History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 5

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Prepared by D.R. Thompson

Carlyle's "History of Friedrich II of Prussia"

BOOK V.

DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND WHAT ELEMENT IT FELL INTO.
1723-1726.

Chapter I.

DOUBLE-MARRIAGE IS DECIDED ON.

We saw George I. at Berlin in October, 1723, looking out upon his
little Grandson drilling the Cadets there; but we did not mention
what important errand had brought his Majesty thither.

Visits between Hanover and Berlin had been frequent for a long
time back; the young Queen of Prussia, sometimes with her husband,
sometimes without, running often over to see her Father; who, even
after his accession to the English crown, was generally for some
months every year to be met with in those favorite regions of his.
He himself did not much visit, being of taciturn splenetic nature:
but this once he had agreed to return a visit they had lately made
him,--where a certain weighty Business had been agreed upon,
withal; which his Britannic Majesty was to consummate formally, by
treaty, when the meeting in Berlin took effect. His Britannic
Majesty, accordingly, is come; the business in hand is no other
than that thrice-famous "Double-Marriage" of Prussia with England;
which once had such a sound in the ear of Rumor, and still bulks
so big in the archives of the Eighteenth Century; which worked
such woe to all parties concerned in it; and is, in fact, a
first-rate nuisance in the History of that poor Century, as
written hitherto. Nuisance demanding urgently to be abated;--
were that well possible at present. Which, alas, it is not, to any
great degree; there being an important young Friedrich
inextricably wrapt up in it, to whom it was of such vital or
almost fatal importance! Without a Friedrich, the affair could be
reduced to something like its real size, and recorded in a few
pages; or might even, with advantage, be forgotten altogether, and
become zero. More gigantic instance of much ado about nothing has
seldom occurred in human annals;--had not there been a Friedrich
in the heart of it.

Crown-Prince Friedrich is still very young for
marriage-speculations on his score: but Mamma has thought good to
take matters in time. And so we shall, in the next ensuing parts
of this poor History, have to hear almost as much about Marriage
as in the foolishest Three-volume Novel, and almost to still less
purpose. For indeed, in that particular, Friedrich's young Life
may be called a ROMANCE FLUNG HELLS-OVER-HEAD;--Marriage being the
one event there, round which all events turn,--but turn in the
inverse or reverse way (as if the Devil were in them); not only
towards no happy goal for him or Mamma, or us, but at last towards
hardly any goal at all for anybody! So mad did the affair grow;--
and is so madly recorded in those inextricable, dateless, chaotic
Books. We have now come to regions of Narrative, which seem to
consist of murky Nothingness put on boil; not land, or water, or
air, or fire, but a tumultuously whirling commixture of all the
four;--of immense extent too. Which must be got crossed, in some
human manner. Courage, patience, good reader!

QUEEN SOPHIE DOROTHEE HAS TAKEN TIME BY THE FORELOCK.

Already, for a dozen years, this matter has been treated of.
Queen Sophie Dorothee, ever since the birth of her Wilhelmina, has
had the notion of it; and, on her first visit afterwards to
Hanover, proposed it to "Princess Caroline,"--Queen Caroline of
England who was to be, and who in due course was;--an excellent
accomplished Brandenburg-Anspach Lady, familiar from of old in the
Prussian Court: "You, Caroline, Cousin dear, have a little Prince,
Fritz, or let us call him FRED, since he is to be English; little
Fred, who will one day, if all go right, be King of England. He is
two years older than my little Wilhelmina: why should not they
wed, and the two chief Protestant Houses, and Nations, thereby be
united?" Princess Caroline was very willing; so was Electress
Sophie, the Great-Grandmother of both the parties; so were the
Georges, Father and Grandfather of Fred: little Fred himself was
highly charmed, when told of it; even little Wilhelmina, with her
dolls, looked pleasantly demure on the occasion. So it remained
settled in fact, though not in form; and little Fred (a florid
milk-faced foolish kind of Boy, I guess) made presents to his
little Prussian Cousin, wrote bits of love-letters to her; and all
along afterwards fancied himself, and at length ardently enough
became, her little lover and intended,--always rather a little
fellow:--to which sentiments Wilhelmina signifies that she
responded with the due maidenly indifference, but not in an
offensive manner.

