She was cool to him when he approached her. He was wounded, but she could not explain to him – nor had she any wish to. She wanted to leave Rome, and was suddenly filled with a desire to see her son.
Perhaps she had been too long away.
The Marquis was more than hurt; he was angry. He was not accustomed to being so slighted, and he had wagered with Clara that the Princess would be his mistress in a matter of weeks.
That girl is sly, thought Clara. Too cautious to take a lover. Well, we shall see what happens when the right one comes along.
Meanwhile Ernest Augustus was restless. State matters called him back to Hanover and he could not stay away indefinitely.
He told Clara to make ready for the journey home and apologised to Sophia Dorothea for taking her away from her pleasures.
‘I have a fondness for Hanover,’ she told him; ‘and I long to see little George Augustus.’
Not George Lewis, Ernest Augustus noticed; for his son should be back in Hanover by the time they returned. Well, who could blame her for that? She would be more dissatisfied with her husband than ever now she had seen how charmingly and gracefully some people behaved.
But she had her son. He hoped she would soon have more. He told her that it had been a pleasant sojourn and her company had given him pleasure.
It delighted him to have a beautiful daughter-in-law whose dowry had made him so rich.
So back they came to Hanover and life went on as though there had been no interruption.
Very soon Sophia Dorothea became pregnant and in due course her daughter was born.
A daughter was a great disappointment and there was not the ceremony that attended the birth of George Augustus, but Sophia Dorothea was delighted with the child.
She was named after her mother who gave herself up entirely to the care of little George Augustus and Sophia Dorothea.
George Lewis found no pleasure in his wife’s society, nor she in his. After their separation she seemed more remote than ever and he to her more coarse.
She was less docile than she had been and often did not hide the repulsion he aroused in her. She allowed it to be known that she found him coarse and uneducated. Clara saw that her comments always reached him.
Thus during the months which followed the birth of little Sophia Dorothea relations between the Crown Prince and Princess of Hanover became very strained.
Schulenburg Selected
ELÉONORE, DUCHESS OF CELLE, was writing to her daughter when one of her servants came to tell her that a woman had come to the castle and begged an interview.
‘Madame, she is so persistent and refuses to be sent away.’
‘In any case she should not be sent away,’ said the Duchess. ‘Bring her to me.’
The young woman was brought to her and Eléonore saw at once that although she appeared thin and was clearly wretched, she had at one time been good-looking.
As soon as she was brought to Eléonore, she fell to her knees and remained there.
‘You are in need?’ asked Eléonore gently.
‘Dire need, Madame.’
‘Well, they shall give you food.’
‘Madame, I want more than food. I want a chance to tell you how I came to be in these circumstances. I could tell you so much about … Hanover and the Princess and …’
‘What are you saying?’ asked the Duchess.
‘That I was in the service of the Baroness von Platen and there I knew something of the intrigues which went on around the Crown Princess, your daughter.’
‘Your name?’ asked Eléonore.
‘It is Ilse, Madame. I was falsely imprisoned by the Baroness because the Duke of Hanover noticed me. Since then I have been persecuted.’
‘First you shall eat,’ said Eléonore. ‘Then you may tell me your story.’
So it was that Eléonore learned how Ilse was imprisoned and drummed out of Hanover through the wickedness of the Baroness von Platen. But what interested her more was Ilse’s certainty that the Baroness was working against her daughter and was jealous of the Duke’s friendship for her.
Sophia Dorothea was so innocent she might not recognize wickedness when she saw it. She must be warned against this woman.
Eléonore gleaned all she could from Ilse and offered the girl a place in her household which Ilse gratefully accepted.
News travelled quickly between Celle and Hanover and Clara had her spies planted in every branch of the Celle household; so she soon knew that Ilse was installed there and was moreover betraying to the Duchess of Celle details of the private life of Clara von Platen.
From Herrenhausen, the Duchess Sophia looked on world affairs and the centre of these for her was England. Ever since as a child she had listened to her mother talk of England she had dreamed of herself as Queen of that country. Although she had never seen it she could picture it all so clearly. Whitehall in sunshine or the steamy mist of the nearby river; Hampton which Wolsey had first made sumptuous and then passed over to his King; Kensington; crowded streets which had been made merry during Charles’s reign with milkmaids and maypoles and ladies and gallants. She read in English in order to keep herself fluent; she talked with the English ambassadors; and visitors from that country were made especially welcome.
During the last years her excitement had increased because Charles had died and James his brother had been turned from the throne by William of Orange and James’s own daughter Mary, because the people of England refused to have a Catholic monarch. Sophia herself was thankful that she was a Protestant. For religion itself she had little feeling. It was useful to keep those less intelligent than herself in order; therefore it served a good purpose. But she would have been like Elizabeth of England ready to adjust herself, or Henri Quatre of France who had declared Paris to be worth a Mass. They were the wise ones. And what ruler had served England better than Elizabeth? What King had served France better than Henri Quatre? Louis – le Roi Soleil – could not compare with his great ancestor for all his magnificence and grandiose schemes of conquests.
England, that mecca, had become less remote in the last years. Sophia felt that she was approaching that moment when she might reach out her hand and take it. For William and Mary seemed unable to produce an heir. Neither was healthy and the Princess Anne was almost an invalid. All that was needed was for these people to die without heirs and since the English would not tolerate a Catholic monarch the Duchess Sophia would be the next in succession.
One day messengers might come to Hanover, kneel before her and say: ‘Your Majesty …’
Queen of England. Ruler of that island which had filled her dreams since she was a small child!
But there was one fear: encroaching age. How ironical if that call came when she was too old and infirm to leave Hanover! Then the honour would go to one who would have no appreciation of it: George Lewis.
And how would George Lewis fare in England? He had already given some indication when he had gone to woo the Princess Anne and had returned so ignobly.
This German custom of making the eldest son sole heir was sometimes an infuriating one. It would be impossible of course to give to any of her other sons the honour of the English throne if it ever came to that. The line of succession could not be tampered with. But how she wished that George Lewis was not the eldest. Frederick Augustus was more attractive; Maximilian was charming and amusing, though mischievous; and Charles Philip the next in age was a delightful boy. He had more of a sense of duty; his manners were good. She loved her children – with the exception of George Lewis, and Heaven knew she had tried enough to love him but he made it difficult – but of them all Charles Philip was the favourite. He was now in his mid-teens, a handsome boy who could be grave as well as gay.