LIBRA.RY OF THE University of California. Class -^—7;—^.^^. .„,,,- , ^ .,...,..■„. ,.,--. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/fivestuartprinceOOraitrich FIVE STUART PRINCESSES MARGARET OF SCOTLAND, ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA, MARY OF ORANGE, HENRIETTA OF ORLEANS, SOPHIA OF HANOVER EDITED BY Robert S. Rait Fellow and Lecturer of New College, Oxford N E W - Y O R K E. p. DUTTON & Co. 1 902 PREFACE For the nature of the present work, no apology would seem to be required. The personal aspect of history is at once important for the proper appreciation of its lessons and attractive to the majority of readers, and both con- siderations go far to justify the existence of biographical studies as a legitimate expression of the results of historical research. For the immediate choice of subject some further explanation may be required. Of the five Princesses of the Royal House of Stuart* who form the subjects of this volume, four were nearly related, and their lives find a connecting link in the position in which they stood to the succession to the throne of this country. Elizabeth of Bohemia was the eldest daughter of King James I. and VL, and the mother of the Electress Sophia, the illustrious lady who was destined to become the acknowledged heiress of the British Crown, and the ancestress of the present Royal House. The Princess Mary of Orange, as the daughter of Charles I. and the first Princess Royal of England, while also the mother of William III., supplies the link between the ancient family and the House of Orange which immediately supplanted it. To the Princess 1 Historically, the spelling "Stewart" was not superseded by "Stuart" till the l6th century, and it is, therefore, slightly inaccurate as applied to the Princess Margaret of Scotland. In her biography, the older spelling has been adopted, but " Stuart " has become so familiar in connexion with the seventeenth century, that it seemed pedantic to depart from it as the general title of the book. 226484 VI PREFACE Henrietta/ the negotiator of the fatal Treaty of Dover, which may be taken as the beginning of the Revolution of 1688, there came the nemesis that her descendants, the nearest branch of the Royal family, should, along with the direct male line itself, be rendered incapable of the suc- cession by those difficulties of religious faith in which the secret clauses of the Treaty of Dover definitely involved the restored Stuarts. Not only is there in each life a point of contact with the domestic struggle of the seventeenth century, but the four princesses, as they appear on the stage of European politics, supply almost a continuous history of the foreign policy of this country. The life of Elizabeth of Bohemia is a pathetic commentary on the attitude of James I. to foreign affairs — wise and statesmanhke in his aims, but in- capable of understanding how impossible was their reali- zation. As the Thirty Years' War became merely a duel between France and Spain, the troubled monarchy of Great Britain counted for less in the arbitrament of the affairs of Europe ; but the career of Mary of Orange illus- trates at once the last despairing efforts of Charles I. and the policy of his uncrowned successor. Oliver Cromwell and Mary of Orange disappeared together from the scene, and, with the Restoration, the favourite sister of Charles II., and the beloved sister-in-law of Louis XIV., became an 1 The following table shows the relationships of the four Princesses. King James VI. and I. I Charles I. Elizabeth of Bohemia r Sophia of Hanover Mary of Orange Henrietta of Orleans I j George I, William lU. PREFACE Vn important factor at a great crisis in the history of Europe. For Great Britain, for Holland, for France and Germany alike, the direct results of the Treaty of Dover were of European importance; the English Revolution, the tempo- rary greatness of the Dutch, and the rise of Prussia are all connected with the struggle against the aggrandisement of France, in the interests of which Louis sent Henrietta to treat with King Charles. Finally, it was in the interests of the Protestant Succession as represented by the Electress Sophia, that Marlborough was sent to create the military power of this country in the War of the Spanish Succes- sion, and the alliance of the Hanoverian House was valued alike by King William and by the advisers of Queen Anne. In each of the four lives there is also much of personal and social interest. The beautiful Queen of Bohemia, the heroine of Protestant England, in whose behalf so many English prayers were uttered and so many English lives were spent, and Mary of Orange, whose life was almost tragic in its long struggle and its brief triumph, alike possess the interest of high-spirited and strenuous endeavour. The story of the fascinating Henrietta, the centre of the Court of the Bourbons at the moment when French prestige was highest, affords us many glimpses of the life at Saint Cloud and Versailles in the early years of Louis Le Grand, and its pathetic, and, to contemporaries, mysterious ending con- tributes the aspect of sadness and melancholy which was inevitable in the life of a lady of the House of Stuart. It may, at first, seem questionable whether Sophia, Elec- tress of Hanover, by birth a Princess Palatine, and a Guelph by marriage, could reasonably find a niche in a gallery of Stuart Princesses; but the lady who unites the elder with the younger branch, who, in virtue of her Stuart blood, was declared Queen Anne's successor, and from whose relationship to King James, the reigning sovereign Vm PREFACE of these realms, like his six immediate predecessors, derives his claim under the Act of Settlement, may surely be granted such a title. Sophia was, moreover, a Stuart by birthright, and long before the English succes- sion could have appeared possible for herself, she regarded herself as an English Princess. Her lively memoirs and her sprightly letters make her a real and vivid personaHty, and illustrate the social and intellectual life of her period. The remaining biography, which stands first in order of date, it would be impossible to associate in any way with those of which we have spoken. Nearly three hun- dred years separate the birth of Margaret of Scotland and the death of Sophia of Hanover. Nor is it possible to connect the Princess Margaret with any great national movement, as the other four may be connected with the struggle for constitutional liberty. Her life possesses many points of interest in the relationship of fifteenth-century France and Scotland ; it is one of those episodes in history which can never fail to appeal to the imagination and to the emotions; and it is a story little known. Only com- mon Stuart blood and a common Stuart fate connect Margaret with the seventeenth-century Princesses of her Plouse, and the short sketch of her life is included here only because it is a convenient opportunity to relate a story worth telling again. How far this book has succeeded in taking due advan- tage of the possibilities just indicated, it must be for read- ers to decide. But the editor may be allowed to say, on behalf of his contributors, that each biography has been written after a careful study of authorities, contemporary and modern. Each article aims at presenting its subject in relation to the political and social circumstances in which she was placed, and at producing a character-sketch which may enable the reader to realize the personality of the PREFACE IX lady whose life it narrates. But beyond this no attempt has been made to obtain uniformity of treatment; each author has been left to deal with his subject as might best suit his conception of her character and the materials at his disposal ; and for every expression of opinion the individual writer is solely responsible. The books which have been found most useful are indi- cated in the footnotes; but a general expression of grati- tude may here be made to Mr. Gardiner's great seven- teenth-century history, and to the writings of two earlier workers in the same field, Miss Strickland and Mrs. Everett- Green. Fifty years have passed since these ladies published their well-known books, and, in the interval, historical re- search has not been silent; but to their industry and in- sight all subsequent inquirers must owe much, even where (as in the present instance) their interests are less purely personal and domestic than were those of the authors of the Lives of the Queens of Scotland and the Lives of the Princesses of England. To M. Alexis Larpent, grateful thanks are due for a careful criticism of portions of the proof-sheets, and to the Earl of Craven for kind permission to reproduce the por- traits of Elizabeth of Bohemia and Henrietta of Orleans from his collection of paintings at Combe Abbey. R. S. R. New College, Oxford, October, 1901. CONTENTS Page Preface. . , v Margaret, Daughter of James^ I. of Scotland, Dau- phine of France i by Harold Edgeworth Butler, Lecturer of New College, Oxford. EUZABETH OF BOHEMIA, Daughter of James I. and VI. 47 by R. H. Hodgkin, Lecturer of Queen's College, Oxford. Mary of Orange, Daughter of Charles L and Mother of William III 165 by Algernon Cecil, B.A., New College. Henrietta of Orleans, Daughter of Charles I. .227 by John S. Cyprian Bridge, B.A., New College. Sophia of Hanover, Grand-Daughter of James I. and VI., and Mother of George 1 287 by the Editor. Index 335 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Henrietta of Orleans Frontispiece From a painting at Versailles. Tomb of the Princess Margaret, Page From a drawing in the Bodleian Library To face 43 Elizabeth of Bohemia, From a painting by Honthorst, at Combe Abbey „ „ 49 Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, From an engraving in the Hope Collection, Oxford , „ 151 Mary of Orange, From a painting by Hanneman, at Hamp- ton Court ,, ,,167 Henrietta, (as a child) From a painting by Vandyck, at Combe Abbey „ „ 229 The Electress Sophia, From an engraving in the Hope Collection, Oxford „ „ 289 The Princess Elizabeth, From an engraving in the Hope Collection, Oxford T . „ „ 293 Elizabeth Charlotte of Orleans, From an engraving in the Hope Collection, Oxford „ „ 299 THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND DAUGHTER OF JAMES I. I THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND DAUGHTER OF JAMES I. Heu proh dolor! quod me oporteat scribere, quod dolenter refero de ejus morte, cum mors eandem dominam brevi dolore eripuit. Nam ego qui scribo haec vidi eam omni die vivam cum rege Franciae et regina ludentem et per novem annos sic continuantem. Postea vidi eam in casula plumbea in ecclesia cathedrali civitatis Calonensis ad cornu magni altaris ex parte boriali. Liber Pluscardensis. An enthusiastic Frenchman, in one of those eloquent and rapid generalisations in which our neighbours so greatly delight, has recently assured the world that the Scots are the French of England. It is an opinion which perhaps comes with somewhat of a shock of surprise to the benighted Southron; but it is also perhaps a fanciful reminiscence, not without its pathetic aspect, of the old days of the Franco-Scottish alliance, when many a Scottish adven- turer fought and died for France in desperate battle against the common hereditary foe. But it is coloured with a senti- mentality which should not be allowed to lead us too far into the rosy mists of romance. For though in truth, from the days of that most tragic of queens — who passed the springtide of her life as queen of France, and for whom in the stormy summer and autumn of her career, "many drew swords and died," nay, for whose honour historians of to-day yet wage a scarcely less embittered conflict — though from this epoch down through all the stirring . '4: : •• : /' : * . •' ' : '• . ELVE - STUART PRINCESSES Jacobite period resonant with the sound of half-hopeless strife, and the laments of the weary who "never come to their ain countrie," there lies a warm glow of romance over the relations of France and Scotland, in the earlier days it is far otherwise. There is less of sentiment; the alliance wears a sterner aspect. There was in truth little in the severer genius of the Scot, in his rugged moorlands, his wild hills, his stormy climate, to attract the lively Latin nature, the warm spirit of the South. Nay, if we may believe a French writer of the XVth century, Ecosse la Sauvage was the favourite residence of the Prince of Darkness, and it was thither that the would-be sorcerer of the continent was sent to receive his marching orders. It was in Scotland that Jean de Meun placed the abode of Famine, while other writers rejoiced to trace a fanciful resemblance between the Scots and Judas Iscariot, though it is true that this comparison was based on physical rather than on moral grounds. In fact, to leave the province of the romancers, the picture given by Froissart may be taken as representative of the foreign opinion concerning this little known and much abused kingdom. ^ " En Ecosse ils ne virent oncques nul homme de bien, et sont ainsi comme gens sauvages, qui ne se savent avoir ni de nulli acointer : et sont trop grandement envieux du bien d'autrui, et si se doutent de leurs biens perdre, car ils ont un povre pays. Et quant les anglais y chevauchent ou qu'ils y vont — il convient que leurs pourveances, s'ils veulent vivre, les suivent toujours au dos, car on ne trouve rien sur le pays. A grand' peine y recuevre Ton du fer pour ferrer les chevaux ni du cuir pour faire harnois, selles ni brides. Les choses toutes faites leur viennent par mer de Flandres et quant cela leur defaut, ils n'ont nul chose." (II. 128). And 1 See also the picturesque and amusing experiences of Aeneas Sylvius as narrated in " TJie Romance of a King's Life " by M. Jusserand. THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 5 if to Froissart's testimony we add the remarkable words which St. Louis, as he lay ill at Fontainebleau, used towards his son, we shall have said enough and may pass to matters alike more palatable and more profitable. " Mon fils," cried the King, "je te prie de te faire aimer du peuple de ton royaume, car si tu devais mal le gouverner, j'aimerais mieux qu'un Ecossais vint d'Ecosse et regnat a ta place." But if in the eyes of the peoples of the continent Scot- land was the abode of devils, cursed with poverty and starvation, if its inhabitants were regarded as little better than savages, nevertheless it had also its value. The pro- verbial disposition of the Scot to roam abroad was early noticed by the peoples of the continent, as is testified by du Cange's comment on the words of St. Louis just quoted. He refers to "the strange humour of this nation which delights so greatly in much travelling, that there is hardly a kingdom in the world to which they have not spread in large numbers." And the same statement is reproduced in more forcible if less polite language by Pierre de Jolle. "Vous saur^s qu'on dit en proverbe Que d'ficossais, de rats, de poux, Ceux qui voyagent jusqu'au bout Du monde, en recontrent partout." It was this roving tendency that in great part supplied France with her trusty Scottish mercenaries, while it was powerfully supplemented by the fact that in France, above all other countries, it was possible to meet the hated English on the field of battle. It is therefore little to be wondered that the rulers of France set a high value on the friendship and alliance of Scotland ; and, above all, this value was further enhanced by the fact, that by timely demonstrations on the borders Scotland had it in her power to weaken the English pres- 6 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES sure upon France. And if France valued Scotland for this reason, so also Scotland valued France. Thus a strong bond of union sprang up between the two nations. Often actually allied, their community of interests never suffered them to drift far apart. However, it was pre-eminently a utilitarian aUiance: sentiment, if any, was to be found on this side of the North Sea. But the fact of their close con- nexion, and the importance popularly attached to it, is clearly indicated by the proverb current in later days throughout England. "If that you would France win. Then with Scotland first begin." The story of the Stewart princess, with which we are here concerned, forms but a tragic episode in the history of these close Franco-Scottish relations. It would seem as though when one of the royal blood of Scotland left her own land for a new dwelling in the friendly court of France, by that very act a fresh curse, a new doom was called down to increase the burden of the sorrowful inheritance of that ill-starred house. Here, however, we have none of the greater tragedies of history; it is a domestic rather than a royal tragedy, and several of its acts have been lost. Yet though it lack the stronger contrasts of light and shade, which characterize some of the better known calamities of the race of the Stewarts, it has something about it of "pathetic hght," investing the slight outlines of a brief story and the dimly seen figure of the un- fortunate Dauphine with an interest which the scanty facts, that have been handed down to us, perhaps scarcely deserve. It is not here our duty to chronicle the interesting relations existing between Charles VII. and the Scotch nobility who flocked to his assistance in the almost des- THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 7 perate struggle against the armies of England. How wel- come was their assistance appears from the fact that an earl of Scotland, Archibald Douglas, who followed his son-in-law the Earl of Buchan to France, backed by an army of 10,000 Scots, was named lieutenant-general of the armies of France and presented with the duchy of Touraine. Moreover, in 1424 when the fortunes of France were at their lowest ebb, and when the Constable of Buchan and his kinsman, the new Due de Touraine, lay dead upon the field of Verneuil with the flower of the chivalry of France and Scotland, Charles the VII. appears to have contem- plated taking refuge from his inexorable and seemingly invincible foes in that despised wilderness the kingdom of Scotland. But although his cup of misfortune was not yet full, though many years of hard fighting still lay before him ere he should come to his own again, it was not written in the book of destiny that he should be exiled from the scanty realm that still remained to him. The temporary rapprochement of Scotland and England brought about by the restoration of James I. to his king- dom, and by his marriage to the beautiful and beloved Jane Beaufort, seemed, it is true, a fatal blow to French diplomacy, as far as Scotland was concerned. But in those days no Anglo-Scottish rapprochement could hope to be very durable; and it was with this in view, that Charles, driven to desperation by the continual success of the armies of England, and failing to find the assistance he had hoped from Castile, took the momentous step with which opens the first act of our domestic tragedy. In 1427, it was decided to send an embassy to James I. of Scotland. If the connection between the two countries had of late been somewhat strained, its bonds might once more be tightened by a marriage between the royal houses of Stewart and Valois. The Dauphin, the future Louis XL, 8 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES was but two years older than Margaret, James* eldest daughter. What could be more suitable than that by the marriage of these two royal children — for at this point Louis was but five years of age, Margaret but three — should be renewed and strengthened, *'the ancient aUiances, leagues, and compacts, existing between the two nations, as far back as the time of the Emperor Charlemagne." The ambassadors chosen for this important mission were three in number. First and foremost comes John Stewart of Darnley, who alone of the great leaders of the auxiliary army had survived the disasters of Verneuil and Cravant, and the dreary series of battles by which they were suc- ceeded. From the glorious field of Beauge down to the present time, he had given continual proof of his unswerving fidelity to the French cause; and as a reward he had re- ceived the titles of Seigneur of Aubigny and Count of Evreux — though it must be observed that Evreux was still at this time in the hands of the English. Further, in February 1428, just before his departure on this mission, he had been honoured with the yet more glorious privilege of quarter- ing the arms of France on his own escutcheon. He, Con- stable of the Scots in France, headed the embassy to his native land, where he had left ''wife and children that he might remain in the service of France." But such a delicate task was not to be entrusted to the sole direction of a skilled and trusted warrior. Two tried diplomatists were given him as colleagues, Regnault de Chartres, arch- bishop of Rheims, and Alain Chartier, the poet, **the father of French eloquence." It was, as M. Jusserand points out in his charming little work, "The Romance of a King's life," far from unusual to employ poets as ambassadors. Where the honeyed words of the poet had failed to effect the desired result, who could hope to succeed? Conse- quently, Alain Chartier preceded his colleagues to Scotland THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 9 to strew the path of the statesman with the flowers of eloquence. Once arrived at the court of Scotland he delivered a solemn oration. It was a wonderful piece of work. It may raise a smile on the face of the modern reader : it is true that it is stilted, full of conceits of language, tricks of formal logic, and ridiculous etymologies; but it has nevertheless a certain dignity of its own, a swing and rhythm of diction and a genuine pathos, which it would be affectation to ignore. Stripping it of all its absurdities it remains as a noble panegyric of the two nations. He recalls the antiquity of the Franco-Scottish alliance, written not on parchment, but "graven on the hearts, on the living flesh of men: its characters are traced not in ink, but in blood." He proceeds to render the most splendid homage to the true and enduring loyalty of Scotland towards her suffering neighbour. He touches on the prospects of ultimate success. *'Jam divina misericordia," he cries, " in melius dedit," and concludes with a pathetic asseveration of his trust in the everlasting mercies of God. He will not abandon His faithful people, **that house dedicated to the Lord, that nation which is so profoundly religious, so steeped in humility, piety and justice." He had done his work well. Half bound though he was to England, James was moved by considerations of the soundest statesmanship, and touched perhaps by Alain's delicate allusion to the political situation — he had quoted Ecclesiasticus, "ne derelinquas amicum antiquum, novus enim non erit similis illi." He received the ambassadors of Charles VII. with all the pomp and splendour of which he was capable. They were sumptuously entertained at Lin- lithgow, fairest of "Scotland's royal dwellings," and on the 17th of July, 1428, Henry Lichtoun, bishop of Aberdeen, Sir Patrick Ogilvy, "justicier d'Ecosse," and Edward of lo FIVE STUART PRINCESSES Lawder, archdeacon of Lothian, were appointed to treat with the French ambassadors on the questions at issue. On the same day a treaty was signed, by which James bound himself to respect the ancient alliances existing between France and Scotland, and two days later, on the 19th of July, it was arranged that Margaret should become the bride of Louis, Dauphin de Viennois, that the King of Scotland should provide for her escort to France, and that she should be accompanied thither by an army of 6,000 men. The one point that remained to be settled was the nature and amount of the dowry of the infant princess. The Scots demanded for her, the province of Saintonge, and exacting though the demand was, and provocative of some discontent, it was finally acceded to in November 1428, though always with the reservation, that it should not be carried into effect save only on condition of the promised military contingent. A few days previous to this arrange- ment, a formal treaty had been agreed upon, certain of the terms of which are worth noticing. For among other less significant details it contained the callous proviso that "if the Dauphin died before the consummation of the marriage, the second son of the king — God granting him one — should take Margaret for his wife, and so on until the marriage should finally be realised." In like manner, should Margaret die, one of her sisters should be substituted, although in this case the French king reserved to himself the right of choosing his daughter-in-law. ^ Truly, if the marriage of the poet king and Jane Beaufort, the heroine of the '• King's Quair," forms one of those rare instances of a royal marriage in which true love rather than cold political ^ It was actually proposed in 1445 ^^^^ Eleanor, Margaret's sister, then in France, should in due time marry the widowed Dauphin. The refusal of the Pope to permit this union, and Louis' strong opposition to this proposal caused it, however, to be dropped. THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND ii considerations formed the most potent factor, a nemesis was to overtake the royal pair in the marriage of their daughter whom they had bartered away in such a heartless fashion. The unhappy child, according to the terms of the treaty, was apparently to have sought her new home and boy- husband oversea in the course of the following year. In- deed we read in the English State Papers, that the English Government actually equipped a force to intercept the Scottish fleet which was to transport the auxiliary army and the Dauphin's betrothed to the shores of France. But for various reasons, some years were allowed to elapse before the treaty was in any way to be carried into effect. Not the least of these reasons was the miraculous inter- vention of Joan of Arc, which rendered the advent of the Scottish Army unnecessary, and thereby spared France the much grudged cession of the province of Saintonge. And it may well be imagined that James and his Queen readily laid hold of any excuse to retain their little daughter in that home, that charming family circle, of which such pic- turesque accounts have reached us. Indeed Joan of Arc seems to have come near saving Margaret from her martyr- dom. For while Charles VII. ceased to have any pressing need of Scottish assistance, James was deeply occupied in the reorganisation of his distracted kingdom, in the repres- sion of the feuds and tumults of the Highlands and the not less disturbed border districts. Further, since the 6,000 Scots were not to sail for France, England and Scotland might still be considered at peace, and in 1429 James renewed his negotiations with the English government. In the following year attempts were made to induce James to break definitely with France, and it was only the sturdy opposition of the Scottish prelates which availed to prevent the attempt from succeeding. As it was, in 1430 the truce between the two countries had been renewed 12 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES for five years, and during this period of truce the bonds uniting the two governments were being gradually tightened, until finally in 1433 and 1434 English ambassadors were charged to open negotiations for a marriage between the King of England and a daughter of James I. It now became imperative for Charles VII. to intervene. The interests of France were gravely threatened, and without prompt action the treaty of 1428 would have become a dead letter. Accordingly, in the early winter of 1433, we find two French ambassadors at the Scottish court. They declar- ed that while it was true that their master's affairs had become more prosperous, and that therefore he was enabled to dispense with the armed assistance of Scotland, he still, however, longed to behold the realisation of the marriage and begged that the princess might be sent to France without delay. James was now in rather an embarrassing situation. He had promised his daughter to the Dauphin, but his paternal affection and the present state of his relations with England urged him to refuse. He received the ambassadors coldly. **I am ready," he replied, **to fulfil my engagements. I will send armed assistance to France the instant that it is desired. But my daughter is yet of tender years, and it is rude and wintry weather." Nay, he proceeded, there were rumours that another alliance was intended for the Dauphin, and it would be well that all the doubts thus cast on the good faith of France should be cleared away. As for his own negotiations with England, they need in nowise prejudice the alliance of 1428. But for financial difficulties, he would gladly give the English such cause for anxiety, that France would have little more to fear from them. But while he himself was always ready to fulfil his engagements, he desired to be reassured as to the intentions of the French King, and the drift of his policy with the THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 13 least possible loss of time. Further delay must prejudice either cause, perhaps to an even greater extent than Charles was aware. Such was the barely courteous message with which the French ambassadors returned to their master. For unknown reasons, it took some six months to reach Charles. On its arrival, however, he realised the necessity of speedy action, and after hurried consultation of his council he selected Regnault Girard, Seigneur de Bazoges, and a Scottish gentleman named Hugh Kennedy, as ambassadors to the Scottish court. A curious account of the mission by the hand of the Seigneur de Bazoges still survives in the National Library at Paris. He, poor soul, fearing, not without just cause, the winter voyage, did his best to rid himself of his distasteful task. The embassy was, he pointed out, "bien dangereuse et perilleuse." To escape the perils of the sea he continued, **I was prepared to give four hundred crowns to him that would take my place as ambassador, and I had hoped that the King would consent thereto." But Charles was not unnaturally obdurate, and the reluctant ambassador set sail "not without tears and mourning." His fears were to be realised. At an early stage in their voyage they were caught by a "marvellous great whirl- wind," and driven westward into the pitiless ocean for five days and five nights. At last, the storm subsiding for a while, they succeeded in reaching the coast of Ireland, where yet once more they were to be delayed five days by "the said whirlwind." This time they were sheltered by a "very high and marvellous rock named Ribon, which is the most westerly of all lands and whereon no living thing dwelleth." Thus they escaped serious damage, and at length, after a dreary, if not unexciting voyage of 56 days, they arrived at the port of Dumbarton on the 8th of January, 1435. Hence they were escorted by 14 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES a whole host of Kennedys, whom Girard's companion had summoned to do them honour, to the court James was holding at Edinburgh. There they were worthily received and set forth their mission. There was no such dramatic scene as is depicted in Drummond's History of Scotland, where Lord Scrope and Regnault Girard are represented as declaiming against each other in the best Thucydidean manner and the most flowing Elizabethan style. It was in reality a prosaic business. After declining with thanks the renewed offer of six thousand men, (an offer the acceptance of which would involve the unpalatable surrender of Saintonge,) they made due apologies for the tardiness of their master Charles VII. in resuming the question of the stipulated marriage. "The King," they urged, "had been too much occupied with wars and with the organisation of men and suppHes, and so great were the difficulties and dangers of the voyage, that not only was it hard to find ambassadors, but even ships and mariners capable of such an enterprise. He knew well that so small and undistinguished an em- bassy was scarcely adequate for so great an occasion, but the great Lords and Princes of France were engaged in operations of war, and it had been impossible for France to provide a sufficient escort for the future Dauphine, owing to the difficulty of procuring warships. But the King prayed that the Dauphine might be sent to her new home as soon as possible, at least not later than the approaching summer. Meanwhile these his ambassadors would discuss the best means of securing a passage safe from the perils of the sea and the English warships." James hesitated. The family life of the greatest of the Stewarts was a loving one, and for the period forms a most edifying spectacle. He interposed delay. " He could not," he said, "come to any conclusion for the present. THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 15 He must first come to an understanding with the Queen, before he could further discuss the matter." He therefore put ofif the ambassadors for a month, bidding them meet him on February the 21st at St. Johnston. [Perth]. There they found James, the Queen and the httle princess herself; and there, after some five days' discussion, was signed a not very conclusive convention. The Dauphine was to sail for France by the following May; she was to have an escort of 2,000 Scots, and a fleet, which if the King of France had need of their services, would remain at his disposal. ^ But James was exacting in his demands, and the anxiety which he displayed for the future happiness of his little daughter is quite touching, more especially when we con- sider that incidentally these demands meant that he would have a year more of her company. For he showed himself most solicitous. A town of her own, garrisoned and com- manded by Scotsmen, must be allotted to her ; her servants and her ladies-in-waiting must be Scottish; although he admitted that she must be served by French attendants "pour lui apprendre son estat et les manieres par dela," and must move in the circles of the French court; more- over, Scotland could not provide transports for the two thousand auxiliaries in addition to the vessels of war already promised. He therefore begged that Charles would provide the necessary transport and, in addition, to make security doubly secure, send a galley fully equipped with rowers and crossbowmen. Now Regnault and his comrades had no powers to grant such sweeping demands, and it was necessary to refer to the French court for further instructions. The month of May passed and no instructions arrived. James therefore, to his great delight, induced Girard to postpone the depar- * Probably a last effort on the part of James to secure the province of Saintonge for his daughter. i6 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES ture of the Dauphine until the 20th of September. At last, however — probably in the month of July — the long-expected despatches arrived. Charles acceded to the greater part of James' demands. But he was silent about the proposed Scottish household for the Dauphine, and demurred entirely to the suggestion that a French town should be assigned to the Princess. It seemed to him to be neither "chose honneste ni convenable", that she should reside other- where than at the French court. The queen would treat her as her own daughter. No other arrangement could even be considered. Accordingly, on September the 12th, the French fleet arrived off Dumbarton, bearing yet further despatches from the French King. He was clearly — small blame to him — becoming impatient. Without expressing any doubt of the good faith of the Scottish King, he protested strenuously against further delay. Once more he asserted that he and his queen would treat Margaret as if she were "leur fille charnelle", but added to this assertion a firm protest against the suggestion that a Scottish household should accompany the princess. It was indeed a very wise and necessary protest. At least, continued the French King, there should not be more than two or three Scotswomen and as many men. Otherwise, to quote Charles' actual words, '* Tant qu'elle aura avec elle des gens de sa nation, elle ne apprendra volontiers frangoys, ou I'estat de ce roy- aume." James, however, was not to be beaten, and astounded the French envoys by calmly proposing further procrastination. The French fleet, he pointed out, had been very late in its arrival, appearing barely a week before the date fixed for the departure of the Dauphine. The season was approach- ing when **all marriage between persons of high sta- tion is forbidden." And not only etiquette, but also the THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 17 weather stood in the way. The queen would never suffer her daughter to be exposed to the perils of the wintry sea. Did not Regnault Girard, Seigneur de Bazoges, remember his own experiences at sea ? The tables were turned. What more could be said? Girard had reluctantly to give way, to consent to a further postponement till the month of February, and face the prospect of wintering in " Ecosse la sauvage". James' canniness had conquered all along the line, and the father's heart was gratified by a year more of life blest by the presence of the little princess. Neither father nor daughter were to drink much longer of the well of happiness, nor either to meet again this side the grave. ** Clouds and darkness closed upon Camelot." The king was to perish, but a few months after her departure, by the hand of the assassin. His daughter was to become the wife of a ** heartless ruler of men," and to die of a broken heart, maligned and slandered, in the flower of her youth, far from her own country; and all that is left to record the early life of Margaret Stewart and the love her father bore to her, are the dry bones of state papers, which are perhaps at times clothed with a thin phantom of flesh and blood. Through all their stiff formalities we may at times trace not merely the working of the states- man's brain, but the naive reluctance of parental affection. The winter passed quickly by, and February the appointed month arrived. James could not with decency much longer postpone his child's departure, and summoned Girard and his comrades to a farewell banquet at St. Johnston. The following day they were once more summoned to the royal presence. Regnault shall tell what took place in his own words : "Then did the said king and queen of Scotland bid my said lady the Dauphine come into their presence, and i8 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES spoke to her many fair words and notable, telling her of the high place of the prince to whom she was to be es- poused and exhorting her to bear herself in all things well. And God knoweth how great weeping there was on both sides. This done we took our leave, and the said king, for the honour of the King of France, his said brother, bade me, Regnault Girard, to kiss the queen; and she of her great courtesy and humility did the like by me, which I esteem the greatest honour that hath ever befallen me. And thereupon we took our departure. And on the follow- ing day the king sent great presents to us in our said lodging at St. Johnstoun, and it must not be forgotten that from the time when we arrived in the said kingdom of Scotland and came before him in his town of Edinburgh — Jan. 25th, 1434, ^ down to the time when we took leave of him in the said palace of St. Johnstoun — Feb. 1435 — he defrayed and paid our expenses in whatever part of the said kingdom we might be." From Perth the ambassador proceeded to Dumbarton to prepare for the departure of the princess, and there he re- mained on board his ship for 15 days and endured *'de grans malaises". The king still delayed. At last, how- ever, the incorrigible procrastinator appeared, and was wel- comed by Girard with gifts of a charming simplicity, con- cerning which the ambassador writes with an equally delight- ful naivete. During tKe 15 days of "little ease", a ship had arrived from France bearing "un mulct bien gent, que j'avoye faict venir par le conseil de mondict seigneur de Vendosme, qui le me conseilla, quant il me mist a la mer, car il avait vue le mulct a la Rochelle, et pour donner au diet Roy d'Escosse; lequel mulct je lui feys presenter et en fut molt joyeux, et fut chose bien estrange par dela, 1 Old style. THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 19 Et aussi feys presenter a la dicte Reyne d'Escosse trois pipes plaines de fruict, tant grosses chataignes poyres et pommes de diverses manieres, pource qu'il n'en y a nulz; et aussi six pipes de vin, de quoy la reyne fust bien con- tente, car de par dela il y a bien peu de fruict." These courtesies over, James, ever solicitous for the comfort of his child, demanded that the fleet should put out to sea, in order that he might see which vessel was the swiftest and possessed the best equipment. To the deep disgust of the French sailors, who were barely restrained from mutiny, a Spanish ship was chosen as most suitable, and at last, on the 27th of March — little more than a month late, which perhaps was creditable to all concerned — the Dauphine embarked. The king embraced his daughter for the last time; but now that the time of parting was indeed come, he felt that delay meant no longer joy, but merely pain. "Le Roy n'y demeura longuement, mais s'en alia a grans pleurs, du regret de madicte dame la dauphine sa fille." So we take leave of James, most human of kings, weeping bitterly over the last sight of his little daughter. So also, some hundred years later, departed a little Scot- tish princess to become Dauphine of France, a princess whose fate was sadder far than that of Margaret, but whose sojourn in France was the sole happy portion of her life. "Adieu, charm ant pays de France, Que je dois tant cherir, Berceau de men heureuse enfance, Adieu, te quitter c'est mourir." What Mary might have said of France, Margaret might well have said of Scotland. She was leaving a court in which life was, for that age, comparatively blameless; for if James was a Stewart in all else, as regards his family life, he was a shining example to the generality of Stewart 20 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES princes. She was leaving a household where the level of culture was high, where natural affection reigned supreme. She was seeking a court in a strange land ruled by a king, who was ruled in turn by his mistresses, graced by the presence of a neglected queen, and distracted by the darkest intrigues, in which the Dauphin was some years later to play not the least prominent part. The contrast was in every way a melancholy one. And, moreover, the poor child was no longer of such tender years as not to feel the full pang of parting. In truth it would have been kinder if James had performed his part of the original treaty of Chinon with alacrity, and the child had left him while she was yet too young to feel the full significance of the change. Perils other than the ordinary perils of the deep awaited the Dauphine on her passage to France. A fleet of an hundred and eighty English vessels lay in wait for the little French fleet, as it steered towards La Rochelle with its precious burden. The English government harboured a not unnatural indignation at what it must have regarded as the perfidious conduct of the king of Scotland, and was still smarting under its diplomatic defeat. But in a happy hour a fleet of Flemish vessels laden with wine hove in sight. The spectacle was too tempting for the English sailors. They left their post and sailed in pursuit of that all too attrac- tive cargo, and the enemy, whom they had been destined to intercept, crept by and moored safely in the little har- bour of La Palisse in the Isle of Re. It has been asserted that the voyage was full of great perils from wind and wave, and that the poor child reached the shores of France more dead than alive. But Girard disposes of the fable. "My said lady," he writes, "had — God be thanked — fair weather and a good passage." But a good passage in this case meant precisely three weeks, as the fleet sailed on THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 21 March the 27th and did not arrive till the 17th of April; so that all concerned may well have been weary of the voyage. The following day the squadron proceeded to an ancho- rage at Chef du Bois, within a league of La Rochelle, but it was not till the 19th of April that the Dauphine set foot on dry land. She was received in great state by the king's chancellor, Regnault de Chartres, and other high officials, and was conducted to the priory of Nieul, hard by La Rochelle, to take what must have been a much needed repose. For a twenty-one days' voyage in the very primitive ships of the X Vth century, must have been no small tax on the strength of a child of twelve. At last, on the 3rd of May, she made her state entry into La Rochelle, and proceeded on her way to meet her boy-husband and the long-suffering King of France. At length the long- postponed marriage was to take place. June 25th was fixed as the date, and the ceremony was to be performed in the Cathedral of Tours. The Dauphine met with a loyal reception en route, notably at Poitiers, where crowds came out to meet her, and, to crown all, a child disguised as an angel was let down from the portal of the city and placed a wreath upon the head of "my said lady. Which thing was very genteelly and cunningly performed." Laden with rich presents — Poitiers alone had bestowed upon her silver plate worth two thou- sand "livres Tournois" — the princess arrived at Tours on the 24th of June, the eve of her wedding-day. Details of her entry have descended to us. A richly caparisoned palfrey bore her, and she was followed by a number of French and Scottish lords and ladies. On her reaching the gateway the Lords of Maille and Gamaches advanced to meet her on foot, seized the palfrey's reins and so con- ducted her to the royal castle. Dismounting at the gate 22 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES she was escorted by the Earl of Orkney and the Comte de Vendome, one on either side, to the foot of the great hall of the castle, which had been hung for the occasion with rich tapestries of Blois, There the Queens of France and Sicily, together with the Princess Radegonde, soon to be her sister-in-law, awaited her. Her two attendant earls now left her side, and Yolande of Aragon — Queen of Sicily — and the Princess Radegonde took their place and so led her to the Queen, who, rising from the dais, went forward to meet her, and, taking her in her arms, embraced her tenderly. At this point the young Dauphin, attended by a multitude of knights and squires, made an appropriate entry, timed to the moment. The Dauphine was officially informed of his arrival and advanced towards him. Thereupon the two children — to quote the words of the old French chronicler — ** s'entrebaiserent et accolerent, et puis retournerent devers la Reyne." These stiff formalities then came to a close, and the Queen taking the two children with her to her own apartments, richly adorned with cloth of gold, they "played together until it was time for supper." The king himself did not arrive till the following day **ung peu avant la benisson." But if his arrival was late, he lost not a moment more, and hurried at once to see the daughter-in-law whose very existence he must almost have come to regard as visionary. He entered her cham- ber and found her being arrayed for the ceremony. Appar- ently he was in no wise disappointed in her appearance; for, says Girard, " le roy fut moult joyeux et bien content de sa personne." But he had little time for an interview, for the ceremony was just about to commence; nay, he had not time to robe himself for the occasion, but attended booted and spurred, his grey travelHng dress showing dull amid the blaze of colour. F'or all others were in royal THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 23 attire, and the little Dauphine was clad in "raiment most wonderful, precious and splendid. She was of comely figure and exceeding fair countenance." "It was," says another chronicler, " moult belle chose de voir les paremens et abillemens, en quoi elle estoit, les quelles elle avoit ap- portez de son pais." A long robe flowed from her shoul- ders and a crown of gold was about her head; while on that day her young husband was presented with the '* sword of the King of Scotland," as it was known in after days, on the hilt of which were figures of the Virgin and St. Michael. After these ^ solemnities "grant fut la feste." The com- pany were divided between two tables. At the upper table were seated the king, the two queens, the Dauphine, and the archbishop of Rheims, with the Earl of Orkney and the great lords of France ; while at the lesser table the Dauphin entertained the Scottish nobles. The little bride and bridegroom were thus at the very outset of their wedded life separated from one another. What eti- quette now forced upon the Dauphin, inclination was in after years to render easy and habitual. It might be taken as an omen of the Dauphine's brief and joyless career. However, at present all was happiness. All dishes that the art of man could devise were to be found at the ban- quet: numberless heralds and pursuivants lent colour to the scene, while a veritable concert continued to the close ; minstrels and players of " clarions and trumpets, with enough of lutes and psalteries" made music for the guests, and perhaps also in the midst of the softer music of the south rang the shrill music of the bagpipes. For was not "Jean Fary, natif d'Escosse, menestrel du roi notre sire," in France at this period ? In the words of Jean Chartier, " to say sooth there was made great and good cheer." 1 A special dispeasation fr-om the Pope had been necessary owing to the tender age of the children. 24 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES And now, as far as our authorities are concerned, there comes a blank in Margaret's life. There are a few scant notices and then complete silence. It is true that hitherto the story has been simply the history of the moves of a mere pawn in the game of poHtics. Personal touches have of necessity been lacking: such colour as may have in- vested the person of our heroine has been almost entirely reflected. But now we bid adieu to the picturesque if slightly tedious narrative of our good friend Regnault Girard, and our path for the next seven or eight years is lit only by very occasional gleams of light from the pages of Jean Chartier,' Matthieu de Coucy, and here and there a state paper. Not till the tragic close of her life is a strong light cast once more upon this fragile and fleeting figure. But we must return to our narrative, even if only to stumble in our goings. For the present the Dauphin and his bride were completely separated. It was not till 1438* that the two, being now of marriageable age, consummated their marriage at Gien-sur-Loire. In the meantime Mar- garet remained at the court. Her Scottish attendants for the most part returned to their native land. Some, how- ever, remained behind and married into French families, while, according to a writer of the XVIIth century, there was a regular emigration of Scottish ladies to France (a hundred and fifty is the reported number) desirous of follow- ing the royal example and securing French husbands. Her early life must have been comparatively happy. All author- ities agree that Charles and his wife were greatly attracted by the child, and treated her with the utmost kindness. Even to this day survive records of the gifts made by Charles to his daughter-in-law, from a costly mirror presented in 1437 t^ ^ g^^^ <^^ 2,000 livres tournois for silks and fans, ^ Louis being then sixteen years of age, and Margaret fourteen. THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 25 for which we have Margaret's receipt, signed but a month before her death. But, from the very first, sorrows were to overcast her life. In 1436 her father was assassinated at Perth and Scotland lost the best and greatest of all her kings; and in 1438 her married life began. It was unblest and full of unhappiness. Young as he was, the Dauphin had been caught up by the turbulent whirlwind of those stormy times into which he was born. He had in the very year of his marriage followed the king in his travels and his wars. In that very year he began to play an important part in the affairs of France, and we find him leading armies if only in name. And by the close of 1439, when he was yet but 17 years of age, he is found at the head of a rebellion ^ against his father. But if Charles had provoked this revolt by an unseemly lack of energy, he now acted with commendable vigour. Stung by the unfil- ial conduct of his son, he put himself at the head of his troops, and conducted the campaign with such success, that in 1440 we find the back of the rebellion broken, and the undutiful Dauphin suing for pardon from his injured father. Among the various requests made by the penitent prince, there is one only which especially concerns us. "Since henceforth it is suitable and proper that my lady should be more continually with the Dauphin than heretofore, may it please the king to provide for the expenses of his son's estate, and that of Madame la Dauphine." Charles' reply was dignified. "When Monseigneur le Dauphin will come before the king in all humility as he ought, the king will treat him as his only son, and will provide for his estate and that of Madame la Dauphine in such a manner as should fully content him." We may probably conclude * The well-known Praguerie. 