After our Prussian Fritz's birth, the matter took a still closer
form: "You, dear Princess Caroline, you have now two little
Princesses again, either of whom might suit my little Fritzchen;
let us take Amelia, the second of them, who is nearest his age?"
"Agreed!" answered Princess Caroline again. "Agreed!" answered all
the parties interested: and so it was settled, that the Marriage
of Prussia to England should be a Double one, Fred of Hanover and
England to Wilhelmina, Fritz of Prussia to Amelia; and children
and parents lived thenceforth in the constant understanding that
such, in due course of years, was to be the case, though nothing
yet was formally concluded by treaty upon it. [Pollnitz,
Memoiren, ii. 193.]

Queen Sophie Dorothee of Prussia was always eager enough for
treaty, and conclusion to her scheme. True to it, she, as needle
to the pole in all weathers; sometimes in the wildest weather,
poor lady. Nor did the Hanover Serene Highnesses, at any time,
draw back or falter: but having very soon got wafted across to
England, into new more complex conditions, and wider anxieties in
that new country, they were not so impressively eager as Queen
Sophie, on this interesting point. Electress Sophie, judicious
Great-Grandmother, was not now there: Electress Sophie had died
about a month before Queen Anne; and never saw the English Canaan,
much as she had longed for it. George I., her son, a taciturn,
rather splenetic elderly Gentleman, very foreign in England, and
oftenest rather sulky there and elsewhere, was not in a humor to
be forward in that particular business.

George I. had got into quarrel with his Prince of Wales, Fred's
Father,--him who is one day to be George II., always a rather
foolish little Prince, though his Wife Caroline was Wisdom's self
in a manner:--George I. had other much more urgent cares than that
of marrying his disobedient foolish little Prince of Wales's
offspring; and he always pleaded difficulties, Acts of Parliament
that would be needed, and the like, whenever Sophie Dorothee came
to visit him at Hanover, and urge this matter. The taciturn,
inarticulately thoughtful, rather sulky old Gentleman, he had
weighty burdens lying on him; felt fretted and galled, in many
ways; and had found life, Electoral and even Royal, a deceptive
sumptuosity, little better than a more or less extensive "feast of
SHELLS," next to no real meat or drink left in it to the hungry
heart of man. Wife sitting half-frantic in the Castle of Ahlden,
waxing more and more into a gray-haired Megaera (with whom Sophie
Dorothee under seven seals of secrecy corresponds a little, and
even the Prince of Wales is suspected of wishing to correspond);
a foolish disobedient Prince of Wales; Jacobite Pretender people
with their Mar Rebellions, with their Alberoni combinations;
an English Parliament jangling and debating unmelodiously, whose
very language is a mystery to us, nothing but Walpole in dog-latin
to help us through it: truly it is not a Heaven-on-Earth
altogether, much as Mother Sophie and her foolish favorite, our
disobedient Prince of Wales, might long for it! And the Hanover
Tail, the Robethons, Bernstorfs, Fabrices, even the Blackamoor
Porters,--they are not beautiful either, to a taciturn Majesty of
some sense, if he cared about their doings or them. Voracious,
plunderous, all of them; like hounds, long hungry, got into a rich
house which has no master, or a mere imaginary one. "MENTERIS
IMPUDENTISSIME," said Walpole in his dog-latin once, in our Royal
presence, to one of these official plunderous gentlemen, "You tell
an impudent lie!"--at which we only laughed. [Horace Walpole,
Reminiscences of George I. and George II.
(London, 1786.)]

