Chapter D: O. M (10)

At last, and with a most extraordinary rapidity in the sequence of its events, the end came. The malady to which Queen Anne was to succumb announced itself on July 27th. By July 30th the anxiety had become so grave that, at a meeting of the Cabinet and of a few Privy Councillors not forming part of it, presided over by Shrewsbury, orders were issued to close the ports, to hold twenty men-of-war in readiness, and to make the Lord Mayor responsible for the safety of the City of London. On the following day, the control of affairs finally passed out of Bolingbroke’s hands, when, after a meeting of the whole Privy Council, at which Bothmer and Kreyenberg were present, the Queen, in accordance with the Council’s recommendation, placed the Lord Treasurer’s staff in Shrewsbury’s hands. A courier was sent to Strafford at the Hague, to remind the authorities there of the guarantee to which they were bound by treaty; and the British troops were recalled from the Netherlands. Early in the morning of August 1st, the Queen lay dead. Everything was in readiness. Kreyenberg made his appearance with a box containing the commission of the Lords Justices; and of the eighteen names included in it thirteen were found to be those of Whigs. During the morning, Peers, Privy Councillors, and Members of the House of Commons flocked in to append their signatures to the proclamation notifying the death of Queen Anne and the accession of King George. It was read by the heralds at Charing Cross and Temple Bar, and within the City; and a few days later the King was again proclaimed there, as well as at Edinburgh and Dublin. The Houses of Parliament, which had assembled for formal business on the day of the Queen’s death, four days later voted loyal addresses to her successor.

Bothmer, who had controlled the entire process of these transactions,[191] had promptly despatched his secretary, Goedeke, to carry to King George the great news of his accession. He arrived at Hanover on the morning of August 6th, just a day after Secretary Craggs, who brought, with other missives, a letter addressed to the Elector on the day before the Queen’s death, and informing him that everything was in readiness for his immediate journey to England so soon as that death should actually have taken place. On August 8th, the Earl of Dorset—a young Whig Lord, described, in his later days, by a severe critic as ‘a perfect English courtier’—arrived from England with his suite, to make the official announcement on behalf of the Lords Justices. Doubt has been thrown on the statement that Goedeke, having reached Hanover, communicated the news to Clarendon, who had returned from dining with the Elector and Baroness von Kielmannsegg at her villa, Fantaisie, and who at once bore the tidings to George I at Herrenhausen. In any case, the formal announcement to the new King was made by Dorset on August 9th, when he was received by George in the flower-garden of the Orangery at Herrenhausen. Inasmuch as, on that very day, the Earl of Berkeley assumed the command of the imposing naval squadron which, a little more than a week afterwards, anchored off the Dutch coast, there was no reason why the new King should delay his departure. Whether, however, because of his confidence in the circumspection of his English friends, or because of his attachment to his Electorate, George I was in no hurry. To be in no hurry may be accounted one of the minor virtues in a monarch. He left Herrenhausen on the morning of August 31st, bidding farewell to his and his mother’s favourite place of sojourn in words which, if the court chronicler is to be trusted, betray more of sentiment than he was in the habit of expressing, but at the same time show him to have had no intention of breaking with the traditions of the past. ‘Farewell, dear place, where I have spent so many enjoyable and tranquil hours. I leave you, but not for ever; _for I hope to see you again from time to time_.’

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Footnote 191:

It was Bothmer who advised the destruction of a packet of letters
found in the Queen’s private apartments by the Lords Justices and
himself, and who, during the burning of them, thought that he
recognised the handwriting of the Pretender.