26 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES from this that the Dauphine had not followed her husband in his rebellious escapades. But in any case it is clear that Louis' mind was quite sufficiently occupied with political intrigue at this early stage in his career to explain, though in no wise to excuse, his indifference towards his bride. And although now civil war for the time being ceased, though Dauphine and a liberal revenue had been assigned to the repentant prince, there was still much to occupy him. Unhappy France was still disturbed by the slowly dying embers of the Hundred Years' War, and there were other expeditions, in which the Dauphin bore a not inconspicuous part. Switzerland and Lorraine, and the walls of beleaguered Metz all saw him at the head of armies. Rarely can the duties of royalty have descended so soon, or with so heavy a burden, on the shoulders of a prince. But in addition to all this, he was without his due share of natural affection ; nature had made him a ruler of men, and the turbulence of the arena, into which he made so early an entry, served only to increase his heartlessness. And when he was not engaged in the duties of his high position, he was occupied in making use of its opportunities, and burrowing underground to sap the power of others, even of his father. There was nothing straightforward about him, he was secret and tortuous. He can have seen but little of his bride, and those brief hours which he spent in her company brought him but little pleasure. It is true that we have what purport to be his own words of lamen- tation for the Dauphine's death, but he was supreme among hypocrites, and we shall see cause to view his grief with deep distrust. We may reject alike the courtly statements of chroniclers that tell us of the great love he bore his wife, and the very different assertion of a late English chronicler, that " the lady Margaret, maryed to the Dolphin, THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 27 was of such nasty complexion and evil savoured breath that he abhorred her company as a clean creature doth a caryon." There is, however, small doubt that the Dauphin had the strongest aversion for his wife. He was not only indifferent, but faithless to her, since he had at least one natural daughter during her life-time. We may abide by the words of Commynes : " He married a daughter of Scotland to his displeasure, and as long as he lived regretted it." If, however, there was much that was sad in her brief life, it was not wholly bitter. She was young, beautiful, well-formed and, according to de Coucy, who is quoting from contemporary evidence, "provided and adorned with all those good conditions and advantages that a noble and exalted lady might well have." Nor had she personal beauty only to render her attractive. To render herself worthy to be a French Princess and in days to come perchance a Queen, and doubtless also to drown her private griefs, she devoted herself to literature. She had studied French to good effect, and inheriting a portion of her father's poetic gifts, perhaps directly inspired by him in her infancy with a love of poetry on those winter evenings when James read aloud to his family by the fireside, she wrote roundels and ballads in the language of her adopted country and would spend whole nights in their composition, the passion of poetry driving away fatigue. Perhaps she formed the centre of a small literary circle at the French court, ^ but we cannot tell : all that we know is ^ The long-accepted story of her invitation of the poetess Clotilde de Surville to the French court, of the latter's refusal in verse, and the gift of the laurel crown surmounted with 12 marguerites, in silver and gold, bearing the inscription "Marguerite d'Ecosse a Marguerite de Helicon," is undoubt- edly false. The poetess is a figment and the whole story is part and parcel of a clever forgery devised to explain certain archaistic poems — perhaps by M. de Surville (died 1798)— published in 1803. 2^8 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES that among her immediate attendants she found rival poet- esses. * And it is in connexion with this love of literature, that the best known and the most beautiful of the anecdotes of this princess has descended to us. Like so many picturesque episodes in history, it has recently been proved to be entirely fictitious, for the excellent reason that its hero, our old acquaintance, Alain Chartier, was dead before Margaret set foot in France; but no history of the Dauphine would be complete without this beautiful legend. ** She loved greatly," says Bouchet, in his Chroni- cles of Aquitaine, "the orators of the common speech, and among them Master Alain Chartier, who is the father of French eloquence, and whom she held in high esteem, by reason of the fair and excellent works that he had composed. So that one day while she passed by a hall where the said Master Alain lay asleep upon a bench, she kissed him before all the company. But he that was escorting her took it ill, and said, ' Madame, I am amazed that you have kissed this man, that is so ugly.* For in sooth he had not a fair countenance. Whereat she made answer: *It was not the man I kissed, but that precious mouth from which so many excellent words and virtuous speeches have proceeded*". Baseless though the story be, it was an answer worthy of a Stewart princess and a poetess. Margaret was in fact a woman of rare qualities. If she had the talents of her race, she had also its romantic temperament, perhaps some of its folly. For hearing that a simple squire, who had greatly distinguished himself in a tournament, lacked means to help him on the career for which gallantry and martial skill seemed to destine him, 1 There actually exists a beautiful rondeau by Jeanne Filleul, or otherwise Jeanne Filloque, maid-of-honour to the Dauphine; but none of Margaret's writings have survived. (Vide Le Roux de Lincy's Femmes Celebres.) THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 29 she sent him a large gift of money. ^ Such was the manner in which she took her pleasure; to religious exercises also she gave great attention, as was natural in a deserted and injured lady of imaginative temperament. But her charms, her rank and talent, were not sufficient to save her from evil report. The court of France lacked the simplicity and purity of the court of James the First. Chastity was not one of the virtues of Charles VII. or his son, and during the last year of Margaret's life Agnes Sorel ruled the heart, and perhaps was beginning to rule the policy of the French King. The Dauphin preferred the excitements of war and intrigue to the calm of domestic life; and the relations of France and Scotland had become less intimate during the stormy childhood of James the Second. She seemed drift- ing further still from the home of her childhood, while her striking personality and her unhappy relations with her husband inspired that interest which goes always hand in hand with scandal. Yet the few glimpses we are permitted of Margaret's life before the final tragedy are pleasant and attractive. In 1441 she was at last granted to set eyes once more upon one of her sisters. For though history is silent, we cannot reasonably doubt that she took part in the festivities at the marriage of her sister Isabella to the Duke of Brittany in the autumn of 1441 ; but the first certain information that we possess of her movements dates nearly three years later. On the ist of May, 1444, we see her, at Montils les Tours, go forth accompanied by the Queen of France and a vast concourse of lords and ladies to "bring in May." Later in the same year we find her moving in the brilliant court of Nancy, and attending the 1 Duclos says 300 crowns. But in the depositions given in the inquiry of 1446 we hear that she borrowed 600 crowns, apparently for a similar purpose, thereby causing some scandal. It is more than probable that these two incidents should be identified. 30 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES nuptials of Margaret of Anjou and our own Henry the Sixth. France had not known the splendours of a genuine court for many years. Now there was truce with England, and the simplicity born of hard times gave way to the half- forgotten etiquette of the court. The king held once more the ** fetes du roi" that the Carolingian kings and even their faineant predecessors had held of old. At Easter, Pentecost, All Saints' Day and Christmas, the king held his "cour pleniere." At each "fete" robes of State were distributed to the princes and the high officers of the King's court and household, that each one might shine in appropriate splendour ; while the king himself on each occasion appeared in fresh apparel, with all the emblems of royalty. Heralds crying thrice, ** Largesse I Largesse ! Largesse I " cast handfuls of money to the crowd admitted to the hall; musicians and jugglers made amusement for the court, and masques and mysteries provided entertainment till far into the night, when the guests retired each the richer for a present from the royal liberality. Here Margaret shone with a brief brilliance, a brilliance that perhaps ultimately had a consider- able share in causing her death, and that certainly only serves to show off in a sharper and darker outline the tragedy so soon to centre round her. The court remained at Nancy till the 19th of March, 1445, when its festivities were rudely cut short by the death of Radegonde, the king's daughter, whom we have seen assisting at the splendid ceremonies of Tours in 1436. She was the first member of the royal house whom Margaret had met, and she was younger even than her sister-in-law, who was in the space of a few months' time to follow her to the grave. The court broke up, and the Queen, the Dauphin, and Margaret departed for Chalons-sur-Marne, which they reached upon the 4th of May. There they were shortly joined by THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 31 the king and the Duchess of Burgundy, who arrived on a diplomatic errand from her husband. She, like the Dauphine and like the queen, — for Agnes Sorel was now in the ascendant — was a neglected wife. Her diplomatic errand was probably diplomatic in more senses than one, for the Duke was "le plus damaret de son epoque"; and she found a sympathetic confidante in the queen. In the words of Olivier de la Marche, the two took occasion "pour se douloir et complaindre I'une a I'autre de leur creve coeur." Etiquette, however, did not admit of the duchess dining with the king and queen, and she was thus thrown into the company of the Dauphine, for whom she conceived a great affection equalled only in intensity by her dislike for the Dauphin, with whom she had high words, perchance on the question of his treatment of his wife. ^ The Dauphine paid her frequent visits, often staying with her for two or three days together. She had indeed not a little need of sym- pathy, as we are soon to see. For the moment, however, the presence of a distinguished visitor had brightened the mourning court not a little, and on July the 2nd, after a great banquet, we read of a ballet entitled the "Basse Danse de Bourgogne," danced by the Queen of Sicily, the Duchess of Calabria, the Dauphin, and the Count of Clermont. But for Margaret the dark days were approaching. Her constitution was not naturally strong, and she had further impaired it by her long night-watches, passed with her friendly rivals Jeanne Filleul, Pregente de Melun, and Marguerite de Salignac, in the service of poetry. She was sick of mind as well as body, and it is hard to doubt that the slanderous tales that engendered this agony of spirit, assisted and intensified the rapid malady of which she died. * It is thus represented in a picturesque little story with Margaret for its heroine. /Zes Marguerites du temps passe, by Madame Dannestetter.) 32 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES We must now retrace our steps to the court of Nancy or perhaps yet further still. Under the splendid exterior of the restored French court, all was not well. Dissension was rife. Taking no notice of cross currents, we may roughly state that there were two factions— for the King and for the Dauphin. The network of these intrigues is intricate in the extreme, and perhaps the death of Margaret is a mere episode in their history. It is a task for those who are treating a far wider subject than the present, to unravel the obscure story of the domestic factions at the court of Charles the Seventh. As far as can be seen in the confusion of this strange and fragmentary tangle, the King has upon his side the Dauphine and the Queen — for apparently no injury could vanquish or estrange that unhappy lady's loyal docility. Further, Margaret finds her worst enemy in Jamet du Tillay, the devoted adherent of her husband. How far the latter was con- cerned in the attack upon his wife's fair fame, which it is now our task to relate, will in all probability never be clearly ascertained. If he did not actually instigate the plot, he, at least, during his wife's lifetime, seems to have countenanced the very questionable proceedings of du Tillay. And it is very difficult to discover any motive for Jamet's conduct, other than the desire to please his master. The crafty Louis no doubt never committed himself to positive approval, but by refusing to disapprove worked his will. But if Louis had a hand in the affair, what could his motive have been? It is a question the solution of which is entirely a matter of conjecture. The Dauphin was, we know, jealous of his father's power, and this jealousy seems to have been fanned to fury by the advent of Agnes Sore! and the influence she exercised with the king. And in addition to this there is a curious point to notice in the plot that came to light only a year after the Dauphine' s THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 33 death. It is not necessary to enter into all its details. Louis had designs upon his father's person, and these de- signs were thwarted by the loyalty of the Scottish guard. "II n'y a rien," he said, in an unguarded moment to a friend, "que de mettre ces gens dehors." Can it be, as M. F. Michel seems to suggest in his "Ecossais en France," that Louis found the presence of his wife a bar to these dark designs? Clearly, while she lived and was in high favour with the king, the presence of the Scottish guard was secured, and its importance perhaps heightened. Her death or dishonour might well mean the disgrace or dis- missal of the Scottish guard, whom he felt to be such a serious obstacle to his schemes. It is a possible and plaus- ible theory, but it is no more than a theory. Many other explanations might equally well be advanced. The perse- cution of the Dauphine may merely have been the work of an inhuman husband, possessed by the strongest aversion for his wife. Ulterior motive there may have been none. Or it is even possible that Louis was guilty of no worse fault than heartless indifference. There is indeed but one fact that seems to lend definite colour to the theory that du Tillay was deliberately working for the Dauphin, and that is, the strong objection expressed by him to the pre- sence among the Dauphine's attendants of certain ladies, who had been appointed through the influence of the queen and Agnes Sorel. But the general impression given by the evidence of the witnesses examined at the inquiry into the circumstances of Margaret's death, is, that she was the centre of a struggle of influences, and that Jamet du Tillay concerned himself actively in this contest, under a careful disguise of quasi-paternal anxiety for the Dauphine's welfare. There is, we shall see, always underlying the expres- sions of anxiety for the health and fair fame of the princess, the persistent recurrence of the charge of slander, and the 3 34 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES bitter complaints of Margaret herself against Jamet seem to dispose of any idea that he was merely a good-natured and well-meaning, but utterly tactless busy-body. It is a difficult task, however, to trace with any clearness the pre- cise course of events in this perplexing story. For evid- ence we are entirely dependent on the enquiry which we have mentioned. It is hard to reconstruct history out of the conflicting evidence given at an inquest. It is rendered doubly hard by the fact that there is a total lack of method in the official report, that dates are confused and that there are many irreparable gaps. Though, therefore, to elaborate the story, and set it forth in all its twists and turnings be impracticable, and in view of the slender and unsatisfactory evidence, per- haps unprofitable, we can, without grave injustice, draw a general conclusion as to the situation in which the unfortunate princess found herself placed, and, if we cannot know all that transpired behind the scenes, can at least paint an impressionist sketch of the drama as enacted in the eyes of the world. The first hint of trouble seems to take us back to a period some two years before the Dauphine's death. What pre- cisely had happened we cannot tell, but Jamet du Tillay had already incurred Margaret's grave displeasure. More than once she said to Marguerite de Villequier, ^ one of her attendant ladies, that of all men she hated Jamet du Tillay most. Scandal, or the rumour of it, had already reached her ears; and it must have been serious to have excited such bitter words. But with the exception of this brief utterance — perhaps wrongly dated through some slip of memory on the part of the witness, we hear no more of 1 Presumably one of the most impartial witnesses, as the king's party had, for reasons unknown, succeeded in having her removed from the Dauphine's household. wShe was, however, kinswoman to Agnes Sorel. THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 35 evil rumours till the following year, when, as has been mentioned, the court was at Nancy. Then occurred a serious incident. One winter evening about Christmas-tide Jamet du Tillay, "bailli de Vermandois," entered suddenly and unexpectedly into the chamber of the Dauphine. He found the princess lying upon her bed, surrounded by her ladies. Leaning, as Jamet thought, somewhat too famiharly against the bed, were two young lords, Jean d'Estouteville and another whom Jamet failed to recognize. The room was lighted solely by the flickering gleam of the hearth, and Du Tillay pro- fesses to have been scandalized by the impropriety of the situation, and to have rebuked the mattre d' hotels Regnault de Dresnay, with severity. As to his precise words on this occasion there is not a little doubt. According to his own version, he said that it was "grande paillardise" for the maitre d' hotel and the other officers of the household to leave the chamber of so great a lady without torches at that hour of the night. But the account given by other witnesses was different. They represented him as having said that such conduct was worthy rather of a paillarde than of a great lady. There are perhaps reasons for hold- ing the latter version to be the more correct. ' It is, at any rate, a good deal more than probable that such was the common impression, and we can hardly doubt that this version came to the ears of the Dauphine and perhaps also to those of her husband. For a little later ^ we find Mar- garet once more declaiming with great bitterness against some traducer, who, though not expressly named, is almost 1 For the word '^paillardise'''' is much more likely to be used of the indiscretions of a ^'grande dame''\ than of what was after all merely careless- ness and bad taste on the part of the household. ' Later, for the date is indicated by the words "before the Queen left Nancy", clearly pointing to the end of her sojourn there. 36 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES certainly to be identified with du Tillay. ** There is one," she cried to her ladies, "who is over light of speech, and whom I do well to hate. For he has ever striven his best, and is still striving to discredit me in the eyes of Monseigneur the Dauphin. It has given me, and gives me still, great sorrow of heart, for no man could speak worse words of a woman than he of me." There seems here to be an ob- vious reference to the unhappy episode of Christmas and the coarse words of du Tillay, while it at least shows that Margaret believed her persecutor to have for his aim a still further estrangement between herself and her husband. At what period exactly it was that du Tillay first expressed his disapproval of the personal attendants of the princess, we cannot say. It was probably at some period of 1445, for Pregente de Melun, for whom he appears to have had an especial aversion, had been transferred from the household of the Queen to that of the Dauphine, largely through the influence of Agnes Sorel — whose ascendency was of recent date ; and we gather also from du Tillay's defence of himself that Margaret was already in failing health. Indeed Jamet was reported to have said that the Dauphine was sick of love, that her death would be of small loss to the realm, perhaps also that Pregente de Melun was her accomplice in her "affaires de coeur." * Jamet, however, protested that he had done no worse than remonstrate with Pregente, Jeanne Filleul and Marguerite de Salignac for permitting — nay, encouraging the Dauphine to keep such late hours. The doctors had told him that the princess ran grave risks of falling into a serious illness 1 Du Tillay is reported to have said of Pregente : "Je voudrais bien qu'elle ne se melat point du tout dans les affaires de Madame la Dauphine, car elle pourrait etre cause de quelque malheur". The importance that seems to be attached to these words and their context in the inquiry seems to warrant the above suggestion. THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 37 if she persisted in her long vigils. As to his having said that she was sick of love, he had no remembrance of saying anything of the sort ; whilst concerning the charges that he had brought accusations of unchastity against her and had attempted to estrange her from her husband, he had never seen aught in her that he would not willingly see in his own wife, and whosoever taxed him with such dastardly conduct lied foully in his throat and should answer for it in single combat. Whether Jamet's explanations were true or not, they were at least plausible. For, without doubt, Margaret was far too careless of her health. A lady of delicate constitution could hardly hope to make roundel-writing a satisfactory substitute for sleep. For, to quote a fragment of a conversation, which took place between du Tillay and the king during her last illness: "Madame kept such long watches, now greater, now less, that sometimes it was almost sunrise before she went to her bed, and often Monseigneur the Dauphin had been long time asleep before she withdrew to her chamber, and often she spent the hours of the night in writing roundels, as many as twelve perchance, in the revolution of one day, *qui lui estoit chose bien contraire'". **That is bad for the head, is it not?" asked the king. "Yes," replied one present, "if it be indulged in over much — mais ce sont choses de plaisance." But although her health may have been tottering, her condition does not seem to have caused serious anxiety, till some time after her arrival at Chalons. And even there, as we have seen, she was able to enjoy life. It was also at Chalons that the jousts took place, in connexion with which is told the romantic story of the poor squire, and the Dauphine's liberality. It must also have been during her residence at Chalons that she interceded with the king for the inhabitants of Metz, then invested by the armies of France. 38 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES Now, however, we are drawing very near the end. Margaret's sorrows seem to have awakened the pangs of homesickness, and she had obtained permission from the king for two of her sisters to come over to France and reside with her. But she was never to have the joy of setting eyes on them. Now, also, her friend and consoler, the Duchess of Burgundy, departed from the French court. She had perhaps been a peace-maker ^ in the disturbed atmosphere surrounding the Royal household; she had, at any rate, proved a comforter in some of its distresses. Nor was her departure the only blow that befell the Dauphine. ^ About the same time it is said, (though on what evidence is not quite clear) that an angry interview took place between Margaret and her husband. Perhaps it was in connexion with the episode at Nancy, which the officious du Tillay had reported to his master ; perhaps in connexion with the bestowal of the six hundred crowns on the hero of the jousts. The story of this scene is not well authen- ticated and we can only conjecture. The shock may have further weakened the tottering fabric. At any rate, on the seventh of August, as the result of a pilgrimage in company with the king from the Chateau de Sarry, near Chalons, to Notre Dame de TEpine, she took a chill. The day had been very hot, and on her ^ Such at least is a plausible interpretation of a passage in the lament for the Dauphine composed probably by her sister, Isabella of Brittany. Adieu, duchesse de Bourgogne, La mienne seur o cueur jolis; Si vous povez par nulle voye, Mettez pais en la fleur de lis. 2 It is perhaps to this that Jeanne de Tuce alludes in her evidence. The Dauphine complained " qu'il I'avait mise hors de la grace du Roi et du monseigneur le Dauphin, qu'elle craignait plus en ce cas que nul autre." There may also be an allusion to the accusation brought against du Tillay, that he had written anonymous and slanderous letters to the king. These words are said to have been uttered at the beginning of August. But Jeanne's dates are inconsistent, and it was probably a little earlier. THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 39 return to the Chateau she had sat for some time lightly clad in a cold and draughty room on the ground floor, with the result that on the next day, to quote the grotesque bulletin of her physician, *'a cold was engendered in her brain. And perchance from her said brain a portion of these corrupted humours may have fallen upon portions of her lungs, and caused the ulceration of her said lung." In other words, her imprudent conduct had resulted in inflamma- tion of the lungs. Her condition rapidly became serious, but the disease appears to have fluctuated in such a manner, as now to give grounds for the strongest hopes, now to plunge her friends anew into the most profound alarm. She was removed to Chalons at the outset of her malady. The church bells were forbidden to ring for fear of disturbing her slumbers. The king was in great distress ; he had just lost his daughter, he was now it seemed to lose his daughter- in-law, for whom he appears to have entertained a very genuine affection. Meanwhile the Dauphine lying on her bed of pain com- plained rather of sickness of the soul than of the body. Though the actual cause of her disease was purely physical, the miserable state of her mind deprived her of ''the will to live" and sapped her already lowered vitality. On the lOth of August Jeanne de Tuce tried to console her, and bade her be of good cheer and lay aside her melancholy. "I have good cause to be melancholy," replied the dying princess, " and to be sad at heart by reason of the words that have been spoken of me, words wicked and without cause. For as I have hopes of salvation, I have not done aught of that wherewith men charge me, nay, nor thought thereof." And a few days later, when the force of the malady increased, her complaints became yet more open. Often and in the presence of many witnesses she cried from her "couch of fire." *'Ahl Jamet, Jamet, you have 40 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES attained to your end. If I die, 'tis by reason of you and the words that you have spoken of me without cause or justification." Then raising her arms to heaven she beat her breast and continued: "I swear by God Almighty, by my soul, and the baptism which I received at the font, that, though I die, I have never deserved aught that men have said of me, nor have I done any wrong to my lord the Dauphin." Pierre de Breze, seneschal of Poitou, was so stirred by these piteous words, that he cried out, as he left the chamber, addressing du Tillay, ''Mechant ribaud, c'est toi qui la fais mourir," and so departed *'bien marry et dolent," saying, ''c'est grand pitie de la douleur et courroux, que souffre cette dame." Her strength gradually sank. Du Tillay, who, to use Margaret's words, felt "que son fait branlait," had made vain attempts even before her illness to obtain audience of the princess, and defend himself personally against the charges she brought against him. But Margaret would have nothing to say to him. Du Tillay adopted a politic attitude, and expressed profound grief on hearing of the illness. He played the part of sympathiser to the king, saying, ** How many misfortunes, sire, have come upon us in so small a time; there has come greater sorrow upon this land than ever yet came upon any. We have had all these great lords quarrelling with one another, and now to lose this lady would be the greatest ill that could befall us." All his efforts, however, were of no avail. The princess was obdurate, and all the entreaties of her ladies and her confessor could not induce her to grant him forgiveness. At last, however, she felt her end very near at hand, and her confessor, Robert Poitevin, was summoned to her bed- side for the last time. "Madame," he said, "is your heart full of thinking upon the God you must soon meet?" and she answered "Yes, Master Robert." "Madame, forget THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 41 Him not," urged the confessor. "Nay, nay," was the reply, "I will never forget Him!" Then after a pause — ** Madame, have you pardoned all the world?" But to this she answered never a word. Then Marguerite de Salig- nac, taking Master Robert aside, said, " You must make her pardon Jamet du Tillay." He returned to the bedside and wrung the confession from her that there was yet one whom she had not forgiven. "Nay, Madame," said the courtly priest, " it must be that you have pardoned him for such is your duty." But three times the dying Dauphine re- iterated that she had not done so. Then Jeanne de Tuce, Regnault de Dresnay and her ladies round her added their prayers to those of the confessor, saying that as she hoped for pardon from God she ought to pardon all the world and forgive him in all good heart. Then at last said the princess, "I pardon him, then, and with all my heart." From this point she sank rapidly. A few hours before her death she was heard to murmur. "N'etait ma foi, je me repentirais volontiers d'etre venue en France." And soon after at 10 o'clock of the evening of the i6th August,^ she passed away in the twentieth year of her age, sur- rounded by foreigners, a childless and neglected wife, ^ in a strange land, her kinsfolk far away. Her last words were, " Fy de la vie de ce monde, n'en parlez plus." The king and queen were deeply distressed at her death. The queen fell sick of grief, and the king on the following day hastily quitted Chalons "dolent, courrouce et trouble de son trespas." Her crafty husband feigned the deepest grief— for we cannot, considering his known attitude to- * She was bom in 1424 and died August i6th, 1445. Her age has been erroneously given as 26 and the year of her f.u\,.a now as 1444, now as 1445- 3 Her barrenness was apparently commonly reported to be due to her own imprudence in partaking overmuch of unripe fruit and vinegar. 42 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES wards his wife, and his habitual heartlessness consider it to have been genuine. However, the evidence* for his tears, although contemporary, is not first hand, and even if we suppose the narrative to be true, it has a melodramatic tinge about it, which scarcely accords with true grief. For Louis is represented as dissolved in woe, and moan- ing, "What a destiny has God given mel I have never had one happy hour of life. For, first of all, I was hated of my father, and later I was constrained to depart out of France, and make war in Germany, and last of all to besiege this town of Metz. And now God takes from me that which I loved best in all the world." Louis protests too much. His grief, however, did not in the least affect his political activity, and within an hour or two of his wife's death, he issued orders for the administration of Dauphine as though nothing of moment had occurred. Margaret's is a pathetic death-scene, and its pathos is intensified by the arrival in France on the very day of their sister's death, of the two Scottish princesses. They arrived too late, to find a double grief awaiting them. For on the same day they learnt the news both of their sister's death and of that of their mother, who had expired shortly after their departure from Scotland. " Una dies haec omnia ademit." We may imagine Margaret, who had longed for their companionship, asking often as she lay dying, if her sisters had yet come. Now she was gone, and they could look but on her embalmed face. Whether she had been spared the grief of learning that her mother was dead we do not know; it seems probable that the news did not reach Chalons till shortly after her death. 1 Chronique de Praillon, Relation du siege de Metz. TOMB OF THE PRINCESS MARGARET. To face p. 43. THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 43 She was buried in the Cathedral of Chalons. It had been the intention of the king, that her body should thence be removed to the royal tombs of St. Denis. But the Dauphin grudged this honour to his injured wife. For thirty-four years her body reposed in the Cathedral church on the Marne. Then Louis gave orders that her remains * should be removed to the great church of St. Laon of Thouars. There she lies, but her memorial, (of which a sketch has been reproduced for the present volume), after suffering grievous things at the hands of the Huguenots, seems to have suffered the usual fate of royal tombs during the French Revolution. But although she was gone, the memory of her death did not rapidly pass away. In October 1445 an inquiry was held at Chalons by order of the king, to investigate the conduct of du Tillay. For, guilty or not, there was a wide-spread feeling of indignation against him, and numbers of the young lords of the court challenged him to single combat. The king, however, interposed and pursued the inquiry with a remarkable vigour and persistence, renewing it again in the summer of the ensuing year. The Dauphin also, as was absolutely necessary for his credit, took an active part in the proceedings. But what the precise cause of such persistence may have been is hidden from us. The gravest suspicion was evidently attached in the highest quarters to the conduct of du Tillay, and probably at the back of this complicated affair we have, as has been already indicated, some dark court intrigue. Much evidence was brought against du Tillay, but he parried all attacks with great skill, often, it is true, giving the statements attributed to him a blank denial, more generally contenting himself with showing how perversely 1 They were enclosed ia three different caskets — the body in one, the entrails in a second, the heart in the third. 44 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES innocent words of his had been misinterpreted, and saying, Honi soit qui mal y pense. But the cumulative evidence is too strong for us entirely to believe in his innocence. What was the result of the inquiry, there is nothing to show. That it was not wholly adverse to du Tillay is obvious, for he continued to enjoy the favour of royalty. Indeed it is hard to see how on the evidence that has come down to us, he could possibly have been condemned. In England he would obtain a verdict of **not guilty," in Scotland of "not proven." To revert for a moment to a point on which we have already touched — namely, the Dauphin's conspiracy of 1446, even if we should suppose Louis to have instigated the attack upon his wife with a view to the furtherance of his nefarious aims, we cannot with fairness involve du Tillay in the full shadow of his guilt. Du Tillay's name was never coupled with that con- spiracy. He was rather the blind, perhaps the well- intentioned, instrument of an unscrupulous master. We may, without injustice, brand his conduct as unworthy of a gentleman of France ; it would perhaps be unfair to gibbet him as a criminal. As for our unfortunate heroine, her innocence is beyond reasonable doubt. There is scarcely a word in all the evidence, that could with any justice suggest that she was faithless to her faithless husband. Foolish she may have been with the folly of a romantic girl. The love of poetry may have had a share in her death in more senses than one. She was careless of her health, she was perhaps over-rash and impulsive in her emotions. But wisdom and a well-balanced judgment were rarely a portion of the heritage of the Stewarts. Even her father, undeniably great as he was, had not the highest political wisdom. And like her more famous and more tragic kinswoman, who a century later was also a Dauphin's bride, she never had a THE PRINCESS MARGARET OF SCOTLAND 45 fair chance in the struggle of life. Wedded to a false hus- band, set in the midst of a licentious court she may well be accounted happy, if she gave no true cause for scandal ; to have escaped it altogether would have been blessedness unlooked for indeed. For if, perhaps, she had some of the weaknesses of the Stewarts, she had their full dower of charm. Historians almost without exception have passed a sympathetic verdict upon her ; her memory is fragrant in the pages of the French chroniclers; and her sad death was the subject of many an elegy — nay, was actually sung by a Stewart princess herself. ^ One thing alone was wanting to her — true love. Had this been granted to her, she had not been "done to death by slanderous tongues." For her epitaph we may quote the simple comment of the chronicler. **At this time also my lady the Dau- phine died, which was great pity, for she was a noble lady." ' So we take leave of ''Marguerite la Madeleine".^ She is a slight figure seen only here and there through gaps in the hurrying crowds, that throng this stirring period of 1 In the poem by her sister, Isabella of Brittany, referred to some pages back. It is a work of no literary and very small historical value. It is quoted in full in Michel's " j^cossais en France." 2 As to the authorities to whom I have referred for this slight sketch of the Dauphine, Margaret of Scotland, I am particularly indebted to the History of Charles VII. by M. du Fresne de Beaucourt and to M. Jusserand's Romance of a King's Life. I have also consulted the reports of the three inquiries into the conduct of Jamet du Tillay, together with the Narration of Regnault Girard, which are to be seen in the National Library of Paris. These last two works form the mainstay as regards the evidence concerning the life of this little known princess. In addition to this, du Fresne de Beaucourt's edition of Matthieu de Coucy, and the Chronicle of Jean Chartier give some useful information. Michel's account of the Dauphine seems to be taken almost word for word out of the imaginative and grossly inaccurate account by Le Roux de Lincy in his Femmes CeVebres. 3 Whether there is any real authority for this title, is uncertain. It may merely be based on the fact that in the key to a secret code used by the Duke of Burgundy in his intercourse with one of his secret agents, she is signified by this pseudonym. 46 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES history. Her kinswomen in whose company she finds herself to-day, are stronger figures, with a wider and more important sphere in hfe. They move in politics, she was merely the martyr to callous policy, "Et ceci n'est pas autre chose Que I'histoire d'un pauvre enfant." ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA DAUGHTER OF JAMES VI. AND I. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA. To face p. 49. II ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA, DAUGHTER OF JAMES VI. AND I. As a link in the Genealogy which connects the House of Hanover with the House of Stuart, the name of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, is not unfamiHar to her countrymen. Slightly less adventitious and more personal is the additional fame which still clings to this daughter of King James I., as "The Mistress" to whom was dedicated one of the most beautiful lyrics in the English language. For it was the sight of Elizabeth in 1620, during her one year's reign in Bohemia, that inspired Sir Henry Wotton to give voice to his admiration in the following well-known verses : "You meaner Beauties of the Night That poorly satisfie our Eies More by your number than your light; You Common people of the Skies, What are you when the Sun shall rise? "You Curious Chanters of the Wood, That warble forth Dame Nature's layes. Thinking your Voyces understood By your weake accents; what's your praise When Philomell her voyce shal raise? "You Violets, that first apeare. By your pure purpel mantels knowne. Like the proud Virgins of the yeare. As if the Spring were all your own ; What are you when the Rose is blowne? 52 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES and had for the time relinquished her intrigues with the Scottish malcontents? For seven years the child grew up in the Palace of Linlithgow, under the care of Lord and Lady Livingston. Then, in 1603, came the good news that Queen EHzabeth was at length dead. James was summoned to fill the empty throne ; and preparations were at once begun for the mi- gration of the royal family to England. Henceforth the romance of Stuart history was to be displayed upon a more conspicuous stage. The journey south must have been a strange experience for the little Elizabeth. Some portions of the route were traversed in the company of her festive mother. But it was for the most part in solitary grandeur that the seven year old Princess, followed by her own train of attendants, lumbered slowly along the dreary Great North Road. Edin- burgh was left behind on June 3rd. At Berwick there occurred a sad parting with Lady Livingston. " Oh Ma- dam!" EHzabeth is said to have sobbed to the Queen, ** nothing can ever make me forget one I so tenderly loved." ^ However, regret at leaving her Scottish friend and her Scottish nursery doubtless soon gave way to a wondering interest at the attentions and the crowding curio- sity of her father's new subjects. After a month's journey EHzabeth rejoined her parents and her elder brother, Prince Henry, at Windsor. There was a pleasing homeliness about the family life of the first Stuart King of Great Britain. James and his wife, Anne of Denmark, were not indeed a well-assorted pair. The King himself, could have but Httle in common with his wife, a silly woman, absorbed in her own petty jealousies and frivolities. In his uncouth character the heavy learning 1 "Memoirs of the Queen of Bohemia," by "One of her Ladies," p. 43. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 53 of his tutor Buchanan awkwardly jostled with the wit and spirit of his mother, the passionate Mary Queen of Scots. But James was naturally warm-hearted; and was glad to humour both the Queen herself and their children. An excellent insight into this family life is provided by the ''Memoirs" of Elizabeth's girlhood, which were written by one of the Princess's Scottish companions in her old age. ^ This lady gives the following account of Elizabeth's reunion with James at Windsor. " My young Mistress, (she was then but seven years old) who was very fond of her Father, expressed her joy at seeing him again, in so endearing a manner as gave him great pleasure; after giving her a thousand pretty toys, he shewed her the Dauphin's picture, and asked her how she would like him for her husband 1 **She made him no answer, but coloured and ran into the next room, where 1 was waiting with some of the Queen's ladies. She whispered to me, that she had a great secret to tell me; and when we were alone, she told me what the King had said to her, and that the Dauphin's picture was the prettiest face she had ever seen, but charged me not to tell even her brother, that she had said so." ^ We see James again in a good humour two days after the family reunion at Windsor. Elizabeth had been watch- ing from a recess of St. George's Hall the state dinner which followed the installation of Prince Henry as a Knight of the Garter, and after the dinner she had joined the Queen, who was receiving her new subjects. Thereupon James jovially asked Lord Southampton and others " if they did not think his Annie looked passing well ; and my little Bessy too (added he, taking his daughter up in his arms 1 Vide "Note" on the "Memoirs" at end of chapter. 2 Memoirs, pp. 51 — 2. 54 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES and kissing her) is not an ill-faured wench, and may outshine her Mother one of these days." ^ After the Princess had been a few months at the EngHsh Court, the *'camp volant" as it was called by an exhausted Secretary of State; " James decided that her health could no longer stand the strain, and that her newly appointed guardians, Lord and Lady Harington, would do well to educate the girl in the seclusion of their country seat. Elizabeth had already made friends in England; and the parting with her cousin Arabella Stuart and the other relatives at court was sorrowful enough : but when it came to saying good-bye to Prince Henry *' she hung about his neck, crying and repeating a hundred times, * I cannot leave my Henry.* " ^ Henceforward Elizabeth was established at Combe Abbey near Coventry, and with her were several daughters of Scottish and English nobles, two Percies, a Devereux (daughter of Queen Elizabeth's Earl of Essex), a Hume, a Bruce, and the writer of the Memoirs — to whom we owe a happy picture of their life in this peaceful Warwickshire home. The Princess's room in the old monastery looked out over brilliant flower-beds: beyond was a green EngHsh lawn, and in the distance an artificial river that disappeared among the neighbouring woods. ** Nothing took the Prin- cess's fancy so much as a little wilderness at the end of the Park, on the banks of a large brook which ran winding along, and formed in one place a large irregular basin, or rather a small lake, in which there was an island covered with underwood and flowering trees and plants, so well mixed and disposed that for nine months in the year they formed a continual spring." ^ This place the Princess took 1 Memoirs, pp. 56 — 7. 2 Nichol's 'Progresses,'* vol. i., p. 272. Cecil to Shrewsbury, Sep. 17, 1603. * Memoirs, p. 107. * Memoirs, pp. 112 — 3. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 55 for her own, and here in an aviary, the back and roof of which were formed of natural rock, she collected birds of every species and of every country. In the wilderness and wood Lord Harington built *4ittle wooden buildings in all the different orders of architecture;" and in these were scattered paintings of divers races, and stuffed skins of all sorts of animals, *'so that this was a kind of world in miniature. Adjoining the wood were some meadows, which were afterwards added to what the Princess called 'her Territories', and this, 'her Fairy-farm', from its being stocked with the smallest kind of cattle from the isles of Jersey, Shetland and Man." ^ If the park of Combe Abbey was the right place to give Elizabeth health of body, its owner was certainly the man to develop her health of mind. James had shown true wisdom in raising Harington to the peerage on his acces- sion, and in then entrusting to him the up-bringing of his daughter. A man of science and a man of religion, withal a courtier and a sportsman, Harington was no unworthy contemporary of F^rancis Bacon. His interest in every sphere of knowledge gave him a breadth of view which prevented him from belonging to either the school of thought which culminated in Cromwell, or that which culminated in Laud. And it was to Harington that Elizabeth owed the stock of philosophy and religion that carried her through life. It was one of James's maxims " That even a man who was vain and foolish, was made more so by learning, and as for women, who, he said, were all naturally addicted to vanity, where it did one good it did harm to twenty; he therefore charged Lord Harington not to attempt to make the princess a Latin or Greek scholar (as had been usual for women, especially those of high birth, in the pre- * Memoirs, pp. 121 — 124. 56 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES ceding age), but to endeavour to make her truly wise by instructing her thoroughly in religion, and by giving her a general idea of history. " * The king's intructions were sensibly carried out by Har- ington. ** Religion" was expounded at short morning and evening prayers; and special resident masters equip- ped the princess with the ordinary ''polite accomplish- ments" of a young lady; but the bulk of the instruction was imparted informally and without being obtrusively labelled work. Thus the learning of history and geography became a game in which pictured cards had to be shuf fled and arranged. Or *'if a butterfly or glow-worm took her eye, some account was given her of their nature, and of the wonderful changes most of them go through."^ The children would delight to look at these insects through the newly discovered microscope, or at the stars through Lord Harington's wonderful telescope ; and at such times their guardian would denounce the astrology which was still the fashionable belief of the age, or he would explain to them the new views of Copernicus. Then the children would think he was laughing at them, and Harington would not be satisfied till all the motions of the earth had been made clear. At other times the birds and flowers would suggest to Harington moral lessons ; or from the views of Copernicus he would branch off to the statements of the Old Testament, to discuss the divine purpose in the gradual revelation of the secrets of nature. It is satisfactory to be assured that the children understood what their guardian had to tell them, and that of them all, Elizabeth — though she was not told so at the time — proved herself the quickest, and the clever- est.^ These were happy days for Elizabeth at Combe 1 Memoirs, p. 109. 2 Memoirs, p. 115. 3 Memoirs, pp. 116 — 119. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 57 Abbey; days beginning early with visits to her ** Fairy- farm", filled with an abundance of exercise in the fresh air, as the Princess played on her territories, tended her pets, or adorned her grotto with moss and shells, and ending with music or dancing. Already she was playing the queen ; for her court she had her six companions, while twice a week the children of the neighbouring families were admitted to **her drawing-rooms;"^ of grooms and ladies-in-waiting there was a large train at the Abbey ; for her subjects there were the farmers' daughters whom she caused to be dressed as shepherdesses, and a pauper family whom she had established on her territories as keepers of her beasts and birds. Occasionally, too, she had her state functions; as when in 1604 she paid a solemn visit to the city of Coventry, was received by the Mayor and Aldermen, and was treated to a sermon and a dinner.' Clearly, the eight year old Elizabeth was a most gracious Httle queen, everybody petted her, and she, for her part, was fond of everybody. But already she had to learn, that in playing the part of a Queen there are material difficulties. The writer of her childhood's biography tells a story which shows that she was the same over-generous, extravagant creature from the first, which she remained to the last years of her life. "For a great while she spent her money long before the next quarter was due — nay, sometimes before the first week was out. Once in particular, I remember she laid it all out within three days after it was paid in, in a heap of trinkets which she had divided amongst us, but chiefly between Lady Lucy Percy and myself. Lord Harington who had observed it in silence, purposely brought to her some curiosities, that were to be sold, one morning that some 1 Memoirs, p. 161. 