His Britannic Majesty by no means wanted sense, had not his
situation been incurably absurd. In his young time he had served
creditably enough against the Turks; twice commanded the
REICHS-Army in the Marlborough Wars, and did at least testify his
indignation at the inefficient state of it. His Foreign Politics,
so called, were not madder than those of others. Bremen and Verden
he had bought a bargain; and it was natural to protect them by
such resources as he had, English or other. Then there was the
World-Spectre of the Pretender, stretching huge over Creation,
like the Brocken-Spectre in hazy weather;--against whom how
protect yourself, except by cannonading for the Kaiser at Messina;
by rushing into every brabble that rose, and hiring the parties
with money to fight it out well? It was the established method in
that matter; method not of George's inventing, nor did it cease
with George. As to Domestic Politics, except it were to keep
quiet, and eat what the gods had provided, one does not find that
he had any.--The sage Leibnitz would very fain have followed him
to England; but, for reasons indifferently good, could never be
allowed. If the truth must be told, the sage Leibnitz had a wisdom
which now looks dreadfully like that of a wiseacre! In Mathematics
even,--he did invent the Differential Calculus, but it is certain
also he never could believe in Newton's System of the Universe,
nor would read the PRINCIPIA at all. For the rest, he was in
quarrel about Newton with the Royal Society here; ill seen, it is
probable, by this sage and the other. To the Hanover Official
Gentlemen devouring their English dead-horse, it did not appear
that his presence could be useful in these parts. [Guhrauer,
Gottfried Freiherr von Leibnitz, eine Biographie italic> (Breslau, 1842); Ker of Kersland, Memoirs of
Secret Transactions (London, 1727).

Nor are the Hanover womankind his Majesty has about him,
quasi-wives or not, of a soul-entrancing character; far indeed
from that. Two in chief there are, a fat and a lean: the lean,
called "Maypole" by the English populace, is "Duchess of Kendal,"
with excellent pension, in the English Peeragy; Schulenburg the
former German name of her; decidedly a quasi-wife (influential,
against her will, in that sad Konigsmark Tragedy, at Hanover long
since), who is fallen thin and old. "Maypole,"--or bare Hop-pole,
with the leaves all stript; lean, long, hard;--though she once had
her summer verdures too; and still, as an old quasi-wife, or were
it only as an old article of furniture, has her worth to the royal
mind, Schulenburgs, kindred of hers, are high in the military
line; some of whom we may meet.

Then besides this lean one, there is a fat; of whom Walpole
(Horace, who had seen her in boyhood) gives description.
Big staring black eyes, with rim of circular eyebrow, like a
coach-wheel round its nave, very black the eyebrows also; vast red
face; cheeks running into neck, neck blending indistinguishably
with stomach,--a mere cataract of fluid tallow, skinned over and
curiously dizened, according to Walpole's portraiture.
This charming creature, Kielmannsegge by German name, was called
"Countess of Darlington" in this country--with excellent pension,
as was natural. They all had pensions: even Queen Sophie Dorothee,
I have noticed in our State-Paper Office, has her small pension,
"800 pounds a year on the Irish Establishment:" Irish
Establishment will never miss such a pittance for our poor Child,
and it may be useful over yonder!--This Kielmannsegge, Countess of
Darlington was, and is, believed by the gossiping English to have
been a second simultaneous Mistress of his Majesty's; but seems,
after all, to have been his Half-Sister and nothing more.
Half-Sister (due to Gentleman Ernst and a Countess Platen of bad
Hanover fame); grown dreadfully fat; but not without shrewdness,
perhaps affection; and worth something in this dull foreign
country, mere cataract of animal oils as she has become. These Two
are the amount of his Britannic Majesty's resources in that
matter; resources surely not extensive, after all!--