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In the same spirit, George I’s departure was left unmarked by any solemnity or ceremonial whatever. He was accompanied on his journey by his son, with whom the death of the old Electress seems to have furnished him with an opportunity of placing himself for the time on seemlier terms. The Princess (Caroline of Ansbach) followed rather later, with her children.[192] The King’s favourite brother, Prince Ernest Augustus, remained behind in Hanover, chiefly, no doubt, in order that he might fill the Elector’s place at the Privy Council there, and also for the purpose of taking care of his expectations at Osnabrück, which were realised a year later, when he succeeded to the bishopric formerly held by his father, his elder brother, Maximilian William, being, as a convert to Rome, left out in the cold. Six months later, the Bishop[193] was created Duke of York. At the Hague, the royal party was joined by Baroness von Kielmannsegg; Melusina von der Schulenburg followed in due course. With the King were his prime minister, Bernstorff, and Baron von Schlitz-Görz, who was to succeed Bernstorff in the same capacity at Hanover, besides three Privy Councillors, of whom Robethon was one, and a small Chancery staff. The chief officers of the Hanoverian Court, and a fairly ample household, including ‘Mr. Mehmet and Mr. Mustapha,’ live remembrances of the King’s Turkish campaigns, raised the royal retinue to the moderate total of something less than one hundred persons.

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Footnote 192:

So late as a fortnight after Queen Anne’s death, the Duchess of
Orleans mentions a report that the English people were quite contented
to have George I for their King, but on condition that the Electoral
Prince should never be his successor. Probably, Elizabeth Charlotte’s
personal prejudices inclined her to give credit to this ridiculous
rumour; for she is unable to forego the opportunity of alluding to
George Augustus’ ‘ill ancestry.’—O. von Heinemann, _Geschichte von
Braunschweig und Hannover_, vol. iii. p. 228, mentions, without
reprobating, the mendacious ‘Court scandal,’ explaining the quarrel
between father and son by a supposed passion of the former for his
daughter-in-law!

Footnote 193:

His letter describing his early days in his episcopal city gives a
delightful picture of still life. ‘I have allowed myself the pleasure
of taking a walk along the ramparts, in which all the small boys of
the town have accompanied me.’

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Bolingbroke afterwards asserted that King George, though he had quitted Hanover in the apparent resolution of leaving the Tory Government in England unmolested, had during his stay in Holland, in consequence of earnest importunities on the part of the Allies, and particularly of Heinsius and some of the Whigs, come to a contrary decision. How far this assertion, and the belief that the impeachment of the Tory leaders was due more particularly to the inspiration of Bothmer, are correct, the present is not an occasion for enquiring; but enough has been said in the course of this narrative to indicate that George I was not easily led, or easily turned.

On September 16th, 1714, the new King of Great Britain sailed from Oranie Polder; on the 18th he landed at Greenwich; and two days later he held his entry into London. His Coronation took place at Westminster Abbey on October 18th. Few men who have laid claim to so dazzling and so elusive a prize as that which fell to his lot have maintained their claim with so calm a resolve and so consistent a self-restraint. Whether or not circumstances—such as an armed landing on the English coast by the Pretender, or merely his personal appearance on English soil—might have led to a counter-attempt on the part of the Heir Presumptive to assert his claim to the throne in person, who shall say? And who will lay it down whether in putting his right to the test, even at the risk of civil war, he would have done wrong? Such a step he had not been called upon to take; and his course of conduct had remained consistent throughout. Although he had little personal inclination for the change which his accession to the British throne involved, this should not detract from the tribute due to his conduct before that accession. As his claim descended to him from his mother, so he had inherited from her some, though not all, of the qualities which, in her, well became the Heiress of Great Britain. True to the friends of his House, and without fear of its enemies, he professed no feeling which he did not entertain, and shrank from no duty that was imposed upon him.

The princely sense of honour to which the Electress Sophia and her son were true in accepting the great responsibility to which they were called by the Act of Settlement was beyond a doubt their primary motive in meeting it. But, at the same time, they were alike fully conscious of the significance of the cause embodied in the Protestant Succession; nor was the triumph of that cause, to which Sophia looked forward with hardly a thought of self, merely or mainly the fulfilment of a great dynastic ambition.

APPENDIX A

GENEALOGICAL TABLES