2 Nichol's " Progresses of James I.," vol. i., p. 429. 58 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES young ladies of the country were to be presented to her, to whom, he told her, it would be proper she should make a present of some of those rarities ; and to make her dis- tress the greater, presented her a moving petition of a decayed gentleman's family; this obliged her to own her money was all gone." ^ She begged her guardian to advance the money out of her next quarter's allowance. He replied by warning her against the practice of ever anticipating her income, and promised to assist the dis- tressed family himself. " This was a little mortification to the Princess: Lady Lucy Percy and I asked her leave to return what she had so lavishly given us that she might bestow them on the strangers; this she refused with some scorn, telling us, she never took back what she had given ; but recollecting that our offer proceeded from affec- tion, she burst out a-crying, and said, she would accept of any thing from such friends, but that those baubles would be despised by those who did not know and love her, and that if Lady Harington would let her, she had rather give some of her jewels." ^ The peaceful round of Elizabeth's country life was broken in the November of 1605 by the alarm of the Gunpowder Plot. Combe Abbey was in the centre of the conspirators' country ; and they had planned to capture her and declare her Queen in her father's stead. It is an oft-told tale, how Sir Everard Digby invited the Catholic gentlemen of the neighbourhood to a meet at Dunchurch ; how this party was to have hunted no smaller game than the Princess herself ; and how Lord Harington received warning of the plot only just in time to place her in safety at Coventry. We have the latter's own account of the episode in a letter 1 Memoirs, pp. 123 — 6. 2 Memoirs, 127. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 59 addressed to his cousin: **Our great care and honourable charge entrusted to us by the King's Majesty, hath been matter of so much concern, that it almost effaced the atten- tion to kyn or friend. With God's assistance we hope to do our Lady Elizabeth such services as is due to her prince- ly endowments and natural abilities; both which appear the sweet dawning of future comfort to her Royal Father. The late divilish Conspiracy did much disturb this part... I went with Sir Fulk Greville to alarm the neighbourhood and surprize the villains, who came to Holbach; was out five days in peril of death, in fear for the great charge I left at home. Her Highness doth often say, 'What a queen should I have been by this means 1 I had rather have been with my Royal Father in the Parliament House than wear his Crown on such condition.' This poor Lady hath not yet recovered the surprize, and is very ill and troubled." * About the Christmas of 1608, after five happy years at Combe Abbey, Elizabeth returned to Whitehall, and was given an establishment of her own at court. According to modern ideas, it was a ridiculously early coming out. But the children of those times, when they left the nursery, were made to talk and behave, just as they were made to dress, like elderly gentlemen and elderly ladies. The twelve year old Elizabeth was probably as staid as she was ever destined to become ; nor was she lacking in self- assurance. The first impressions of the French Ambassador were very favourable : she is ** full of virtue and merit, handsome, engaging, very well bred, and speaks French exceedingly well, much better than her brother." - But although the Cock-pit of Whitehall was assigned to Elizabeth ^ Lord Harington to Sir James Harington: Nichol's "Progresses," vol. i., pp. 890 — 2. 2 La Boderie's Report. Raumer. "History of the Sixteenth and Seven- teenth Centuries," vol. ii., p. 227. 6o FIVE STUART PRINCESSES and she was given a regular establishment of her own, the change was not far-reaching. Lord and Lady Harington were still kept by her side to manage her affairs, and she passed most of her time in the country at Hampton Court or at Kew, where she had leisure to continue her lessons in music, French, and Italian. And it was well for her that she was still under the influ- ence of Lord Harington in her new surroundings. It was well, not because the Court at this time was especially disso- lute; for the ill repute which clings to the Court of James I. in so far as it is not the mere invention of a later age, is traceable to the causes celebres which distinguished the latter half of the reign. The old-fashioned view which regarded the accession of James as initiating the decline of morality is thoroughly misleading. These early years of the 17th century are rather the flowering season of the Elizabethan age — both of what was ill and of what was admirable in that many-sided epoch. Freed from all wars or dangers from abroad, undisturbed as yet by serious trouble at home, England, growing every year richer in material wealth, and in literature, was now, if ever, genuinely "merry." All classes were turning to enjoy themselves as whole-heartedly as they had previously set themselves to fight the Spaniard. Nor was there ever a jollier pedant than the King himself. Royally "Hberall of what he had not in his own gripe", ^ too lazy ever to say his friends ''Nay," James always loved to see those around him happy. At court the amusements though harmless, were not for the most part of a high order. Following the example of the silly Queen, the order of the day was for "foolery" and extravagance. This then, is the reason for which it was well for the young Elizabeth that she continued under * Secret History of the Court of King James I., vol. ii., p. 7. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 6i Harington's guardianship : it probably saved her — giddy and impressionable as she was by nature —from becoming as wholly frivolous as her empty-headed mother. The strong influence which the teaching of Harington exercised over the mind of Elizabeth, is apparent in some childish verses which were written by her soon after her first taste of the life at court. A few stanzas are sufficient to show the tenour of the whole poem : "This is joy, this is true pleasure, If we best things make our treasure And enjoy them at full leisure, Evermore in richest measure. II God is only excellent, Let up to him our love be sent; Whose desires are set or bent On aught else shall much repent. m Why should vain joys us transport? Earthly pleasures are but short— And are mingled in such sort, Griefs are greater than the sport. IX And regard of this yet have Nothing can from death us save. Then we must into our grave, When we most are pleasure's _slave. By long use our soules will cleave To the earth: then it we leave; Then will cruell death bereave, All the joyes that we receive. 62 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES XI Thence they goe to helHsh flame, Ever tortur'd in the same, With perpetuall blott of name : Flowt, reproach, and endless shame." After describing in a similar fashion the ease and plea- sures of heaven, the Princess continues: XVII "Are these things indeed even soe? Doe I certainly them know, And am I so much my foe, To remayne yett dull and slowe? XXII That I hereon meditate, That desire, I finde (though late) To prize heaven at higher rate. And these pleasures vayne to hate. XXIV Since in me such thoughts are scant Of thy grace repayre my want. Often meditations grant. And in me more deeply plant." ^ If these verses show how carefully Lord Harington had instilled into his pupil's mind serious ideas on life, they none the less reveal that natural inclination for dissipation 1 Harington, Nugse Antiquae, vol. iii., p. 303. Mrs. Everett-Green has suggested that the verses were written "under the chastening influence of Elizabeth's first great sorrow," the death of Prince Henry. The suggestion, however, seems scarcely to be confirmed by the actual words of the poem, and is altogether at variance with the endorsement which runs as follows : — " This was written by Elizabeth, d. of K. J., 1609, and given to Lord Harington of Exton, her Tutor." ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 63 and the "earthly pleasures" which was to increase as she grew older. It was no wonder that she should find the amusements of the court fascinating. She would be able to appreciate those games of the Queen and her ladies, which made the more serious and elderly Arabella Stuart complain that she was expected to ** play the child." ^ The varied diversions of the court would seem to the young Princess always fresh and exciting — the new shops in the Strand, the bear-baitings at the Tower, the receptions of foreign ambassadors and the other state functions of every description. ^ But more than all she would probably enjoy the gorgeous, fantastic Masques, those marvellous entertain- ments, half pantomime, half opera, to the contrivance of which the great men of the age devoted so much of their intellect, and in the production of which the courtiers consumed such quantities of their time.' The Christmas of 1609 was celebrated by a great tour- nament. Here Prince Henry who had challenged the young nobles, proved his manhood by breaking several pikes against them. Elizabeth herself had been chosen as " Queen of the Barriers" by her brother. It was an entertainment typical of the times. When the jousting was ended, a performer dressed as Merlin stepped forward, and, inspired by Ben Jonson, thus addressed King James : — "You and your other you, Great King and Queen, , Have yet the least of your bright fortune seen, Which shall rise brighter every hour with time, And in your pleasure quite forget the crime Of change ; your age's night shall be her noon : And this young Knight '* that now puts forth so soon 1 Inderwick, "Sidelights on the Stuarts," p. 87. 2 Elizabeth constantly attended these functions, vide Nichol's " Progi esses," vol, ii., passim. 3 For an admirable short account of the Masques of the period vide Masson's "Life of Milton," (Ed. 1881), vol. i., p. 578. * Prince Henry. 64 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES Into the World shall in your names achieve More garlands for this State, and shall relieve Your cares in government ; while that young Lord ^ Shall second him in arms, and shake a sword And lance against the foes of God and you. Nor shall less joy your Royal hopes pursue In that most Princely maid ^ whose form might call The world of war, to make it hazard all His valour for her beauty; she shall be Mother of Nations, and her Princes see Rivals almost to these." ^ It is a strange jumble — this prophecy of Jonson— in which hidden truth consorts with fiction. The festivities were carried on up to the following night when Elizabeth gave away the prizes ; after which function, though the King himself went off to bed, and it was past midnight, the young Prince and Princess stopped up for a two hours' comedy; nor even then would they retire until Henry had twice taken his sister round the long table, laden with the supper which he had prepared for the nobles, and had shown her the windmills and dryads and planetary systems, that adorned the board, all wonderfully fashioned in sweetmeat. Six months later the creation of Henry as Prince of Wales was celebrated with yet greater festivities. There was a Masque, called ''Tethy's Festival," in which Elizabeth took part as the "Nymph of the Thames." Her dress was of sky-coloured taffetas with the " long skirt wrought with lace, waved round about like a river; while from a great mother-of-pearl shell on her head hung a thin, waiving vaile."* 1 Prince Charles. 2 Princess Elizabeth. 3 Nichol's 'Progresses," vol. ii., pp. 281 * Ibid., vol. ii., p. 354. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 65 We see from one of her letters to Henry that this ** weighty affair" had been occupying her mind for some time. She writes: — "Monsieur mon frere, Mes lettres vous suivent par tout. Je desirerois qu'elles vous fassent aussi aggreables que frequentes. Je sgay bien qu'elles ne contiennent aucun subjet d'importance qui les puisse rendre recommendables, si ce n'est que V[otre] A[ltesse] me permette de vous dire que le temps d'estudier le balet s'approche. Puis done que c'est un affaire de poids qui semble requerir votre presence prompte? Je supplieray V. A. de vous disposer a quitter bien tost les campagnes de ce pais la, pour visiter, "Monsieur mon frere, Votre soer tres affectionne et servante tres humble, "Elizabeth."^ The friendship between Elizabeth and her brother is the most striking feature of these years. The reality of their affection is not indeed to be discerned in the polite and stilted declarations of their correspondence, much of which — together with their early letters to their parents— seems in its beautiful copy-book writing to Ijave been merely a form of educational exercise. But even amid this formality there are occasional passages which reveal the actual rela- tions between the correspondents ; for instance, in one letter Elizabeth playfully begins to quote Italian: "Je vous en envoye mille graces et vous dis brivement que je sens un extreme contentement de votre retour por dega, et cosa e bella e finita, si vous n'entendez mon Italien je vous en donnerai I'interpretation a notre prochaine rencontre, en centre echange de celle que me promettez de votre latin." ' It was natural that Elizabeth should have been devoted 1 Harl. MS. 6986, f. 117. » Elizabeth to Prince Henry, 1610, Harl. MS. 6986, f. 117. 66 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES to her brother, for his was a most attractive personality. Bacon has left us his impressions of the boy. "In body," he says, *'he was strong and erect, of middle height, his limbs gracefully put together, his gait kingHke, his face long and somewhat lean, ... in countenance resembling his sister as far as a man's face can be compared with that of a very beautiful girl His forehead bore marks of severity, his mouth had a touch of pride ; and yet when one pene- trated beyond these outworks, and soothed him with due attention and reasonable discourse, one found him gentle and easy to deal with." ^ At the present day we cannot "penetrate beyond those outworks" better than by quoting the following character- istic letter which he wrote in 1609 to "his dear freind Sir John Harington," the only son of Elizabeth's guardian: — "My Good Fellow — I have here sent you certaine matters of anciente sorte, which I have gained by searche in a musty vellome booke in my Father's closet, and as it hathe great mentione of youre ancestry, I hope it will not meet your displeasure. It gave me some paines to reade, and some to write also, but I have a pleasure in over- reaching difficult matters. When I see you (and let that be shortlie) you will find me your better at Tennis and Pike. Good Fellow, I write your friend Henry. Your Latin Epistle I much esteem and will at leisure give answer to." ^ There was no doubt of Henry's pride. Perhaps there was a danger of this young prince— with his fines for those attendants whom he caught using bad language — allowing his pride to become priggishness. But his character was redeemed by its high purpose. Fired by Raleigh's History of the World, the boy had resolved that he would 1 Bacon's Works (Spedding's Edition), vol. vi., pp. 327 — 8. 2 Nugae Antiquoe, vol. iii., p. 305. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 67 one day be himself a great king; and already he was laboriously training himself for the task. It was with this idea that he would, four or five times a day, don his armour, and practise with the sword or pike, or, making friends with Phineas Pett the master-builder, would super- intend the construction of the new ships for the much neglected navy. But in spite of all this seriousness of purpose, his energy was constantly overflowing in channels more natural to boyhood. " His other exercises," writes the Prince's Tutor, *' were dancing, leaping, and in times of year fit for it, learning to swimme, at sometimes walking fast and farre, to accustome and enable himself to make a long march when time should require it ; but most of all at Tennis play, wherein, to speake the truth, which in all things I especially affect, he neither observed moderation nor what appertained to his dignity and person, continuing oft times his play for the space of three or four hours, and the same in his shirt, rather becoming an artisan than a Prince." ^ It was through her love of sport that Elizabeth could most naturally share her brother's interests. Still, as at Combe Abbey, she had about her her dogs and monkeys and par- rots. Sir John Harington the elder — "the merry blade" of the court — tells us that his dog **Bungey", so famous for its "good deeds and strange feats," "did often bear the sweet words" of the Princess "on his neck."^ The brother and sister would often give each other presents of horses. Elizabeth had now begun hunting in the King's deer forests ; and the Prince so often called for her to ride with him that poor Lord Harington, who had to ^ "Life of Prince Henry" by Cornwallis, Somer's Tracts, vol. ii., p. 221 ; also "Life" by Birch, and "Letters to King James the Sixth," printed by the Maitland Club, 1835. 3 Nichol's "Progresses," vol. ii., p. 197. 68 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES attend her, was frequently fain to apologise for failing to discharge his other duties. ^ Scarcely a day passed with- out the two children seeing each other, either by visiting each other's palaces, or by boating on the Thames, or going down to Gravesend together to see Henry's "great ship" on the stocks, and to be entertained by Mrs. Pett. Henry, however, had no intention of spoiling the Princess as others were doing; he would sometimes tease her, or frighten her with ghost stories before she went to bed;^ but it was doubtless for her own good, for on one point all contemporaries were agreed, that though he was obedient to his parents, and though fond of ** Baby Charles ", his weak little brother, he nevertheless "did extraordinarily affect his sister and loved her above all others."^ When the Lady Elizabeth had been some two or three years at court, all Europe began anxiously to busy itself in providing her with a husband. It was a complicated subject, and revived the questions of foreign poHcy which had puzzled Englishmen in the preceding reign. Should England definitely assume the leadership of Protestant Europe ? or should she maintain her position on the conti- nent by an attitude of balance, of mediation? In favour of the former policy was the great majority of the nation — those of every class to whom hatred for Spain was the first and great commandment. As upholders of the latter policy there were but a few Politiques, though they were chiefly found amongst those in high places. James himself, however, was a waverer, drawn one way by his strong Protestantism, and in the opposite direction by his own 1 Cal. Dom. 1609, Oct. 25. 2 Miss Strickland's "Queens of Scotland." p. 3 1 ; Miss Strickland quotes no authority except tlie " traditions of Ham Palace." ' Chamberlain to Carleton, Nov. 12, 1612, "Court and Times of James I." ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 69 shrewdness and freedom from popular prejudices. For long he was possessed with the noble idea of healing the religious dissensions in Europe by mating at least one of his children to a Catholic ; and so when the chance of a French marriage for Elizabeth was removed in 1610 by the assassination of Henry IV., James for a time seriously considered the idea of a marriage with a Prince of Savoy, or one of the Medici, or even Philip III. of Spain himself. ^ But he gradually learnt — and he ought to have remembered it in his old age when he wanted to marry Charles to the Infanta — that honest toleration was impossible to Romanists. Accord- ingly, nothing remained for him but to secure the best Protestant aUiance that offered. There was no danger of any want of offers. Elizabeth would have secured these, even had she not been the only daughter of the greatest Protestant monarch. In features she was handsome without being remarkable; her long oval face was crowned with rich dark hair ; her nose, which resembled her father's, was somewhat big and aquiline ; but her eyes were large, and her mouth sympathetic. " Alto- gether with her abounding health, her graceful figure and her pretty impetuosity of manner, she may well have been — as in fact all contemporaries were agreed she was — a thoroughly attractive creature. Most of the Protestant suitors who dreamt of winning the Lady Elizabeth's hand were clearly of insufficient rank — two aspiring Howards ; Maurice, Prince of Orange, and some smaller German Princelets. Gustavus Adolphus, the heir of Sweden and already a youth of promise, might probably have been accepted, had not his father been at war with James's brother-in-law, the King of Denmark. And so it 1 Gardiner, Hist, of England. (Ed. 1883), vol. ii., pp. 23, 136 — 141 ; Hist. MS. Com., Xth Report, p. 557. ' Cf. Miss. Strickland, "Queens of Scotland," vol. viii., p. iii. 70 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES was largely by a process of exhaustion that the suitor who was finally chosen was the Prince who had been born three days before Elizabeth. Although not of royal blood, his political status was considerable. Having succeeded his father in 1610, he had become Frederic the Fifth, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, and — what was more — the head 01 the German Union of Protestant Princes. James might there- fore reckon on the marriage being thoroughly popular with his Protestant Parliament, and might reasonably hope for a substantial expression of gratitude to fill his empty treasury. To Frederic's guardians, on the other hand, the alliance which promised strength and prestige to the Palatine family and to the Protestant Union was a splendid prize. They had only one fear, that Elizabeth '*by reason of her great birth, would introduce customs of her own education, of too high a flight for their usance to permit." ^ Their apprehensions, however, were soothed: it was agreed that Elizabeth's followers should be restricted to 36 men and 13 women; and James promised, in addition to a dowry of =£40,000, a liberal yearly allowance. By the summer of 161 2 everything had been arranged, and EHzabeth was promised to the young Elector. They were most suitably matched. Frederic, like Elizabeth, had been brought up apart from the influences of a large court. At Sedan, under his uncle the Due de Bouillon, he had received a sound Protestant education. If he had been nourished on larger doses of Latin and a stricter Calvinism than Elizabeth, he had not the less developed a healthy capacity for enjoying the sports and pageants, and the good things of this earth. At present Frederic's Sedan educa- tion seemed merely to have resulted in the production of a somewhat heavily cultured, well-mannered young Prince. 1 Edmondes to Salisbury, Sep. 20, 161 1, quoted in Everett-Green, vol. v., p. 182. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 71 Later years were to reveal to the full, the disastrous effect on his weak will of the influence of Henry de la Tour d'Auvergne, Due de Bouillon, the chief of adventurers, the exploiter of his fellow Huguenots, the disturber of three French reigns, the man who, with all his military and diplomatic ability, with all his Calvinism and all his culture, spent his life in playing with intrigues and rebellion. But for the present there was small fear of future troubles. Frederic utihsed the months which had to elapse before he could appear at the English court, in perfect- ing his dancing and deportment. At intervals he wrote elegant nothings in French to Elizabeth and his future relatives, to which the latter replied in letters equally ele- gant and equally empty. The Princess was pleased with the match, chiefly because it delighted her brother with his vigorous hatred of Spain. The story ran that when Queen Anne, disappointed that her daughter was not to marry a king, jeeringly called her " Goodwife Palsgrave", Elizabeth declared in spirited fashion : " I would rather espouse a Protestant Count than a Catholic Emperor." The Elector was expected to reach England early in the autumn of 16 12. The late summer found James, as usual, making a progress through the country, securing his hunting and entertainment at the expense of his loyal subjects. The progress was closed by a family reunion at Woodstock, the pleasant manor which the king a few months previously had handed over to his son. Here Henry had prepared "a most magnifique feast...; withal having ordained a great summer-house of green boughs to be built in the parke." In this summer-house on Sunday evening, the 30th of August, a great supper was served, "the King and Queen being set at a table by themselves at the upper end of the room (his Highness with his sister 72 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES accompanied with the lords and ladies sitting at another table by themselves). His Highnesse like to the princely Bridegroom, chearing and welcoming his guests, there appeared an universall contentment in all." ^ A few weeks after this happy reunion — the last of its kind — the same party was assembled in the new Banquet- ing Hall at Whitehall, waiting to receive the Elector who had reached Gravesend the night before. At length he entered the Hall, escorted by the young Charles, Duke of York. The first sight of his kindly face, thick curling hair, and downy beard and moustache made it at once clear that he had "most happily deceived good men's doubts and ill men's expectations." ^ The scene is well described in a news-letter. " His approach, gesture, and countenance, were seasoned with a well-becoming confidence ; and bending himself, with a due reverence, before the King, he told him among other compliments, that in his sight and presence he enjoyed a great part (reserving it should seem, the greatest for his mistress) of the end and hap- piness of his journey. After turning to the Queen, she entertained him with a fixed countenance; and though her posture might have seemed (as was judged) to promise him the honour of a kiss for his welcome, his humility carried him no higher than her hand. From which, after some few words of compliment, he made to the prince, and exchanging with him after a more familiar strain certain passages of courtesy, he ended (where his desires could not but begin) with the princess (who was noted till then not to turn so much as a corner of an eye towards him), and stooping low to take up the lowest part of her garment to kiss it, she most gracefully courtesying lower than 1 Nichol's "Progresses," vol. ii., pp. 462 — 3. * Fynnet to Trumbull, Oct. 23, 161 2, Winwood, vol. iii., p. 403. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 73 accustomed, and with her hand staying him from that humblest reverence, gave him, at his rising, a fair advan- tage (which he took) of kissing her." ^ Frederic had assuredly begun well. Nor did he fail to improve his initial success. A few days later it was reported that he is "every day at court, and plies his mistress so hard, and takes no delight in running at ring nor tennis, nor riding with the prince, as Count Henry [of Orange] his uncle and others of his company do ; but only in her con- versation. On Tuesday she sent to invite him, as he sat at supper, to a Play of her own servants in the Cock-pit; and yesterday they were all day together at Somerset House." " The tide of Elizabeth's happiness was flowing strong. But in the midst of her pleasure an event occurred which for the first time brought great sorrow into her life. For some weeks her favourite brother had been ailing. He was the last person to admit the fact himself; and had refused to discontinue his bathes in the Thames and forego his other exercises. But by October 25 th he could no longer struggle against his disease — a typhoid fever. On Sunday, November ist, he so far rallied that he could be visited by his family and the Elector. It was for the last time. After five more days of ceaseless tossing, this prince, the playmate of EHzabeth and the hope of England, was dead. *'The last words he spoke in good sense," the news- writer reported, ''were 'Where is my dear sister?' She was as desirous to visit him, and went once or twice in the even- ing disguised for that purpose, but could not be admitted, because his disease was doubted to be contagious." ^ It is well to remember the episode of this whole-hearted friendship between the two royal children, in the history 1 Fynnet to Trumbull, Oct. 23, 1612, Winwood, vol. iii., p. 463. 2 Chamberlain to Carleton, Oct. 22, 1612, "Court and Times," vol. i., p. 198. 3 Chamberlain to Carleton, Nov. 12, 1612, "Court and Times of James I." 74 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES of a court which too often is associated in men's thoughts only with the depravity of a Lady Essex, or the venahty of a Carr. EHzabeth never forgot her "dear dead brother." But she was very young ; Frederic was at hand to step in- to the place left empty by Henry ; and her life soon went on again, as though there had been no sad interlude. The winter of 1612 — 3 was passed in hunting and the usual amusements of the court. Elizabeth was unlucky at cards. This Christmas she lost more than .£19 to her father. When Frederic was dragged off by James to hunt at Royston, the lover used to write frequent letters to his mistress, models of propriety and worthy sentiment. The following is an example : ''Madame, ''Combien que je n'ay rien digne de vous entretenir, si suis-je contraint de vous importuner vous ressouvenir de moy, vous assurer que n'etes jamais sorti une minute de mon coeur et pensee. . . . Rendes moy digne et a vous agreable par vos loix, c'est I'unique grace de laquelle je vous importune par cette cy, car etre aime de vous, c'est le seul bien ou j'aspire, assures moy done de cela pour me donner quelque soulagement presentement en mes langueurs et toute ma vie au contentement faire vivre en repos comme celuy laquel est sans aucune excep- tion, sans aucun desir que d'etre, Madame, ''Votre tres humble, et tres obeissant, et tres fidele ser- viteur, "Frederic, E.P. ^ "De Roston [Royston] le 14 Xbre, 1612." 1 Fred, to Eliz. Dec. 14, 16 12, in Aretin, Beytrage zur Geschichte und Literatur, Bd. vii., pp. 146 — 7. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 75 Frederic found his entertainment at the English court an expensive luxury. He was anxious to return home as soon as possible with his bride. James, though loath to lose another child, at last gave his consent. On December 27th, the two were formally affianced and contracted. On Shrove Sunday, February 14th, 161 3, the wedding service was performed in the chapel at Whitehall. On both occasions the bride was overcome with laughter: in the former function owing to the bad French of the contract- ing words; in the latter from the sheer good spirits and the Hght-heartedness of her 16 years. ^ The marriage was a wonder of ceremonial and magnificence even for that extravagant age. The bride was attended by Lady Harington (who in vain tried to still her laughter) and by 16 noble bridesmaids, dressed in white satin. She herself was in cloth of silver, upon her head a crown of immense value. Her hair hung in plaits down to the waist; "be- tween every plait a roll or liste of gold spangles, peorles, rich stones and diamonds; and withal many diamonds of inestimable value embroidered upon her sleeves which even dazzled and amazed the eyes of all the beholders." ^ But the wedding itself pales into insignificance before the attendant celebrations. England and Protestant Europe gave free vent in many forms to their wild delight at the event. The plethora of "JoyfuU Nuptiall Poemes " which were poured forth, can faintly be reahsed from the knowledge that Oxford alone published 243 " Greek, Latin and Italian Epithalamia." And the hterary rejoicings were nothing compared to the spectacular demonstrations of joy which broke out in London on the Thursday before the wedding and followed the newly-married couple through ^ Chamberlain to Carleton, Dec. 31, 1612, " Court and Times of James I. ", vol. i., p. 216; Miss Strickland, vol. viii., p. 45. Nichol, vol. ii., p. 543. 76 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES England, Holland, and Germany until they at last died away in the Palatinate. London excelled in the variety and expensiveness of its welcome. For a week, without intermission, day and night, it gave itself over to entertain- ments and jollity — feastings, dances, masques, revels, tournaments, "Triumphant Sports," sham fights on the river, and "excessive bravery" of every describable kind. ^ Our sympathies go out to James, when, on Tuesday the 1 6th, the gentlemen of the Inner Temple and of Gray's Inn came by the water up to Westminster to play their masque, which, being the contrivance of Sir Francis Bacon, was to outdo all that had preceded it. But "the king was so wearied and sleepy, with sitting up almost two whole nights before, that he had no edge to it. Whereupon Sir Fr. Bacon adventured to entreat of his Majesty that by this difference he would not, as it were, bury them quick; and I hear," writes Chamberlain, ''the king should answer, that then they must bury him quick, for he could last no longer." ^ It was not till two months after the wedding that James consented to his daughter's departure, and everything was prepared for the great migration. On the loth of April, the Electress Palatine — to give EHzabeth her new title — left London, escorted by the King and the court. As the royal barges dropped down the Thames, amid the salutes of cannon from the Tower, the banks were lined with the enthusiastic Londoners, anxious to catch a last glimpse of their favourite princess. A few, indeed, were to live long enough to see her return, but under what different circumstances 1 To the 1 For interesting accounts of the celebrations vide Nichol's " Progresses," vol. ii., pp. 522 — 607; "Court and Times of James I.," vol. i., pp. 224 — 230; Everett-Green, vol. v., pp. 203 — 217. 2 Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 18, 1612 — 13, "Court and Times," vol. ., p. 228. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 77 others — to her father who left her at Rochester, and to Prince Charles who said farewell at Canterbury, she was henceforth to be but a name and a remembrance. Not till the night of the 25 th did the wind allow the party to set sail from Margate. The Elector and Electress, and the faithful Harington, who with other English nobles had been appointed as an escort to the Palatinate, sailed in the ** Royal Prince," the ship whose building had been the special delight of Prince Henry. It was proudly captained by Phineas Pett, under the command of the Earl of Nottingham, the Lord Admiral, who, in his younger days as Howard of Effingham, had defeated the Armada. Thirteen other large ships, not to mention the smaller vessels, were required to transport the various attendants and followers who numbered some 675 souls. It may well have been a brave sight to see this new Armada sweeping in crescent form across the narrow seas. ^ Behind Elizabeth faded ten happy and peaceful years of English girlhood. Before her there loomed an uncertain future in a troubled Germany. It could not be denied that Germany was troubled. In that collection of ill-fitted states, independent except in so far as they were subordinate to the ineffective and galling overlordship of the Emperor, there was an ever-growing animosity between the three religious parties — the CathoHcs, the Lutherans, and the Calvinists. Since the Counter- Reformation had begun, the Catholics from their stronghold in the South and the South- East had been the most aggres- sive party; and having recovered their hold over Bavaria and the Hapsburg lands, were pressing forward their con- quests with the assistance of the Jesuits. The Lutherans, * Germany, (States) No. 12, Public Record Office; Archseologia, vol. xii., pp. 268 — 9. 78 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES however, were still predominant in the North and North- East of the Empire. The West, therefore, was the great battle-ground of parties ; and there the Calvinists, under the leadership of the Palatine family, were vigorously bidding fbr the ascendency. The hostility between the parties was, of course, not due merely to theological differences. The Catholics aimed at restoring the status quo of 1555 by strictly enforcing of the Treaty of Augsburg; the Lutherans, accordingly, were fearing for their ecclesiastical lands that had been secularised since the treaty ; while the Calvinists realised that their very existence in the Empire was threatened. Such were the elements of discord that were disturbing Germany, and which might bring about a crisis at any moment in any corner of the land. Moreover, since the formation, in 1608, of the "Protestant Union" and the '* Catholic League," both the aggressive parties had been ready arrayed for the fight, and it had become almost certain that any local quarrel would bring about a general engagement. In the following year it had seemed at one time that the occasion for the expected outbreak had actually been given by the disputed succession to the important territories of Cleves-Julich. A powerful Protestant League had then been formed by the Union, together with Henry IV. of France, the Dutch States, and James of England. Its immediate object was the settlement of the Cleves-Julich succession ; its ultimate triumph would have involved the overthrow of the Hapsburgs. Then had come the blow of Ravaillac — fatal to the alliance as well as to Henry. The crisis had luckily been postponed by a temporary arrangement as to Cleves-Julich, and by the accession of the moderate Matthias as Emperor. The question was shelved for the time-being, but the danger of the general situation continued. To no one would the situation be more dangerous ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 79 and more difficult than to Frederic. For the last two centuries the Palatinate had taken a very active part in European politics. The influential position which the Electors had assumed, certainly was not proportioned to the extent of their territories, split up as these were, into two groups — the so-called Upper and Lower Palatinate. Of these groups neither possessed any geographical individu- ality. And, to make matters worse, large fractions of the territory had been alienated to the cadet branches of the House — the Counts Palatine of Neuburg and Zweibriicken. The leading part recently played by the Palatinate had been determined partly by its prestige as the first lay Electorate, the richness of its Rhinelands, and its command- ing geographical position on the high road to France and the Low Countries, but still more by the energetic, spirited characters of the Electors. These had placed themselves at the head of the aggressive Calvinists. A generation back, John Casimir had been found fighting the Catholics some- times in France, sometimes in the Netherlands. Our Fre- deric's father had been chiefly responsible for organising the Protestant Union. On his death its leadership, as though it were hereditary, had fallen during the minority of Frederic V. to the regent, John of Zweibriicken. But there was no doubt that the young Frederic would soon have to undertake the grievous honour himself. It was equally certain that in those threatening times he would have a most difficult course to steer, in his two-fold capacity as Elector Palatine, and chief of the Protestant Union. And what were his qualifications for the task? Elegant in person, suave in manner, Frederic was an admirable performer in the everyday courtesies of life; and, with his strong sense of honour, duty, and religion, there was no 8o FIVE STUART PRINCESSES doubt that he would make an excellent husband. But he belonged to that class of men whose virtues are as great a drawback in public life, as they are beneficial in private. At Sedan, he had learnt the refinement and the creed of the Huguenot noble; yet he had not unlearnt his German nature. He took too seriously his own importance and his Calvinism. But he had lost the strong will and the power of sustained effort natural to his countrymen. Bred to be a mere courtier, he had had no experience whatever of practical affairs. His interests lay only in the direction of the small matters of everyday life. There is no evidence to show that he had yet attempted to understand politics, or to prepare himself for the duties that lay before him. Nor was it likely that his failings would be corrected by the influence of his young wife. Elizabeth's interests and sympathies resembled only too closely those of Frederic himself. Though she was his superior in point of judgment and vivacity, she had yet to learn to control herself and her household, before she could think of helping her husband in affairs of state. Happily for themselves, however, Frederic and Elizabeth were not Hkely to disturb their minds with the difficulties of the future. The present with its bridal festivities was all-absorbing. When they were enthusiastically received, on their disembarkation, by Prince Maurice of Orange, and the Dutch Estates, such political considerations as may have arisen in their minds, cannot have been otherwise than pleasant. Amid general fetes and rejoicing, the young Elector and Electress, the representatives of the new Protestant alliance, travelled slowly from Holland, up the Rhine to the Pala- tinate. Their triumphal progress was a wonder of the age. Those who are curious to know how Elizabeth walked, like a common burgher's wife, through the streets of Flushing ; ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 8i how she left the Hague in her chariot with its four white horses, the gift of her husband; how by the time she reached Cologne the party had swollen to an army some 4,000 strong; and how she embarked at Bonn on a ship marvellous with velvet and marble and laurels — these and a thousand other details they may find in the pages of Mrs. Everett-Green, and in other works such as that whose title begins " Beschreibung der Reiss: Empfahrung dess Ritterlichen Ordens: Volbringung des Heyraths: und gliicklicher Heimfiihrung: Wie auch der ansehnlichen Einfiihrung: gehaltener Ritterspiel und Fremdenfests : des Durchleuchtigsten Hochgebornen Fiirsten und Herrn, Herrn Friederichen dess Fiinften etc. mit der auch Durchleuch- tigsten Hochgebornen Fiirstin und koniglichen Princessin Elisabethen." When the Electress reached the Palatinate the rejoicings were redoubled. The loyal Heidelbergers determined to rival all that had gone before. On June 7th, she arrived outside the town. As she passed through the Palatine army, for almost an hour the air was filled with the thunder of the cannon, and the plain with smoke. Then the procession was formed, and with the fullest state she drove through the town, and up the steep hill, under triumphal arches^ ponderous with learned allegory, stopping at intervals to receive loyal addresses from the magnates of the town and university. At length the beautiful Schloss itself was reached. Elizabeth threw her arms around Louisa Juliana, her mother-in-law, a genuine Dutch woman of many virtues and of much stolidity. Frederic carried his bride across his threshold, and led her into the great hall where her new female relatives were waiting, drawn up in two ranks, ready to be presented. 6 82 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES For a week the celebrations were continued. It was the usual round : thanksgiving services, lengthy sermons by the court chaplain, the great Scultetus; illuminations, classical masques, dinners, tournaments, running at rings, running at tubs, running at the head of a Moor. Then slowly the dissipations abated. The guests and cousins returned home, the English escort took its departure. For a time the Har- ingtons remained by the side of Elizabeth to see the arrange- ments of her new home completed. Then even the Har- ingtons left her. Lord Harington she was never to see again : the kindly old gentleman died a few weeks later at Worms, worn out and impoverished by his labours on behalf of his princess. For six years Elizabeth's life as Electress Palatine was happy and uneventful. At her disposal was everything that a heart ought to desire. She was the mistress of the Schloss on the wooded heights above the straggling town and the winding Neckar, whose cluster of red-stoned ruins is now defiled by the cosmopolitan tourist. She was surrounded by visitors from England and France, as well as by her husband's family and the nobles of the Palatinate. The court of Heidelberg compared favourably with most other German courts. It had been gradually exchanging the rudeness of the castle life of mediaeval Germany for the refinements of P'rench and Italian civilisation. Under Fre- deric IV. the change had been almost completed. The diary of that extraordinary man, at once an earnest Calvinist, a cool statesman, and a colossal drinker, gives, concisely enough, an insight into the court life that immediately preceded the regime of Frederic V. and Elizabeth. After such entries as "am i6 haben wir getanzet, am 17 wieder getanzet und maskaraden gangen, 18 wieder maskaraden gangen," the old man enters (no doubt under the influence of Louisa Juliana) many good resolutions, such as "Trinken ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 83 auf ein Vierteljahr zu verreden." ^ With the reign of Fre- deric V. and Elizabeth, the coarseness of the old order disappeared ; and the change was doubtless in some measure due to the excellent example of the Elector and Electress themselves. It was not that the court became Puritan: for straight-laced Calvinism found little favour except with Scultetus and the preachers; but the dissipations became more refined, luxury and magnificence grew apace, foreign fashions came in, and even the German language was almost ousted by the French. Thus Elizabeth's life as Electress was not very different from what it had been when she had been Princess of Eng- land. So keenly did she continue her hunting, that her astonished subjects christened her their "Diana of the Rhine." For the rest, the common round was chiefly varred by occasional visits to German Princes, and by the birth of three children: Henry Frederic in 1614, Charles Louis in 161 7, and Elizabeth in 161 8. Frederic did all that he could to make her happy at Heidelberg. He added a new " Eng- lish" wing to the Schloss. He ordered the rocky hill on which the Schloss stood, to be planted with orange trees and adorned with fountains and grottoes; and he raised her allowance for dresses. In spite of her general happiness, Elizabeth now began to receive her first schooling in troubles and worries. In the first place, her husband fell sick soon after he had reached his majority in 16 14, and this, added to the burden of his new poHtical responsibilities, made him moody and dejected. He would ** not even discourse with, caress, esteem, or speak to any one, unless compelled to it;" and poor Colonel Schomberg, the factotum of the court, used to become both afraid and ashamed when any one came near his 1 Hausser, Geschichte der rheinischen Pfalz, vol. ii., pp. 240 — i. 84 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES master. Elizabeth poured out her troubles to King James's secretary in a letter which is very different from her usual careless, complimentary messages: — ** Sir, — The Elector sending this bearer to his majesty, I was desirous to let you understand something of his estate, as of this place. Himself, at this last assembly, got an ague, which though it hath held him not long, yet hath it made him weak and look very ill: since his fits left him, he is very heavy, and so extremely melancholy, as I never saw in my life so great an alteration in any. I cannot tell what to say to it, but I think he hath so much business at this time as troubles his mind too much ; but if I may say truth, I think there is some that doth trouble him too much, for I find they desire he should bring me to be all Dutch, and to their fashions, which I neither have been bred to, nor is necessary in everything I should follow; neither will I do it, for I find there is that would set me in a lower rank than them that have gone before me; which I think they do the prince wrong in putting into his head at this time, when he is but too melancholy." * The last few sentences refer to a vexatious question which was continually cropping up during these years. James I. was chiefly responsible for the trouble. He had extorted from Frederic, just before the latter left England, a promise that Elizabeth, as the daughter of a king, should give precedence to no German princes or princesses what- soever. The claim was not justified by history : it is an instance of that petty silliness which negatives the claim of the British Solomon to real statesmanship. In this case, though Elizabeth was for a time allowed to take precedence over her husband and her mother-in-law, the privilege, instead of adding any credit to England, only tended to 1 Everett-Green, vol. v., p. 266. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 85 make the Princess and her country odious in the eyes of the Germans. At the Heidelberg court, where the question aHenated Elizabeth from the worthy Louisa Juliana and almost brought about strained relations between herself and her husband, the claim was bad enough; but when the Electress went to visit the other princes, it became intoler- able. Elizabeth herself would have been ready to give way, but James would admit no compromise, and wrote violent letters forbidding any surrender. ^ The difficulty for a time assumed quite serious proportions, but at last was unsatis- factorily shelved: Louisa Juliana retired from her son's court, and Elizabeth resolved for the present not to pay any more visits. The whole affair must have made her doubly regret that her husband had not the status of a king. Less serious but somewhat similar disputes arose in con- nection with the Englishmen who had followed Elizabeth to Germany. Some 200 of these remained at Heidelberg, even when the English Commissioners had returned home. At least half of them had no connection whatever with the Princess. They hung around the court and made them- selves generally disagreeable, consuming the Elector's sub- stance, and not concealing their poor opinion of his subjects; and, of course, Elizabeth herself was regarded as responsible for their misdeeds. It was, indeed, too true that for many of her difficulties, Elizabeth had only herself to blame. Schomberg, again and again, complains that she is culpably " facile." '* Madame allows herself to be led by anybody, and for fear of giving offence to some one, is almost afraid of speaking to any body, this makes some of her people assume a little more authority than they should do." ^ So, too, as of old, she was always running into debt. Her personal extravagance 1 Hist. MS. Com., 2nd Report, App. p. 52. ' Everett-Green, vol. v., p. 255. 86 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES was bad, but her liberality was worse. ** Every day people beg of Madame/* writes Schomberg, " and right or wrong she cannot refuse, however much she may be herself in- convenienced." ^ And again : " Madame has no resolution, no consideration, is too liberal to the unfortunate, which I call rather fear, irresolution, pusillanimity than a virtuous liberality." ' Colonel Schomberg, the writer of these criticisms, was the main prop of the whole court. He had been Frederic's right-hand man ever since his accession to the Electorate. James had recognised the colonel's honesty and ability when the latter was attending his prince in England; and on their departure the king had assigned him a pension and had appointed him to be EngHsh Agent to the pro- testant Princes of Germany. Thus Schomberg had not only to manage the Heidelberg court as the major-domo of Frederic, but had also to represent the English interests and be responsible to the English king. As he explained to James, it was a most difficult position. "Your majesty must consider that I have a young prince and princess, an administrator, mother-in-law, sisters, aunts and every one their trains ; everybody wishes to govern ; everybody believes that I do more for one than another." He might well exclaim, "Have I not a miserable life?"' Yet his efforts had their results. The English who had no business at Heidelberg were sent off, those who remained were strictly supervised, and in order to avoid the quarrels with the "Allemans", a special table was set apart for them at meals. Then Schomberg turned his attention to Elizabeth herself. He drew up a long document of candid, practical advice. 1 Everett-Green, vol. v., p. 262. 2 Ibid., vol. v., p. 268. 3 Ibid., vol. v., p. 256. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 87 A few paragraphs will be sufficient to show what was the actual condition of affairs at the court of Heidelberg. I. "Your Highness should ever seek to please God and the prince, and to reprove those who try to sow dissensions between you. 3. Never grant anything on the first request, but answer to all — *I will consider' — *I will think of it ' — * I will see,' — then if you find it reasonable, grant it of your own accord, as from a heroic liberality, and never from fear, for your highness's goodness is abused. 5. Have a wardrobe in which to put all the old dresses, and every year examine them— choose those you will not wear again, and give them as you please, but have a list kept of all, with the names of those to whom you gave them." ** For the direction of your servants : — 4. Prevent gossiping between servants of all grades; they only combine together to resist your commands: and let order and reason govern your highness, not the prattle of maids or valets, to whom you are now enslaved; and while they thus abuse your goodness, you will always be despised and lose your control over your people. 5 . Let it be known that you will be ruled by reason ; that you abhor disobedience and flattery and lying; that you will hear no tales, or importunities ; that you will have no coquetting in your presence ; that the men-servants shall keep their places at the door, so that when you want a little private conversation, you may not be obliged to retire to your bed-room or dressing-room;" etc. ^ By his indefatigable care Schomberg actually succeeded in temporarily extricating Elizabeth from her debts and difficulties. In writing to the English secretary he proudly 1 Everett-Green, vol. v., pp. 269 — 270. 88 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES summarises his achievements as follows : *' I have brought up the prince, reformed the court, installed Madame, maintained the balance proper for the preservation of their highnesses, offended everybody to serve his Majesty and Madame, and so acted that his Majesty can never with truth, hear any reproach or reflection upon these personages, though married so young, assisted so little, left, flattered by everybody ; and it is I alone who have had this burden upon my shoulders." ^ These were not empty boasts on the part of Schomberg. The value of his services to the court was fully recognised by others. In 1616 Sir Henry Wotton, then English ambassador at Venice, spent some days at Heidelberg, and sent home to James a long report as to the condition of Palatine affairs. After describing Frederic himself who ''^ par boutades is merry, but for the most part cogitative, or (as they here call it) malincolique ;'' after noticing the staid and solemn manners that prevailed at the court, and after discussing the difificulties of the question of preced ence, and the measures by which "the domestic differ- ences" had been as well settled as they could be, he commences to praise the colonel: "I must both by my own most assured information here from others and by her Highness' particular and serious commandment give your Majesty this account of him. That he is the only sincere and resolute friend that she hath found since her being here. That without his continual vigilance and power with the prince, she had been much prejudiced both in her dignity and the rest, not so much by the prince his own motions as by the infusions of others and particularly (as I conceive) of the old Electoress." ^ 1 Schomberg to Winwood, May 24, 1615, Everett-Green, vol. v., p. 277. ' Wotton's Despatch, 23 April, 1616, S. P. For.: Venice, vol. xxii.; lam indebted to the courtesy of Mr. L. Pearsall Smith for a transcript of this despatch. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 89 But Schomberg was not to bear for long the burden of his arduous duties. In 16 15, after many years of courtship, he had married Mistress Anne Dudley, Elizabeth's principal lady-in-waiting. The next year, Anne died in child-birth, and Schomberg soon followed her to the grave. To Eliza- beth the two deaths were a loss which even the hurried return of the affectionate old Lady Harington could not make good. How, it may be asked, did these deaths, how did these new responsibilities as Electress Palatine and as a mother, affect Elizabeth's character? It had been naturally sweet and merry: in these six years it should have become stronger and deeper. Yet, so far as it is possible to judge of such matters, there was no material development. Eliza- beth at twenty-three years of age appears to have been still the girl of sixteen, and in some respects almost the child of ten. This may have been simply the Nemesis of her good looks and royal rank ; the result of being everywhere and always flattered and spoiled; or perhaps it can be explained by the supposition that she had inherited some of her mother's perpetually infantile youth. Certainly her troubles and responsibilities did not make a great impression on her. Though on hearing of her mother's death, which occurred in 16 19, she does indeed tell James that "sadness weighs my heart so that it hinders me from writing as I ought," her "extreme regret" does not seem to have been of long duration, nor, considering how little she had seen of Queen Anne, need this be to her discredit. Of Anne Dudley, who had been her companion since childhood, the Princess writes: "She is a great loss to me for she was very care- ful in all that concerned me." And similarly when her other friends die she is at the most "very sorry." Her affection for her children seems similarly to have been of 90 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES a somewhat casual kind. She found her little "black baby "^ as good as a doll, or a pet. An amusing description of the Electress with her monkeys and her children was writ- ten to Sir Dudley Carleton by one of her ladies, who facetiously calls herself " the Right Reverend Mistress Eliza- beth Apsley, chief governor to all the monkeys and the dogs." — "Her Highness is very well, and takes great de- light in those fine monkeys you sent hither, which now are grown so proud as they will come to nobody but her Highness, who hath them in her bed every morning; and the little prince, he is so fond of them as he says he desires nothing but such monkeys as his own. . . . They do make very good sport, 3ind htr Highness very merry.'' ^ However, Elizabeth retained the charms and virtues as well as the childishness of her girlhood. Lord Doncaster's praises of her to James, in 1619, do not read like mere courtly flatteries: — "Concerning her Highness, I can say no more than that she is that same devout, good, sweet princess your Majesty's daughter should be, and she was ever ; obliging all hearts that come near her by her courtesy, and so dearly loving and beloved of the Prince her hus- band, that it is a joy to all that behold them." ^ During these first six years of her married life (1613 — 1619) the ''good, sweet Princess" was too much busied with the amusements and troubles of her court, to disturb herself greatly with the politics of the time. Yet it was during these same years that the Palatinate, under the weak control of her husband, was drifting into the vortex of the political storm. 1 Elizabeth to James, Dec. 14, 1615, quoted in Everett-Green, vol. v., p. 278. 2 Domestic Papers, 1618, quoted in Everett-Green, vol. v., p. 288. 3 Gardiner, " Letters and Documents illustrating the relations between Eng- land and Germany," vol., i., p. 118. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 91 When, in 16 14, Frederic came of age and took over the government of his state, and the leadership of the Protestant Union, there lay before him two alternative policies: either he could attempt to unite the Lutherans and Calvinists of the Empire in the defence of their com- mon interests, or he could help to form a more aggressive alliance, which, while resting on a broad basis of hostility to the Hapsburgs and Catholicism, should be worked mainly in the interests of Calvinism. Of the two alter- natives, the way of reconciliation was the more difficult. There had never been any love lost between the Protes- tant Union and the Lutherans; while the Calvinists of the former were democratic and cosmopolitan, the latter were aristocratic and conservative, and were controlled by John George, Elector of Saxony, a man who, in the mo- ments when he was neither hunting nor drinking, generally inclined to side with the Emperor and authority. Yet, difficult as it was, united action between the two branches of Protestantism was the only safe policy ; and it was a course that appeared practicable to Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the ablest of the Calvinists. Frederic, however, chose the more dangerous and the more showy of the alternatives. He could scarcely help his choice. Brought up by his French uncle, the Duke of Bouillon, the Huguenot who was still showing France how to make of sedition a profitable employment; a dis- ciple of his Dutch uncle, the great Maurice, arch-enemy of Romanism and the Hapsburgs; married to the daughter of the English James, the schemer who for the time being was inclined to fancy himself as the champion of Protes- tantism, Frederic naturally looked at German politics through foreign glasses, and as naturally stepped into the place marked out for him by the world as the represent- ative of the international anti-Catholic alliance. Moreover, 92 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES with his hesitating, pleasure-loving character, he was in the hands of his father's ministers — Christian of Anhalt, the Dhonas, Solms, Camerarius, — and these had already com- mitted themselves and their state to the dangerous forward policy. The Palatinate had taken a leading part in the events of 1608 — 1610, events which had shown that the Calvinists had the desire (though the death of Henry IV. had deprived them of the power) to ruin the Hapsburgs. Thus, even before the accession of Frederic V., the Palatinate had thrown down the glove to the Hapsburgs and the Catholics. For the time being, however, there existed a suspicious truce between the two parties. While the Calvinists could not recover from the defection of France, the Cath- olics were crippled by the luke-warmness of the Spanish Hapsburgs, by the existence of a powerful Protestant nobil- ity in Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, and, above all, by the want of union in their own ranks. It was out of this want of union that there arose a question around which the efforts of all parties centred. The right wing of the Catholics realised that Matthias, the reigning Emperor, was not the man to lead them to victory. They therefore placed all their hopes on Matthias' cousin, Ferdinand, Archduke of Styria and Carinthia, a pupil of the Jesuits, who had already won his laurels by the extirpation of Protestantism in his own Duchies. Their immediate object was to secure the recognition of Ferdinand as heir to Matthias, (i) in the hereditary dominions of the Hapsburgs, and (2) in the Empire. And consequently the chief aim of Frederic and the Calvinists was to prevent this recognition. If Frederic had confined himself to this aim, he would simply have been doing openly what the jealous Matthias was doing in an underhand manner. But instead of this EIJZABETH OF BOHEMIA 93 he involved his legitimate opposition in a network of adven- turous and often seditious schemes. In these matters, how- ever, Frederic was Httle more than the willing tool of his cabinet, and especially of Christian of Anhalt, who, though in name only the Governor of the Upper Palatinate, was in reality the manager of the whole Palatinate and of the Protestant Union. Christian had been originally a mere soldier. Then, when fighting for Henry IV. in France, he had embraced Calvinism and the restless politics of the Huguenots, and for the last 20 years he had been Gover- nor of the Upper Palatinate and the moving spirit of the Calvinists in Germany. He was a believer, firstly, in intrigue, secondly, in " blood and iron". A good example of the political methods pursued by the Palatine Cabinet is to be found in the negotiations which it was carrying on at the beginning of the year 161 7. One agent, Christopher von Dohna^ who had been sent to Bohemia and Austria, reported that the dissolution of the Hapsburg monarchy was at hand: that in each country there was a pretender ready to assume the crown on the death of Matthias, and that everywhere men were looking to the Union as the champion of Protestantism. A few weeks later another agent, Camerarius, was intriguing with the Bohemian nobles, who promised never to elect Ferdinand to their crown; and he then proceeded to Saxony, where he suggested to John George that Bohemia would make an admirable addition to his Electorate — a suggestion to which the Elector sensibly repHed that he had enough already, and did not wish to hazard that which he had. ^ These negotiations illustrate the futile as well as the mischievous character of the Palatine politics. Within four * Gindely, Geschichte des Dreissig Jahrigen Krieges, vol. i., pp. 186 — 8. 94 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES months, Matthias allowed Ferdinand to be brought for- ward as his heir, and the Bohemians, surprised and in- timidated, ''accepted" the CathoHc zealot as their future king. A few months later their example was followed by the Hungarians. The Palatine Cabinet struggled hard to prevent the victory of the Catholics being completed by the election of Ferdinand as King of the Romans. They implored other candidates to stand : but it was in vain. Ferdinand paid a visit to Dresden and danced with the Saxon Elector's daughter: it seemed certain that he would secure John George's vote and a majority in the Electoral College. And so, by the March of 1618, Frederic was realising that all his recent plans were failing: he saw approaching the reign of the enemy whom he had irritated with his countless intrigues : but neither he nor his advisers had any clear policy with which to meet the future dangers. It was at this point, that on March 23rd there occurred the famous " Defenestration " at Prague. The Bohemians had soon discovered the consequences of their rash acknow- ledgment of Ferdinand. It had become clear that the Hapsburg government, by questioning some of the privileges which had been won by the Protestants in 1609, was be- ginning a systematic attempt to restore the authority of Catholicism. The discontent had simmered for a time. Now, by hurling the Hapsburg ministers from the window of the Council Chamber, Count Thurn, the leader of the Bohemian agitators, suddenly committed the country to a general revolt. The event brought Germany face to face with the civil war which had been long foreseen. In its actual presence even the Bohemians themselves recoiled, and John George of Saxony was only giving expression to the general feehng when he announced that his anxiety was to ''help to put out the fire." ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 95 But to this general feeling there was one important ex- ception. By the Palatine Cabinet, strugghng in the toils of its own diplomacy, the Bohemian insurrection was wel- comed as a fortunate diversion. With redoubled energy Frederic and his councillors began once more fondly to weave across Europe their tangle of political intrigue. At the best their schemes had been shifting and opportunist. Now in the stress of the crisis Frederic seemed altogether to lose his bearings. His plans became not only wild, but contradictory. For instance, while on the one hand he undertook to act as mediator in conjunction with the Elector of Saxony, on the other hand it was he, Frederic, who repeatedly dissuaded the Bohemians from coming to terms with the enemy. Thus, again, in June 161 9, there were two Palatine agents in Bohemia, one of whom was publicly urging the Duke of Savoy's election to the vacant crown, while the other was secretly working in favour of Frederic himself. ^ At first Frederic's efforts seemed to be meeting with a certain success. It was thanks chiefly to the help of Mans- feld's troops, which he provided in co-operation with the Duke of Savoy, that the Bohemians were able in 16 18 to sweep the Austrian army almost completely from Bohemia, and in the spring of 16 19 to advance up to the very walls of Vienna. The Protestant Union, moreover, had been induced by Frederic to send an army to the Upper Pala- tinate; and there were fair expectations that greater assis- tance might be contributed by his other allies. By the summer of 1619, however, these hopes had been for the most part falsified. The Duke of Savoy was thinking better of his former engagements. James was consuming time with a useless embassy. The Protestants * Gindely, " History of Thirty Years' War," vol. i., p. 144. 96 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES of the Union were falling away. The Bohemians themselves were being driven back on Prague, and as a last resource were preparing to elect some foreigner as their sovereign, who should extricate them from their difficulties. On the other hand, the Catholics had been steadily con- solidating their strength ; and since Matthias had fortunately died in the March of 1619, they were confidently looking forward to the immediate election of Ferdinand as Emperor. In short, a year and a halfs ceaseless negotiation had only succeeded in entangling Frederic in a worse predi- cament than that in which he had been at the outset. He had encouraged the Bohemians to revolt for his own ends, and now he found himself involved in their ruin. Nor was it possible to expect that such a man as Ferdinand would ever forgive him for the part which he had recently been playing. And so during the month of August, 1619, two fateful assemblies were holding their sessions. Few can have awaited their decisions more breathlessly than did Elizabeth at Heidelberg. First came the news from the Electoral College at Frankfort: on the 28th, Ferdinand had been unanimously chosen Emperor — the Palatine proctor after vain opposition having given his vote with the others. Then came the news from Prague : the day before Ferdinand had been chosen Emperor, Frederic of the Palatinate had been elected by an overwhelming majority to the Bohemian crown which had so lately been wrested from Ferdinand. The long-drawn-out crisis had culminated. If Frederic refused the offered crown, he would acknowledge his complete defeat by the Catholics. If he accepted it, nothing could be looked for but open, bitter war, until one of the two rivals should be utterly ruined. Frederic realised now, when it was too late, the awkward- ness of the dilemma. On hearing the news at Amberg ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA 97 he at once wrote off to Elizabeth. **Les Etats de Bo- heme, " he said, **m'ont eleu unanimement pour leur Roy, ont fait des feux de joye, tire le canon. Croyees que je suis bien en peine a quoy me resoudre." ^ Although Fre- deric could persuade himself that he had not been aiming at the Bohemian crown, he knew well that he had com- mitted himself too deeply, to be able now to draw back with safety. Everyone was aware that he had been secretly supporting the Bohemians. His troops had actually attacked and scattered a Spanish force that was on its way to invade Bohemia. If he were now to desert the Bohemians, he would only be giving their common enemy an opportunity to crush G. van Prinsterer, vol. v., p. 169. MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE 213 she was doing her duty when she was merely gratifying her prejudices. That the course she took proved in the event to have been right was little else than a piece of undeserved good-fortune. In striking contrast is the conduct of the Princess Dow- ager. "Bien que la haine des principaux de Hollande contre la maison d'Orange et la derniere injure qu'ils luy out faicte luy deust donner une juste aversion contre les estats de cette province, au moings contre les chefs de ce parti, elles les caresse neanmoings ; elle ne parle de raffront qu'ils ont faict a sa maison qu'avec des termes mesures et soubs couleur de bonne politique, pour s'accomoder au temps, elle se rend complaisante a ses messieurs" . . . ^ (the passage is taken from the instruction to De Thou, written in 1657.) Although the Princess Dowager's policy is here put down to avarice, the desire to preserve her scattered properties, and the hope of a pension, we are inclined to think, as on a previous occasion, that Amelia de Solms was not moved only by selfish motives; the surrender that she made of her grandson's education later on is enough to show that she had more than an interested affection for him. And, if this be granted, we may credit her once more with a clearer insight into the politics of the time than her con- temporaries. Probably it seemed to her that little advantage could accrue to her family from a connection with a defeated and exiled house, although, attracted by the idea of a royal son-in-law, she contemplated at one moment a marriage between her daughter and King Charles, ^ until the poverty of his prospects induced her to throw him over. On the continent it was supposed naturally enough that Cromwell was each year establishing himself more firmly in his Protectorate and that he would prove the progen- ^ G. van Prinsterer, p. 171. « Ibid., p. 145. 214 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES itor of a new dynasty : whilst Charles by the disaffection of Mazarin and the Battle of the Dunes had lost all hopes of foreign intervention. Thus, to imagine that the Prince of Orange would ever become Stadtholder by his uncle's aid must have appeared little better than a fantastic dream. Nor was it likely that the old alliance between the court party and Mazarin would be able to effect anything. Cromwell has often been blamed for allying himself with France instead of with the decaying power of Spain, and so dis- turbing the European balance; but his critics entirely forget that neither Mazarin nor Louis XIV. would have dared to interfere with the Netherlands whilst Oliver was alive. ^ Indeed the dependence of the lesser Republic upon the greater was perhaps the most prominent feature of the political situation. Small blame to the Princess Dowager "if she supposed," in face of the hostility of England, that the only hope for her grandson lay in a gradual reconcihation with the Hollanders. For the time, no doubt, such a policy must have meant political extinction, but when the personal influences of Cromwell and De Witt were removed, there was no insuperable reason why the head of the House of Orange should not have returned to power, no longer as the foe of the mer- cantile interest, but as its ally and nominee. The process of assimilation might indeed have been long and difficult, but could it have been carried through, it would have established a national party and done more to restore the prestige of the United Provinces than all De Witt's secret diplomacy. If it be said that the Princess Dowager too frequently allowed her private passions and interests to turn her aside from the pursuit of these objects, it is but just to remember that her plans were so hampered 1 See Firth, "Cromwell," p. 388. MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE 215 by the ill-feeling between her and her daughter-in-law that they could scarcely have succeeded, however single-hearted she had been. Of the constant hostility between the two princesses no better illustration could be found than the quarrel which arose concerning the regency of Orange. In Nov. 1657, Mary having now attained her twenty-fifth year, the Court of Orange declared her sole Governor of the principality in accordance with her husband's will. But the Governor of the town. Count Dohna, had no intention of surrender- ing either his power or his salary. He was, moreover, a nephew of the Princess Dowager and consequently hostile to the Princess Royal. Mary, in her distress, determined to appeal to the French King, relying on the influence of her mother to further her suit. She addressed a letter to Mazarin asking for his aid and informing him of the approaching arrival in Paris of the President of the Par- liament of Orange to set forth her claims, ^ which were supported by the body over which he presided. But the Princess Dowager was not to be outdone, and also wrote to the Cardinal claiming a share of the Government for herself as the mother, and for the Elector of Brandenburg as the husband, of her daughter, the heiress-apparent to the principality. De Thou, soon after, disclosed his view of the matter in a letter to Mazarin : — ** Certainement, a dire le vray, ce seroit un grand avantage, pour le service du Roy et la seurete et repos de son Estat, et mesme pour le bien du petit Prince, qu'il n'y eut aucunes fortifications a Orange, puisqu'elles ne luy (donne que) le tiltre de sou- verain, mais, outre la jalousie que cela donne, I'entretien des garnisons luy couste plus de cinquante-mille livres, outre le revenu de ladite principaute, laquelle despence va 1 G. van Prinsterer, p. 181. 2i6 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES seulement au profit d'un des Gouverneurs. ..." * Ultimately De Thou's advice was taken and Prince William deprived of his little principality. Under pretext of seeing his cousin righted, Louis ordered Count Dohna to surrender. The Governor in reply made a bold speech affirming his eternal allegiance to the Guardians of his Prince, but very soon succumbed to a large bribe. The affair caused an outcry in the Netherlands, but it was not easy for the States-General to take any action since, as the French ambassador pointed out to them, they had been guilty of exactly similar conduct when they had seized Rees, Emeric, and Ravestin. ^ The more reasonable section of the public was forced to admit that the King of France had some justification for removing this "stone of stumbling" from the midst of his dominions. Still it was felt that the national honour had been wounded and that Prince William had been made to pay the penalty of his guardians' squabbles. Of course, each of the parties responsible for the loss accused the other. The Princess Royal laid the blame on the shoulders of Count Dohna; the Princess Dowager accused her daughter-in-law of having originated the evil by calling in the French. Impartial history would probably decide that Mary was right in her claims and wrong in her method of asserting them. Her attitude certainly compares unfavourably with that of her mother-in-law, when we recall the high-spirited reply which Amelia returned to the French envoy some months later: — "Surquoy je vous diray que je veux bien qu'on sache que les Princes d'Orange ont tousjours este serviteurs des Roys de France, mais jamais leurs subjects, et moins encore leurs esclaves, et par consequent il nous convient bien d'agir avec eux avec toute sorte de civilite, mais pas ^ G. van Prinsterer, p. 185. 2 Ibid., p. 194. MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE 217 avec des soumissions et souplesses qui pourroient estre prejudiciales et faire tort au droicts du Prince mon petit- fils." In the eyes of the Dutch, at any rate, the chief blame rested with the Princess Royal, and she incurred a corresponding amount of unpopularity. Meanwhile the Princess Dowager did what she could to repair the injury to her grandson by assuring the States- General that such treatment was only what they must expect at the hands of the French, and that the sooner they allied themselves with the Hapsburgs the better. In reality, however, the amicable understanding with France had answered very well, and the prestige of the United Provinces among the nations of Europe had not lately been so high as it was in the beginning of the year 1660. De Witt had obtained some credit for his country by intervening, in conjunction with Cromwell, to save the Protestant subjects of the Duke of Savoy ; he raised it still higher by an agreement in 1659 with England and France to put an end to the war between Sweden and Denmark. Moreover, the death of Oliver in 1658 had relieved him of a tyrannical master. At home, however, his policy of disintegration, witness his assertion that "these provinces are not one republic; each province apart is a sovereign republic and these United Provinces should not be called a republic in the singular, but federated or united republics, in the plural number," ^ had created an indefinite, but none the less real, hostility towards the new constitution. The invaluable "Instruction a M. de Thou" has only to be read in order to see how wide was the gulf between the one favoured province and its six outcast brethren. ^ It only needed an opportunity and a leader to fan the sullen discontent into a consuming rebellion. In the beginning * Seeley, vol. ii., p. 36. » Groen van Prinsterer, p. 173. 2i8 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES of 1660, indeed, De Witt seemed to have consolidated his power, but before the year was out his ascendency over the Republic was to receive a blow from which it never entirely recovered. All through this period that we have traversed the influences from abroad have controlled the domestic politics of the Netherlands. The outbreak of the constitutional struggle in England promoted the resistance of the burghers to their stadtholders, just as William's own policy had been a reflection of his father-in-law's; the im- prisonment of Conde by Mazarin provoked the imprisonment of the six members at Loevenstein ; the triumph of Crom- well, the popular champion of England, created an impres- sion favourable to De Witt, the popular champion of the sister-republic; the despotism of the Protector was the signal for the despotism of the Grand Pensionary. And so we find that the restoration of the royal line in England was the event that made certain the restoration of the House of Orange in the United Provinces. The diplomatists of past centuries rarely possessed any excessive amount of self-respect, but, as they were skilful enough to conceal their more discreditable performances, they have generally managed to exchange the severity of contemporary criticism for the tolerant, if rather cynical, judgments of a public that is prepared to forgive freely on condition of being adequately amused. Thus the conduct of the Hollanders in hearing of the revulsion of feeling in England is of unusual interest. Their sycophancy was so obvious and outspoken that we are tempted to wonder whether they were conscious of it. " Whoever is the king of Eng- land," they said, when they learnt that Charles II. was to be restored, *' be it the devil himself, we must be friends with him." Hence from the moment when Monk declared for a restoration of the monarchy, the poor outcast, who MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE 219 had been forbidden till then to enter the territories of Holland, was feasted, cheered and congratulated until the roots of the divinity that hedges a king had been entirely laid bare. It would be inexpressibly wearisome to narrate all the doings of their High Mightinesses during the few weeks that the new monarch deigned to spend among them before he entered into his kingdom. But it is natural to recall how on one occasion De Witt, who was no lover of incon- sistency, undertook to explain away the previous behaviour of himself and his party towards their distinguished visitor. **We must even admit," he said, "that for some years past interest of state has done violence to our natural in- clinations, since it was not in your august person that we found the representative of that country, and thus your Majesty may judge with what affection and zeal we shall in future cherish and maintain union and close correspon- dence between your kingdom and this republic ; since, now that we see your Majesty restored, our natural inclination and the interests of the state are united." We can imagine Charles II. replying with that easy courtesy, which was almost the only characteristic that he possessed in common with Charles I. : — " I take into consideration that you were forced to treat with people who, having revolted against my father, were equally persistent against me ; but now you will have to do with men of honour." ^ Before ten years were out he had perfected the comedy by concluding the Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV. for a joint attack upon the United Provinces. Mary was not slow to take advantage of this revulsion of feeling in favour of her family. When her brother took leave of the Estates of Holland he commended to them 1 L. Pontadis, p. 248. 220 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES especially his sister and his nephew, and begged that their interests should not be neglected. ^ De Witt was somewhat embarrassed, but replied in vague language to the effect that a Prince of Orange, who was also a nephew of the King of England, would always be the object of their solicitude. In point of fact, Charles rather overacted his part, and in the course of the next year managed to alienate some of the towns who had hitherto supported the Orange interest,^ but were fearful that the country would become a dependency of England (as was only too likely). But the immediate effect of the English restoration was to procure for Prince William a good deal of public attention and some material advantage. At Mary's instigation and under pressure from the King and the Duke of York, the Hol- landers undertook the supervision of his education, removed the legal barrier to his appointment as Stadtholder in Hol- land, and withdrew their opposition to his appointment as Captain- and Admiral-General of the forces of the United Pro- vinces. So soon as she had seen these changes accomplished Mary started to visit her brother's court. It must have seemed to her as she left the country of her adoption for that of her birth, that the waves of dis- tress and disaster had at length spent their force. Her family was once more installed in its ancestral possessions and her brother had regained a kingdom, infinitely more powerful than that which her father had lost. She had already been able to measure the effect of the returning fortunes of the Stuarts on the United Provinces. The un- popularity that had dogged her movements ever since her husband's ill-fated attempt on Amsterdam was now at any rate carefully concealed, if it was not entirely dispelled. Moreover, as the sister of the King of England, she was 1 L. Pontalis, p. 249. * G. van Prinsterer, p. 249. MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE 221 likely to be entrusted with the more delicate negotiations between the sea Powers. Nor need her expectations end here. The Estates had been persuaded to remove the legal barrier to the revival of the Stadtholderate, and her son, a clever if eccentric child, must soon be fitted to enter upon the traditional career of his family. Everywhere the clouds seemed to be breaking away with the promise of a brighter future that should be some compensation for the past. But it was not to be. Three months after Mary set foot in England, that hideous disease, which was rightly named the foe of the House of Orange, laid its hand upon her. It is possible that she might have recovered, had she been attended by any but the court physicians. As it was, the doctors, who had been held responsible for the death of the little Duke of Gloucester because they had not bled him sufficiently, did their utmost to atone for their misconduct by bleeding his sister so liberally that she was very soon incapable of fighting against her illness. She maintained, however, a perfect calm in the presence of death, and after making a will in which she commended her son and her son's interests to the care of her relations, she passed quietly away, four days after the small-pox had seized her. " I could not but admire," said the young Lord Chesterfield, who was present when she died, "her uncon- cernedness, constancy of mind and resolution, which well became the grandchild of Henry the Fourth of France." ^ It only remains to attempt to estimate Mary's character and work — to attempt, for the task is one of extreme difficulty since she was but thirty years old at the time of her death. How are we to measure fairly the value of a life that for all practical purposes lasted only ten years ? * Chesterfield Memoirs, p. 20. 222 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES How can we possibly determine what it might have been by what it was? Thirty or forty years of active service, however uneventful they may be, give us at least some- thing to lay hold of. Some principles, good or bad as the case may be, must in that time have hardened into practice; and we feel justified in inferring that only very peculiar circumstances could avail to destroy them, and that even then the destruction could not be complete. But a decade gives us nothing safe on which to base a judgment. In such cases it is eminently true that "time and circumstance and opportunity paint with heedless hands and garish colours on the canvass of a man's life; so that the result is less frequently a finished picture than a palette of squeezed tints." ^ Hence in dealing with Mary it is important to remember that we are looking rather for promise than tor performance. This essay has been so generally confined to an attempt to present the Princess Royal in relation to the history of her times that very little has been said of her as a woman. We shall not endeavour at this point to supply the deficiency now, for those who desire it will find a plenteous crop of gossip and anecdote ready to hand in the pages of Mrs. Everett-Green. But in so far as this aspect of Mary lends colour to her external surroundings we cannot afford to neglect it wholly. The licentious age in which Mary lived coupled her name after her husband's death, with more than one lover. Grammont distinctly, Burnet darkly, afifirmed the existence of scandals, which it can serve no good purpose to revive. But the evidence in our opinion is insufficient to convict Mary even of indiscretion. She herself indignantly denied the allegations of her enemies, and so soon as she 1 Lord Rosebery, "Pitt," p. lo. MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE 223 learnt the current tale, acted in a manner to which no-one could take exception. To her religion and to religious observances Mary remained true to the end. She was a staunch AngUcan more probably by instinct than by conviction. But, anyhow, she would have been faithful to the religious beliefs that had been held by her father, and for which, in some sense, he had died. No efforts on the part of her mother— and the queen spared none — availed to shake her untutored prejudice against Rome. In her manner Mary curiously resembled her son. Like him she knew how to elicit an affectionate attachment from her attendants, Hke him, too, she maintained in general a reserve, ^ that was not perhaps wholly dis- sociated from pride. But, if we must allow that she dis- charged her social duties inefficiently, it is at least fair to remember that nothing more incongruous could have been devised than that the daughter of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria should preside over the Dutch bourgeosie. Mary has been rather foolishly blamed for allowing her chief adherents to gain an influence over her counsels. Even if we admit the charge, we may well inquire what else she should have done. For she was little more than a girl at the time of her husband's death, not fully cognisant of the ways of the world and entirely devoid of any practical knowledge. Is it reasonable to blame her for taking the advice of Heenvliet and Lady Stanhope, the guardian and governess her father had chosen for her, and of Louis of Nassau, one of the staunchest of William's following; more especially when it has yet to be shown that the advice was bad? Mary was, perhaps, the best of the children of Charles I. who lived to grow up; or rather we may say she showed the greatest promise. She does not seem to have been 1 "Her speech precious because not frequent." (Manley.) 224 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES troubled either by the indolent cynicism of her eldest brother or the bigotry of her second; and she certainly escaped the love of intrigue that was so prominent in Henrietta. It is the fashion to think of the Stuarts as representing a particular type of character. But the fact is, if we examine the matter, that they are curiously unlike each other, and that it is only their almost invariable ill-luck which has caused them to be classed together. At the same time the popular idea has a certain truth, for all their misfor- tunes sprang from the one moral feature that they had in common — a kind of dogged persistence in pursuing the object that had captured their fancy, which sometimes merited the name of perseverance, but more often of obstin- acy. This characteristic is apparent in the Princess of Orange no less than in her relatives, and it stood her in good stead. For the marvel really is that she held her ground so well, not that she failed to adopt more energe- tic measures to improve it. A woman who, before she has reached the age of twenty, is deprived under exceptionally cruel circumstances of her father and her husband to both of whom she is devotedly attached, and who is left to combat a hostile party in the state in the interests of her infant child whilst her supporters are weakened by factious divisions, must indeed have a resolute hand and a stout heart if she emerges from the ordeal with no loss of pres- tige. We cannot, of course, claim that Mary should be ranked with Blanche of Castille or Anne of Beaujeu. She probably did not possess their abilities, she certainly had not their opportunities. But, though in the main her policy was, and, broadly-speaking, was of necessity, a policy of inactivity, of holding-on, yet, when the fortune of war had turned, she showed herself capable of advancing her out- posts. It was something to have obtained from the Estates of Holland a withdrawal of the constitutional difficulty to MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE 225 her son's appointment as Stadtholder, and to have induced them at the same time to acknowledge their interest in his bringing up. To this extent Mary had secured her son's position before she set sail for England ; and her achievement made a fitting crown to the ten years of courageous and unrecompensed resolution that had preceded it. For Englishmen the main interest in Mary of Orange must lie in the fact that she was the mother of William III. We are, perhaps, too much inclined to think of the Whig Deliverer as an alien. He was, no doubt, rather a Dutch- man than an Englishman, and he never pretended that the glades of Hampton Court or Windsor had ousted " the prim gardens of Loo " from their place in his heart. But it may be that the elements of his strange character were not so entirely supplied by the House of Orange-Nassau. The cold reserve blossoming beneath the sunshine of friendship into a vigorous goodwill, the patience that waited to pluck the fruit till it was fully ripe, the inability to catch the popular affection, the incapacity to understand the meaning of patriot- ism, the tendency to look upon a nation rather as an in- strument than as an agent — these things are characteristic rather of the Princess Royal than of her husband. It would be idle to pursue the subject further. Mary's personal qualities, like her political intelligence, were never fully developed. This essay has endeavoured to show the promise of the bud, but has only attempted to guess at the shape and colouring of the flower. If Mary is chiefly memorable as the link that connected such astonish- ingly different characters as Charles I. and William III., her story is by no means without a pathos of its own, for it is the story of a brave woman struggling against tremendous difficulties — sometimes indeed with hesitating steps, but never with uncertain resolve — and dying just in the moment of success. 15 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS DAUGHTER OF CHARLES I. HE^^RIETTA IN CHILDHOOD. IV HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS, DAUGHTER OF CHARLES I. Everyone who has read Bossuet's funeral oration upon Queen Henrietta Maria of England will remember how the preacher paused to remind his audience of the strange welcome which her youngest daughter had met with at the hands of an unchivalrous people. The story to which he alluded was indeed remarkable. No hour could have been less auspicious for the birth of an English princess than that at which Henrietta was born. The Civil War was at its height. Fortune, which had hitherto seemed disposed to favour the Royalist cause, was now turning against it, and whilst the spirits of the Parliament-men rose, those of their antagonists were sinking fast. In the North, between the Scots and the Fairfaxes the army of Newcastle maintain- ed a precarious existence. In the South, an unexpected disaster had frustrated the well-laid schemes of the Royalist generals. They had contrived by a dexterous manoeuvre to cut off Waller from London and to throw open the way into Sussex and Kent; Manchester and Essex must hasten to the rescue, and* Rupert would then be free to extricate the army of Newcastle from its perilous situation. But the rashness of an unruly cavalier and the skill of the Par- liamentary commander shattered these fair hopes at the very moment when they seemed on the point of fulfilment. Attacking Waller at Cheriton, the King's forces were deci- 230 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES sively repulsed. In the general panic which ensued it was decided that the Queen, being near the time of her delivery, should leave Oxford without delay. Various towns were talked of as fit places of refuge — Chester, whence she might cross over to Ireland, Bristol, whence she might escape to France — but the place which the King ultimately selected was Exeter. There, on June i6, 1644, Henrietta was born. No sooner had the event taken place than tidings were received that a hostile army was advancing against the city, and it was realised that, in spite of the vigorous preparations made by the townsmen for defence, the Queen's position was full of danger. She accordingly applied to the Parliamentary commander for a safe-conduct to Bath, but her request was insolently refused ; and within a fort- night of the birth of her child the danger of investment had become so imminent that she was compelled to resolve upon flight. Writing to the King [June 29] that she was determined ''to risk this miserable life of mine, a thing worthless enough in itself, saving in so far as it is precious to you," she rose from the sick-bed where she had lain ill almost to the point of paralysis, and escaped in disguise from the city. The expression which she had employed in her letter to Charles did not exaggerate the danger which the undertaking involved, but fortune abetted the fugitive, and she passed unscathed through perils by land and by sea to the shores of her native country. Scarcely had she departed when Charles reached Exeter. The infant daughter whom he now beheld for the first time, and in whom he had been encouraged to look for ''the youngest and . . . the prettiest of his children," he greeted with emotion as the parting pledge and souvenir of the Queen whom he had come to rescue. All that his affection could suggest was done for the young Princess before he retired from the West. By his orders she had already been HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 231 baptised ^ in the Cathedral according to the Anglican rite, and her household was now augmented by the appointment of an Anglican chaplain. Her temporal wants having been also provided for, she was confided to the care of Sir John Berkeley, who held the city for the King, and of Lady Dalkeith, her capable and trusty governess. Save for an abortive attempt to appropriate her revenues to military purposes, a year or more passed without incident, but in the autumn of 1645 Exeter was once more besieged. On this occasion, in spite of a determined resistance, the town was forced to capitulate [April, 1646] ; but its staunch governor would not hear of surrender, till it had been ex- pressly stipulated that, pending the announcement of the King's pleasure, the Princess should be free to reside wheresoever her guardian might please. The clause, how- ever, was not observed with that scrupulous good faith upon which the party who had guaranteed it were wont to pride themselves. Henrietta was removed to Oatlands, and her departure thence was forbidden. Nor was this all, for although the funds assigned for her maintenance were no longer available, both generals and Parliament ignored the claims made on her behalf. At length a demand more urgent than those that had gone before elicited a response, but not such as its author. Lady Dalkeith, had desired or could contemplate with equanimity. It was ordered by the Com- mons that the Princess's retinue should be dismissed, that her person should be removed to St. James's Palace, where her brother and sister were already detained, and that provision should be made for her maintenance by a Com- mittee authorised for the purpose. In accordance with the ^ The register calls her "Henrietta" simply; the name "Anne" was sub- sequently assumed by way of compliment to the Queen Regent of France. Both names occur in the signature of an autograph letter to Cardinal de Retz dated 2 October [1669]. 232 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES King's injunctions that she was to remain with her charge at all hazards, Lady Dalkeith applied to the Speakers of both Houses for permission to accompany the Princess. Both applications proved unsuccessful, but the applicant was not a woman to be thus easily thwarted. Possessed of the courage and resource which the undertaking required, and undaunted by its perilous character, she resolved to flee with her charge to the Queen in Paris. When once the resolution had been made, no time was lost. Patched and tattered garments were substituted for the apparel which Henrietta ordinarily wore, and the name "Pierre" was given her as resembling more nearly than any other her own lisping version of the title " Princess ". Donning a ragged gown and stuffing it with scraps of linen to impart an appearance of deformity to her tall and elegant figure. Lady Dalkeith hoped to pass disguised as a valet's wife, the role of husband being assigned to a French serving-man who, on being admitted to the secret, had generously prof- fered his escort. Suddenly, on July 25 [1646], it was dis- covered at Oatlands that pupil and governess had disappeared. By the fugitives' desire three days were allowed to elapse before the fact was revealed to the Parliament; but the precaution seems to have been superfluous, for when the news came it was received with indifference, and no orders were given for pursuit. Meanwhile, on foot, and with the infant in their arms, the confederates had been hastening towards the coast. Reaching Dover without obstacle, they crossed the Channel in the ordinary packet, and landed safely at Calais. No longer apprehensive of molestation or detention, they then dis- carded the disguise for which there was no further neces- sity; and it is said that Henrietta, who had shown an infantile scorn of all precautions, hailed the re-appearance of her own costly frocks with every mark of satisfaction. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 233 Nor had she any further occasion for complaint, for, intelli- gence of their arrival being despatched to the English Queen in Paris, carriages and servants were forthwith provided, and the remainder of the journey was accompHshed under the most favourable conditions. The joy of the Queen at recovering the child whom she regarded as her " enfant de benediction " knew no bounds. In the first ecstasy of her delight she vowed that the Princess should become a Roman Catholic, and would not rest content till she had expressed her gratitude in this some- what singular manner. It was subsequently asserted that the impolitic measure had received the sanction of Charles I., but the assertion must be regarded with suspicion. Cyprien de Gamache, who could not have been ignorant of such a fact and would have been the last to suppress it, has left his opinion upon record that the King "would not have consented to her being a Catholic " ; and his opinion would seem to be borne out by the proof of loyalty to his Church which Charles had given in the matter of her baptism. But whatever her husband's views may have been, there were many around the daughter of Henry of Navarre who warmly applauded her resolution, whilst the greatest of them all solemnly declared that Providence had designed the English rebellion for the express purpose of ensuring the conversion of the young Princess. But whilst the Queen was still exulting over Henrietta's unlooked-for escape, a grim tragedy was being enacted in England. There the drama which she had painfully followed was drawing to its close with the captivity and execution of the King. For so terrible an end she was wholly un- prepared, and, had her worst fears been compared with the reality, the gloomy suspense in which she awaited the issue might have passed for buoyant optimism. The truth, when revealed to her, was stunning, and made her callous to the 234 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES dangers and difficulties in which she herself was becoming involved. Yet her situation was one which might in other moods have caused her no slight anxiety. No sooner had the Fronde commenced than Paris became the arena of contending factions, leaving the hapless Queen the tenant of a deserted palace, menaced by the passions of a turbu- lent populace, and well-nigh destitute of the very means of subsistence. Awaking to a sense of her lonely and precarious position, she pleaded for the company of Charles II. who had taken refuge with his sister in Holland; and the exile hastened to Paris in obedience to her sum- mons. Nevertheless she was not to enjoy his society for long, for as soon as her safety was assured, the zeal of his adherents lured him from his fiHal duties, and he left her to make a wild bid for his crown. In spite of the anxiety with which she followed her son's desperate fortunes, Queen Henrietta paid the most scrupu- lous attention to the education of her little daughter. No better occupation could have been devised for the unhappy lady who had sustained the loss of husband and of throne, and it formed for a while the main interest of her life. If she paused at the outset of her task to pass in review the events of Henrietta's childhood, the dismal retrospect may have inspired her with some misgiving. Yet there was one encouraging feature, and she may have hoped that at all events in so far as the moral discipline of the young Princess was concerned, the uses of adversity had produced their proverbially sweet results. The friend and biographer of Henrietta observed that the complete seclusion in which she lived enabled her to acquire the virtues which are fostered by the conditions of private Hfe ; nor would it have been amiss to add that she reaped the converse benefit of immunity from the peculiar temptations which assail the occupants of a palace. The position of a royal family exempts its members HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 235 from many a petty defect, at least from such as spring from that craving for social advancement which forms the igno- ble preoccupation of many minds; but education on the steps of a throne is not invariably wholesome, nor has every princess experienced the good fortune which Hen- rietta enjoyed of being nurtured in a moral atmosphere of which fortitude, humility, and submission were the dominant elements. Her time was for the most part spent in the convent of Chaillot, where her mother loved to dwell. In the seclusion of this retreat life threatened to be a somewhat uninteresting matter to a young and spirited child. Visitors to the convent were surprised at the severe simplicity of her dress and habits, but it was only those who came there on the festivals of the Church who saw how complete was the system of moral and phy- sical discipline which the Queen had prescribed for her. On those occasions the nuns were placed in a novel and perhaps uncomfortable position, for when they sat at table, they were served by the little Princess. Such exceptional facilities for acquiring the virtue of humility might not commend themselves to every royal neophyte; but Hen- rietta performed her strange duties with a manifest pleasure which endeared her to all beholders and filled Cyprien de Gamache, her preceptor, with unbounded delight. As for her amusements, they were of a very mild order. In the circumstances in which she was placed Queen Hen- rietta naturally shrank from the gaiety and pleasures of the French Court, and she disliked them as well on her daugh- ter's account as on her own, for she was convinced that they would exercise a pernicious influence on the health and imagination of a girl. Others, however, who were familiar with the young recluse, looked askance upon her mode of life, and set themselves to undermine the resolu- tion which Henrietta Maria had formed. After the most 236 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES strenuous endeavours they at length succeeded. In Febru- ary, 1654, upon the occasion of the marriage of the Prince de Conti, Henrietta was permitted to appear at Court. Though not yet ten years old, her winning manners at- tracted general notice, and on again appearing in a royal ballet a few months later she acquitted herself so creditably that she heightened the favourable impression which she had already made. Meanwhile, in spite of these events, she had been striving to carry out her mother's wishes and to resume her old life of solitude and study. To do so would in any case have been difficult, but it was made impossible by the influence of the Queen Regent of France. Anne of Austria was amongst the warmest of Henrietta's admirers, and she now gave a signal proof of the sincerity of her regard. The time had come when she must choose a bride for her young son, the King, and she now told her sister-in-law that Henrietta was the princess whom she would most willingly select for the great place which was about to be filled. Nothing could have been more sur- prising or more acceptable to the exiled Queen. However sincere her former objections may have been, she speedily withdrew her opposition to the appearance of her daughter at the diversions of the Court, and it was with her entire approval that the Regent determined to give a ball in honour of the EngHsh Princess [1655]. Much was hoped of the occasion; what came of it was worse than nothing. Louis, whose sense of duty should have compelled him to open the dance with his little cousin, even if his inclina- tion did not prompt him to do so, completely ignored her existence, and prepared to lead out a lady who had suc- ceeded for the nonce in firing his young imagination. His mother instantly intervened, but Henrietta Maria judged that his wrath was more to be feared than his neglect, and HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 237 hastened to assert — with a diplomatic sacrifice of the truth — that her daughter had injured her foot and was quite unable to dance. To this the Regent angrily replied that the King should either dance with the Princess or should not dance at all. The King, however, was intractable ; and when she remonstrated with him upon his discourteous con- duct and revealed her design, he scornfully disposed of all that could be urged in Henrietta's favour by emphatically declaring that he disliked little girls. His aversion to the marriage, ominous enough in itself, was the more formidable on account of the attitude of Cardinal Mazarin. In the political creed of that astute ecclesiastic a policy of mag- nanimity had no place, and an alliance with the House of Stuart had nothing to offer in the way of such prospective advantages as might have induced him to espouse Henrietta's cause. The avowed disapproval of the King and the ill- concealed reluctance of the Cardinal dealt the death-blow to the hopes which the two Queens had entertained. It might perhaps have been foreseen from the beginning that other counsels would ultimately prevail, for it was extremely improbable that an exiled princess would mount the throne of France as the consort of Louis XIV. The frustration of the great hope which they had cher- ished was a keen disappointment to the English Queen and her daughter, but joyful tidings were soon to reach them. In England that for which they had almost ceased to hope had come to pass. With the death of Cromwell, the ab- dication of his son, and the discord which divided the dominant faction against itself, the star of Charles was at length in the ascendant. Henrietta, who had contracted a deep affection for the brother whose favourite plaything she had been, anxiously awaited the issue, and when the tidings of his triumphant return came, received them with unfeigned delight. Early in June, 1660, Charles wrote to 238 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES her to announce his arrival in England and to give her some notion of the exuberant enthusiasm with which he had been welcomed. "To know that you have reached England," she replied, ''and at the same time that you have not forgotten me, has given me the greatest joy in the world; indeed I wish I could adequately express to you what have been my thoughts thereupon, and you would see how true it is that there is no one more your servant than I." To what extent Henrietta herself was to benefit by this sudden and unlooked-for change in the fortunes of Charles was soon shown by the formal demand of her hand in marriage on behalf of Monsieur, Duke of Orleans, the only brother of the French King. As soon as this proposal was made to her, Henrietta Maria transmitted the news to her son, assuring him that his sister was nothing loath, and that Monsieur awaited his reply with extreme impatience. His anxiety relieved by a prompt and favourable answer, the course of his new-born love ran smooth for the moment ; but there was a trial in store for him, for Henrietta and her mother had promised to pay a visit to the English Court. Every arrangement had indeed been made, and the departure from Paris took place. After a long and tedious journey they reached London in November 1660. There, in spite of some present sorrow and of many affect- ing memories of the past, a family re-union of the happiest kind took place. For Henrietta, who was too young to be haunted by thoughts of an order which had been swept away, this visit to her brother's kingdom was the most intense of pleasures. It was a triumph as well. She won the heart not only of every courtier, but of the whole nation. Manifold tokens revealed the admiration which she everywhere excited. Every book was dedicated to her, every entertainment organised in her honour. Whilst the HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 239 citizens flocked to catch a glimpse of her as she passed through the streets of their capital, the courtiers vied with each other in their efforts to win her favour. Even the Parliament succumbed to the epidemical enthusiasm. Not content with having presented an address of congratulation upon her arrival in England, the House of Commons now proceeded to vote her a gift of ^10,000, and — what was more remarkable — they despatched the money itself on the very day on which the resolution was carried. In a letter to the Speaker, Henrietta graciously expressed her thanks : she was conscious, she said, that her knowledge of the English tongue was defective, but she trusted that she made amends by keeping an English heart. That the Parliament was of that opinion may be legitimately inferred from the generosity with which they contributed to her dowry. ^ In the meantime it was becoming apparent that Monsieur's rapid triumph was a source of regret in various quarters. That it might be so considered by the spoiled favourites of Charles was a matter of small concern, but more formid- able rivals were in the field. Amongst those who were suitors for Henrietta's hand were now to be found the Emperor, the King of Portugal, and the Duke of Savoy, and they showed little inclination to desist from their suit even when their offers were emphatically refused on the ground that the Princess was already the affianc- ed bride of another. At the intelligence of these events Monsieur's jealous nature promptly took alarm; nor was he comforted by the assurance of Henrietta herself 1 The equivalent in French money of the sum voted by them was 560,000 livres. To this the impecunious Charles contrived to add gold and jewels of about half that value, whilst Louis and his brother promised her an annual revenue of 40,000 livres, together with the Chateau of Montargis, sumptuously furnished, for a place of residence. 240 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES that she neither regretted nor would withdraw her pro- mise. His only reply was to entreat the Queen to return with her daughter to Paris without delay. Terrified lest Henrietta should be attacked by the small-pox to which the Princess of Orange had already succumbed, she responded readily to his appeal, and preparations for their departure were begun forthwith. As soon as these were completed they set out for Portsmouth, where a superb vessel lay in readiness to carry them to France. They had not been embarked long before they experienced the ill fortune which invariably pursued the Queen whenever she ven- tured upon the seas. A violent storm burst upon the fleet. The ships which formed their escort were scattered or destroyed. The flag-ship which carried them was for a time in the gravest peril. At length the fury of the wind abated before any grave mishap had occurred, but the vessel had suffered too severely to proceed with safety, and was forced to return to Portsmouth to refit. There fresh troubles were in store for the travellers. Henrietta became seriously unwell, and it was feared that the small- pox, which had already proved so fatal to the Queen's children, might carry off another victim. Fortunately, how- ever, there was no foundation for the gloomy prognostica- tions in which the physicians indulged, and the patient was soon in a condition to resume her journey. Thence- forward she was disturbed by nothing more perilous than the importunities of the Duke of Buckingham. Though by no means the most dangerous, the Duke was amongst the most ardent of Monsieur's rivals. He had followed up his meteoric infatuation for the Princess of Orange by laying the tribute of his fickle love at Henrietta's feet, and now, with his indulgent master's consent, he was accom- panying her to Paris. His antics, which had already made him the laughing-stock of the Court, served for a while to HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 241 relieve the monotony of the journey ; but so grotesque did his conduct become that, by the time Havre was reached, it was a cause rather of annoyance than of amusement; therefore a pretext was devised for bidding him go on alone to Paris. There he quickly excited the furious indignation of Monsieur, and it was politely intimated to him that his absence from England was a calamity which that country could be no longer expected to endure. Now that Henrietta had returned to France there was no reason why the marriage should be further delayed, and as soon as the papal dispensation had been procured, the ceremonies connected with it were proceeded with. In consequence of the Lenten season they were marked by an extreme simplicity. The contract was signed on March 30 [1661], and on the following day the formal act of be- trothal took place. Then, in the Queen of England's private chapel, in the presence only of some few members of the French Royal Family and of Lord St. Albans, the English ambassador, the marriage service itself was celebrated. The bride was not unworthy of the great position which she was thenceforth to occupy. She possessed in full measure the charm which characterized the mem- bers of her House, and the courtiers who thronged her palace declared, in the language of enthusiastic panegyric, that France had never seen a princess so remarkable for beauty, grace, and wit. Had they been aware of the terms in which Pepys had spoken of her, they would neither have commended his taste nor concurred in his opinions. *'The Princesse Henrietta is very pretty," he had written in his Diary, *' but much below my expectation ; and her dressing of herself with her haire frized short up to her eares, did make her seem so much the less to me. But my wife standing near her with two or three black patches on, and well dressed, did seem to me much hand- 16 242 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES somer than she." It may be doubted whether the com- parison would have been so unfavourable to the Princess in the opinion of an impartial critic. She was generally reputed to be the most beautiful woman of her time. Her portraits may perhaps suggest the reflection that in that case her less favoured rivals can have had little of which to boast; but we are told that her beauty was of an evasive kind, more dependent on the expression and animation of the face than on any regularity of feature or purity of outline. Contemporary writers frequently attempted to de- scribe her appearance, and never without admiration. They concur in praising her refined and delicate features, her exquisite nose and mouth, the colouring of her lips and the whiteness of her teeth, the softness and lustre of her deep blue eyes, ^ and the aureole of auburn hair in which her face was set. The extreme delicacy of her complexion delighted them no less, but it also filled them with fore- boding, for it seemed to presage an early death. There were other grounds for that apprehension. '* Tout en elle . . . trahissait la poitrinaire ;" and such was the slender frailty of her person that Louis could flippantly rally his brother upon the eagerness which he displayed to marry the bones of the Holy Innocents. There was a slight stoop about her shoulders which has been severely termed a deformity, for it was an almost imperceptible blemish, and even to Monsieur himself the discovery of it came as one of those post-nuptial disillusionments to which mankind is liable. Gamache commends both "her exquisite figure" and ''her sweetly majestic carriage," declaring that "all her motions were so correct, so well regulated that there was nobody but praised her;" and it was generally con- * "Choisy dit, il est vrai, que les yeux de Madame etaient noirs. Mais les yeux bleus, ceux surtout qui sont d'un bleu de saphir, et ce sont les plus beaux, paraissent noirs quand la pupille est dilatee." Anatole France. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 243 sidered that she was possessed of the quality which La Fontaine described when he wrote of "La gricQ plus belle encore que la beautd." Up to the time of her marriage Henrietta had been but little known at the French Court, and those who had oc- casionally seen her in the Queen of England's apartments had been accustomed to regard her as a timid and spirit- less child. They were now surprised by the easy grace with which she discharged the duties of her new position, by her gaiety and vivacity, her winning manners and un- failing tact. Competent judges of such quahties extolled her taste and discrimination in art and letters, the subtlety of her wit, the sprightliness of her imagination ; and those who lived to endure the malicious back-biting of la Mon- tespan and the sterilising reserve of Madame de Maintenon were often heard to deplore the change which had come over the Court since the days of the young Madame. '* She had all the qualities that go to make a charming woman," said the Abbe de Choisy, " and all that are needed for the conduct of important affairs, had opportunities for displaying them pre- sented themselves." The most censorious of all her critics admits that she "was thought the wittiest woman in France." "Madame," said a shrewd ecclesiastic who knew her well, "avoit I'esprit solide et delicat, du bon sens, connaissant les choses fines, I'ame grande et juste, eclairee sur tout ce qu'il faudroit faire, mais quelquefois ne le faisant pas, ou par une paresse naturelle, ou par une certaine hauteur d'ame qui se ressentoit de son origine, et qui lui faisoit envisager un devoir comme une bassesse. Elle meloit dans toute sa conversation une douceur qu'on ne trouvoit point dans toutes les autres personnes royales. Ce n'est pas qu'elle eut moins de majeste ; mais elle en savoit user d'une maniere 244 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES plus facile et plus touchante ; de sorte qu'avec tant de qualites toutes divines, elle ne laissoit pas d'etre la plus humaine du monde." To her was attributed the introduction of that politeness and grace which made France consider herself the ultimate arbiter in all matters of taste, the school and model of all human manners. In the eyes of an historian her figure stands clearly defined as 'M'idole de la cour et la muse des ecrivains et des artistes." ^ All the wit and learning of the age gathered round her. Among her intimate friends were the two great generals of the day, Conde and Turenne, wits like La Rochefoucauld and Bussy, men of learning like Cosnac, Treville, and Bossuet. The most brilliant women of the Court, Madame de Sable, Madame de Sevigne, and Madame de la Fayette, delighted in her society. Racine, Boileau, and Moliere were early taken into her favour. No one was more quick to appreciate their talents, more eager to aid and protect them; and they acknowledged that, although they did not always follow her suggestions, they never listened without interest and profit to her just and stimulating criticism. Racine, dedicating a tragedy to her, declared, in somewhat high-flown language, that an author might feel satisfied that he had acquitted himself with credit when he had succeeded in pleasing the Princess who was the arbiter of what is beautiful. One day, when the author of Le Lutrin was comparatively unknown, she noticed him in the midst of a group of courtiers, and greeted him by quoting a line from his own poem. It was Moliere, however, who owed most to her patronage and protection. Everyone will remember how she stood sponsor to his infant son when he was pursued by the most spiteful calumnies, and how, when pedants and bigots had conspired to destroy his Tartuffe, she entered the lists as his champion * Henri Martin. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 245 and contributed to his ultimate triumph. Amongst the dedications of his plays there is one which is marked by a serious and earnest tenderness; it is that which is prefixed to LEcole des Femmesy addressed to Madame. **0n n'est pas en peine, sans doute, comme il faut faire pour vous louer: la matiere, Madame, ne saute que trop aux yeux; et de quelque cote qu'on vous regarde, on rencontre gloire sur gloire et qualites sur qualites. Vous en avez, Madame, du cote du rang et de la naissance, qui vous font respecter de toute la terre. Vous en avez du cote des graces et de I'esprit et du corps, qui vous font admirer de toutes les personnes qui vous voient. Vous en avez du cote de Tame, qui, si Ton ose parler ainsi, vous font aimer de tous ceux qui ont I'honneur d'approcher de vous: je veux dire cette douceur pleine de charme dont vous daignez temperer la fierte des grands titres que vous portez, cette bonte toute obligeante, cette afifabilite genereuse que vous faites paraitre pour tout le monde." This is no sham tribute in the mouth of Moliere: it was not by chance that some of the most charming of his creations, Leonor, for instance, in LEcole des Maris^ and Henriette in Les Femmes Savantes^ were instinct with Madame*s own peculiar charm. To perform in a ballet and to patronise a dramatist was no trivial matter in seventeenth-century France. The theatre then constituted a social and religious question of the most formidable description, and its existence was in jeopardy. Narrow and bigoted theologians, with a power- ful party of fanatics at their back, poured opprobrium on the stage, inveighed against the playwright, anathematized the actor. It was only after a long struggle that the triumph of the drama was secured. Richelieu, who regarded the stage as a valuable instrument of civilisation, had been confronted by the vulgar prejudice which sought to degrade 246 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES it. Under Mazarin his views had indeed survived in an indulgent section of the clerical party, but it had been no easy matter to set at rest the uneasy conscience of Anne of Austria. In the early days of Louis the contest had begun afresh, and Henrietta took a bold line in ignoring the declamations of a noisy priesthood. Piety stood aghast. ''EUe affectoit de faire 1' esprit fort." Had she not ap- plauded the comedies of Moli^re, and wept over the tra- gedies of Racine ? Of a very different order of beings was Madame's husband, Philip, Duke of Orleans. Warned by the lessons of the preceding reign, Mazarin had desired that the brother of Louis XIV. should be fitted to play only the most insig- nificant part, and to concern himself with nothing but the most paltry affairs. The system of education which he devised succeeded beyond his most ardent expectations. Monsieur grew into a man ignorant, effeminate, and vain, devoid of affection, but consumed by jealousy, destitute of ambition and of intelligence, without an honourable senti- timent, a noble aspiration, or a single great quality, the dupe of all who stooped to flatter him and the easy prey of every sycophant. Fired by the example of the Abbe de Choisy, who had contrived in the course of a vicious career to offend the taste of even that indulgent age, the Duke would appear at masquerades in feminine attire and would study the effect of his patches and paint with more than feminine vanity; nor was he easily restrained from mimicking his profligate friend's more grotesque and less pardonable antics. Had he belonged to a prominent section of the society of our own time, he could not have been more addicted to giving parties and holding receptions, nor more absorbed in the pursuit of pleasure and the study of dress. However specious the pretexts which he devised, the con- stant recurrence of his receptions was attributed — and HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 247 with justice — to the vanity which made him long for a Court of his own ; his spirits would rise or fall according to the number of his guests, and he was never so happy as when he was able to edge his way through crowded rooms, directing the attention of all to the magnitude of the assembled company. His love of dress was inordi- nate. He welcomed state functions and family bereave- ments with equal pleasure since both furnished him with opportunities of displaying himself in new and sumptuous costumes; and it was observed that, though he danced well, he could not dance like a man because his shoes were too high-heeled. When he was with the army, the soldiers used to say that he was more afraid of being sun-burnt, and of the blackness of the powder, than of the musket-balls ; and it may well have been true, for he could show upon occasion that, Httle as the virtue had been developed, he did not wholly lack the personal valour in which the Bourbons were seldom deficient. He habitually behaved towards the King with a submission that was almost servile, but he was as irritable and petulant as a spoiled child, and once, in an access of ungovernable passion, he dashed a bowl of soup into his brother's face. Not the least singular of his foibles was the affectation of religious zeal, and he could address his dying mother in the language of an exalted piety that seemed the outcome of a life of prayer and penitence. Secretly he leaned towards depravity; yet, though he set small store by chastity, he opposed to the blandishments of the most seductive women a cold and apathetic indifference. His second wife believed that he was never in love during his life, and Madame de la Fayette, who knew him well, declared that to inflame his heart was a thauma- turgic feat beyond the power of women. But if he was impervious to their charms he thirsted eagerly for their ad- 248 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES miration, and he would never forgive a lady who scorned to simulate grief at his departure for the seat of war. Every action of his life augmented the reputation which he had so justly acquired for incompetence and folly. When political malcontents urged him to make a bid for the throne of Naples, he replied that the town was said to be subject to earthquakes and in the immediate vicinity of a volcano : a kingdom with such a capital had no attractions for him. Indeed, his puerile inability to cope with serious affairs would of itself have justified the contempt with which he was universally regarded. The France of Louis XIV. occupies a conspicuous place in the history of Europe. A host of writers have dwelt upon its power and prestige, the splendour of its King, the pomp and magnificence, the refinement and elegance, of its Court. But historians judge an epoch from a dis- tance. Concerning themselves only with its broadest features and most dominant characteristics, they describe it with a precision and simplicity which are apt to deceive in that they necessitate the sacrifice of those minor details without which the picture is incomplete. Nothing is so false as the assumption that all is great in a great age. Good and evil mingle in proportions which never greatly vary, and every age is marred by much that is petty and vile. The vaunted reign of Louis XIV. was no exception to the rule. ^ The worldly wisdom of a brilliant but hollow society divested life of every troublesome obligation, and avowed that amusement was its end and object. Its boast was that never in any country or in any age had social charm made life so agreeable. In the expressive phrase of Taine, the courtiers under the ancien regime were men for whom life was a play. Everything was permissible, provided that 1 See M. Gaston Boissier's brilliant essay on Madame de Sevigne : Grands Ecrivains Series. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 249 it made existence more interesting or more agreeable. All the world was of opinion that it might be desirable to die in the grace of God, but they cordially agreed with the lady who found it irksome to have to live in it; ennui was the only evil which the courtier feared in this world and the sole cause of his apprehension as to the next. Modesty, kindness, loftiness and purity of sentiment were not included in the catalogue of moral virtues. The restrictions which the Decalogue had sought to impose upon the most powerful of human passions were seldom suffered to throw the shadow of constraint across the most interesting of human relations. Marriage, with its onerous duties and tiresome limitations, was regarded as a fruitful source of misery. Unable to establish a social regime under which marrying and giving in marriage should be dispensed with, the courtier nevertheless endeavoured to enjoy some of its more terrestrial advantages by divesting the super- fluous institution of its sacramental character, and debasing it to the level of a civil contract with no claims upon the fidelity of either party. Conjugal love was held up to ridicule as a species of felicity unfit for a gentleman; conjugal fidelity was relegated to the degraded position of a bourgeois convention. The King set the example ; the courtier hastened to pay him the compliment of that sincere flattery which takes the form of imitation. To the members of this society the central point of the universe is the person of their sovereign. It is in the royal presence that the subject lives and moves and has his being — the rest is nothing. *'I would as soon die," cried the Due de Richelieu, **as be two months without a glimpse of royalty." There were men who enjoyed the reputation of having spent forty-five years of their life upon their feet in the presence of royalty, and it was in no jesting spirit that one of them insisted that the proper rules for the 250 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES conduct of life were to speak well of everybody, to ask for everything that was going, and to sit down when you got the chance. " He who will consider," observed La Bruyere, "how the face of the sovereign makes all the happiness of the courtier, how he busies himself and fills his whole life with seeing him and being near him, will understand in some measure how it is that the sight of God makes all the glory and felicity of the saints." The ironical parallel recalls the terms of fulsome adulation in which Louis was wont to be addressed. The Parlement informed him that it looked upon him as a living image of the Divinity. ''The Prince," thought the Due de Montausier, '*is the lieutenant of God in his kingdom, and one of His images in the earth. '^ When the distinction was so slight, some confusion ensued; and it was doubted whether the services in the royal chapel were held for the worship of God, or designed for the gratification of His representative. ^ Such were some of the principles of the Court in which Henrietta now took a prominent place. She was received with an outburst of enthusiasm. "The men thought only of paying their court to her, and the women of gaining her good graces." The King, who had despised her so recently, repented of his error, and strove to atone for it by courting her with the most determined assiduity. Callous to public opinion and indifferent to the jealous feelings of his Queen, he scarcely attempted to disguise his admiration. When the Court went to Fontainebleau in the summer of 1661, she became the life and soul of its pleas- ures. There was not a project formed that had not her gratification for its object. No sort of gaiety and dissi- pation was left untried : conventionality was thrown to the winds. Fascinated by the vast and mysterious forest and 1 vSee, for example, St. Simon's Mcmoires, v. 423, 424. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 251 allured by the prospect of privacy which it offered, Madame often consented to accompany the King upon expeditions which began at the setting of the sun, and had not always terminated when it rose again. Such indiscreet conduct could not fail to provoke comment, and it placed a dangerous weapon in the hands of those who were enraged by the deference with which Louis treated her. Anne of Austria, who could countenance her son's deviations from the path of virtue when the tempter was without intelligence or ambition, was infuriated by his attachment to a Princess whose influence seemed likely to extinguish her own. En- chanted by the importance which he himself derived from it, Monsieur had at first contemplated his wife's triumph with satisfaction ; but it required no great skill on the part of her ill-wishers to stir his slumbering jealousy into activity. On all sides efforts were made to alienate the King from Madame. Counsel, insinuation, argument, all means were employed. Louis was informed of his wife's jealousy, and his fears were adroitly aroused by a suggestion of the disastrous effect which it might produce. He was re- minded of the measures which he had taken for the better government of the Church, and it was softly insinuated that his conduct might seem to be somewhat at variance with the austere principles which he had inculcated. Then the enemies of Madame followed up their advantage by a more dexterous manoeuvre : they magnified her genius, and pointed out to the King that, even if she did not seek to govern him, it would nevertheless be assumed that he was merely the slave and instrument of so accomplished a counsellor. Louis at once took alarm, and decided that he would counterfeit a passion for one of her maids- of-honour in order to conceal his real sentiments. But the lady whom he made the recipient of his attentions was Mile, de La Valliere, and ere long his simulated 252 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES devotion became a profound reality. It was not without mortification that Henrietta saw herself supplanted in his affections by the naive girl who had been chosen to play so very different a part; but she was too proud to show her vexation, too gentle to harbour animosity against its authors. When she afterwards hit upon the notion of pro- ducing a friendly duel between Corneille and Racine, she suggested as a theme for their plays the love and the parting of Titus and Berenice ; and in the eyes of contem- poraries the interest of Racine's drama was not a little increased, not only by its direct references to the rupture between the King and Marie de Mancini, but also by its more veiled allusions to the abrupt close of Madame's own short romance. The life of pleasure into which Madame had recklessly thrown herself at Fontainebleau and the bitter deception in which it ended, exercised the most deleterious influence upon her health. She became pale and emaciated, was racked by a cough which sometimes threatened suffocation, and could not sleep without the aid of opiates. But although she had to be carried to Paris in a litter and was un- able to leave her bed, her room was thronged with visitors from early morning till late at night. Thus, in the midst of diversions which did much to raise her spirits, the winter passed; and she was already nearly restored when she became involved in another and more serious intrigue. Those who are familiar with the charming book in which Madame de la Fayette has told the story of Henrietta's life at Court, will remember how conspicuous a place in her narrative is occupied by the Comte de Guiche. He was a man who seemed to himself and to many of those who knew him to be destined for the part of hero in some romantic tale; and if love of self, love of fame, a reckless indifference to the feelings of others, and a supreme dis- HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 253 regard of consequences be held to be qualifications, then he was not ill fitted for that singular vocation. Son of the Marechal de Gramont and son-in-law of the Due de SuUi, he enjoyed a liberal share of the world's most coveted gifts, and fortune had added a faultless perfection of face and manner. But his mind had not been formed on the graceful pattern of his person, and the overweening conceit, which was the dominant trait in his shallow character, blinded him to the distinction between notoriety and re- nown. The prime favourite of Monsieur, brother of Ma- dame's bosom-friend, nephew of the lady who was about to become the governess of her children, and an indispen- sable ally in the amusements she planned, everything conspired to throw him in her way ; and when the King forsook her he was free to make use of his opportunities. It was not without pleasure that he noticed how profound was the impression made upon the Court by the discovery of his passion for its favourite, for he had been seduced rather by the perilous glory of loving so high than by any real desire that she should play the part of Guinevere to his Launcelot. Before long the gossip of the courtiers came to the ears of Monsieur, who upbraided his friend with incontinent violence: whereupon Guiche, blurting out an insolent retort, withdrew from Court. All this while the heroine of the affair had been blissfully ignorant of what was happening, and, when she heard of it, her first feeling was one of anger with the man who had presumed to minister to his vanity at the expense of her good name. Here the matter would have ended but for the intervention of a certain Mile, de Montalais, one of Madame 's maids-of-honour. This Montalais was a scheming, unscrupulous woman, at home in every murky by-way of Court intrigue, whose object was to insinuate herself into the confidence of some great person. Her own mistress 254 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES was the obvious victim, and she saw her opportunity in the passion, or policy, of Guiche. As soon as he returned to Court, she went to him and promised him her aid. Then her campaign opened. Seeking a private inter- view with her mistress and throwing herself at her feet, she drew an affecting picture of the young nobleman's love and unhappiness, and Guiche, who little needed such encouragement, was enchanted to hear of the complaisance with which the discourse had been received. He was now emboldened to take more perilous measures. The novels of the time had led him to suppose that no lover can ever allow a day to pass without inditing at least four epistles to his mistress, and Montalais was soon busily employed as the bearer of his letters to the Princess. These she took and read — a harmless if foolish proceeding, for the language in which the Count enveloped the outpourings of his soul defied interpretation. The whole affair was nothing but a piece of innocent folly, as is proved by an anecdote which belongs to the period of Madame's illness. One day in broad daylight and in the presence of many ladies of the Court, Guiche made his way to the side of her sick- bed in the disguise of a fortune-teller. The risk of detec- tion was great and its consequences would have been serious for them both: yet they could find no more im- portant topic to discuss than the foibles and idiosyncrasies of Monsieur. Such was still the posture of affairs when the secret was betrayed to the King. Louis, still too young to be a stern judge of such faults, readily promised to deal indulgently with the peccant Count, although he roundly rebuked Hen- rietta for the imprudence of which she had been guilty. Consequently, when she casually learnt that Guiche was ordered to join the troops in Lorraine, she was not a little astonished. In the dramatic relation of Montalais her sur- HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 255 prise lost none of its significance, and Guiche, mistaking it for displeasure, vowed that he would decline an appoint- ment which was none of his seeking. Even after Hen- rietta herself had solemnly commanded him to submit, he would not obey till induced by the promise of a parting interview. A meeting was accordingly arranged, and one day, in the absence of Monsieur, he was admitted by Mon- talais to a private gallery. There Madame joined him. No sooner had she done so than the Duke unexpectedly returned, and it was only by precipitately retreating to the recesses of the nearest chimney-piece that Guiche escaped detection. But even that ignominious expedient was to be of no avail. Two ladies of the household, made suspicious by the ascendency which Montalais had established over the mind of her mistress, had remarked the stealthy in- troduction of Guiche into the palace, and set about com- passing the ruin of their rival by revealing what they had discovered. Monsieur, when the information reached him, comported himself with unwonted moderation. Chafing as he usually did under a sense of inferiority to his brilliant wife, he was enchanted with the prospect of assuming a tone of superiority towards her, of receiving her confessions, censuring her conduct, and enjoying the novel sensation of assuring her of his forgiveness. Going to Henrietta's apart- ments, he told her that he had expelled Montalais from the palace, and having delivered himself of that significant announcement, waited in chilling silence for a reply. How best to answer his veiled indictment must have been a dif- ficult matter to decide on the spur of the moment, all the more so as there was nothing to show how far he was acquainted with the true facts of the case ; but Henrietta, whose straightforwardness always extricated her from posi- tions that others might have found embarrassing, faced the situation in a manner at once prudent and courageous. She 256 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES frankly told him the whole story of what had occurred, and assuring him that she had never before had a private in- terview with Guiche nor received many letters from him, pledged her word to break with him for good and all. A complete reconciliation then took place, Monsieur being satisfied with his advantage and with the punishment of Montalais who had instigated the intrigue. To solicit the disgrace of Guiche was clearly out of the question, for to do so was to court a scandal, and he was therefore allowed to depart unpunished. A new actor now appeared upon the scene. Guiche had left behind him a confidant and a soi-disant friend named the Marquis des Vardes. In all Europe it would have been difficult to find a more consummate villain than this man, and history has done well to heap infamy on his name. With the society of that time, however, he was a favourite, and he had enjoyed the favour of some of the greatest ladies of the day, for he was a man of wit, resource, and address, whose victims only discovered when too late how dangerous were his powers of flattery and deceit. Proficient in the arts of the sycophant he stood high in the favour of the King, but his ambition knew no bounds, and he would pursue any object however base or employ any means however vile. When an advantage was to be gained or peril avoided, he was equally ready to forsake a mistress or betray a friend, and his life was an ignoble tale of intrigue, treachery, and dishonour. Subdued by the spell which Madame cast upon all who approached her, he had formed the characteristic determination of supplanting Guiche in her affections, and the feline cunning with which he laid his plans showed that the notion was more than a transient caprice. The first step had been to procure the removal of Guiche. In order to achieve this he had gone to the Marechal de Gramont and had descanted with HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 257 such disinterested fervour upon the dangers which his son was courting by his reckless conduct, that the Marshal hastened to entreat the King to relegate him to an honourable exile. When once the Count had departed it was an easy matter to keep him supplied with picturesque accounts of Madame's infidelities, and he hoped that it might not be more difficult to persuade the Princess that the Count had forsaken her. Henrietta, regarding him as the exile's friend and ignorant of the treacherous game he was playing, was willing enough to admit him to favour, and he was already congratulating himself upon the success of his manoeuvres when a trifling incident wrought a revolution in his policy. The name of Guiche occurring in the course of conversation, Henrietta referred with such feeling to the absent warrior that she extinguished the presumptuous hopes of Vardes. His schemes frustrated, his jealousy aroused, and his passion baffled, Vardes gave himself over to the worst feelings of his evil nature, and determined to ruin the lady who had thus unwittingly slighted him. Artfully masking his resentment, he went to her (with a well-feigned air of apprehension) and cajoled her into the belief that she had become the object of the secret antipathy of Louis. She accordingly wrote to her brother in a tone of sombre foreboding, and Charles, not unnaturally concluding that the conduct of the French King had furnished her with substantial grounds for apprehension, replied in terms which were scarcely favourable to that august monarch. This was the end for which Vardes had schemed. Obtaining possession of the letters, he took them and laid them before his master: Madame, he said, was a dangerous person utterly unworthy of the confidence which had been placed in her, and it was fortunate that any mischief she might meditate would come to the knowledge of so loyal a subject as himself. He was satisfied with the effect which he had 17 258 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES produced on the mind of the King, but he had not reckoned with the jealousy of the Comtesse de Soissons, his mistress. Tortured by the fear of losing her lover, Madame de Sois- sons was bent upon separating him from the Princess, and this she thought she might best effect by disclosing his wicked policy. She therefore sought an interview with Madame, and told her how Vardes had brought about the removal of Guiche and how he was now labouring to ruin her with the King. The position of the detected intriguer, already seriously menaced, was now made still more critical by the return of Guiche. Sooner or later he must discover that foul means had somewhere been employed, and Vardes looked forward with some uneasiness to the time when he should learn that it was no open enemy who had tricked him, but his own famihar friend. For the present, however, Guiche was without suspicion, and as Monsieur would only tolerate his presence at those receptions where private con- verse was impossible, he requested Vardes to do him the favour of carrying a letter to the Princess. There was no alternative for Vardes but to comply with the request, although he was far from confident of obtaining an audience of Madame. She was indeed in no mood for granting him favours, but he proved so importunate a suitor that at length she consented to receive him. Throwing himself upon his knees before her and bursting into floods of tears, he entreated her to forgive him and to aid him in conceaHng the past. She replied with dignity that she had been basely deceived, and desired that the Comte de Guiche should be made acquainted with the truth; and forthwith, in spite of lamentations and entreaties, dismissed him from her presence. Happily for herself she had resolutely decHned to accept the missive from Guiche, for his infamous agent had told the King of its existence and had confidently HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 259 predicted that she would take it in violation of all her promises. Hitherto Madame had spared her enemies, and had even protected La Valliere, their weak and helpless instrument; but it would have been a mark of superhuman magnanim- ity or of a pitiful lack of spirit to submit tamely to the villainies of Vardes. Already he had given her sufficient provocation, and now his impotent fury vented itself in open insult. One day the Queen and her Court were twitting the Chevalier de Lorraine with a tender passion for one of Madame's maids-of-honour, when Vardes remarked with a leer that he might as well have aspired to the mistress instead of contenting himself with the maid. It was only natural that so outrageous an affront should provoke the vehement indignation of Henrietta, and it was by her request that its author was lodged in the Bastille. But his incarceration was a triumph rather than a punish- ment, for his many acquaintances flocked to visit him, and his friends presumptuously boasted that Madame, in spite of all her influence, was powerless to get him really disgraced. "The thing is so serious," she writes in a plaintive letter to Charles, " I feel that it will influence all the rest of my life. If I cannot obtain my object, it will be a disgrace to feel that a private individual has been able to insult me with impunity, and if I do, it will be a warning to all the world in future, how they dare to attack me. ... As I have already told you, it is a business which may have terrible consequences if this man is not exiled. All France is interested in the result, so I am obliged to stand up for my honour." ^ That Henrietta should have invoked her brother's aid shows how grave was her apprehension as to the issue of the duel. She did not know that Louis, ' Here, and in most other cases where I have quoted from Henrietta's correspondence, I have adopted Mrs. Henry Ady's translations. 26o FIVE STUART PRINCESSES aware of the deception which had been practised upon him, was about to mete out to her antagonist the punishment which his flagrant crimes deserved. Vardes was removed from the Bastille to be subjected for a space to a more rigorous confinement in the grim citadel of Montpellier. Thence he was ordered to his paltry government of Aigues- Mortes, where he was left during many years of exile to reflect upon the fruits of his insolence and treachery. Of the Comte de Guiche little more need be said. Hen- rietta had long ago resolved that she would give him no further encouragement, and he was still vainly striving to shake her resolution when a strange chance came to his aid. In January, 1665, a great masked ball took place at the house of the Duchesse de Vieuville, and the Duke and Duchess of Orleans were amongst the guests. In order that their identity might be the better concealed they assumed the simplest costumes, drove in a hired coach, and made a random choice of partners from amongst a party of masks who arrived at the same moment with them- selves. The cavalier whom Henrietta thus fortuitously selected was none other than the Comte de Guiche. At the same instant each recognised the other, and stifling the exclamations of surprise which started to their lips, they passed silently through the crowded rooms to a spot where they could converse unobserved. There was much that Guiche wished to say, but he knew that the suspi- cions of Monsieur would be aroused if he should notice his wife's absence, and prudently withdrew when only a few hurried words had been exchanged. Henrietta, much agitated by the unlooked-for interview, followed, and prepared to descend the staircase; but her foot slipped on the top- most step, and a serious accident must have ensued had not the ubiquitous Guiche leapt forward and caught her in his arms. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 261 They were to meet but once and never to speak with one another again, for Guiche was about to set out upon the expedition which was to end only with his life. On the eve of departure he made a determined attempt to bid his Princess farewell. Disguising himself in a footman's livery, he took his stand at her palace gates, to await the coming of her Htter and approach it as it passed. But he had dragged himself from a sick-bed and could not bear the strain of so rash an experiment; and when the litter came, he swooned and fell. It could not, of course, be supposed that a Princess would give heed to the indis- position of a menial servant, and Madame's attendants made haste to bear her away from the scene of so common- place an occurrence. There is a short and curious sequel to the wearisome tale. In i666, a pamphlet was published in Holland which purported to give a full and true history of the amours of the Duchess of Orleans. One copy reached the King of France and was placed by him in Madame's hands. It was easy to foresee the effect of such a work upon a jealous husband and an uncharitable and scandal-loving world, and Henrietta was filled with despair. The conduct of the Bishop of Valence, to whom she appealed for help, only increased her distress. Without offering any advice, and with the full knowledge that he alone had been informed of her sorrow, he mysteriously disappeared, and for ten days was nowhere to be found. When at length he re- appeared, he showed how well he had been employed. As soon as he had heard of the predicament in which Hen- rietta was placed, he had despatched an emissary to Holland who had procured an order prohibiting the publication of the libel and had bought up every sheet that had already issued from the press. With these concealed beneath his cassock the worthy prelate had little fear of Henrietta's 262 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES reproaches. Turning to his hidden weapon of defence, he presented her with copy after copy of the obnoxious work, remarking as he did so that no hands but her own should be trusted to commit them to the flames. ^ It is upon the relations which existed between Henrietta and the Comte de Guiche that the question of her moral frailty or innocence really depends. The halo of romantic interest which has been cast around their intimacy has tended to deepen the obscurity in which such a subject is naturally wrapped, but the verdict of contemporaries may be set forth for what it is worth. It is entirely favourable to Henrietta. The stern Queen- Mother, who disapproved of her conduct, "thought her, in fact, full of innocence." Madame de Motteville reviewed her career, and could find nothing criminal in it. Even anonymous pamphleteers accused her of nothing worse than folly. The Princess herself, in her last agony, solemnly assured her husband that she had never been untrue to him. Had she been habitu- ally false to her marriage vows, she could hardly have made such a statement when, knowing herself to be at the point of death, a lie must have expired upon her lips; nor could the friend who knew the secrets of her heart have ventured to place it upon record. It must, however, be admitted that Henrietta was foolish, injudicious, fond of being admired, eager to please. Madame de la Fayette herself, whose portrait of her mistress is " drawn by Reverence and coloured by Love," does not attempt to disguise it. Secure in her own consciousness of virtue and forgetting that innocence is not always its own pro- 1 Madame followed his advice. Two copies only had eluded the vigilance of the Bishop's agent — namely, the copy in the possession of Louis XIV. and another which had been sent to Charles II., and these were handed over by their owners and shared the fate of the rest. The holocaust was then com- plete but for one copy which the Bishop had secretly preserved as a curiosity. It would seem that before his death this too was destroyed. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 263 tection, Henrietta scorned to pay a scrupulous regard to appearances. Indeed, it is to her very indiscretion that M. Anatole France attributes her success. "EUe a un certain air languissant, et quand elle parle a quelqu'un, . . . on dirait qu'elle demande le coeur, quelque indifferente chose qu'elle puisse dire. * On dirait qu'elle demande le ccBur,^ voila le secret de Madame, le secret de ce charme qui agit sur tous ceux qui la virent et qui n'est pas encore rompu: j'en appelle a tous ceux qui ont essaye de reveiller son souvenir." After the rupture with Vardes and the final departure of Guiche, Henrietta turned her attention to affairs of a more abiding interest than the annals of a Court intrigue. It is her political influence that constitutes for the historian of England the main interest of her career. "The chief agent between the EngHsh and French Courts," says Macaulay, ** was the beautiful, graceful, and intelligent Hen- rietta, Duchess of Orleans " ; and it is in this character that she will dwell in the memory of the English reader, either as a confederate in a nefarious conspiracy, or perchance as a pleasing vision suddenly coming to illumine the dark story of the Treaty of Dover, and passing as suddenly away under a veil of mystery which he cannot penetrate. She already had some acquaintance with the conduct of international concerns, for the sovereigns of England and France had early realized how advantageous it might be to employ her as an intermediary in their negotiations, in which they had frequently been harassed by the incom- petence and folly of their political agents. Lord Hollis, the ambassador of Charles, had shown himself punctilious, irri- table, and exacting, tenacious of the smallest right, roused by the merest trifle, and so little amenable to reason that he had converted even the preliminaries of his presentation 264 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES to the French King into a fruitful source of dispute. It had often taxed the dexterity of Madame to counteract the effect of his behaviour, but she had availed herself of his impracticable qualities to get into her own hands the conduct of every important negotiation. After the arrival of Hollis the inimical attitude of Eng- land towards the United Provinces was the salient feature of the political situation. The jealousy between these old commercial rivals had been embittered by serious friction in their colonial settlements, and a warlike temper prevailed [1664]. Charles was eager for a quarrel. In the days of his exile the Dutch had driven him from their territories; when he was a king, their victorious fleets had bidden him defiance almost at the entrance of his capital. Their overwhelming naval power and the arrogance of their lan- guage humiliated him ; he hated their republican govern- ment, their democratic religion, and the simple manners which put to shame the elegant corruption of his own. Before he could safely attempt to indulge his animosity, however, he must ascertain whether Louis intended to re- spect the treaty by which he was pledged to support the Republic. Writing to Henrietta that he "would not have this businesse passe through other hands" than hers, he begged her to use her best endeavours to extract an assur- ance from Louis that he would desert the Dutch in the event of England declaring war upon them. When that event took place, however, Louis proved inflexible, and after protracted negotiations [1664 — 1666] war between England and France was also declared. Had Henrietta known in what spirit the war was to be waged, the failure of her diplomacy would have filled her with no very sombre forebodings, for it did nothing to disturb the friendship which at bottom subsisted between the belligerent monarchs. Louis, however, was now meditating the adoption of a HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 265 startling policy. Its immediate effect was to produce a panic in the breasts of the English people which Charles was powerless to withstand. Sincerely though they hated the Dutch, they were possessed by a chronic terror of France, and at the first sign of French aggression in the Netherlands they were prepared to throw themselves into the arms of their old rivals. Such a sign they now detected. By the treaties of Westphalia and the Pyrenees France had attained her coveted boundaries towards the East and South, but on the North she was hemmed in by an artificial and imperfect frontier. To remedy the defect at the expense of the Spanish Netherlands was now the aim of the French King, but he had only to reveal his intention to raise a ferment of indignation and alarm [1667]. Their old jealousies forgotten, a Triple Alliance was hastily negotiated between England, Sweden, and Holland. For the moment unprepared to face the coalition Louis accepted the terms of the allies and signed the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle [1668]; but his projects were postponed and not abandoned. His enemies, indeed, were soon to regret the very success upon which they now prided themselves. Delay whetted his appetites, and he soon embraced a policy in which the acquisition of the Netherlands, once the goal of his ambition, was merely a necessary but unimportant prelude to the conquest of Holland itself The new scheme was something more than the wild imagining of an angered and imperious despot. He would have to reckon with the opposition of the continental powers, but he might safely encounter it. Sweden was impoverished, Germany divided, and the Hapsburgs had emerged from a lengthy strife bereft of resources and prestige. He would have little to fear from the wrath of Europe if only he could procure the friendship or at least the neutrality of England. To do so was therefore the paramount object 266 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES of his policy. For the fact that she had so recently and so pubhcly pledged herself to make common cause with his foes, he cared but little. The cynical immorality of her statesmen was well known to him, and there was no- thing which he might not hope to obtain from a fickle and shameless King and a corrupt and greedy Court. The ministry which he must cajole or suborn was already divided. There was a party lead by ArHngton, who, as the husband of a Dutch lady and as the advocate of the balance of power, was the declared opponent of the French alliance; and it had seemed of late that the real confi- dence of the King and the real power in the Cabinet be- longed to that diligent, astute, and circumspect minister. But French diplomatists had remarked the desires and hesitations of Charles, and they could count upon the sup- port of the Buckingham faction which was eager for the friendship of their master. The poverty of Charles and the parsimony of a disaffected Parliament soon brought about the triumph of Louis, and it was openly announced in England that a commercial treaty was to be negotiated with France. But this was by no means all. In concert with Madame and with some few of his most trusted ser- vants Charles was busily engaged in discussing the details of a secret treaty, by which he was to bind himself to assist Louis against the Dutch in return for a handsome bribe and for the promise of French help when he should set about establishing Popery and autocracy in his own dominions. Grave difficulties arose in the course of the negotiations. In the first place it was not easy to decide which should have the priority, the subversion of the Eng- lish Church and constitution, or the extinction of the United Provinces. In the second, some dispute arose as to the proportions which the French subsidy was to assume. Rumours of the negotiations had got abroad in England; HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 267 the ardour of the opponents of royal authority had been curbed ; and the Commons had become unexpectedly docile. Charles availed himself of their docility to gain both political and financial successes, and when once his internal position was stronger and his treasury less exhausted, he was able to invent delays to spur the generosity of Louis. He declared that the naval contribution required of him against the Dutch was beyond the powers of his purse, and vowed that he must perforce maintain an attitude of neutrality at least during the earlier stages of the contest. At last both monarchs agreed that they would endeavour to compose their differences by invoking the assistance of Madame. Long ago Buckingham had told Colbert that the surest way to bring about an alliance was to induce the Duchess to visit England. Charles now revived the idea which had already occurred to his favourite. On January 2nd, 1670, he let Colbert know that "he longed eagerly to see and converse with his sister next spring, and hoped the King would permit her to visit this country": and Louis replied that he would do his utmost to overcome the difficulties which stood in the way of arranging the visit. Such difficulties as there were arose from the obstinate refusal of the Duke of Orleans to sanction the proposal. His relations with his wife had been more than usually strained. He had fallen under the dominion of the most worthless of all his favourites, the Chevalier de Lorraine, a man with the face of an angel, indeed, but, as unfortunate maids-of-honour had discovered, without any other trace of celestial qualities. With this minion, whose every whim and caprice Monsieur was only too eager to gratify, Henrietta had become engaged in a distasteful contest. He had procured the exile of the Bishop of Valence and the dismissal of Madame de Saint Chaumont, the truest and best of her friends; and elated by the success of his 268 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES manoeuvres he had treated the Duchess herself with an intolerable combination of insolence and contempt. The King at length had been constrained to intervene. By his orders the Chevalier was arrested and imprisoned. ** You will need all your piety," wrote the Duchess to Madame de Saint Chaumont, ''to enable you to resist the tempta- tion, which the arrest of the Chevalier will arouse in you, to rejoice at the evil which has befallen your neighbour 1 You will soon hear how violently Monsieur has acted, and I am sure you will pity him in spite of the ill-treatment which you have received at his hands." The Duke was beside himself with fury. Persuaded that his wife had brought about the Chevalier's ruin, he hurried her off to Villers-Cotterets, hoping it would be some revenge to condemn her to a solitude only diversified by his own company. His motives were not misconstrued. Writing to inform Marshal Turenne of her departure, Madame said to him: *'You will understand what pain I feel from the step which Monsieur has taken, and how little compared with this I mind the weariness of the place, the unpleasant- ness of his company in his present mood, and a thousand other things of which I might complain." No sooner had she departed than the Court began to bemoan her absence. " Since Madame has left us," wrote Madame de la Suze to one of Henrietta's ladies, "joy is no longer to be seen at Saint Germain, . . . and unless she returns soon I cannot think what we shall do with our- selves. Nobody thinks of anything else but of writing to her, and the ladies of the Court are to be seen, pen in hand, at all hours of the day. I hope you will soon return, and with you the Graces, who always follow in Madame's train." In the critical stage which the negotiations with England had now reached, Louis relished his brother's conduct even less than did his courtiers, and as soon as HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 269 Monsieur had had leisure to repent of his precipitate retreat from Court, he despatched Colbert to Villers-Cotterets to see if he could be induced to patch up the quarrel. Informing him that the Chevalier de Lorraine had been released from prison and was free to go whithersoever he would save only to the Court, the minister proceeded in his master's name to desire the Duke to return to Saint Germain. The request accorded too well with Monsieur's secret inclinations to be the subject of much debate, and before evening he and his Duchess had set out for Paris (Feb. 24th, 1670). A complete reconciliation between them was therefore supposed to have been achieved, but the behaviour of Monsieur scarcely warranted the supposition. He was still inflexible in his resolution to see whether a course of tyranny would not drive his wife into consenting to the recall of his exiled minion. " He never sees me," she complained, " without reproaches, ... he sulks in my presence, and hopes that, by ill-treating me, he will make me wish for the Chevalier's return. I have told him that this kind of conduct will never answer." On the other hand, the King received her with unprecedented honour, and loaded her with marks of confidence and affection. Superb gifts were showered upon her, apartments adjoining his own were placed at her disposal; he devoted every afternoon to conferences with her, and would frequently take her advice upon domestic problems independently of his ministers. The projected alliance with Charles also called for much earnest discussion. It was now definitely agreed that Henrietta should go to England, but Monsieur had dis- covered the secret nature of her impending mission and was extremely mortified at having been excluded from participating in the plot. At first he vehemently declared that Henrietta should not leave Paris; then he relented so far as to say that she might visit Charles if he himself were 270 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES allowed to accompany her. Charles immediately devised the most specious pretexts for declining the unwelcome honour, but it was idle to aim at conciliating so obstinate a creature, and Louis peremptorily commanded him to desist from all further mention of refusal, since Madame's journey was for the good of the State and therefore was to be neither prevented nor postponed. The imperious monarch was not to be jested with when he adopted this solemn tone, and Monsieur reluctantly yielded. By the morning of May 25, Henrietta had been installed in the Castle at Dover, which had been prepared for her reception. No time was to be lost if she was to justify the expecta- tions which Louis had based upon her dexterity and influence. It was more than probable that, in spite of the docility of Charles, the execution of her programme would be attended by many and grave difficulties. In her own name and in the name of the King of France she was to urge the expediency of introducing the Roman CathoHc religion and of reviving the absolute power of the Crown. When circumstances should be propitious for making so astounding a revelation, Charles himself was to make a pubHc profession of his belief in the Roman Catholic creed. In the meantime the policy which Henrietta advised him to pursue was to "flatter the English Protestant Church, and by alternately coaxing and persecuting Dissenters to render them at last . . . .subservient to his will." Then, turning to foreign affairs, she advocated the adoption of equally startling measures. She urged Charles to ally himself with France against his old commercial rivals, the Dutch, and to bind himself to support the claims of the House of Bourbon to the dominions of the Spanish Crown. Should he undertake to follow the course which she had indicated, she assured him that Louis would be prepared to assist him in the event of domestic insurrection and in any event HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 271 to replenish his impoverished exchequer with no grudging or niggardly hand. ** She concluded her harangue," wrote one who was present at the meeting, " and spoke the rest with an eloquence of a more transcendent kind, and which, though dumb, infinitely surpassed the force of her reason or of her more charming words." **The wonderful pathe- ticalness of her discourse" made a deep impression upon her brother's mind, and she disposed so effectually of the few objections which he ventured to urge that before a week was over she had obtained his signature to the treaty. No material changes had been made. It provided that the King of England should at his own pleasure make a public declaration of the Roman Catholic faith, in consideration of which he was to receive 2,000,000 crowns from the King of France within the next six months; that the Treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle and of the Triple Alliance should be faith- fully observed ; that the King of England should assist the King of France in asserting any new rights to the Spanish monarchy which might revert to him; that the two Kings should declare war against the United Provinces, France attacking them by land with the aid of 6,000 English troops, the Duke of York attacking them by sea, in com- mand of the combined naval forces of the two countries; that the English spoil should be Walcheren, Cadzand, and the mouth of the Scheldt ; that the interests of the Prince of Orange should be provided for; and finally, that the unfinished commercial treaty should be concluded with all possible expedition. The Secret Treaty of Dover is not amongst the incidents in our history upon which we are wont to look back with pride or pleasure, and the Princess who negotiated it has met with much severe criticism at the hands of English writers. It cannot indeed be disputed that the introduction of Popery was a wild design on the troubled morrow of a 272 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES revolution; nor can it be denied that the direct results of the clandestine compact were the humiliation of Holland and the exaltation to its zenith of the power and glory of France. But the apologist of Henrietta will not be silenced by the denunciations of her detractors. If it be argued that the sister of Charles should have shrunk from engaging him in an alliance so pernicious to the interests of his country, he may reply that as a French-woman and as the grand -daughter of Henri IV. she could not but desire a treaty which should permit her brother-in-law to carry on the career of conquest that had been interrupted by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. He may go further than this. He may urge that, so far from intending to betray her country or its King, she believed herself to be erecting their fame and prosperity upon indestructible foundations. Had she not the express assurance of Louis that the sub- jects of Charles were to be rewarded with the commerce of the world? Louis indeed was to conquer the land, but was not England to be mistress of the seas? What would it matter that France ruled continental Europe when Eng- land, availing herself of the alliance to take the place of Spain and Holland, was to become the empress of the world? As regards the religious question, Henrietta was deceived by the history of the last two centuries. Not only had she been taught from her youth up that her first care should be to work for the conversion of a heretic prince, but the theories which had for so long prevailed concerning the relations of the State to the individual in- spired her with the notion that the monarch must be held accountable for the religious belief of his people. It was therefore her obvious duty to endeavour to establish in her brother's dominions the faith in which she had been reared ; and the extraordinary facility with which her com- patriots had consented to change their creed in the past HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 273 led her to assume that her task would not be difficult of accomplishment. Her policy was dictated in part by loyalty to her Church, but mainly by love of her kin- dred. That sentiment was the ruling power in her life. One day the false news that James was dead had almost killed her: she had laboured for Charles through health and sickness, through joy and sorrow, through good report and through evil. Sensible, zealous, true, and with a business capacity that surprised the most experienced statesmen, she had often given the best of counsel both to Louis and to Charles. When Louis had hesitated to decree the arrest of Fouquet, she had told him that he lowered himself by showing fear of his minister. When French diplomatists were negotiating for the purchase of Dunkirk, she had striven earnestly to dissuade Charles from con- senting to so humiliating a bargain. Her advice was sound. The sale of Dunkirk began the ruin of the Stuarts. Whatever may be thought of the part which Madame played in the negotiations which led to the Treaty of Dover, it must be admitted that one incident is recorded which does her the highest credit. In her train had come the now notorious Louise de Keroiiaille. The Breton maiden with her beautiful and innocent face made a deep impression upon the susceptible Charles, and he begged his sister to allow her to remain in England. It was the only favour which he asked of her, but she ab- solutely refused to grant it. The girl returned to her parents by Madame's express command; nor did she ven- ture to accept the overtures of Charles till her mistress was dead. ** Madame's death," said Bussy, "has been the cause of la Kerouaille's good fortune." On June 12 the Duchess of Orleans sailed from Dover, and a few days later she reached Saint-Germain. There the fame of her diplomatic mission was in all men's mouths, 18 274 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES and a veritable triumph awaited her. The Court greeted her return with unfeigned delight, while the King received her as one whom he delighted to honour. No one knew better than he how important her undertaking had been, with what skill it had been conducted, with how complete a success it had been crowned, and from him her services met with a public recognition of the most flattering description. In private she was further rewarded by other and more sub- stantial tokens of the royal gratitude, Louis presenting her with a large sum wherewith to redeem the jewels which had been pawned to defray the cost of her recent journey. Monsieur, however, took a very different line : he had taken offence at the mere notion of her errand and now his envy was increased tenfold by the honours and rewards which followed upon its successful performance. When she was preparing to go with the Court to Versailles, she received a peremp- tory command to accompany him to Saint Cloud. There was no alternative but obedience, and she was forced to submit with the best grace she could, however severe the ordeal of exchanging the brilliant ovations of Paris for the solitude of Saint Cloud, and the humiliations of life with Monsieur, with its incessant round of complaint, tyranny, and insult. Once only, on the occasion of the King's birthday, was she suffered to visit Versailles ; and then, having been consulted by Louis upon affairs of State and surprised in earnest conversation with him, she was ruthlessly dragged away despite remonstrances and tears. Upon Henrietta's return from Dover it was observed that both her health and her spirits had revived in the air of her native land. A short spell of the Duke's society revealed the illusory character of the seeming recovery. So ominous was the change that came over her appearance that all who saw her at Versailles were filled with appre- hension: "Madame," said Mile, de Montpensier, "has death HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 275 painted on her face." Always frail and delicate, her health had been shattered by the constant strain of illness, anxiety, and fatigue. The gaiety and vivacity of earlier days had given way to a settled gloom. A spell of sultry heat prostrated her; a pain in the side, till now slight and intermittent, had become persistent and acute. On June 27, in accordance with her usual practice, but in direct defiance of the remonstrances of her physicians, she bathed in the river which flowed through the grounds of her palace ; but on the following day the imprudent pleasure had perforce to be relinquished. On Sunday, June 29, her indisposition was markedly more grave. Early in the afternoon and in spite of the fact that a vigorous conversation was being carried on by those around her, she fell into a profound slumber. During her sleep the ladies who were with her noticed with astonishment and alarm that her face was strangely altered : when she awoke, she complained that the pain in her side was more violent than ever. Her favourite beverage, a glass of chicory water, was made ready and brought to her. In the act of stretching out her hand to put down the cup, she was seized with a paroxysm of pain. A cry which she was unable to stifle, the expression and the livid colour of her face, and the tears which started to her eyes revealed the extremity of her anguish, and those who knew how patient and courageous she was, immediately realised that the sudden mischief was of no light or fanci- ful kind. In the general panic which ensued only her physician was undismayed, and pronounced, with the blind assurance of the ignorant, that she was suffering from a somewhat severe colic. Such a statement might convince others, but the patient herself was not to be comforted. She was possessed by a dark and terrifying idea. It seemed to her that only the agency of poison could account for anguish 276 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES so swift, so mysterious, so intolerable. The sinister convic- tion gained in strength from the very efforts that were made to dispel it. Various antidotes were administered, but one and all were without effect. Distinguished physi- cians declared "on their lives" that there was not the smallest danger, but they could do nothing to alleviate her sufferings. Clearly she was at the point of death, and it was idle to pretend that it was still in the power of remedies to prevent or even to retard its approach. Alarming reports of her illness had spread abroad, and throngs of anxious enquirers hastened along the avenues of Saint Cloud. All night long the sick-room was filled with sorrowing friends. To one or another of these the dying woman from time to time addressed a few gracious words of farewell. Monsieur came and stood by her bedside. The victim of his cruel tyranny and the object of his yet more cruel suspicion was at length nearing that tranquil haven where she would find eternal calm from those "troublous storms that toss The private state and render Hfe unsweet." Embracing him in her own sweet and gentle way, she said: "Alasl Monsieur, you have long ceased to love me; but that is unjust; I have never swerved from my loyalty to you." Presently the King himself reached the palace, accompanied by his Queen and other ladies of the Court. At last the optimism of the physicians had been somewhat shaken, and they now confessed to a beUef that Madame's illness was extremely dangerous. The reserved and haughty prince, who believed that nothing became his majesty so ill as to be conquered by his feelings, strove in vain to conceal his emotion when Henrietta turned to him, and bade him take his last farewell. *'You are losing," she HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 277 said, "a very good servant who was always more afraid of losing your favour than ever she feared death." The chief place in her affections, however, and the most tender of her thoughts were not for Louis nor for any in his kingdom, but for the brother whom she had loved and served so well, and she charged the English ambassador with many messages for his master. Tenderly and earnestly she lamented that when she was gone Charles would have lost the friend who loved him best in all the world. In the meantime Mile, de Montpensier, who realised the gravity of Madame's condition and was shocked by the apathy and indifference of Monsieur, had been endeavouring to open his eyes to the truth and to awaken him to a sense of his duty. She reproached him with having so utterly ignored his wife's spiritual needs, and urged him to summon a confessor without delay. His first and only care, if such a course was to be pursued, was to find a priest whose name would look well in the Gazette, and he decided to send for Bossuet. But Bossuet was in Paris, and as some time must necessarily elapse before his arrival, Hen- rietta desired that one of the canons of Saint Cloud might also be summoned to minister to her till the bishop should come. Her choice fell upon a man called Feuillet, a Jansenist who enjoyed some renown on account of his austere piety and of the uncompromising indignation with which he denounced the shortcomings of the mighty ones of the earth. ^ Acting promptly in response to her call, he had soon reached the palace. The spectacle which he 1 M. Alexis Larpent suggests that a careful investigation might result in showing that towards the end of her life Madame entertained Jansenist pro- pensities. In a letter of i6 July, 1670, (quoted by the historian of Port Royal) Le Camus said of her: "Elle cherchait la verite d'une religion et n'etait encore determinee a rien." But for this meagre statement I have searched the authorities in vain for any direct allusion to her religious opinions; but one or two facts are recorded which seem to give some colour to M. Larpenf s 278 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES there beheld would have melted any heart not turned to adamant by the influence of a narrow and perverted zeal. By such a zeal, however, was Feuillet possessed, and he quelled the pity which the sight of his penitent aroused, as though it were some insidious foe creeping within the stronghold of his faith. His duty, as he conceived it, was to bring, not solace, but rebuke, not to comfort, but to chastise; and he was sincerely convinced that his conduct was only laudable in proportion to the severity of his speech. When at length, with every mark of the most profound devotion, Henrietta had received the last consolations of religion, it had become apparent to all that her life was fast ebbing away. She herself awaited the end with manifest impatience. "What! Madame," exclaimed Feuillet, "you have been sinning against God for twenty-six years, and your penitence has endured but for six hours." To this brutal rebuke the Princess submitted with all humility ; and asking at what time Our Saviour had died, prayed that she might be vouchsafed the grace of dying at the same hour. Presently, to her great joy, Bossuet entered the sick-room. With a piety not less sincere than that of Feuillet, and with tact and sympathy of which the Jansenist was wholly devoid he spoke to her of consolation, hope, and peace. For some time she listened attentively to his words, but weakness and pain were slowly gaining the mastery over her indomitable spirit. Turning to him with a sweet, resigned smile, she craved a few moments' repose, but scarcely had she done so when she beckoned to him to suggestion. Many of her more intimate friends were more or less closely connected with and under the influence of Port Royal: her choice of Feuillet in the circumstances narrated above, so curious in itself, is all the more significant in the light of Le Camus' statement: and it is strange that her memory should have been cherished in the Jansenist families of France. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 279 return. It was half-past two in the morning. The end was at hand. A strange look was in her face, the pre- cursor and harbinger of death. Holding a crucifix before her, the Bishop said : " You believe in God, you hope in God, you love Him." Audibly and firmly she replied: "With all my heart." She then took the crucifix, and pressed it tenderly and reverently to her lips. Almost immediately, however, it fell from her grasp; she had lost consciousness; and with a slight quiver of the lips her sprit passed quietly away. Death had not tarried : only a few short hours had passed since the moment of her first attack, and now his purpose was cccomplished. The Great Visitor had come to her in the veiy moment of triumph, at the zenith of her brilliant career, while her powers were still undiminished and her intellect still unimpaired ; yet she had faced him boldly and had received him without flinching. Never even during the last hours of excruciating torture, had her courage and tranquillity deserted her. She had borne her sufferings with serete fortitude and had awaited her fate with patient resignation. No vain regret, no weak repining, no querulous complaint had marred the final scene. '* Madame fut douce eavers la mort comme elle I'etait envers tout le monde." The tidings of the sudden calamity were received with consternation 'n all quarters, and wherever she had been known every heart was chilled by a sense of irreparable loss. At once a countless multitude of panegyrics were penned in her praise and in sorrow for her untimely death. She had passec away, wrote Cardinal Barberini, "to the infinite grief, not only of France, but of all Europe." ** Never," said the witty Rochester, "was anyone so regretted since dying was the fashion." Never assuredly had anyone been more regreted by the Sovereigns of England and of 28o FIVE STUART PRINCESSES France, for she had served them with a fidelity unalterable through all the vicissitudes of fortune, and their amity and alliance were justly regarded as the fruit of that loyal service. Louis was deeply moved. "The tender love I had for my sister," he wrote to the King of England, *' was well known to you, and you will understand the grief into which her death has plunged me. In this heavy affliction I can only say that the part which 1 take in your own sorrow, for the loss of one who was so dear to both of us, increases the burden of my regret " Light-hearted and thoughtless though he was, even Charles fell a prey to the most poignant grief. Yet grief was not the predominant sentiment in the breasts of* the King or of his subjects. Everywhere dark rumouri were current that the English Princess had fallen a victim to the machinations of some dastardly foe, and a ferment of passionate indignation ensued. The habituall^^ phleg- matic populace of London reached an unwonted pitch of excitement. The streets resounded with their cries of fury ; it was feared that they would scarcely be restrained from taking a summary vengeance upon t'le luckless ambassador of Louis; and acute observers believed that the wrath of the nation would inevitably lead to an open rupture with France. Was there any foundation for these hideoas suspicions, or any truth in the dramatic passage where St. Simon accounts for Madame 's death by setting fortl, with a wealth of circumstantial detail, the story of a base and treacherous crime? Since the most distinguished physcians in France, when summoned to her bed-side, had teen helpless in the face of the sudden attack which had prostrated her, it seemed impossible to explain the phenomenon on any hypothesis other than that of poison; anc it certainly was not explained by the tissue of absurdities which the doctors HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 281 who performed the post-mortem examination brought for- ward to account for it. Thus the death of Madame went to swell the fascinating list of historical riddles, and it is only within our own time that it has been dislodged from the debateable ground. In the two centuries and more which have now elapsed, medical science has made great and beneficent strides, and with the searching light of its ample knowledge it has dissipated the obscurity which so long enveloped the subject. Madame was not killed by poison: she died of an acute peritonitis. On no other theory is it possible to account for the indisposition which preceded her last agony, the acute pain in the side of which she so frequently complained, the paroxysm which seized her as she swallowed the chicory water, the asto- nishing rapidity with which death did its work, and the various phenomena which, however utterly they were mis- understood, have yet been elaborately described in the reports of the doctors who were present at the post-mortem examination. To assume that because a violent pain result- ing in death immediately followed upon the drinking of the chicory water, the water must therefore have been poisoned, is to forget that one event may precede, without being the cause of, another. Yet it cannot be urged that there was any inherent impossibility in the theory of poison ; the incarceration of the man in the Iron Mask, * the narrow escape of the Duke of Burgundy, the nefarious conspiracy which involved an innocent queen in the sordid incidents that make up the affair of the Diamond Necklace, ^ It may be interesting to note that Madame's detractors have not scrupled to assert that the mysterious prisoner was no other than a son of hers either by Louis or by the Comte de Guiche. Other imaginative theorists prefer to make him a son of Cromwell, a son of Christine of Sweden and Monaldeschi, a son of the Grand Monarque's Queen by a negro servant, and so forth. See "The Man in the Iron Mask" by Mr. Tighe Hopkins, p. 15 and note. 282 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES are sufficient to prove that the darkest crimes could be perpetrated in the Court of France and even upon the very steps of its throne. ^ After the post-mortem examination had been performed, the embalmed remains of the Princess were laid out in a richly decorated coffin in the chamber where she had breathed her last. Thence, at midnight on July 4, they were removed to the spot where their last resting- place was being made ready. Officers-at-arms escorted the hearse, and princesses of the blood followed it. The whole of Madame's household and a throng of noble ladies swelled the procession. Down the sombre avenues of Saint Cloud and through the silent streets of Paris it passed slowly on till the cathedral of Saint Denis was reached. There, watched over by nuns and guarded by troops, the body was left for a space. At length, on August 21, the last ceremonies were performed with extra- ordinary pomp and splendour. Seldom, even in the great 1 But the theory does not stand investigation. It is said that sublimate was mixed with the chicory water. But the water itself was not poisoned, for others besides Henrietta drank it, and without any ill effects. Nor is it conceiv- able that the lady who prepared the beverage, aad whose loyalty is beyond reproach, could have failed to remark that the cup had been tampered with, had such been the case. Moreover, Madame only sipped the water and did not complain that it had any unusual or unpleasant flavour; but sublimate is comparatively harmless unless consumed in large quantities, and its taste is nauseating. Finally, the circumstances of the case require a drug which acts with lightning rapidity without producing any perceptible effect upon the mouth and throat of the person who swallows it. Not only does sublimate not possess those properties, but no such drug exists. The cir- cumstance that the doctors were unable to diagnose the disease is wholly without importance. Peritonitis has now long been dreaded as one of the most terrible of the many fleet ministers of death, but at that period its existence was unknown. Moliere may have exaggerated the pedantry and formalism of the doctors of his time, but it would have been impossible to exaggerate their ignorance; and if it be urged that Valot and Esprit, the men who attended upon Madame, were the most learned physicians in France, it will be enough to reply that they were the men whose likeness Moliere drew in the Tomes and Bahis of his Amour MecUcin. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 283 temple where so many royal generations had been laid to rest, had such an august and solemn spectacle been seen. Every part of the cathedral was draped with richly broidered hangings and illuminated by the blaze of countless lights. Around the spot where the body lay beneath a sumptuous canopy, a vast and illustrious congregation was assembled. At the altar stood the Archbishop of Rheims, and with him were four Bishops in pontifical robes. In the pulpit stood Bossuet. Never before had even that great orator pronounced so sublime a discourse. The funeral oration upon Queen Henrietta had indeed shone with the effulgence of his genius, but now it was his very soul that poured itself out. "His hearers listened in breathless silence," says Madame's most recent biographer, "as he spoke of the beauty, of the talents, of the irresistible charm which had made this Princess adored by all. He dwelt on her rare gifts of mind, on her fine taste in art and letters, on the incomparable sweetness of her nature, on the royalty of heart and soul which made this daughter of Kings even greater than she was by birth. He extolled the services which she had rendered to France, the love and honour in which she was held by the two greatest Kings of the earth. And he recalled her famous journey to England, upon which so much had depended, the success which had crowned her efforts, and the joy and triumph of her return." Then he spoke of those short but terrible hours in which the tragedy which he deplored had been enacted. " O nuit desastreusel 6 nuit effroyablel ou retentit tout a coup comme un eclat de tonnerre cette etonnante nouvelle; Madame se meurtl Madame est morte!" What did it avail them that she, for whom they grieved, had shown no dismay in the presence of that appalling calamity? "Triste consolation, puisque, malgre ce grand courage, nous I'avons perdue 1 , . . La voila, malgre ce grand cceur, cette princesse 284 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES si admiree et si cheriel La voila telle que la mort nous I'a faite." When the preacher paused to master his emotion, a storm of sobbing swept over his audience ; and long before those mournful sounds were hushed, the poor remains of the gentle Princess had been committed to the tomb in the spot where her royal kindred slept. NOTE. Henrietta's children were: — (i) Marie Louise d'Orleans, born March 27, 1662; married against her will to Charles II. of Spain in 1679; after ten years of an unhappy married life, died suddenly, like her mother, under circumstances that were considered most suspicious.— (2) Philippe Charles, Due de Valois, born July 16, 1664; died December 1666; — (3) Anne Marie, Mademoiselle de Valois; born August 26, * Authorities for the life of Henrietta may be given as: — Madame de la Fayette: "Histoire de Henriette Anne d'Angleterre," with introduction by M. Anatole France. Bossuet : " Oraison Funebre de Henriette- Anne d'Angleterre." Memoirs of Mile, de Montpensier, Mme. de Motteville, Daniel de Cosnac, Abbe de Choisy, Due de Saint-Simon. Burnet: "History of His Own Time." Cyprien de Gamache: "Court and Times of Charles I." Michelet: Article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, August i, 1859. Comte de Baillon : " Henriette- Anne d'Angleterre, Duchesse d'Orleans, Sa Vie et Sa Correspond ance avec Son Frere Charles II." Julia Cartwright (Mrs. Henry Ady): "Madame, Memoirs of Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans." Mrs. Everett-Green: Life of Henrietta in her "Lives of the Princesses of England." Mignet: "Negociations relatives a la Succession d'Espagne." Littre: "Medecine et Medecins," the article entitled "Henriette d'Angleterre, est-elle morte empoi- sonnee?" P'unck-Brentano : "Princes and Poisoners " (Eng. trans.), chapter on the "Death of Madame." Dr. Cabanes: Article on her death in La Revue Hebdomadaire for July i, 1899, References to Henrietta may also be found in most works upon the period, such as the Memoirs of Ludlow, de Retz, Evelyn, Conrart, Dalrymple, Reresby; Pepys "Diary"; Estrade, "Negocia- tions " ; Voltaire, " Siecle de Louis XIV." ; Sainte Beuve, "Port Royal" ; Macaulay, "History of England"; Henry Martin, "Histoire de France." HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 285 1669; married in 1684 to Victor Amadeus II., Duke of Savoy, afterwards King of Sicily and Sardinia; died in 1728. From the youngest of these children is descended Princess Mary of Modena, wife of Prince Louis of Bavaria, who is at the present time the lineal representative of Charles I. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER GRAND-DAUGHTER OF JAMES VI. AND I. ¥a P^^.|^E ^91 s^l 1 ^^^^^^^^^1 ^'^" ''."^ |Bh|p|l ' ^^^^^^^^M f^^^ ^ L^ij^^^^^^^l >^i^^H& ' ^W^ y^^^^^^^i aiiii^ ^' Sy^^HH W/k ^^^H ^^^H Wm ^M 1 ^^Ki^'i ^M" ^^^^^m^^;^y:: M KJ v ■■kMflV ^H ^^^^^^^H HL ' *^l ^V ^m ^^^K ^^^^^^1 ^^■f 1 ^H ^^H ^ ^1 ^^r '^^ ^^^^^^^H ^^^ ^^1 ^^^e l^^l ^Hr ^^^H ^HL^ jH ^Kl ^ ^H V ^ ^^Bt » jB ^ ^ ^^^^K ^ ■ # ^^H ^^^■k-t-il ^^•k^f 1 Ik ^-^^^^ a^ ■KBl THE ELECTRESS SOPHIA. To face p. 289. THE ELECTRESS SOPHIA, GRAND-DAUGHTER OF JAMES I. The Jacobite legend of the "wee wee German Lairdie" whom the Act of Settlement removed from his spade and his kailyard, to place on the throne of the Stuarts, has served unduly to depreciate the position in European poli- tics of the House of Hanover, and the personality of the heiress of the Protestant succession. '* The most excellent Princess Sophia" of the Act of Settlement has been, till recently, regarded as the fortunate beggar maiden, who, if she had lived some months longer, would have been trans- formed into a Queen by the Whig party, masquerading as King Cophetua. The Electress of Hanover occupied a more important place in the eyes of Europe than was pos- sible for the mere puppet of the Revolution Whigs, and she had other interests in life than the ambition to succeed Queen Anne. Naturally and inevitably, the prospects of the English succession were of importance to the grand- daughter of a King who had subordinated his entire policy to the chance of obtaining the Tudor inheritance ; but the feeling of personal independence is much more conspicuous in the attitude of Sophia of Hanover than in that of James of Scotland. Naturally, too, from the standpoint of an Eng- lish reader, the most important dividing line in the personal history of the Princess, is connected with the Revolution of 1688, and we propose to follow this line of demarcation. 19 290 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES While the House of Stuart occupied the British throne, Sophia was only a member of a younger branch of the Royal Family; with the Fall of her cousin, James 11. , she came to hold a widely different position, even if it is true that English historians have, to some extent, exaggerated the importance which she assigned to that position. The twelfth child of Elizabeth of Bohemia was born in an hour of hope, if also of danger. About three months before her birth, the great Swede, Gustavus Adolphus, had intervened in the Thirty Years' War, and the spirit of Pro- testant Europe had been, once more, aroused, when on the 14th October, 1630, there came into the world the infant who was to be perhaps the most remarkable of that illus- trious family which included Rupert and Maurice and Eliza- beth, the friend of Descartes. The name Sophia was chosen for her by lot, from among a number of Christian names not already monopolized by one or other of her brothers and sisters, and in connexion with her alone it has become memorable in English history. Her early years were spent at Leyden, apart from her mother, who found, in her dogs and her monkeys, a more agreeable solace for the troubles of her chequered career than her infants could afford. Of these early days, spent with some of her brothers, Sophia herself has left us an interesting picture in her fascinating *^' Memoirs," written about 1680. The children were sur- rounded with all the ceremony of a German Court; nine profound reverences to her brothers and to attendants were, complains Sophia, the accompaniment of the dinner hour every day. Her caustic pen gives us a somewhat cruel description of her governess, Madame de Pies, who had SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 291 stood in the same position to her father, the Elector: "from this you may judge her age." Madame de Pies was assisted by two daughters '* who looked older than their mother, and were righteous in their deahngs with God and man alike ; they wept to the one and never disquieted the other, car leur exterieur estoit horrible et fort propre a inspirer de la terreur aux petits enfans." Modern readers will readily admit that Sophia had considerable justification for the savage tone of these references. It can have been no pleasant experience to rise at seven o'clock in the morning and to study **Pibrac's Precepts for the Guidance of Man," while her instructress performed such toilet operations as cleansing her teeth, nor is it marvellous that the unfortunate pupil adds that her consequent grimaces **have remained longer in my memory than all that she wished to teach me." Throughout the day, what time could be spared from ceremonials, was given to instruction, *' unless a kind Pro- vidence sent one or other of my teachers a catarrh, pour me soulager." There was no room in the household economy for the spontaneity of childhood, no scope for the irre- sponsibility of vigorous young life. Sophia seems to have found relief for her high spirits only in devising tricks to irritate her blind governess. The group of children at Leyden hadj;been gradually growing smaller. Rupert and Maurice, Elizabeth and Hen- rietta had gradually been summoned from the nursery and the schoolroom: the daughters to join their mother, and the sons to make their way in the world. At last, there were left only Sophia herself and her younger brother, Gustave, who had been born shortly before the death of the Elector Palatine in 1632. The unfortunate boy was in delicate health from his birth and, in January 1641, he died. Sophia was now left alone, and on this account, she was immediately taken from Leyden to the Hague, 292 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES where her mother and sisters were residing ; her reflections on leaving Madame de Pies and her early home are but a variation on the familiar theme of crabbed age and youth, "car entre la vieillesse et la jeunesse il y a rarement de la sympathie." The hopes which gladdened the period of Sophia's birth had vanished during the ten years spent by the child in the nursery at Leyden. The fatal month of November 1632 had seen not only the death of the Elector Palatine, but also that of Gustavus Adolphus on the field of Lutzen. The chances of recovering the Pala- tinate seemed now but small, and the two eldest surviving sons of the Winter Queen, Charles Lewis and Rupert, were prisoners of war, the one in Austria and the other in France. Charles I. was entering upon the final stage of the long constitutional struggle, and could offer no help to his sister. Such were the circumstances in which Eliza- beth was living at the Hague, when her youngest daughter was released from the trials of nursery and schoolroom, and, in childish amazement, imagined that she had received a foretaste of the joys of Paradise in the pitiful splendour of an exiled Court. Her mother's House was doomed for nearly two centuries to experience such joys as fall to Royalty in exile. From the loss of the Palatinate in 1623 to the death of Cardinal York in 1 807, Europe was never (s^ve for the period of the Restoration) without the spec- tacle of one or another of the Stuarts holding a toy court on foreign soil, and the fate of the younger branch was even now fast pressing upon the elder. The troubles of her House had, however, but small effect upon the spirits of Sophia, whose childish pranks served to amuse her elders ; they consisted mainly of prac- tical jokes of a kind which were in favour at the court of her grandfather, James I., but which would scarcely bear repetition to-day. It is somewhat surprising that Sophia, writing in THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH ; DAUGHTER OF ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA. To face p. 293. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 293 later life, thought them worth recording at all. ^ Of the Court which they enlivened, Sophia has given us an interesting picture in her " Memoirs." Regarding her mother she says but little; the Queen of Hearts, who ruled her husband, seems to have made but little impression upon her children. About her three sisters, Elizabeth, Louise, and Henrietta, " all of them more handsome and more accomplished than my- self," she writes with considerable insight and no trace of jealousy. The most interesting of the three was Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the Elector and Elizabeth of Bohemia. Born in 161 9, she was over twenty years of age at the time to which the ** Memoirs" relate, and her sister's pen-portrait of Madame Elizabeth paints her with black hair, bright brown eyes, arched eyebrows, a slender aquiline nose, a small rosy-lipped mouth, and a noble forehead. *' She loved study, but all her philosophy was unable to restrain her annoyance when, at certain times, the circulation of the blood gave her the misfortune of a red nose, which she immediately concealed from view. I remember that my sister, the Princess Louise, who was without ceremony, asked her, at such an unfortunate moment, if she was ready to go to the Queen, since the usual time had come. The Princess Elizabeth replied: *Do you want me to go with this nose?' and the other retorted *Do you want me to wait till you have another ?' " Her references to Elizabeth's philosophy are not always in this less than respectful tone. " She was very learned, she knew all languages and all the sciences, and maintained a continuous correspondence with M. Descartes; but this great knowledge rendered her A small trick played upon Sophia may serve as a specimen : — " Pour divertir la reine, il [un Frangais, Marigne] m'ecrivit une lettre au nom de tous les guenons de S. Mte. pour m'elire pour leur reine. Cette lettre me fut presentee en presence de beaucoup de monde pour voir la contenance que je ferois. Mais je la trouvois trop jolie pour m'en facher et j'en riois comme les autres." *■' Memoiren d. Herzogin Sophie^'' ed. Kocher. 294 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES a little distraite and often gave us cause for mirth." Some of Descartes' letters to Elizabeth have been preserved, ^ and the relations between them are known to have aroused the jealousy of Christina of Sweden, who, later on, was to ^\v^ some annoyance to Sophia herself. Elizabeth's devo- tion to intellectual pursuits led to a rupture with her mother, who wished her to marry Wladislaus VII. of Poland, and, after some years, she entered the Lutheran convent of Herfort, in Westphalia, of which she was Abbess from 1667 till her death in 1680. In her later life, she fell under the influence of the fanatic Jean Labadie, and provided, from 1670 to 1672, an asylum within her domain at Herfort for the wandering Labadists. Sophia wrote, with some bitterness, after his death, of the four fat pre- bends with which her sister's generosity had endowed the ex-Jesuit. ' ** The Princess Louise," says Sophia, '' was less beautiful, but, to my mind, her disposition rendered her more pleasant." She was so clever an artist that she could depict people without seeing them, but ** while paint- ing others she was somewhat given to neglecting herself,'' thus affording occasion for a small witticism of James Har- ington, the author of '* The Commonwealth of Oceana,'' who compared her manner of dressing to the painter of antiquity, who, failing to represent on his canvas the foam on a horse's mouth, lost his temper, and threw his brush at the picture, thereby producing the effect desired. Louise, like so many possessors of Stuart blood, became a convert to Roman Catholicism; at Christmas, 1657, she fled from her mother's house to a Carmelite convent at Antwerp, and thence to her Aunt, Queen Henrietta Maria at the convent of Chaillot. In 1660, she took the veil at Maubuisson, of which she 1 Qiuvres de Descartes, ed. Cousin, vols. ix. and x. ' Bodemann, Briefe d. Kurfurstin Sophie, vol. i., p. 258. This collection of letters is elsewhere quoted as '-Bodemann." SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 295 ultimately became Abbess. Her conversion did not lead her to adopt ascetic principles; if, as Sophia wickedly suggested, Elizabeth of Herfort entertained the Labadists because such hospitality cost little and made a great im- pression, no such reproach could be made against the jovial Louise of Maubuisson. The third of the group of sisters described in the "Memoirs" was Henrietta Maria, four years younger than Louise, and by seven years the junior of Elizabeth, from whom she differed in being a blonde, and in possessing a devotion to needlework and preserves rather than to philosophy. She married, in 165 i, Sigismund Ragoczi, Prince of Transylvania, and died after a wedded life of five months. But Herfort and Maubuisson and Transylvania were, as yet, in the future; Elizabeth was just commencing her correspondence with Descartes, and Louise her studies under Honthorst, when Sophia, at the most impressionable period of life, came under their influence. Escape from her governess did not mean an end of her studies, for she mastered six or seven European languages; from her sister EHzabeth she acquired her first interest in philosophical discussion, and she shared with Louise the instruction, in painting, of Gerald Honthorst. Sophia was never more than an amateur philosopher, and her correspondence with Leibniz cannot compare in philo- sophical interest with that which passed between Elizabeth and Descartes: but philosophical and theological themes remained, as we shall see, one of her favourite intellectual pastimes, and the lessons that she learned at the Hague or during the summer residence of the Court at Rhenen, helped to enrich her wonderful old age at the Herren- hausen. Of herself at this period of life, Sophia says: " I had light brown hair which curled naturally, my man- ner was lively and easy, my figure good (though not very tall), and my carriage that of a princess." A number of Eng- 296 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES lishmen made their appearance, during these years, at the Court of Elizabeth of Bohemia, — among them James Har- ington, whose joke Sophia has recorded, and William, Lord Craven, '^ un vieux milord, nomme Craven," who became the most devoted friend of the exiled Queen. Sophia, although she was his favourite, treats him with scant courtesy. There is perhaps a trace of her dialectical training in her amusement at *'the good man's" assertion that he could think of nothing. '' II ferme en meme temps les yeux et dit: a cette heure je ne pense a rien." The "old lord" (he was not yet fifty) kept a store of sweet- meats for his lively favourite, but not even this saved him from the girl's ill-concealed, if tolerant, contempt. Her references to this benefactor of her House have been taken somewhat too seriously: they represent only a flippant schoolgirl's amusement at slight eccentricities of manner, and something of that pride of birth which was an un- failing Stuart trait. For Craven, the son of a Lord Mayor of London, was without noble blood. Forty years later, an older and a wiser Sophia made the son of a Lutheran clergyman her confidential friend. A more distinguished visitor than Craven arrived at the Hague in 1642, in the person of Henrietta Maria of England, who brought with her the Princess Mary, the betrothed wife of the Prince of Orange. Sophia's descrip- tion of her aunt is interesting: **the beautiful portraits of Van Dyck had given me so lovely a conception of all the ladies of England that I was surprised to find that the Queen, whom I had seen so beautiful on canvas, was a small woman . . . with long lean arms, shoulders out of proportion, and possessed of a row of teeth which protruded like a line of defence from her mouth. However, when I had looked well at her, I found that she had very beautiful eyes, a well-shaped nose, and an admirable com- SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 297 plexion." The English criticism on Sophia herself was more appreciative. One of the lords in waiting remarked, in her hearing, that when she grew up, she would surpass all her sisters. *'That gave me an affection for the whole English nation, so much does one love to be thought beautiful when one is young." This love for England may also have been inspired by the gossip at the Hague, which suggested a marriage between Sophia and her cousin, Charles, Prince of Wales, the only immediate result of which was an attempt by Princess Henry of Orange to injure Sophia's reputation, in order to aid the claim of her own daughter to the hand of the Prince. The Hague was, as Sophia tells us, a veritable school for scandal at the time, but she emerged untarnished from the ordeal. In 1649, the execution of Charles I. (for which Descartes offered Elizabeth the consolation that it would add greatly to the late king's reputation) placed his son in the position of a titular monarch. Charles and his adviser had found an asylum at the Hague, and it was there that Montrose received his commission for his last attempt in Scotland. He was to be rewarded, according to Sophia, with the hand of her sister, Louise. Meanwhile, Charles made love to Sophia, while the indefatigable Princess Henry warned his Scottish supporters that Sophia had been attending Anglican services. It does not appear that Sophia took the matter at all seriously ; she did not trust Charles and she had been disgusted by his desertion of Montrose (" tres- brave capitaine et un homme de beaucoup de merite"). Her mother was deceived as to the young king's inten- tions, but Sophia shrewdly suspected that his real aim was to employ an affaire de ccsur as a means of obtaining money from the faithful Craven; **I had wit enough to know that the marriages of great princes are not arranged after this fashion." She had noticed, too, that the Princess 298 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES Henry's kindly hint had borne fruit: Charles had scrupu- lously avoided her in the presence of the Scottish com- missioners. Thus vanished Sophia's small opportunity of becoming a Queen Consort of England. A few months before the death of Charles I., the Thirty Years' War had at last been ended by the treaty of West- phalia, which created a new Electorate for Charles Lewis, the eldest brother of Sophia, and restored to him the Lower Palatinate. This accession to the family resources did not benefit the ill-starred Elizabeth of Bohemia, but the Elector invited Sophia, his favourite sister, to visit him at Heidelberg. So Elizabeth was left with only one of her many children (the Princess Louise) to bear her doom of poverty at the Hague. '' Our repasts were, at times, richer than that of Cleopatra," remarks Sophia, in this connexion, ''for we sometimes had nothing at Court but pearls and diamonds." For herself, she ordered what she wanted from the shops and trusted to Providence, probably in the person of Craven, for the means of payment. Her more serious views of life at this date she summed up in some devotional verses which she terms ''assez mechans": "Seigneur, peut-il qu'un tien enfant Batte toujours la castagnette Ou bien s'adjuste en coquette Et passe le temps en dansant? Peut-il que son esprit ne pense Qu'^ bien gouverner sa voix Ou d'un niais faire le choix Pour rire de son innocence? Si tout cecy te pouvoit plaire, Heureux serois-je de tout temps Avoir icy les passetemps. En I'autre monde le salaire." ( In 1550, Sophia proceeded to Heidelberg to join her brother, whom she regarded as standing towards her in ^^^lillillllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllliliil .iSi^^^s"%^iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ELIZABETH CHARLOTTE, OE ORLEANS; DAUGHTER OF CHARLES LOUIS, ELECTOR PALATINE. To face p. 299. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 299 the position of a father and to whom she was devotedly attached. The Elector was living in the town, for the magnificent Castle which Elizabeth of England had enter- ed with such splendour in 161 3 had been destroyed in the course of the war. He had married, a few months before, the Princess Charlotte of Hesse, and his relations with this lady supplied the main interest of Sophia's life at Heidelberg. For our purpose, a mere outline of the sordid story will suffice. The Elector was undeniably selfish and callous. His intrigues with Cromwell and the triumphant Roundheads were lacking in common decency, and his conduct to his mother (in spite of the extenuating circum- stance of Elizabeth's irrepressible extravagance) has justly provided a theme for the moralizing historian. He had married Charlotte because she was rich; for, in the Thirty Years' War, as in the struggles of the eighteenth century, " a Hessian horse or saddle " had ever been at the command of the highest bidder, and had provided a dowry for the Princesses of Hesse. The Electress, on her side, (as she confessed to Sophia) had been forced into the union, and she was jealous and bad-tempered. Sophia had not been an hour in their company before she perceived that something was amiss, and ere long, each, in turn, had confided their troubles to their guest. To the only daughter of this couple, Elizabeth, (born in 1652) Sophia was appointed nominal governess. She became Sophia's most intimate friend, the Liselotte of her letters. During the seven years of Sophia's residence at Heidleberg, the relations between her brother and his wife grew from bad to worse, and, in spite of the balls and the masques which enlivened Court life, her position was not without its difficulties. The Elector found a solace in the affections of one of his wife's maids-of-honour, named Degenfeldt, and succeeded, for some years, in concealing the fact from the Electress. Sophia, 30O FIVE STUART PRINCESSES who writes as a strong partisan of her brother, and who was on the worst terms with her sister-in-law, does not confirm the romantic story told by Baron Pollnitz in his somewhat imaginative memoirs— that when the Electress, at dinner, charged her husband with infidelity, he struck her in the presence of Ernest Augustus of Brunswick and the Queen of Denmark. The Pollnitz account goes on to tell how the scandal increased: the Elector announced his intention of marrying the lady morganatically ; his injured wife made a wild attempt on his life, and he forthwith placed her under confinement, whence she escaped by the aid of the philosopher, Elizabeth, who had also been residing at Heidelberg. ^ Of all this Sophia's own "Memoirs" have nothing to tell. How far Sophia suppressed the facts in order to shield her brother, and how far Pollnitz was guilty of exaggeration, it is impossible definitely to say. It is certain that about the year 1657 a rupture did occur between the Elector and the Electress, but it cannot have had much effect upon the fortunes of Sophia, whose destiny had, by this time, become unalterably connected with that of the House of Hanover. Various suitors had appHed for the hand of Sophia during her residence at Heidelberg. The letters of Elizabeth Char- lotte tell us that Ferdinand of Hungary, the heir of the Emperor Ferdinand III., would have married her, but for his premature death; she was actually betrothed to Prince Adolph of Sweden, brother of Charles X., but the engage- ment was conditional on the acceptance of certain articles by the King of Sweden, and these he refused to sanction. In the interval, another suitor had appeared, and the agree- ment was cancelled. Sophia does not seem to have been sorry. She says that Adolph had a good presence and 1 Pcillnitz, vol, i., p. 344—355- SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 301 a respectable figure, but a far from prepossessing counten- ance, and a chin like a shoe-horn. He had also a bad temper and used to beat his first wife; so though the Elector "passionately loved" the King of Sweden, it was, perhaps, better that his sister should not marry Adolph. The Prince Fortunatus who appeared at the right moment was George William of Hanover, and it was with the Hanoverian House, though not with the person of George William, that the name of Sophia was to be indissolubly linked. George William was the grandson of the Duke William, who, in 1569, had founded the New House of Liineburg, one of the three sixteenth-century divisions^ of the mediaeval Middle House of Brunswick. Duke William had died in 1592, leaving five sons, four^ of whom suc- ceeded in turn to Liineburg-Celle. The fifth brother, George, ruled for some time the principality of Calenberg-Gottingen which had been added to the possessions of the New House of Liineburg, and it was in virtue of this arrange- ment that Hanover first came to occupy the position of a capital. George died in 1641, six years before his brother Frederic, on whose death, the family heritage (decreased by the Treaty of Westphalia) was divided among the four sons of George. The eldest. Christian Lewis, who had held Hanover from his father's death, succeeded in 1468 to Celle, and Calenberg (Hanover) fell to the second son, George William. He, in 1656, aspired to the hand of Sophia, who (as she confesses) "did not hesitate to say *yes*." George William was no hero: but he was a brave soldier and an enthusiastic sportsman, ' good-humoured and self-indulgent. In later life, he was an intimate friend of ^ The other two were Wolfenbiittel and Bevern. 3 Ernest (1592— 1633), Christian (161 1— 1633), Augustus (1633— 1636), Frederic (1636 — 1649). 3 Ker of Kersland's Memoirs, Mr. Consul Ker's Remarks upon Germany, p. 115. 302 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES William III., for whose entertainment he kept some excel- lent champagne. His love of French society and ItaHan travel had served to differentiate his manners from those of his German contemporaries, and may have helped to commend him to Sophia. Above all, he was reigning Duke of Hanover, and heir to his brother, the childless Duke of Celle. The marriage agreement with George William had scarcely been concluded, when the bridegroom began to feel that he could not bring himself to give up the freedom of bachelor life, a freedom, which, as Sophia very frankly states, had degenerated into licence. A visit to his beloved Venice confirmed him in this view, and he began to arrange for his honourable release from his engagement by means of a device which, strange as it may appear to us, was not unprecedented in the history of his own House. Of his two younger brothers, the elder, John Frederic, had become a convert to Roman CathoHcism in 165 1, and he was, for this and other reasons, on less friendly terms with George William than the remaining brother, Ernest Augustus, who had been his companion in many of his Italian visits. " These two princes were thus closely bound together," says Dr. A. W. Ward, **not only by an affection which withstood the severest of trials, but by a complete congeniality of disposition, habits and opinions." ^ George William now proposed to transfer his bride to his favourite brother, and offered to make, in favour of the issue of their union, a solemn promise to remain unmarried during the lifetime of Ernest Augustus and Sophia. He had at first intended to take the more generous step of at once handing over the Duchy of Hanover to the young couple, but this solution was prevented by the natural 1 Great Britain and Hanover, p. 31. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 303 opposition of the third brother, John Frederic, whose claim to the succession it would have barred. The final settle- ment was made in the summer of 1658, and Sophia was duly instructed to transfer her affection from George William to Ernest Augustus. She had seen her future husband as a boy in Holland, and he had made a considerable im- pression upon her when he visited Heidleberg in the course of the first year of her residence there. He danced superbly, played the guitar, and had beautiful hands. Ernest, on his part, sent Sophia compositions of Francesco Corbetti, and attempted to make them the occasion of a correspond- ence. But the wise Sophia did not encourage him. "Comme il estoit le cadet de trois fr^res, on ne le regarda point comme un prince bon a marier." The renunciation of George William had placed him in a new position, and now, after the lapse of seven years, love's young dream might be realized. In June, 1658, **the elector allowed me to receive from the Duke Ernest Augustus a present, and the letter which by use and wont must be written in such circumstances." Was Sophia really in love with George William or with Ernest Augustus or with neither? It is the puzzle of the Memoirs. It may be that she had lost her heart to George William and that these references to Ernest Augustus are merely diplomatic, but it seems at least as likely, in all the circumstances, that she did not really regret the exchange. Perhaps, as Miss Strickland has suggested, ^ the key is to be found not in the Memoirs at all, but in the mysterious incident to which Elizabeth of Bohemia refers in a letter to Prince Rupert. ^ If so, neither George William nor Ernest Augustus was the real prince whom duty bade her dismiss from her mind as not "bon a marier," but one of the House of Fiirstenberg, who * Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, vol. viii., p. 297. * Bromley Letters, p. 288 (April 29, 1657). 304 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES wrote a pretty letter. The difficulty of determining the truth was as obvious to contemporaries as to modern read- ers. It certainly troubled Ernest Augustus (at least in the early days of their married life), and excellent wife as Sophia proved, it is possible that she herself was not quite sure till the course of events sent George William from her side. Ernest Augustus and Sophia were married at Heidelberg in September 1658. In her Memoirs, Sophia recalls in glowing language the affection which had come to exist between them. The household arrangements, however, in- cluded one serious menace to married bliss. The Duke George WiUiam, Sophia's lover-emeritus, took up his residence at Hanover, where his brother and his bride were living. The position was an impossible one, and the natural result was a comedy of jealousy, of which Sophia represents her- self as the innocent victim. George William was ill one day, and, to Sophia's condolences on the consequent post- ponement of a Venetian visit, he politely replied that when she was at Hanover, he did not wish to be elsewhere. Sophia laughed and quoted a line of a song : " When one cannot have what one wants, one must want what one has." The last words were overheard by her husband, who applied them to his brother and himself, and the incident caused considerable trouble. It did not, however, lead to any coldness between the brothers ; in the beginning of 1659, Ernest Augustus left his four months' bride and ac- companied George William on an Italian tour. "I weary during their absence," wrote Sophia to her brother the Elector, " for I am the miracle of this age : I love my hus- band." Her husband's absences were frequent; in the fol- lowing winter, the two brothers were again in Venice, and Sophia was left to weary at Hanover. The jealousy of Ernest Augustus had again disturbed the even tenour of SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 30S life, and it had become clear that some change must be made in the domestic arrangements of the ducal family. In her husband's absences Sophia had the consolation of her niece's company, for Liselotte (Elizabeth Charlotte) had accompanied her from Heidelberg to Hanover, and was still under her charge. She paid occasional visits to her mother, who was still resident at the Hague, and who, as the Memoirs wickedly relate, was very fond of Lise- lotte — loved her even more than she did her dogs. The next two years of Sophia's married life were fruitful of events. In June, 1660, was born her first child, George Lewis, afterwards George I. The year 1661 saw the departure of Elizabeth of Bohemia for England and that of Elizabeth Charlotte for Heidelberg ; the birth of Sophia's second son, Frederic Augustus; and the succession of her husband to the Bishopric of Osnabruck. It had been provided by the Treaty of Westphalia that every alternate occupant of the See of Osnabruck should be a member of the Liineburg family. In December 1661, the Roman Bishop, Francis William, Cardinal of Wurtemberg, died, and Ernest Augustus became titular Bishop. Although his best title to remem- brance is as a soldier, he had originally been educated with a view to some such arrangement as this, for he had studied at Marburg, and had for some time possessed the title of co-adjutor Bishop of Magdeburg. In October 1662, he took possession of his heritage, and made a triumphal entry into Osnabruck. Cynical as this whole arrangement was, the Bishop of Osnabriick did not venture to include his wife in the procession; "on trouva que je serois hors d'oeuvre a cette ceremonie ecclesiastique . . . et M. le due me fit I'honneur de me recevoir en approchant d'Ibourg, sa nouvelle residence." The castle of Iburg continued to be her home for seventeen years, and Madame Osnabruck had at last the satisfaction of possessing an establishment 3o6 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES of her own. Her other difficulty, the presence of George William, was also destined soon to be removed, but by a means which was itself productive of new troubles. It was while preparing for a tour through Italy in 1664 that Sophia first heard the ill-omened name of Eleonore d'Olbreuse. This lady was a member of a Poitevin family and had been a lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Tarento. She had attracted the attention of George William, who followed her to Holland, and established a connexion which proved a constant source of irritation to Sophia, and ultimately led to one of the tragedies associated with the House of Hanover. Meanwhile, Sophia and her husband pursued their course by Verona and Venice to Rome. Domestic squabbles hindered Sophia's appreciation of Venice. *' My husband asked me if I did not think the town beautiful ; I did not dare to say no, although it appeared to me very melancholy, for I saw nothing but water, and heard nothing but the cry ** Premi et stali "." Exactly a hundred years later. Gibbon ^ wrote in a similar strain of the great Republic. At Rome Sophia had two troubles — fever, and ** the poor Queen Christina " of Sweden, who ignored her rank, and on whom she took her revenge by writing scandal to her brother. The Pope had also offended, by his treatment of her brother-in-law, John Frederic, and he offered her an audience only incognito, a suggestion which she declined. Living at Rome and quarrelling with the Pope did not prove specially pleasant, and so the return journey was commenced — by Florence, Bologna, and Milan. In the spring of 1665, they returned to Iburg to find two family compHcations demanding im- mediate solution. The eldest of Sophia's three brothers-in- law, Christian Lewis, Duke of Celle, died on March 15th, 1665, and it should now have fallen to George William to 1 Letters, ed. Prothero, I. 75. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 30? choose between Celle and Hanover, but while he was makmg love to Eleonore d'Olbreuse, John Frederic, "the fat Duke", had seized Celle, and it was only after much negotiation that he agreed to exchange it for Hanover. George William, now Duke of Celle, persuaded Sophia to invite Eleonore to Iburg, and she writes frankly of the good impression made by her guest. In the following November, an arrangement was made: a fixed income for life was settled upon Eleonore d'Olbreuse, but George William re- affirmed his promise to remain celibate as far as concerned the succession. Eleonore wished to be known as Madame de Celle, but the proposal roused the opposition not only of Ernest Augustus and Sophia, but also of the Dowager Duchess, the widow of Christian Lewis, who was much offended at the idea of giving her name '* to a simple gentle- woman", and George William decided that she should be known as Madame de Harburg. In September 1666 was born the only child of Eleonore that attained maturity, the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea, the uncrowned queen of George I. The first ten years of Sophia's married life had been passed in domestic squabbles and in the interests of the nursery. By the year 1668, her children numbered three sons and a daughter, the latter her favourite child, Sophia Charlotte, who was to become Queen of Prussia. Unlike Elizabeth of Bohemia, she was a devoted mother, and her letters and memoirs are full of references to her children. The close of this first decade found the House of Hanover confronted with a political situation which was far more critical than anyone at the time could possibly tell. In January, 1668, was formed the Triple Alliance between England, Sweden, and Holland, to counteract the growing power of France. The traditional policy of the Brunswick dukes, since the Treaty of Westphalia, had been alliance 3o8 FIVE STUART PRINCPLSSES with Holland, and they had exercised considerable influence in the affairs of Northern Europe. When, in 1670, Louis XIV., by the Treaty of Dover, succeeded in detaching England from the Triple Alliance, the three brothers had to decide on the attitude they were now to adopt. John Frederic of Hanover was the first to take a final step ; in 1 67 1 he made an agreement with France. It was possibly owing to the influence of Sophia, who was always tenacious of her English connexions, and whose beloved niece, EHzabeth Charlotte, had just married Philip of Orleans, the widower of Henrietta of England, that Ernest Augustus was inclined to throw in his lot with Louis XIV. But George William of Celle finally decided the attitude of his House, and Ernest Augustus follow- ed him in adopting a Hne of uncompromising opposition to French claims. From this date (although John Frederic continued to ally himself with France) loyalty to the Empire became the unvarying policy of the House. When, in 1672, England and France declared war upon Holland, George William and Ernest Augustus prepared to take part in the war, and in 1 674 Ernest Augustus and his son George Lewis, now fourteen years old, bore an honourable part in the victories bf the allies. This policy seemed at the time to place the House of Brunswick in opposition to England: but it was really the crisis which involved the whole question of the succession. To Stuarts and Guelphs alike the fateful choice had come; the former, under Charles II., had declared for France, the latter for Holland and the liberties of Europe. Had either party chosen otherwise, the course of British history might have been changed. Had William III. found the line of Brunswick the trusted friends of Louis XIV., it is scarcely possible that the Act of Settlement should have contained the name of Sophia. The only trace of inconsistency in the attitude of the House vanished when, in 1679, John Frederic died, and Ernest SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 309 Augustus became Duke of Hanover. In the wars of the next ten years, the House of Hanover attained fresh military distinctions, and Prince George Lewis could claim a share in the glory gained by John Sobieski in the relief of Vienna in 1683. Finally, both George William and Ernest Augustus were among the North German Princes whose support was given to William of Orange in the formation of the League of Augsburg (1686 — 1688). We have already noted the most important events in Sophia's domestic life between the Triple Alliance of 1668 and the war of the League of Augsburg — the marriage of Elizabeth Charlotte in 1671 and the succession to Hanover in 1679, Three more sons were born to her between 1669 and 1674, completing her family of seven. The chief domestic interests of this period of Sophia's life are again connected with the relations of George William of Celle and Eleonore d'Olbreuse. The Duke of Celle was at first content with providing a dowry for Eleonore and his daughter, Sophia Dorothea, and with obtaining the Emperor's consent to her use of the title of Countess of Wilhelmsburg, but the existence of this very dowry led, in 1671, to the development of a new situation. The head of the Wolfen- biittel branch of the family was the childless Duke Rudolph Augustus, and his heir was his brother, the eccentric Antony Ulric, who after occupying an important place among the Protestant Princes of Germany, was finally reconciled to the Roman Church. He was a poet, and the author of a novel known as the "Roman Octavia," in which, under the guise of Roman history, he introduced various episodes from contemporary life, some of which have found their way into histories of his time. Antony Ulric was, as Sophia tells us, "a cadet, poor, and in debt," and he proposed that his son Augustus Frederic should be betrothed to Sophia Dorothea, "hoping by her money to adjust his 3IO FIVE STUART PRINCESSES financial difficulties." It was obvious that the status of Sophia Dorothea must be improved if she were to become the wife of the heir to Wolfenbiittel, and as Rudolph Augustus was not content with the legitimation of the child, the project of a marriage between George William and her mother began to be seriously discussed. Ernest Augustus and Sophia had no objection to a morganatic marriage, but any more regular union seemed to menace the succession, and Sophia wrote to George William a letter, which she quotes in her Memoirs, protesting against Eleonore's receiv- ing the title of Princess. The marriage actually took place in the spring of 1676, but the Duke of Celle re-affirmed his renunciation of the succession for his children, and the Emperor gave his sanction to the agreement, while Sophia and the Duchess of Orleans exchanged witticisms upon ''this creature," who called herself a Duchess. As far as the unfortunate Antony Ulric was concerned, all this suc- cessful negotiation was fruitless; his son was killed a few months after the marriage of George William and Eleonore d'Olbreuse. He had only been clearing the stage for the tragedy of Ahlden. The events of 1676 had produced a coolness between George William and Ernest Augustus, which continued till the death of John Frederic. The Duke of Hanover had married in 1668, but he left no male heir, and Sophia, when she heard of his death, although *' sensible of the loss of a good friend ", was able to thank God for having by this event given her husband and children a shelter from their enemies of the house of Celle. The Bishop of Osnabriick, however, although he had now succeeded to the Duchy of Hanover, was tenacious of his claims upon Celle. The union of Celle and Hanover had been forbidden by their father, Duke George, and if George William entertained any design of freeing himself from his obliga- tions, the testament of Duke George gave him an oppor- SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 311 tunity of doing so. It was therefore to the interest, as well as in accordance with the inclination, of Ernest Augustus to bring about a reconciliation with his favourite brother, and in 1680, George William agreed to stand by his promise of 1658, and Sophia had the mortification of having to acknowledge Eleonore d'Olbreuse as Duchess of Liineburg- Celle. Only one further step remained for the consolidation of the House. Sophia's eldest son, George Lewis, was now twenty years of age. If his personality was not specially attractive nor his disposition particularly amiable, he was, at all events, brave and honest, and, more important still, the heir to Hanover and Celle. His mother, who retained a strong affection for her English kinsfolk, at first proposed that he should marry the Princess Anne of York, and, in December 1689, he paid a visit to England, where he was heartily welcomed as the prospective husband of a lady who stood near in succession to the throne. Meanwhile, however, Ernest Augustus had made other plans, and George Lewis was hurriedly summoned, in 168 1, to be betrothed to Sophia Dorothea. The match had been suggest- ed in the beginning of the year 1679, but neither Ernest Augustus nor George William approved of the proposal ; * now, however, circumstances had changed, and the ill-fated marriage was duly arranged, as part of the agreement by which Hanover and Celle were to be united in the person of George Lewis. The marriage was celebrated in Novem- ber, 1682, and in July, 1683, the Emperor gave his sanction to the "setting up" of the testament of Ernest Augustus which annulled the prohibition clause of the testament of Duke George. It seems to be quite clear that the alliance was simply part of the family settlement, and the statement of Baron PoUnitz that it owed its existence to the intrigues 1 Sophia to the Elector Palatine, 23 Feb. 1679. Bodemann, i., 348. 312 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES of Sophia ^ finds no confirmation whatsoever. The interest- ing story, which finds a place in biographies of Sophia — her sudden appearance at Celle in the early morning of the sixteenth birthday of Sophia Dorothea, her congratulations to the surprised parents, who were still in bed, her conversation with George William in the Dutch tongue so as not to be understood by Eleonore, and the consequent marriage agree- ment, made in Eleonore's presence, but without her know- ledge - all this is most probably to be traced to the *' Roman Octavia" of Antony Ulric, who would have willingly claim- ed the hand of the bride for one of the brothers of the unfortunate Augustus Frederic, and so secured the dowry he had so long desired. It is not probable that Sophia had much love for her daughter-in-law, the child of her successful enemy, and it has been suggested that she disliked the whole agreement which settled the whole of the family heritage upon her eldest son (who, as we know from the letters of the Duchess of Orleans, was lacking, at all events, in demonstrative affection), and barred the claim of her second son, Frederic Augustus, to one of the duchies. Not- withstanding all this, as far as we can judge from the references in her private correspondence, Sophia behaved with considerable kindness to her son's wife, nor is there any historical ground for connecting her with the deplorable results which followed from this purely political marriage. We have no space to linger over the other domestic events recounted in the " Memoirs," including Sophia's two visits to France. The first of these was an incognito visit, in 1679, to the Abbess Louise at Maubuisson, where the Duchess of Orleans met her, and aunts and niece gave way to their emotions quite like ordinary Germans. " Thence she proceeded, still incognito, to Court, where she was * Pollnitz, Memoirs, vol. i., p. 62. ' Diary of Henry Sidney, vol. i., pp. 102 — 3. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 313 received by Louis XIV., who delighted her by his courtesy, and where she witnessed the marriage of Maria Louise, the elder daughter of Philip of Orleans and Henrietta of England, to Charles II. of Spain. In company with the Duke and Duchess of Orleans she visited Versailles. '' For myself," she says, '*I preferred St. Cloud to Versailles, " ou la depense a fait plus de merveilles que la nature." The visit was a complete success, and Sophia left the gaieties of the French Court with the comforting assurance that she had seen a better opera at Hanover in the days of John Frederic. In the end of 1679, she paid a visit of a different nature to the Abbess Elizabeth of Herfort, who was now suffer- ing from a mortal disease, and who welcomed Sophia as an angel from heaven. The Abbess died in the following year. The second visit of Sophia to France was in the year 1683, when she paid a state visit to Louis XIV., accompanied (as on the last occasion) by her daughter Sophia Charlotte. This second visit has been generally traced to the famous conversation between Gourville and Sophia, when the French diplomatist asked the religion of the girl, and received the reply that they had not yet decided upon her husband. * If Sophia had realized her ambition and arranged a marriage between her daughter and the Dauphin, the ultimate result might have been disastrous to the House of Hanover. For the price of the match was the alliance of Ernest Augustus (who had just distinguished himself in the Turkish war) with France, and Gourville states that the negotiations failed because the Duke of Hanover refused to desert the House of Hapsburg and the cause of William of Orange. Sophia returned after a year spent in vain at the French court, and almost immediately arranged a marriage between her beautiful daughter and 1 Memoires de Gourville (1687), p. 581. 314 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES the son of the Great Elector, afterwards the first King of Prussia — Carlyle's " expensive king . . . who had to go with his spine distorted — distortion not glaringly conspicuous though undesirable — and to act the HohenzoUern soJ" Sophia's "Memoirs," which have hitherto been our main authority, end, somewhat sadly, in the year 1681. She had just lost her sister EHzabeth and her beloved brother, and constant correspondent, the Elector Palatine. Her husband was, as usual, away, and she tells us that she wrote merely to pass the time. "J'espere que le retour de M. le Due qui sera en peu de jours, me remettra tout- a-fait pour n'aller pas si tost le chemin de tous les mortels." Her husband did not remain long with her, but she never wrote another line of her Memoirs. Her interests were even now beginning to take a new direction, and she had now found a better confidant than pen and paper alone. In 1673 John Frederic of Hanover had persuaded Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to transfer his services from the Elector of Mainz to himself, and three years later, the philosopher had taken up his residence at Hanover. When John Frederic died, Leibniz was retained in the service of Duke Ernest Augustus, and Sophia, left alone with her own thoughts, found in her new adviser an intimate friend. Without any distinct speculative abihty, the Duchess of Hanover was possessed of a keen interest in intellectual problems, even when she was not able to understand them, and the deepest thinker of the age proved also a sage adviser, whose practical counsel was of the greatest service to her in the delicate situation in which the English Revolution was soon to place her. II. Sophia, like most of the children of Elizabeth of Bohemia, had never forgotten that her grandfather was a King of SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 315 Great Britain. She spoke and wrote English fluently, if not ahvays correctly, and she had maintained constant intercourse with her Stuart relatives. Elizabeth Charlotte of Orleans, in one of her letters, remarks that her father, the Elector Palatine, and her aunt, the Electress of Hanover, looked on the English as perfection itself. ^ Throughout the correspondence of Sophia and her brother one finds a constant interchange of English proverbs. "Dis way and that way and wich way you will . . . The Swedes have brought theire hogges to a faire marcket . . . We muchts Carrey our bodey swiminley ... Je me rejouis that the lion and the lamb lay down together." ^ These and similar phrases interrupt the flow of their epistolary French. The Elector had even read Shakespeare, and to some pur- pose (misleading some of his editors by calling Falstaff "Jack") — "But not upon compulsion, saith Jac. Falstaff to his hostesse Mrs. Quickly, when she would make him pay his score."' The name of King James occurs occasi- onally in their letters, and the Elector knew a story about a Scottish minister and the King. He hoped * that the fate of Charles XL of Sweden in his German expedition (1675) would be in accordance with the prayer of a Scottish Puritan minister for the late king James, " breake an arme or a legge of him, good Lord, and set him up againe." Sophia had watched carefully the progress of events in England since the Restoration, and the difficulties of Charles II. " Le pauvre Roy d'Engle- terre n'en a pas tant sur le trone ; il a plus d'affaires avec son parlament qu'avec ses mestresses." ^ In all this, there was nothing but a natural interest in the condition of near 1 Briefe d. Elisabeth Charlotte, vol. vi., p. 118 (i8th April, 1720). 2 Bodemann, vol. i., pp. 196, 253, 270, 280. 3 Ibid., p. 398. * Ibid., p. 258. •"' Bodemann, i., p 357. 3i6 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES relatives whose fate had been closely interwoven with that of the Palatine House. It is improbable that even the Exclusion Bill of 1680 could have suggested the possibility of personal or family aggrandisement, for the Duke of York had two daughters, and Sophia was the youngest of her own family. But the events of the year 1688 cannot have failed to suggest to her the possibility of the succes- sion. Mary of Orange was childless. Death had already proved so regular a visitor of Anne's nursery that Sophia, with the callousness of her generation, remarked in refer- ence to the birth of one of her children, that they inherited a heavenly crown, leaving an earthly one for her own. ^ Of her own brothers and sisters who had remained true to the Protestant faith, she alone had heirs. If the people of England were determined to secure the succession of the nearest Protestant descendant of James I., it could only be through herself. The heritage was a noble one, and it must have appealed in a very special way to the Anglo- phile Sophia. On the other hand, King James was her cousin and she had always been on friendly terms with him. Her brothers, Rupert and Maurice, had fought for his father, and his brother, Charles II., had ministered to her mother's wants in her last years. It has been the frequent theme of English historians that Sophia's one aim was the succession to the Stuart throne, while recent Ger- man writers, have gone so far in the other direction as to argue that she was really a Jacobite at heart. Probably neither view is wholly incorrect. Sophia would not play false, would not even wrongly win; but, on the other hand, she was not called upon to place obstacles in the path of her own children. It is impossible to imagine her intriguing, as William of Orange was at that moment intriguing, to sup- ^ Correspondance de Leibniz avec PElecirice Sophie, ed. Klopp, i., p. 73. This book is elsewhere quoted as Correspondance. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 317 plant the king who was at once his uncle and his father- in-law; but she knew enough of English politics to under- stand why the revolution took place at all. '*Je crois que tons les bons politiques trouveront que le Roy s'est mal governe." * During the years that immediately followed the Revolution this balance of feeling and opinion became her normal attitude. She knew that the Prince of Wales was not spurious, ^ and it is characteristic of her that she did not allow herself to be persuaded that he was, although such a belief would have gone far to render her position less difficult; but it is equally characteristic that she felt that he must make the best of his chances, whatever they might be. If he failed to do so, it was no reason why she should not use her own opportunities as best she might. This watchful neutrality she seems more or less to have maintained till the Act of Settlement con- ferred on her a vested right, and definitely preferred her claim to that of her Stuart cousin. ^ In the beginning of November 1688, Sophia wrote to Leibniz on the subject of William's preparations. She awaits the result with impatience ; she believes that William has received an invitation from the Protestants of England to secure their liberties and their religion, and as a good Protestant, she has no word of censure ; but she clearly sympathizes with James' unwillingness to believe that his own nephew would lift up his hand against him. * In William's preparations the Duke of Hanover had no share. In spite of his adhering to the Protestant cause, and in spite of the fact that he had, earlier in the year, been a member of the Magdeburg Conference 1 Correspondence i., p. 73. 2 Ibid., iii., p. 102. 3 Cf. Dr. Ward's article on the Hanoverian Succession in the English Hisiorical Review, vol. i, * Correspondance, i., 58. 3i8 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES which provided for the defence of the empire against the French, Ernest Augustus remained neutral through- out. In congratulating Wilham, Sophia wrote kindly of James. It has pleased God to make William the protector of our religion and one must pray for his prosperity ; "but I have no complaint to make of King James, who has honoured me with his friendship." ^ When the deed was done, and James had fallen, Ernest Augustus reverted to his traditional policy, and the vigour with which he prosecuted the wars with France and with the Turks gained for him, in 1692, his investiture as Elector of Hanover (although the actual admission of a ninth member into the Electoral College did not take place till 17 14). Bishop Burnet believed that to himself belonged the credit of persuading the House of Hanover to adopt a line of definite antagonism to the French, " and it is in a letter to Burnet that Sophia makes one of her first references to the succes- sion. ^ William had proposed that Sophia's name should be inserted in the Bill of Rights, but it was thought wiser not to commit the country to the Hanoverian line, and it was certainly not in the interests of the Grand Alliance to bar the claim of the House of Savoy, who, as descendants of Charles I. through Henrietta of Orleans, were nearer the direct line. Burnet had given enthusiastic support to this proposal, and Sophia thanked him warmly. His kind- ness had given her greater pleasure than if his efforts had met with better success. " For I am too old to think of any other kingdom than that of Heaven, and for my sons, they must always be dedicated to their king and country." ^ Meanwhile, the birth of the Duke of Gloucester tended to 1 Correspondance, i., 74. ' History of my Own Time, 1st edn. i , p. 757. * Correspondance, i., 75. < The allusion is to the Emperor. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 319 diminish the chances of a Hanoverian succession, and as Dr. Ward has pointed out, ^ the question of the succession really remained in abeyance till the death of the little prince. Sophia continued, for three years, to correspond with the exiled James, and she and Elizabeth Charlotte made an amiable attempt to reconcile him to his daughter. Queen Mary. The attempt was foredoomed to failure ; but the fact that the Duchess of Orleans could express to her aunt the hope that William would adopt the little Prince of Wales as his heir, indicates how far the succession had vanished from the immediate interests of the House of Hanover. Meanwhile, Sophia's attention was fully occupied. She had to mourn, in 1690, the death of her second son, Frederic Augustus, and in the following year, that of her fourth son, Charles Philip, both of whom, after rendering good service to the Emperor, fell in the struggle with the Infidel. The negotiations which preceded the creation of a ninth electorate for the House of Hanover, in which Sophia had to invoke the aid of William III., required a concentrated attention on the part of the aspirants to that dignity. Soon after success in this matter had been attained, there occurred the tragic incident which closed the public life of Sophia Dorothea, who now bore the title of Electoral Princess. It is doubtful if we shall ever know the whole of that mystery of iniquity which was enacted at Hanover in the year 1694. If Sophia Dorothea was guilty there were many circumstances to palliate her guilt. The marriage had been entirely a matter of convenience; her husband was a cold and austere man, whose behaviour to his mother more than once called forth the indignation of Elizabeth Charlotte, ^ 1 English Historical Review, vol. i., p. 485. 2 "Das der churfiirst ein struckener storiger herr ist, habe ich gar wohl verspiirt, wie sie hir waren . . . Wohrinen er aber das groste unrecht hatt, ist mitt seiner frau mutter so zu leben, deren er doch alien respect schuldig ist." Briefe der Elis. Char., vol, i„ p. 281. (22 April 1702). 320 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES and who behaved no better to his unloved wife. The ducal palace at Hanover was ruled by the infamous Platen gang, the mistresses of the Elector and the Electoral Prince. Sophia Dorothea was probably guilty; she may have been the guilty victim of a conspiracy ; but with any such conspiracy there is not a tittle of evidence to connect the Electress. If a conspiracy to ruin the Electoral Princess was in the interests of anyone, it was in the interests of Sophia's enemies. She certainly had not the power, and may not have had the wish, to make, in behalf of the prisoner of Ahlden, an interference which Sophia Dorothea's own parents do not seem to have attempted. The triumph of the Platens, which had driven the Electoral Princess into an intrigue with Count Konigsmark, had led Sophia, seven years before the fall of her daughter-in-law, to desert the Court at Hanover for the Herrenhausen, some three miles from Hanover, where she might indulge to the full the taste for gardening which was one of her Stuart characteristics. Toland, who visited her in 1702, wrote thus of the impression made on him :^ — ''The Elec- tress is three and seventy years of age, which she bears so wonderfully well, that had I not many vouchers, I should scarce 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 often saw her do Letters of a small Character in the dusk of the Evening. She's as great a worker as our late Queen [Mary], and you cannot turn yourself in the Palace without meeting some Monuments of her Industry, all the Chairs of the Presence Chamber being wrought with her own Hands. . . . She's the greatest and most constant Walker I ever knew, SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 321 never missing a Day, if it proves fair, for one or two hours, and often more in the fine Garden of Hernhausen She speaks five Languages so well that by her Accent it might well be a Dispute which of 'em was her first. They are Low-Dutch, German, French, Italian, and English, which last she speaks as truly and easily as any Native. But indeed the Electress is so intirely English in her person, in her Behaviour, in her Humor, and all her Inclinations, that naturally she could not miss of any thing which peculiarly belongs to our Hand." ^ The years spent at the Herrenhausen, in comparative seclusion, have given us the correspondence of Sophia and Leibniz, which is so valuable for the biographers of both. It continued up to the death of Sophia in 17 14, and, in spite of the engrossing interests of her closing years, it never became wholly political ; but it is during this period, while the question of the Succession was no longer of press- ing importance, that her letters are almost entirely devot- ed to religious and philosophical questions. Projects for religious re-union, in the discussion of which Leibniz had been engaged for over twenty years, had long interested Sophia. She had discussed with her brother, the Elector, a re-union of Lutherans and Calvinists, " and had dismissed as chimerical Spinola's scheme for a reconciliation on a wider basis. ^ At the time when Leibniz became more im- mediately attached to her person, the religious world was debating Spinola's scheme in connexion with Bossuet's ** Ex- position de la foi de I'eglise catholique." Sophia's sister, the Abbess of Maubuisson, knew Bossuet well, and a long cor- respondence ensued between Leibniz, Bossuet, and Madame * Accounts of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, pp. 66 — 68. 2 Bodemann, i., p. 321. ' Ibid., p. 347. A project of this nature was actually formulated in connexion with the mamage of Sophia's daughter to the Elector of Bran- denburg. 322 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES de Brisson. It is possible that the controversy was not without poHtical importance; if Sophia could be induced to follow the example of so many of her nearest relatives, and enter the Roman obedience, a Stuart Restoration would be much more easily brought about. Sophia, of course, was never in any danger. Her interest in the subject was the result, not of any deep religious feeling, but of an intellectual curiosity which was one of the bonds that connect- ed her with Liebniz. Her whole attitude to religion was tolerant and Hberal; it is easy to be tolerant when one does not care very much. Her references to religious ques- tions are never au grand serieux, and not infrequently frivolous ; it is quite clear that religion was not one of the master passions of her Hfe. She preserved so much of early training as to speak of the Roman Church as the "scarlet woman," although she envied Roman Catholics the privilege of praying for the dead. One of her bio- graphers has misinterpreted a phrase she uses, and has in- ferred that she did not believe in the immortality of the soul. In point of fact, she possessed a commonplace orthodoxy, and placed her philosophical faith in the argu- ment from Design. ^ It was the orthodoxy of a sane and healthy temperament and of an amicable and kindly dis- position. As she was accustomed to say bitter things without any real malice, so she spoke lightly of matters of religion without any real irreverence, and, in both cases, there was a calm confidence in a goodness of heart of which she was herself conscious and by which she beHeved the world to be governed. " How can we call God good," she asks, " if He has made us to damn us eternally ? Dieu mercy, je me fie a la bonte de Dieu ; il ne m'est jamais venu dans I'esprit qu'il m'a creee pour me faire du mal . . . pour moy, 1 Kemble, State Papers and Correspondance, p. 469. SOPfflA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 323 j'ay une entiere confiance en luy."* To a broad view of this nature, any purely ecclesiastical controversy was naturally repugnant. "It is not the name of Catholic or of Reformed that will save us, but to manifest our faith by our good works." ^ If she disliked Roman Catholicism at all, it was because its exclusiveness seemed to her un-christian. ^ So far as this attitude was consistent with Calvinism, she remained true to the faith of the Heidleberg Catechism in which she had been educated, but she could, logically, have no objection to becoming a Protestant of the Church of Eng- land, between which and Calvinism she saw but little differ- ence. ' Unlike her grandfather and her uncle, she had thus some sympathy with the Scottish Church, and disliked Queen Anne's attempts to persecute Presbyterian Dissenters in England and to favour Episcopalian Dissenters in Scot- land.^ Similarly, the Electress's constant references to philosoph- ical questions do not impress one with any belief in her powers as a metaphysician. She had never taken her Descartes too seriously, and used to recommend his writings to her brother as an excellent cure for insomnia.^ She liked to have Leibniz explain his views to her, but he did not find her a specially acute disciple. The very width of her interest constitutes a strong presumption against its depth : philosophy, mathematics, physics come all alike to her. She kept them, moreover, in their due place; when distinguished strangers visited her, she was annoyed if they did not talk of something more exciting. No less a person than Peter the Great offended in this way. Her ^ Correspondance, ii., p. 96. 2 Ibid., p. 97. 3 Macpherson's Original Papers, ii., p. 5CX). 4 Cotrespondance, i., 75; Klopp, Fall d. Hauses Stuart, x,, 240. 6 Ibid., ii., 403. 6 Bodemann, i., 352. 324 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES interest in literature was probably more genuine. She read romances in her later years — Don Quixote and Don Guzman d'Alfarache, (doubtless, in the original). Her Eng- lish correspondents kept her informed of Mr. Pope's latest poem, Mr. Addison's last essay, and Temple's History, as well as of the writings of Mr. Locke. Mr. Addison C'le bel esprit") visited Hanover and earned the reputa- tion of being a very good, and what is more extraordinary, a very modest poet. ^ The noise created by the publication of Ayliffe's ''History of the University of Oxford" reached the Herrenhausen and its mistress. Leibniz, in an interest- ing passage, summed up the literary tastes of the Electress and her daughter as something at once ''spirituel et re- jouissant." They love pretty satires, quaint and amusing tales, and reHgious treatises not too bigoted.^ The Duke of Gloucester died in August 1700. The other obstacle in Sophia's path had been removed four years earHer, when the House of Savoy forfeited whatever chance they had, by detaching themselves from the Grand AUiance. In the end of 1698, when King William was drinking Duke George William's champagne at Celle, the Duchess of Celle (Eleonore d'Olbreuse) had suggested to him that the little Duke of Gloucester might be married to her own and Sophia's grand- daughter, the younger Sophia Dorothea. The child's father was now the Elector George Lewis, for Sophia's husband, Ernest Augustus, had died in the course of the year 1698. This suggested consolid- ation of the family claims led to the re-opening of the Succession question, which Leibniz had for some years desired, and WiUiam III. again began to consider the feasibihty of a formal recognition of Sophia's claims. The death of the little Duke raised the problem to a position 1 Correspondance, iii., pp. 6, II. 3 Ibid., ii., 87. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 325 of primary importance. The boy died on the 7th August. On the 1 8th, the Electress-Dowager wrote to Leibniz announcing the journey of the Duke of Celle to the Loo, to console King William on the death of the Duke of Gloucester, **who has decamped three days after cele- brating the anniversary of his birth. ... If I were younger, I might flatter myself with the hope of a crown, but at present, if I had the choice, I should prefer to add to my years rather than to my dignity." ^ A few weeks later, she wrote in a similar strain: "If I were thirty years younger, I should think sufficiently well of my blood and of my religion to believe that they considered me in Eng- land. But as there is Httle appearance that I shall survive two persons much younger than I (though much more delicate), there is reason to fear that, after my death, they will regard my sons as strangers. My eldest son has been much more accustomed to play the sovereign than the poor Prince of Wales who is too young to profit by the example of the King of France, and who will apparently be so anxious to secure what the King his father as fool- ishly lost, that they can do with him what they will." ' This letter has been supposed to bear marks of Jacobite sympathies: but it was written on the way to the Loo to meet King William, and it closes with the admission : " Je ne suis pas si philosophe ou si etourdic comme vous pouvez croire que je n'aime entendre parler d'une couronne." The sentence seems to us to express precisely the attitude of the Electress, all through the years which had elapsed since the Revolution. The Conference at the Loo was followed by the passing of the Act of Settlement, which received the royal assent in the summer of 1701. Toland, who accompanied the 1 Cotrespondance, ii., p. 206. 2 Correspondance, ii., pp. 314 — 5. 326 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES mission which formally conveyed the news to the Electress, has given us a description of the manner in which she received it : — " I was the first who had the Honor 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 hop'd none of her posterity wou'd give them any Reason to grow weary of their Dominion. I answer'd that the English had too well con- sider'd what they did to change their minds so soon, and that they still remember'd they were never so happy as when they were last under a Woman's Government." ' The Act of Settlement gave Sophia an assured position, and there could be no longer any question of delicacy, once she had accepted the offer now made. King William pro- posed to invite Sophia to England, but his death on March 8th, 1702, put an end to the project. Queen Anne would have but one Court in England. It was, perhaps, a result of the coldness of the new sovereign, and, perhaps, also an effect of the sound constitutional sermons which the Whigs inflicted upon the heiress by Parliamentary right, that Sophia, in the autumn of 1702 administered a reproof to her supporters, who, like Pope Alexander VII. and Queen Christina, failed to appreciate the importance of the House of Brunswick. ''You have good reason," she wrote to Leibniz, ''to say that the English are much mistaken if they believe that I am totally engrossed with the affairs of England."^ At the same time she took a keen interest in the next move in the Succession controversy —the Scottish Union question. On both sides this was regarded as a critical point. Not only were there in Scotland two parties strongly opposed to the Union — the avowed Jacobites and 1 Courts of Russia and Hanover, p. 69. 2 Correspondance, iii., p, 369. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 327 the Patriot or Country party, who disliked English influence in Scotland — but there was no important section of the community who regarded the Union as in itself a boon. It might be purchased with freedom of trade and guarantees of various sorts ; in itself the whole nation was opposed to it. If Scotland remained a separate Kingdom at the death of Queen Anne, a combination of Cavaliers and Patriots might not improbably bring about a Stuart Restoration in Scotland, which would prove of almost incalculable value to the English Jacobites. It was fully recognized that the scene of the struggle was in Parliament Square and not at Westminster. As early as April 1702, Sophia's Scottish agents were instructed to lay stress on the fact that the Queen, her mother, had been born in Scot- land and that the Electress regarded herself as a Scots- woman. ^ The Scottish Act of Security of 1703, while it proved the occasion for the actual Union, seemed at first to place serious obstacles in the way, and this misfortune was followed by an imbroglio with Queen Anne, brought about by an unfortunate letter, written by Leibniz, urging the House of Commons to invite the Electress to England. The proposal which, in the strange condition of English politics, was supported by the Tories and opposed by the Whigs, was easily defeated, but it led to the naturalization of the Electress and her family, and to the conferment of the title of Duke of Cambridge upon the Electoral Prince. On the other hand, the ill-will of Queen Anne became more avowed, and it clearly annoyed Sophia, who began to show signs of irritability. Leibniz, who appreciated the import- ance of the struggle (and tried to remove Scottish objec- tions to the small number of representatives of Scotland under the proposed Union, by urging that less Scottish 1 Correspondance, ii., p. 346. 328 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES silver would be spent in London), received a distinct rebuke for writing to Sophia about the Union and the Succession. The Electress did not speak of the affairs of England and Scotland : she protested that they did not in the least interest her. The amusements of Leibniz at Berlin were much more important. ^ This has been taken some- what seriously, and it is possible that after the death of her daughter, the Queen of Prussia, the old Electress became slightly less interested in the affairs of this world. But the protest to Leibniz was merely the product of momentary annoyance. A series of unpubHshed letters, preserved in the Staats-archiv at Hanover, which the present writer had the privilege of examining in 1898, shows how keenly the Electress watched the progress of the question. The Act of Union which secured the Hanoverian Succession in Scot- land was only less critical, for her purpose, than the War of the Spanish Succession, which had by this time (1707) definitely decided that the French would never be able to force the Stuarts on an unwilling people. Seven years elapsed between the Union of the Kingdoms and the death of Queen Anne, and the Tory re-action of the end of the reign was a source of considerable anxiety to the friends of the Succession. The Whigs were determined to retain the new dynasty under their own exclusive patro- nage, and the Tories were divided between yearnings for the ancient House and a desire to stand well with Queen Anne's successor, whoever he might be. The situation was thus extremely complicated, and one cannot be surprised that a crisis did finally arise. The Electress was probably justified in regarding Anne as, in her later years, a Jacobite at heart, and her advisers were convinced of the necessity of obtain- ing for her, before the Queen's death, an establishment in ^ Correspondance, iii., p. 358. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 329 England and such an allowance from Parliament as had, during William's reign, been granted to the Princess Anne. The Peace of Utrecht was so far favourable that it had, for the first time, obtained a general European recognition of the principles of the Act of Settlement, but the desertion of the Allies by England, and the conclusion of peace with France had created a new menace to the House of Hanover. Queen Anne's health was such that the end could not be far off, and it must find the Hanoverian party prepared. It is significant that, in the summer of 1713, the Electoral Princess (Caroline of Anspach) had begun to learn English, although the Elector himself had resisted the persuasions of Leibniz to master the tongue of his future subjects. The question of an establishment for the Electoral Prince was being discussed, when the crisis was suddenly brought about by an unfortunate demand that the Prince should, as Duke of Cambridge, receive a writ of summons to the House of Lords. Whether the Electress herself was responsible for this step is uncertain ; it is probable that her agents and the Whig politicians had considerably bettered her instructions. Queen Anne was much irritated by this demand that the Electoral Prince should reside in England during her life-time, and, on the 19th May, 17 14, she wrote her famous letter to the Electress: — "Madam, my sister and aunt, since the right of succession to my kingdom has been declared to belong to you and your family, there have always been evil intentioned persons who, from regard to their private interests, have entered into designs to establish in my dominions, during my lifetime, a prince of your blood. I had never imagined till now that this project would have progressed so far as to have had the slightest effect on your mind. But as I have lately under- stood, from public reports which have very speedily spread 330 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES abroad, that your Electoral Highness shares this view, it is important for the succession of your family that I should tell you that such conduct will certainly be productive of consequences prejudicial to the succession itself, which has no security except while the sovereign who actually wears the crown retains her rights. There are here (and it is this which is the cause of all the trouble) many seditious spirits, and I leave you to imagine what trouble they may be able to produce if they have any pretext for raising an insurrection. I am sure therefore that you will never consent to anything which can disturb my peace or that of my subjects. ''Let me know, with the same frankness that I have shown to you, what you think necessary to make the Succession doubly secure ; I will concur with zeal, as long as it does not derogate from my dignity, which I am resolved to maintain." ^ A still more strongly worded letter was addressed to the Elecioral Prince. Both letters reached Hanover on Wed- nesday, June 6th, and their contents much disturbed the aged Electress. She was now eighty-four years of age, and Queen Anne was scarcely fifty. " I believe I am more ill than she is," she had written two months earlier, "although, by the grace of God, I have only that sad complaint of being old, which is beyond remedy." " The long day's task seemed to have been accomplished, and the fruits of victory all but attained, when this letter placed everything once more in jeopardy. At least, so the Electress deemed, and she at once took steps to regain the ground that had been lost. The Countess of Biickeburg, who was with her during these last days, has described to us the effects of the letters upon the Electress. 1 Correspondance, iii., pp. 454 — 5. - Ibid., iii., p. 433. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 331 On the Wednesday afternoon she remarked, *' Cette affaire me rendra asseurement malade. J'y succomberay." * But she was not too much overcome to send copies of the letters to the Duke of Marlborough, and she was deter- mined to show the world that if her children lost the three crowns, it was not through her fault. Next day, the letters were still the main theme of her conversation, and she complained of feeling ill. On Friday, she was better. " Not only did she dine in public, but when, in the even- ing, the time came for her to walk, she shewed a strong desire to do so, although the weather was somewhat cloudy and it threatened to rain. She declined the bearer and walked as usual, talking ever of the English affairs with the Electoral Princess. These unfortunate affairs had taken the firmest hold of her heart, and the Queen's Letter . . . had made the deepest impression on our good Electress." After some conversation on this topic, the Electress turned to the Countess, and walking between the Princess and her, began to talk of things in general. Suddenly she felt ill and decided to return to her room. Rain began to fall, and as she quickened her steps in order to find shelter, she said, "I am very ill; give me your hand." In a few minutes she had passed away. The Countess of Biickeburg was doubtless right when she said that, in her opinion. Queen Anne's letter was "la malheureuse cause exterieure de la perte irreparable," but the tradition that the Electress died of grief on receiv- ing the letter cannot be seriously accepted. The emotion it called forth afforded the occasion for a mortal seizure, but the Electress had long known of a tendency to apo- plexy. When Philip of Orleans died in 1701, Leibniz had taken the opportunity of warning his mistress of the 1 Corresfondance, iii., pp. 457 — 462. 332 FIVE STUART PRINCESSES danger of an apoplectic seizure. ^ Since then, thirteen years had elapsed, and the end could not now have been long delayed. The character of the Electress Sophia bears, on the whole, a considerable resemblance to that of her great- grandmother, Mary, Queen of Scots. There was one grand difference ; Mary was a child of the Italian Renaissance, Sophia of the Heidleberg Catechism. A humanistic edu- cation was productive of a simplicity of moral outlook which was lacking in the training of Calvinism. Moral restraint may have been more irksome to Mary, but for- giveness was less natural to Sophia. This fundamental contrast in education and in conception of life may be traced throughout the career of both. The Heidleberg Catechism was admirably suited to direct Sophia's course through life; Mary was, after her departure from France, continuously out of touch with her surroundings. But nature had, in many respects, dowered them alike. Both were women of remarkable personal charm; both were possessed of a gracious tolerance which found alike in the world of thought and in the world of men a human interest which rendered both the majority of opinions and the majority of mankind at least tolerable. In both there was combined with robustness of body, a courageous manHness of disposition, a courage both moral and physical. To Sophia's fearlessness in moments of grave bodily danger, her niece, Elizabeth Charlotte, bears constant witness. Both were free from the taint of coarseness which marked so many of their contemporaries, but both had the power 1 Correspondance, ii., pp. 360 — 1. There are slight sketches of Sophia in Mrs. Everett-Green's Lives of the Princesses of England, (Life of Elizabeth of Bohemia) and in Mrs. Ty tier's Six Royal Ladies of the House of Hanover. In addition to works already quoted, the reader may consult the following: Noeldeke : Kurfihsiin Sophie von Hannover ; and Schaumann : Sophie Dorothea und Kurfiirstin Sophie von Hannover. SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER 333 of bitter speech and could aim straight and wound cruelly. In both, the tender emotions were strongly developed, and both inspired the warmest affection in others. Neither was a woman of great intellectual power; the commonplace maxims which are so numerous in Mary's letters, and the simple proverbs which the Duchess of Orleans never tires of quoting from her aunt, are not the marks of a Queen EHzabeth or an Empress Catherine. Sophia had probably the keener intellect, Mary the more cultivated appreciation of literary form and grace. The political position of both ahke was influenced by proximity to the throne of England, and each regarded the recognition of her position of heir-presumptive as the ultimate aim of her policy. Mary failed to rule ; Sophia missed, by two months, the opportunity of ruling, but she had already given signs of an ability to deal with men which Mary never evinced. She had mastered the condition of English politics, and, had Anne died some years earlier, British history might have known another great Queen. The greatest tribute to her Hfe is the fact that she earned from Leibniz this epitaph : *' Ce n'est pas elle, c'est Hanover, c'est I'Angleterre, c'est le monde, c'est moy qui y aye perdu." INDEX Act of Settlement, 308, 317, 325, 329. Adolph of Sweden, Prince, 300. Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, 265. Alexander VI., Bull, 175. Alexander VII., Pope, 326. Amsterdam, 177 195. Plot to capture, 196, 197. Anhalt {see Christian of Anhalt). Anne of Austria, Queen Regent, Princess Henriette and, 236, 251, 262. Anne of Beaujeu, 224. Anne of Denmark, Queen of James I., 50, 52, 71- Anne, Queen : — Attitude towards Dissenters, 323. Attitude towards Electress So- phia, 326, 327. Death, 328, Her children, 316. Letter to Electoral Prince, 330. Letter to Electress Sophia, 329. Antony Ulric of Wolfenbiittel, 309, Apsley Elizabeth, account of Elec- tress Palatine, 90. ArUngton, opponent of French alliance, 266. Augsburg, League of, 309. Augsburg Treaty of, 78. Augustus Frederic of Wolfenbiittel, 309, 310- B Bacon, Sir Francis: — Masque, 76. On Prince Henry, 66. Baden Durlach, Marquis of, 124, 128. Barberini, Cardinal, on death of Henriette of Orleans, 279. Barendz, 179. Beaufort, Jane, wife of James L, 7, 10. Bedford, Lucy, Countess of, 133. Bennett, Mrs., nurse to Princess Mary, 169. Berkeley, Sir John, Princess Hen- rietta confided to, 231. Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transyl- vania, 106. In Hungary, 123, 130. Bicker, Burgomaster of Amsterdam, 195, 196, 198. Bill of Rights, 318. Black, Mr., 51. Blake, rivalry with Van Tromp, 207. Blanche of Castile, 224. 336 INDEX Bohemia : — Armies mutiny, iii. Insurrection, 94. Spoil of foreign aristocracy, 159. State of, 121. Boileau, 244. Bossuet, 244. "Exposition de la foi de I'dglise catholique", 321. Funeral oration on Henrietta of Orleans, 283. Funeral oration upon Henrietta Maria, 229. Ministers to Henrietta of Orleans, 278. Bouchet, Chronicles of Aquitaine, 28. Boucquoi, General, 106, in. Bouillon, Henry de la Tour d'Au- vergne, Due de, 70, 71, 81, 99. Bowes, Thomas, at baptism of Elizabeth Stuart, 51. Brandenburg, Elector of, 119, 185, 204. Breda, Charles 11. at, 193. Breslau, 118, 119. Brdzd, Pierre de, 40. Brill captured, 174. Brisson, Mme. de, 322. Brittany, Duke of, marries Isabella of Scotland, 29. Brunswick, House of, 301. Foreign policy, 308. Brusset : — Letters to Mazarin, 196, 200. On coup d'itat, 198. Buchan, Earl of, 7. Btickeburg, Countess of, on eifects of Queen Anne's letters on Elec- tress Sophia, 330, 331. Buckingham, Duke of, 106. Visits Madrid 127, 129. Burgundy, Duchess of, 31, 38. Burnet, Bishop, advice to House of Hanover, 318. Bussy, 244. Calabria, Duchess of, 31. Calenberg-Gottingen, 301. Camerarius, 92, 93, 102, 104. Carleton, Sir Dudley, 90, 102, 133. On loss of Mannheim, 129. On Palatines at the Hague, 131. Carlisle, Earl of, {see Doncaster, Viscount). Caroline of Anspach, learns English, 329- Casimir, John, 79. "Catholic League", 78, in. Chalons-sur-Marne, 30, 37. Charles I.: — Bohemian Policy, 130. Executed 192, 233. Invites Queen of Bohemia to England, 147. Reception of Marie de Medici's overtures, 170. Visits Madrid, 127, 129. Charles 11. : — At Breda, 193. At Hague, 297. Attitude towards Netherlands, 264. In Holland, 209. Restored, 157, 218, 237. Charles VII. :— Affection for Dauphine, 24. Court-factions, 32. Embassy to James I., 7. Scotch Nobility and, 6. INDEX 337 Charles Louis, Prince, 83, 147, 149, 150, 151- Character, 299. Conduct to his mother, 152. Correspondence with Sophia, 315. Death, 314. Prisoner in Austria, 292. Restored to Lower Palatinate, 150, 298. Charles Philip of Hanover, death, 319- Charlotte of Hesse, Electress Pala- tine 299. Chartier Alain, 8, 28. Oration on Franco-Scottish Alli- ance, 9. Chartier, Jean, 23, 24. Chartres, Regnault de. Archbishop of Rheims, 8. Choisy, Abbd de, 246. On Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, 243- Christian of Anhalt, 92, 93, 97, 114, Christian of Brunswick, 124, 128. Death, 130. Devotion to Queen of Bohemia, 138. Sketch of, 136. Christian of Denmark, 120, 130. Christian Lewis, Duke of Celle, 301, 306. Christina, Queen of Sweden, 156, 306, 326. Interview with Charles II., 211. Civil War in England, 229. Clarendon, Lord, protests against- Elizabeth's visiting England, 158. Clermont, Earl of, 31. Cleve-Julith Succession, 78. Colbert, sent to Villers-Cotterets,269. Coligny, Louise de, wife of William the Silent, 180. Combe Abbey, Elizabeth Stuart at, 54. Commynes quoted, 27. Condd, Prince de, 244. Conti, Prince de, 236. Conway, English Ambassador, at Prague, 114. Account of flight from Prague, 117. Created Viscount Killultagh, 134. Cosnac, M., 244. Coucy, Matthieu de, 24, 27. Coventry, Elizabeth Stewart visits, 57. Craven, William Lord, 149, 158, 162, 296, 297. Entertains Elizabeth of Bohemia, 161. Estates confiscated, 151. Sketch of, 140. Cromwell, Oliver, 136. Policy, 214. Scheme for league of European States, 186. Ciistrin Castle, 119. Cuyp, 179. Dalkeith, Lady, Governess to Prin- cess Henrietta, 231. Escapes to France, 232. Darnley, John Stewart Earl of, sketch of, 8. De Thou, French Ambassador at Hague, 212, 217. Description of Elizabeth of Bohe- mia, 159. Letter to Mazarin quoted, 215. 338 INDEX De Witt, Grand Pensionary, 207, 212. Policy of disintegration, 217. Speech to Charles IL, 219. Statesmanship, 187. De Witt, Jacob, 197, Delft, 177, 195. Denmark, Queen of, 300. Descartes, 179. Correspondence with Princess Elizabeth, 290, 293. Digby, Sir Everard, 58. Dohna, Christopher von, 93, 203, 215, 216. Doncaster, Viscount, on Electress Palatine, 90, 134. Dorislaus, Dr., agent of English Parliament, 104. Douglas, Archibald, (Earl) in France, 7. Dover, Treaty of, 219, 263, 308. Secret Treaty of, 271. Dresnay, Regnault de, 35, 37. Drummond's History of Scotland, 14. Dudley, Anne, wife of Col. Schom- berg, 89. Dumbarton, 13, 16. Dunkirk, Sale of, 273. Dunes, Battle of, 214. Dutch: — As Representatives of European Protestantism, 186. Pioneers of Europe, 178. Struggle with Catholicism, 126. Truce with Spain, 123. Edward, Prince, (Palatine), 153. Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess (Lise- lotte) 299, 300, 305, 3^5. 319. 332. Marries Philip of Orleans, 308. Elizabeth of Bohemia, 49 seqq. Afifianced to Frederic, Elector Palatine, 70, 75. At Combe Abbey, 54, 160. At the Hague, 117, 126, 131,150, 179, 292. At Whitehall 59 : festivities, 63, 64. Birth, 50. Characteristics, 57, 65, 67, 85, 89, loi, 107, 132, 141, 154, 160. Correspondents, 134. Death, 162. Departure from Heidelberg, 103. Flight from Prague, 116. Her children, 83, 107, 120, 142, 143, 152, 290, 291. Later life, 122, 150, 155. Leaves England, 76, Letters to: — Duke of Buckingham, 127. — Earl of Carlisle, 134. — James L, 84. — Laud, 148, — Lord Craven, 151. — Lord Finch, 157. — Nicholas, Secretary to Char- les IL, 155. — Prince Henry, 65. — Sir Thomas Roe, 129, 132, 134, 135, 139, 147- Marriage, 75. "Memoirs" by one of her ladies, 52. Personal appearance, 69. Poem, 61. Question of precedence, 84. Reception in Palatinate, 81. Returns to England, 158. Suitors, 69. Urges Frederic to accept Bohe- mian Crown, 99. INDEX 339 Elizabeth, Princess, Abbess of Herfort Convent, 153, 293, 294. Death, 313. Elizabeth, Queen, Sponsor for Eliza- beth Stuart, 51. Emeric seized by States-General,2i6. England : — Civil War in, 150. Declares war against Spain, 130. English Court during James I.'s reign, 60. English politics, 314, 316 seqq.^ 324 seqq. Ernest Augustus, Elector of Han- over, 302, 309, 310. Bishop of Osnabrtick, 305. Death, 324. Foreign policy, 308, 309, 313, 317, 318. Marries Princess Sophia, 304. Erskine, Lady Frances, 163. Estouteville, Jean d'. 35. Estrades, emissary of Mazarin, 198. Europe at close of i6th century, 50. Everet-Green, Mrs., " Lives of Prin- cesses of England ", 168. On Mary of Orange, 222. On Reception of Electress Pala- tine, 81. Exeter, Henrietta Maria at, 230. Exclusion Bill, 316. Fayette, Mme. de la, 244. On Philip, Duke of Orleans, 247. Story of Henrietta of Orleans at Court, 252, 262. Ferdinand, Archduke of Styria and Carinthia, 92, 94. Alliances, no. Elected Emperor, 96. Ferdinand of Hungary, 300. Feuillet, ministers to Henrietta of Orleans, 277. Filleul, Jeanne, 31, 36. Floyd punished, 136. Fontainebleau, Court at, 250. France : — European Policy, iii. Scotland and, 3 seqq. War declared with, England, 264. France, Anatole, on Henrietta of Orleans, 263. Francis William, Cardinal of Wur- temberg, Bishop of Osnabrtick, 305- Frederic IV., Elector Palatine, 82. Frederic V., Elector Palatine:— Arrives at Whitehall, 72. Birth, 50, 70. Character, 108, 122, 125, 144, 145. Death, 145. Elected King of Bohemia, 96. Enters Prague, 103. Flight from Prague, 116. Joins Gustavus Adolphus, 144. Letters to Princess Elizabeth, 74, 112, 129, 141, 144. Marriage, 75. PoHcy, 91, 93, 96, 109; results, 121. Progress through Moravia and Silesia, 112. Sketch of, 70, 79, 145. Territories, 79. Frederic Henry of Orange, 133. Frederic Henry, Prince, 104, 107, 142. Death, 143, 152. Letter to James I., 142. Frederic Augustus of Hanover, 305, 312. Death, 319. 340 INDEX Frederic Henry, Prince, Son of William the Silent, 171, 179. Sketch of, 180, 188. Friesland, 177. Froissart quoted on Scotland, 4. Fronde, 234. Froude on use of history, 167. Gamache, Cyprien de. Preceptor to Princess Henriette, 233, 235, 242. Gamaches, Lord of, 21. Gardiner, Professor, on Charles L, 171. George Lewis, Elector of Hanover (George L), 305, 308, 309, 324. Character, 319. Marriage, 311. George William, Duke of Celle:— Foreign policy, 308, 309. Marriage, 310, 311. Sketch of, 301, 306. Germany, Princes of Northern, 125. Germany, religious parties in, 77. Gibbon, Edward, on Venice, 306. Girard, Regnault, Seigneur de Bazo- ges, embassy to Scotland, 13. Narrative, 22, 24. Gloucester, Duke of:— At Hague, 210. Birth, 318. Death, 221, 324. Goeree Island, 140. Gonzague, Princess Anne de, 153. Gourville, conversation with Sophia Charlotte, 313. Gramont, Marechal de, 253, 256. Greville, Sir Fulk, 59. Groningen, 177. Grotius, 179. Guelders, 177. Guiche, Comte de, 252, 258, 260. Gunpowder Plot, 58. Gustave, Prince, 291. Gustavus Adolphus, 69. Death, 292. Lands in Germany, 144. H Hague, The, 178. King and Queen of Bohemia at, 121, 131. Halberstadt Bishopric, 136. Hanover, 301. Harington, James, Author of "Com- monwealth of Oceana", 294, 296. Harington, Lady, 54, 58, 59, 75, 82, 89. Harington, Lord, 54, 59, 62, 77. Character, 55. Death, 82. System of education, 56, 61. Harington, Sir John (Jun.), 66. Harington, Sir John (Sen.), 67. Harrison, Rev. John, 103. Heenvliet {see Kerkhoven, John Van der). Heidelberg captured, 128. Heidelberg, Court of, 82. Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, 229 se^^. At Villers-Cotterets, 268. Birth, 230. Burial, 282. Death, 279. Education, 234. INDEX 341 Health, 252, 254, 274. Her children, 284. Her friends, 244. Illness, 275. Letters to Charles IL, 257, 259. Libels on, 261. Life at French Court, 250 seqq. Marriage, 241. Personal appearance, 241. Political influence, 263, 271, 273. Suitors, 239. Visits England, 238, 270. Henrietta Maria, Princess of Tran- sylvania, 153, 293, 295. Henrietta Maria, Queen, 169, 171, 201, 210. At Convent of Chaillot, 294. At Hague, 296. In Paris, 233. Visits England, 238. Henry IV., assassinated, 69, 78. Henry VL, marries Margaret of Anjou, 30. Henry VII., concludes Intercursus Magnus with Archduke Philip, 204. Henry, Count, (of Orange), 73. Henry, Prince of Wales, 53, 54, 63, 64, 162. Character, 66. Death, 73. Letter to Sir John Harington, 66. Hesse-Darmstadt, Landgrave of, 127. Holland, 177, 182, 188, 202. Agricultural industries, 178. Hollis, Lord, Ambassador of Charles 11., 263. Honthorst, Gerald, 295. Hopton, Ralph, 118. Howard of Effingham, Lord Ad- miral, 77. Hungary, 123. Hyde, Anne, in suite of Princess Mary of Orange, 211. Iburg Castle, 305,' 306. Intercursus Magnus, provisions of, 204. Isabella of Scotland, wife of Duke of Brittany, 29. James I.: — Assassinated, 25. Marries Jane Beaufort, 7. Negotiates with English Govern- ment, II. Receives Charles VII.'s Ambas- sadors, 9, 12, 14. James II.: — Fall, 318. Meets Anne Hyde, 211. James VI. and I.:— Bohemian Policy, 109, 124, 129. Characteristics, 52, 68. On education, 55. Jermyn, Lord, 210. Joan of Arc, 11. John Frederic, Duke of Hanover, 302, 303, 306, 307, 314. Death, 310. Foreign policy, 308. 342 INDEX John George, Elector of Saxony, 9i> 94, 91 y Ill- John of Zweibriicken, 79. JoUe, Pierre de, quoted, 5. Jonson, Ben, address to James I., 63. Jusserand, M., 8. Kennedy, Hugh, Embassy to Scot- land, 13. Kerkhoven, John Van der, Lord of Heenvliet, 183, 223. Keroliaille, Louise de, 273. Konigsmark, Count, 320. La Bruy^re, on courtiers, 250. La Palisse harbour, 20. La Rochefoucauld, 244. La Rochelle, Margaret of Scot- land's entry into, 21. Labadie, Jean, 294. Laud, Archbishop: — Letter to Queen of Bohemia, 148. System of " Thorough ", 169,170. Lawder, Edward of, Archdeacon of Lothian, 10. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: — At Hanover, 314, 321. Correspondence with Princess Sophia, 295. Epitaph on Electress Sophia, 333- Leyden, 177. Princess Sophia at, 290. Royal Children at, 142. Liancourt's reply to Louis XVI., 174. Lichtoun, Henry, Bishop of Aber- deen, 9. Linschoten, 179. Livingston, Lord and Lady, 52. Loevenstein Castle, six members imprisoned at, 197, 218. Loo, Conference at, 325. Lorraine, Chevalier de, 259, 267. Louis IX., speech to his son, 5. Louis XIV.:— Conduct to Henrietta of Orleans, 236, 250, 270, 274. Court during reign of, 248. Dutch policy, 265. European policy, 186. Letter to Charles 11. on death of Henrietta of Orleans, 280. Louis, Dauphin, de Viennois: — Aflfianced to Margaret of Scot- land, 10. Marriage, 23. Sketch of, 25, 42. Louis of Nassau, Lord of Bever- waert, 184, 223. Louisa, Electress of Brandenburg, 195. Louise Juliane, Electress Palatine, 81, 85, 97, 103, 142. Louise, Princess, Abbess of Mau- buisson, 153, 293, 294, 312, 321. Liineburg-Celle, 301. Lusatia, 104. Saxon troops in, 119. Lutter, Battle of, 130. Liitzen, Battle of, 145, 292. INDEX M 343 Macaulay on Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, 263. Magdeberg Conference, 317. Mahan, Captain, on fleet of Hol- land, 182. Mailld, Lord of, 21. Maintenon, Mme. de, 241. Mancini, Marie de, 252. Mannheim, loss of, 129. Mansfeld, General, in Upper Pala- tinate, 122, 124, 128. Death, "130. Mar, John Erskine, Earl of, 163. Marche, Olivier de la, 31. Margaret of Anjou, marriage with Henry VI., 30. Margaret of Scotland, Princess, 8 seqq. Affianced to Louis the Dauphin, 10. Authorities quoted on, 45. Characteristics, 27, 44. Death, 41. Illness, 39. Marriage, 23. Plot against, 32. Reception in France, 21. Sets out for France, 19. Tomb, 43. Maria Louisa of Orleans, marriage, 313- Marie de Medici, visits England, 170. Marlborough, Duke of, 331. Mary, Princess of Orange, 154, 167 seqq.^ 296. Appeals to French King, 215. Betrothed to William of Orange, 172. Birth of her son, 201. Characteristics, 195, 202, 212, 223. Death, 221. Dispute with Princess Dowager, 203, 215. Letter to Lady L. Drummond, 184. Marriage treaty, 173. Portrait, 168. Sketch of, 169, 222. Visits England, 220. Visits Paris, 211. Mary, Queen of Scots, 162. Character, 332. Matthias, Emperor, 78, 92, 96. Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse- Cassel, 91. Maurice, Prince, 120, 152, 316. Maurice, Prince of Orange, 69, 80, 97, 180. Conduct to Palatines, 121, 132. Maximilian of Bavaria, 109, iii, 122. Mazarin, Cardinal: — Attitude towards Princess Hen- riette, 237. Imprisons Condd, 218. On Amelia, Princess of Orange 180, 182. Policy, 188, 190. Treaty of Paris and, 210. Melville, Andrew, at Falkland, 51. Meun, Jean de, 4. Michel, "Ecossais en France", 33. Mignet quoted, 191. Mirabeau, maxim, 191. Moliere : — Dedication of I'Ecole des Femmes, 245. Protected by Henrietta of Orle- ans, 244. Monk, General, 218. Montalais, Mile, de, 253. Montausier, Due de, on the Prince, 250. 344 INDEX Montespan, Mme. de, 243. Montils les Tours, 29. Montpensier, Mile, de, on Henrietta of Orleans' health, 274, 277. Montrose at Hague, 297. Moravia, 104, 112. Motteville, Mme. de, on Henrietta of Orleans, 262. Munich, march to, 144. Munster, Treaty of, 189. N Nancy, Court at, 29, 30, 32, 35. Naunton, Secretary of State, 119. Navigation Act, 206. Netherlands : — Commercial treaty with Denmark, 206. Constitution, 176, 202, 217. Influence of England on, 218. Peace of Munster and, 190. Struggle against Spain, 174. Nethersole, English Agent at Prague, Acct. of retreat from Prague, 118. Nicholas, 210. Nimburg, 117. Nottingham, Earl of, 77. Ogilvy, Sir Patrick, 9. Olbreuse, El^onore d', (Mme. de Harburg), 306, 307, 309. Duchess of Liineburg-Celle, 311. Orange, Princess Henry of, 297. Orkney Earl, of, 22. Overyssel, 177. Palatinate, Upper and Lower, 79- Loss of, 292. State of, 121. Paris, Treaty of, 210. Pepys, account of Princess Hen- ri ette, 241. Percy, Lady Lucy, 57. Peter the Great, visits Electress Sophia, 323. Pitt, Phineas, 67, 77. Philip II., ruins of Empire of, 185. Philip IV., acknowledges indepen- dence of Dutch, 189. Philip, Duke of Orleans, 274. Death, 331. Demands Princess Henriette in marriage, 238. Sketch of, 246. PhiHp, Prince, (Palatine) 153. Platens at Hanover, 320. Pies, Mme. de, governess to Prin- cess Sophia, 290. Poitevin, Robert, 40. Poitiers, Margaret of Scotland's reception at, 21. Pollnitz, Baron, "Memoirs" 300, 311. Potter, Paul, 179. INDEX 345 Prague:— "Defenestration" at, 94. Flight from, 116. Frederic and Elizabeth enter, 103. State of, III. Pregente de Melun, 31, 36. Protestant Sects, 105, "Protestant Union", 77, 79, 91,95, 109, 121. Racine dedicates tragedy to Hen- rietta of Orleans, 244. Radegonde, Princess, 22, 30. Ragoczi, Sigismund, Prince of Transylvania, 295. Rakonitz, 113. Ravestin seized by States-General, 216. Rees seized by States-General, 216. Rembrandt, 179. Revolution of 1688, 317. Rhenen, Court at, 155, 295. Richelieu : — Alliance with States-General against Spain, 186. Anti-dynastic policy, 170, 185. Attitude towards stage, 245. Richmond, Duke of, 134. Rochester, on death of Henrietta of Orleans, 279. Rocroi, Battle of, 187. Roe, Sir Thomas, 129, 132, 135. Rotterdam, 177. Roxburgh, Lady, governess to Princess Mary, 169. Rudolph Augustus, Duke of Wolfen- biittel, 309. Rupert, Prince, 107, 142, 152, 158, 162, 229, 316. prisoner in France, 292. Ruysdael, 179. Sabld, Mme. de, 244. Saint Chaumont, Mme. de, 267. St. John, English ambassador at Hague, 204. St. Johnston, 15, 17. St. Simon, on Henrietta of Orleans' death, 280. Salignac, Marguerite de, 31, 36, 41. Savoy, Duke of, 95, 97, no. Protestant subjects of, 217. Savoy, House of, claim to English throne, 318, 324. Schomberg, Colonel, 83, 89. On Electress Palatine. 85, 86. Scotch characteristics, 4, 5. Scottish Guard, 33. Scottish Union question, 326. Scrope, Lord, 14. Scultetus, Court Chaplain, 82, 108. Seeley, Professor, "Age of the Cardinals", 185. Sevigne, Mme. de, 244. Silesia, 104, 112 Sobieski, John, 309. Soissons, Mme. de, interview with Henrietta of Orleans, 258. Solms, Amelia Countess de. Prin- cess of Orange, 104, 133, 209. Character, 180. 346 INDEX Dispute with Princess Royal, 203, 215. Policy, 213. Reply to French envoy, 216. Sophia Charlotte, Queen of Prussia, 307, 313, Death, 328. Sophia Dorothea, Junr., 324. Sophia Dorothea, Queen of George I, 307, 309. 319- Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 153, 289 seqq. At Hague, 292. At Heidelberg, 298. At Herrenhausen, 320. Attitude to religion, 322. Attitude towards James IL, 317, 318, 319- Birth, 143, 290. Character, 332. Correspondence with Leibniz, 295i 314, 317. 321, 325. 326. Death, 331. Description of Henrietta Maria, 296. Education, 295. Epitaph, 333. Her children, 305, 307, 309. Literary tastes, 324. Marriage, 304. "Memoirs", 290, 300, 303, 312, 314. Account of Court in, 293. Naturalised in England, 327. Partiality for England, 315 seqq. Position with regard to English throne, 289. Suitors, 300. Tour in Italy, 306. Visits France, 312, 313. Sophie of Brunswick, 140. Sorel, Agnes, 29, 31, 32, 36. Southampton, Earl of, 53. Spain : — Downfall of, 187. Negotiations with James I., in. Spinola:— Commands in Spanish Nether- lands, III. Scheme for re-union of Lutherans and Calvinists, 321. Spinoza, 179. Stanhope, Lady, wife of John Van der Kerkhoven, Lord of Heen- vliet, 183, 223. Strafford, Earl of, 169. Administration of Ireland, 170. Strickland, Agnes, "Lives of Queens of England", 168. On Sophia of Hanover, 303. Strickland, English Ambassador at Hague, 204. Stuart, Lady Arabella, 54, 63, 162. Stuart, Elizabeth {see Elizabeth of Bohemia). Suze, Mme. de la, 268. Taine, on courtiers of ancien rigime, 248. Temple, Sir Wilham, on Amelia, Princess of Orange, 183. Theatre in France during T7th century, 245. Thirty Years' War, loi, 126, 143^ 159, 290, 298. Thurn, Count, 94, 105, 108, 115, 117. Tillay, Jamet de :— Evidence against, 43. Plot against Dauphine, 32. INDEX 347 Toland, account of Electress So- phia, 320, 326. Touraine, Due de, 7. Tours, Margaret of Scotland's recep- tion at, 21. Treville, M., 244. Triple Alliance formed, 265, 307. Tuce, Jeanne de, 39^ 41. Turenne, Marshal, 244, 268. U Utrecht, 177, 197. Peace of, 329. Valence, Bishop of: — Exiled, 267. Libel on Henrietta of Orleans and, 261. Valli^re, Mile, de La, 251, 259. Van Dyck, portrait of Queen Hen- rietta Maria, 296. Van Sypesteyn, letter to De Witt, 207. Van Tromp, 179, 187. Death, 207. Vane, Sir Henry, 144. Vardes, Marquis de, 256, 259. Exiled, 260. Vend6me, Comte de, 22. Venice, Sophia of Hanover at, 306. Verneuil, Battle of, 7. Vienna relieved, 309. Vieuville, Duchesse de, masked ball, 260. Villequier, Marguerite de, 34. Vondel, 179. W Wakeman, "Ascendency of France" quoted, 175. Waldsassen, 103. Wallenstein :— Dismissed, 143. Imperial army, 130. Waller, attacked at Cheriton, 229. Ward, Dr. A. W., on:— English Succession, 319. George William and Ernest Augustus of Hanover, 302. Westphalia, 120. Treaty of, 150, 210, 298, 305. Weston, English Ambassador at Prague, 114. Negotiations, 127, 128. White, Mountain, 114. Whitelocke, on:-— Amsterdam, 177. Proposed Alliance between Ne- therland and England, 205. William, Duke, founder of House of Liineburg, 301. WiUiam III.:— Birth, 201. Character, 225. Conference at Loo, 325. Death, 326. Education, 220. Elected Stadtholder of Zealand, 207. Intrigues, 316, 317. 348 INDEX William Frederick of Nassau, Count, Stadtholder of Friesland, 185, 206, 209. Advice to William of Orange, 196. William, Prince of Orange, 170. Betrothed to Princess Mary, 172. Death, 199. Plot to capture Amsterdam, 197. Policy, 189, 192, 195, 199. Sketch of, 173, 200. William the Silent, 175. Wladislaus VII. of Poland, 294. Wolfenbiittel, 120. Woodstock, Court at, 71. Worcester, Battle of, 207. Wotton, Sir Henry:— At Heidelberg, 88. Letter to Queen of Bohemia, 134. Lyric on Elizabeth of Bohemia, 47. Wren, Bishop of Ely, 172. Yolande of Aragon, Queen of | York, Cardinal, death, 292. Sicily, 22. Zealand, 177, 178. 5 {;!NTED IN GREAT BRITAIN. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below, Pts.on first day overdue NOV 4 1947 200ct'55jL|? pECD LD AUG 16 1956 REC'D LD AUG 2 7 1956 DEC 1 3 19k U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES CDDfi7337b2 i . / DA 7^5 226484