His Britannic Majesty's day, in St. James's, is not of an
interesting sort to him; and every evening he comes precisely at a
certain hour to drink beer, seasoned with a little tobacco, and
the company of these two women. Drinks diligently in a sipping
way, says Horace; and smokes, with such dull speech as there may
be,--not till he is drunk, but only perceptibly drunkish; raised
into a kind of cloudy narcotic Olympus, and opaquely superior to
the ills of life; in which state he walks uncomplainingly to bed.
Government, when it can by any art be avoided, he rarely meddles
with; shows a rugged sagacity, where he does and must meddle:
consigns it to Walpole in dog-latin,--laughs at his "MENTIRIS."
This is the First George; first triumph of the Constitutional
Principle, which has since gone to such sublime heights among us,
--heights which we at last begin to suspect might be depths,
leading down, all men now ask: Whitherwards? A much-admired
invention in its time, that of letting go the rudder, or setting a
wooden figure expensively dressed to take charge of it, and
discerning that the ship would sail of itself so much more easily!
Which it will, if a peculiarly good seaboat, in certain kinds of
sea,--for a time. Till the Sinbad "Magnetic Mountains" begin to be
felt pulling, or the circles of Charybdis get you in their sweep;
and then what an invention it was!--This, we say, is the new
Sovereign Man, whom the English People, being in some perplexity
about the Pope aud other points, have called in from Hanover, to
walk before them in the ways of heroism, and by command and by
example guide Heavenwards their affairs and them. And they hope
that he will do it? Or perhaps that their affairs will go thither
of their own accord? Always a singular People!--

Poor George, careless of these ulterior issues, has always trouble
enough with the mere daily details, Parliamentary insolences,
Jacobite plottings, South-Sea Bubbles; and wishes to hunt, when he
gets over to Hanover, rather than to make Marriage-Treaties.
Besides, as Wilhelmina tells us, they have filled him with lies,
these Hanover Women and their emissaries: "Your Princess
Wilhelmina is a monster of ill-temper, crooked in the back and
what not," say they. If there is to be a Marriage, double or
single, these Improper Females must first be persuaded to consent.
[ Memoires de Bareith. ] Difficulties enough.
And there is none to help; Friedrich Wilhelm cares little about
the matter, though he has given his Yes,--Yes, since you will.

But Sophie Dorothee is diligent and urgent, by all opportunities;
--and, at length, in 1723, the conjuncture is propitious.
Domestic Jacobitism, in the shape of Bishop Atterbury, has got,
itself well banished; Alberoni and his big schemes, years ago they
are blown into outer darkness; Charles XII. is well dead, and of
our Bremen and Verden no question henceforth; even the Kaiser's
Spectre-Hunt, or Spanish Duel, is at rest for the present, and the
Congress of Cambrai is sitting, or trying all it can to sit:
at home or abroad, there is nothing, not even Wood's Irish
Halfpence, as yet making noise. And on the other hand, Czar Peter
is rumored (not without foundation) to be coming westward, with
some huge armament; which, whether "intended for Sweden" or not,
renders a Prussian alliance doubly valuable.

And so now at last, in this favorable aspect of the stars, King
George, over at Herrenhausen, was by much management of his
Daughter Sophie's, and after many hitches, brought to the mark.
And Friedrich Wilhelm came over too; ostensibly to bring home his
Queen, but in reality to hear his Father-in-law's compliance to
the Double-Marriage,--for which his Prussian Majesty is willing
enough, if others are willing. Praised be Heaven, King George has
agreed to everything; consents, one propitious day (Autumn 1723,
day not otherwise dated),--Czar Peter's Armament, and the
questionable aspects in France, perhaps quickening his volitions a
little. Upon which Friedrich Wilhelm and Queen Sophie have
returned home, content in that matter; and expect shortly his
Britannic Majesty's counter-visit, to perfect the details, and
make a Treaty of it.

His Britannic Majesty, we say, has in substance agreed to
everything. And now, in the silence of Nature, the brown leaves of
October still hanging to the trees in a picturesque manner, and
Wood's Halfpence not yet begun to jingle in the Drapier's Letters
of Dean Swift,--his Britannic Majesty is expected at Berlin.
At Berlin; properly at Charlottenburg a pleasant rural or suburban
Palace (built by his Britannic Majesty's late noble Sister, Sophie
Charlotte, "the Republican Queen," and named after her, as was
once mentioned), a mile or two Southwest of that City. There they
await King George's counter-visit.

Poor Wilhelmina is in much trepidation about it; and imparts her
poor little feelings, her anticipations and experiences, in
readable terms:--

"There came, in those weeks, one of the Duke of Gloucester's
gentlemen to Berlin,"--DUKE OF GLOUCESTER is Fred our intended,
not yet Prince of Wales, and if the reader should ever hear of a
DUKE OF EDINBURGH, that too is Fred,--"Duke of Gloucester's
gentlemen to Berlin," says Wilhelmina: "the Queen had Soiree
(APPARTEMENT); he was presented to her as well as to me. He made
me a very obliging compliment on his Master's part; I blushed, and
answered only by a courtesy. The Queen, who had her eye on me, was
very angry I had answered the Duke's compliments in mere silence;
and rated me sharply (ME LAVA LA TETE D'IMPORTANCE) for it; and
ordered me, under pain of her indignation, to repair that fault
to-morrow. I retired, all in tears, to my room; exasperated
against the Queen and against the Duke; I swore I would never
marry him, would throw myself at the feet--" And so on, as young
ladies of vivacious temper, in extreme circumstances, are wont:
--did speak, however, next day, to my Hanover gentleman about his
Duke, a little, though in an embarrassed manner. Alas, I am yet
but fourteen, gone the 3d of July last: tremulous as aspen-leaves;
or say, as sheet-lightning bottled in one of the thinnest human
skins; and have no experience of foolish Dukes and affairs!--

"Meanwhile," continues Wilhelmina, "the King of England's time of
arrival was drawing nigh. We repaired, on the 6th of October, to
Charlottenburg to receive him. The heart of me kept beating, and I
was in cruel agitations. King George [my Grandfather, and Grand
Uncle] arrived on the 8th, about seven in the evening;"--dusky
shades already sinking over Nature everywhere, and all paths
growing dim. Abundant flunkies, of course, rush out with torches
or what is needful. "The King of Prussia, the Queen and all their
Suite received him in the Court of the Palace, the 'Apartments'
being on the ground-floor. So soon as he had saluted the King and
Queen, I was presented to him. He embraced me; and turning to the
Queen said to her, 'Your daughter is very big of her age!' He gave
the Queen his hand, and led her into her apartment, whither
everybody followed them. As soon as I came in, he took a light
from the table, and surveyed me from head to foot. I stood
motionless as a statue, and was much put out of countenance.
All this went on without his uttering the least word. Having thus
passed me in review, he addressed himself to my Brother, whom he
caressed much, and amused himself with, for a good while."
Pretty little Grandson this, your Majesty;--any future of history
in this one, think you? "I," says Wilhelmina, "took the
opportunity of slipping out;"--hopeful to get away; but could not,
the Queen having noticed.

"The Queen made me a sign to follow her; and passed into a
neighboring apartment, where she had the English and Germans of
King George's Suite successively presented to her. After some talk
with these gentlemen, she withdrew; leaving me to entertain them,
and saying: 'Speak English to my Daughter; you will find she
speaks it very well.' I felt much less embarrassed, once the Queen
was gone; and picking up a little courage, I entered into
conversation with these English. As I spoke their language like my
mother-tongue, I got pretty well out of the affair, and everybody
seemed charmed with me. They made my eulogy to the Queen; told her
I had quite the English air, and was made to be their Sovereign
one day. It was saying a great deal on their part: for these
English think themselves so much above all other people, that they
imagine they are paying a high compliment when they tell any one
he has got English manners.

"Their King [my Grandpapa] had got Spanish manners, I should say:
he was of an extreme gravity, and hardly spoke a word to anybody.
He saluted Madam Sonsfeld [my invaluable thrice-dear Governess]
very coldly; and asked her 'If I was always so serious, and if my
humor was of the melancholy turn?' 'Anything but that, Sire,'
answered the other: 'but the respect she has for your Majesty
prevents her from being as sprightly as she commonly is.'
He wagged his head, and answered nothing. The reception he had
given me, and this question, of which I heard, gave me such a
chill, that I never had the courage to speak to him,"--was merely
looked at with a candle by Grandpapa.

"We were summoned to supper at last, where this grave Sovereign
still remained dumb. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he was wrong;
but I think he followed the proverb, which says, Better hold your
tongue than speak badly. At the end of the repast he felt
indisposed. The Queen would have persuaded him to quit table;
they bandied compliments a good while on the point; but at last
she threw down her napkin, and rose. The King of England naturally
rose too; but began to stagger; the King of Prussia ran up to help
him, all the company ran bustling about him; but it was to no
purpose: he sank on his knees; his peruke falling on one side,
and his hat [or at least his head, Madam!] on the other.
They stretched him softly on the floor; where he remained a good
hour without consciousness. The pains they took with him brought
back his senses, by degrees, at last. The Queen and the King [of
Prussia] were in despair all this while. Many have thought this
attack was a herald of the stroke of apoplexy which came by and
by,"--within four years from this date, and carried off his
Majesty in a very gloomy manner.

"They passionately entreated him to retire now," continues
Wilhelmina; "but he would not by any means. He led out the Queen,
and did the other ceremonies, according to rule; had a very bad
night, as we learned underhand;" but persisted stoically
nevertheless, being a crowned Majesty, and bound to it.
He stoically underwent four or three other days, of festival,
sight-seeing, "pleasure" so called;--among other sights, saw
little Fritz drilling his Cadets at Berlin;--and on the fourth
day (12th October, 1723, so thinks Wilhelmina) fairly "signed the
Treaty of the Double-Marriage," English Townshend and the Prussian
Ministry having settled all things. [Wilhelmina, Memoires
de Bareith, i. 83, 87,--In Coxe ( Memoirs of
Sir Robert Walpole, London, 1798), ii. 266, 272, 273,
are some faint hints, from Townshend, of this Berlin journey.]

"Signed the Treaty," thinks Wilhelmina, "all things being
settled." Which is an error on the part of Wilhelmina.
Settled many or all things were by Townshend and the others:
but before signing, there was Parliament to be apprised, there
were formalities, expenditure of time; between the cup and the
lip, such things to intervene;--and the sad fact is, the
Double-Marriage Treaty never was signed at all!--However, all
things being now settled ready for signing, his Britannic Majesty,
next morning, set off for the GOHRDE again, to try if there were
any hunting possible.

This authentic glimpse, one of the few that are attainable, of
their first Constitutional King, let English readers make the most
of. The act done proved dreadfully momentous to our little Friend,
his Grandson; and will much concern us!

Thus, at any rate, was the Treaty of the Double-Marriage settled,
to the point of signing,--thought to be as good as signed. It was
at the time when Czar Peter was making armaments to burn Sweden;
when Wood's Halfpence (on behalf of her Improper Grace of Kendal,
the lean Quasi-Wife, "Maypole" or Hop-pole, who had run short of
money, as she often did) were about beginning to jingle in
Ireland; [Coxe (i. 216, 217, and SUPPLY the dates); Walpole to
Townshend, 13th October, 1723 (ib. ii. 275): "The
Drapier's Letters" are of 1724.] when Law's Bubble
"System" had fallen, well flaccid, into Chaos again; when Dubois
the unutterable Cardinal had at length died, and d'Orleans the
unutterable Regent was unexpectedly about to do so,--in a most
surprising Sodom-and-Gomorrah manner. [2d December, 1723:
Barbier, Journal Historique du Regne de Louis XV. italic> (Paris, l847), i. 192, 196; Lacretelle, Histoire
de France, 18me siecle; &c.] Not to mention other
dull and vile phenomena of putrid fermentation, which were
transpiring, or sluttishly bubbling up, in poor benighted rotten
Europe here or there;--since these are sufficient to date the
Transaction for us; and what does not stick to our Fritz and his
affairs it is more pleasant to us to forget than to remember, of
such an epoch.

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