed from Leibnitz, were not those of Revelation, so much as of (so called) natural religion.

castle and grounds in the same manner that she had been accustomed to do.

Charlotte was deeply regretted both at Hanover and Berlin, for her kindness, affability and benevolence. It was remembered as a sinister portent, that just before she left Berlin for her last visit to her mother, a bracelet that she habitually wore, (never removing it,) suddenly broke, and fell from her arm: it was a gift from Frederic at an early period of their union, and was made of his hair, and on the clasp were engraved his cypher and Electoral cap. It was also remarked that Sunday was her fateful day; on Sunday she was born, baptized, and married; on Sunday she died, and on Sunday was solemnly interred.

After Charlotte's death, the royal widower became very ailing and infirm; his ministers often took undue advantage of his state: the Prince Royal testified his displeasure at their conduct, and they, in order to sow discord between him and his father, induced the latter to marry again, after a lapse of three years. The Princess selected for his third wife, and second queen, was Sophia Louisa, sister of the then reighing Duke of Mecklenburg Schwerin. The wedding was celebrated at Berlin, 28th November, 1708, with oriental pomp: one of the subsequent festivities was a combat of wild beasts. The bride from her box shot a bear with an arquebuss. The marriage was unpopular with the people, and with the courtiers; with the former because they remembered the dissensions caused by a step-mother in the family of the old Elector; and with the latter, because they dreaded the stern influences of a queen who was in all respects the opposite of the brilliant Charlotte, and the fêteloving Frederic. It was an ill-judged union; Sophia Louisa was 23, Frederick 51, but the latter seemed much older. Both were in bad health, but their tastes, ideas and feelings were utterly antagonistic. The Queen was narrowminded and gloomy, she belonged to the German sect of Pietists: admitted no one graciously but their preachers, condemned everything as sinful, that was not replete with austerity, and unequivocally expressed to the King her belief that he was out of the pale of salvation. They were insupportable to each other, and naturally separated, and Sophia Louisa returned to Mecklenburgh Schwerin, to try the efficacy of her native air on her impaired constitution.

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »