The royal crown
HANOVER AND CELLE UNITED
If George was now on his own and responsibility rested solely on his shoulders, there were challenges and opportunities ahead. The possibility of integrating Celle and Hanover more closely than the purely dynastic union demanded was within his grasp, and this was the first aim he set out to accomplish.
In the years of his electorship George had achieved greater insight into the administration and finances of Hanover than was possible when he had been the electoral prince. In the 1680s Ernst August and his advisers had reorganized the taxation system in collaboration with the Estates of Calenberg and Göttingen (those of Grubenhagen having to follow suit with less consultation). Taxation, which in Johann Friedrich's time had rested exclusively on land, was largely transferred to a number of important articles of consumption which enabled the duke to tax town and country alike. A salt tax had to be abandoned because it proved impossible to enforce, but the Licent was levied at a high rate on beer and malt, tobacco, grain, flour and bread, on cattle for slaughter and on meat in the butchers' shops, while clothes and luxuries were virtually exempt. The towns, which had earlier contributed only one-sixth of the income by taxation, now paid one-third. High nobility, Ritterschaft (the lesser nobility, of the von and zu variety), and clergy had, as elsewhere on the continent, managed to secure a measure of exemption, but were obliged by various means, such as the don gratuit and the near-forced loan, to contribute to the public exchequer.
The income of the duke of Hanover which came via the Estates in whatever form was allocated to the upkeep of the army, the need for which was keenly appreciated in a state where memories of invasion and occupations during the Thirty Years War were still alive. Licent money which exceeded expectations was paid into a special Kasse (literally, chest) for use in special contingencies. The Estates' knowledge of and participation in the levying of this part of the ducal revenue prepared George for the control which parliament in Great Britain exercised over supply. But Ernst August and his son were not as completely dependent as William III, queen Anne and later George I himself on the money voted by parliament. Besides the public exchequer Hanover had a Kammer (literally, chamber), a treasury into which was paid the income from the ducal domains and from the state's share in those Harz mines which belonged to Hanover,* as well as foreign subsidies. This Kammerkasse was also deployed for public expenditure, for the upkeep of the court, the domestic administration, the diplomatic service and for defraying the expenses levied on the duchy in its relationship to the Empire; but the ruler felt fairly free to use it as he thought fit. The private ducal income, derived from personal investment in mining and stocks, was kept in yet another Kasse, the Schatullkasse (from Schatulle, literally bureau-chest), and was spent for private purposes. The public Kasse accounts (the Kammerrechnungen) were meticulously kept and have survived; those for the Kammerkasse and the Schatullkasse have not come down to us, though there are references to both in Ernst August's will. It is clear that borrowing from one Kasse to another was the rule of the day, at least in Ernst August's reign. From Professor Schnath's examinations of the budgets of the years after 1688 (when the new system was in full operation), it can be seen that though the budgets balanced in theory, in practice the extent of borrowing – to cover the extraordinary expenses connected with the gaining of the electoral title, including the maintenance of unsubsidized armies in Hungary during the 1692 and 1693 campaigns – was significant.1 In these transactions the Jewish court-financier Elieser Lefmann Berens-Cohen, who had wide-ranging European connections in Vienna, Prague, Amsterdam and Hamburg, was especially important. That he grew rich is shown by his fine house in the Neustadt and the synagogue which he built there.2
After 1705 the Hanover taxation and financial system was extended to Celle. Integration of the administration also took place. Bernstorff moved to Hanover, his ambition directed towards the position of first minister whenever Platen, eighteen years his senior and nowhere near as able as himself, should vacate it; but Weipart Ludwig von Fabrice remained in Celle, where George established the highest law-court† of the united duchies with this distinguished legal expert as its chief administrator. The Celle Estates remained in existence, on an equal footing with those of Calenberg-Göttingen; but the social unification of the duchies proceeded apace, and smoothly.
The amalgamation itself produced certain savings in the administration which benefited the population at large: the burdens on the common man in both duchies were lighter after 1705 than before. And for those in official positions, whether civil or military, the 1705 union brought better career prospects, especially since George, because of his place in the English succession, was destined to play a larger part on the European scene than Georg Wilhelm had in the last years of his reign. There was hardly any cause for friction. The newer administrative nobility in both duchies had, as elsewhere in Europe, begun to intermarry with the older feudal nobility possessed of large estates, while the younger members of the old noble families had increasingly sought court and administrative positions. Lampe's claim that the reigns of Ernst August and George were those in which the Hanoverian ‘urban patriciate’ was formed is largely justified;3 though it should not be forgotten that the newer families, even before they were dignified with the Imperial titles of Reichsfreiherr or Reichsgraf, busily acquired land, and that the urbanized younger sons of the old feudal nobility took great pains to keep their links with the family estate, or estates, which through entails (Fideikommis) had gone to their elder brothers. They visited these estates when their duties permitted and rallied to the help of those members of the family who got into such serious money difficulties that the patrimony seemed threatened.
A good example of the first category, though more successful than most, is Andreas Gottlieb von Bernstorff. He came of a renowned family originating in Mecklenburg; but the early death of his father, an administrator in Ratzeburg, made him completely dependent on his official career. Immensely hard-working and ambitious, he invested in land all the money he could spare from his salary and the many perquisites that came his way as first minister of Celle. In 1694 he bought from Georg Wilhelm the district of Gartow, a purchase that was to involve him in later quarrels with the king of Prussia,* and he collected enough property in Mecklenburg to bring him, as a member of its Ritterschaft, into conflict with tsar Peter.4 Both issues (as we shall see) were to have some influence on his later political stance.
From the second category, that of the court or urbanized sons of the landed nobility, the example of the von der Schulenburg family may be cited. The unmarried eldest son, Johann Matthias, and his sister Melusine spent more money than they could easily afford to pay the debts (occasioned by his obsession with expensive alchemy experiments) of their brother, Daniel Bodo, the heir presumptive, lest he should endanger the family estates of his succession; and it was at Emden, at his mother's estate, that their half-brother in George's service, Friedrich Wilhelm, spent short leaves in 1718 and 1719 when the king-elector visited Hanover.5
The families already mentioned help to illustrate that George's ministers and courtiers were not drawn exclusively from Brunswick-Lüneburg: the von der Schulenburgs came – as we have seen – from Altmark and the Bernstorffs from Mecklenburg. Some families, such as the von Hattorfs and the von Bülows, were of Brunswick-Lüneburg nobility, while the von dem Bussches, of a distinguished old Osnabrück line, were reckoned equally close because of the Brunswick-Lüneburg connection with the bishopric of Osnabrück. But for the rest, George (like his father before him) put men into office and court posts from a variety of states. It should be noted, however, that in George's reign the majority of these were of north German or of Rhineland Protestant stock; and that he, in contrast to his father, employed very few non-Germans as diplomats. The bond of loyalty was service to the house, supported by a secondary loyalty to Empire and emperor with – at times – specific concern for the Protestant states within the north German circles.* An even more important criterion was previous experience; the Hesse-born Friedrich Wilhelm von Görtz, for instance, had held high office in Holstein before entering Hanoverian service in 1686.
There was naturally enough a measure of dynastic succession within the families who reached ministerial or Kabinett office. Bernstorff's career was eased – though his ability and capacity for hard work were recognized by all6 – by his marriage to the daughter of the Celle chancellor Johann Helwig Sinold, Freiherr von Schütz. Two sons of von Schütz were employed on joint diplomatic missions by Celle and Hanover even before 1705; and when one of them (Ludwig Justus) died in 1710 while accredited to St James's he was replaced by his nephew (the son of Salentin Justus). Yet another of the younger members of the family was made Kammerjunker (later Kammerherr) to George in 1712 and went with him to England.7 Otto Grote's son, Thomas, became a minister in 1712, but died in 1713. Johann von Hattorf, who had held important Kabinett positions (simultaneously Geheimsekretär and Kriegssekretär), decided in 1714 that he was too old to move to England; but his son, Johann Philipp, became George's Kabinettsekretär and remained in that position for the rest of George's life. Thomas Eberhard von Ilten, son of the Hanoverian minister Jobst Hermann, became a Kriegsrat and in 1715 joined George in England. Two of the von der Reiche family, Jobst (who had already made his mark in Hanover) and his son Andreas, served in the Deutsche Kanzlei in London and were retained in their posts after George I's death. When younger men were appointed, like Friedrich Wilhelm von der Schulenburg and Friedrich Ernst von Fabrice, their family connections clearly helped, though their education and previous experience were equally important. Merit was, indeed, the deciding factor in administrative as well as military promotion and men could make their way without direct family influence. The career of Hans Kaspar von Bothmer is a convenient example of this. He started in diplomacy, became a courtier (a gentleman-in-waiting to Sophia Dorothea), was given increasingly important diplomatic missions and so ended up, after 1714, as one of George's most trusted Hanoverian ministers in London. He was less independent of mind than Bernstorff, but more ambitious socially. While Bernstorff refused to be created a Reichsgraf and contented himself in 1715 with accepting the title of Reichsfreiherr, Bothmer felt that his career was crowned by his patent as Reichsgraf and even stipulated in his will that his heir, a nephew, should institute the non-German custom of reserving the title of Graf for the head of the family, younger sons to be known by the title Freiherr.8
The concern that ministers and diplomats should be Protestants was linked to the prospect of the English succession, and even a courtier in high office who converted to Catholicism was expected to resign.9 Exceptions were, however, made for artists of every kind, even if – like Quirini – they had court titles such as ‘director of palaces and buildings’. Here the Italian-orientated tradition of the reigns of Johann Friedrich and Ernst August was largely maintained, though the growing influence of French Huguenot refugees in his father's reign was intensified in George's: the architect Rémy de la Fosse, employed from 1705 at Gührde, is one instance. George used some Italian artists, most notable among them the painter Tommaso Giusti who decorated both Herrenhausen and Göhrde; and members of the Quirini family were made welcome even at George's English court.
One example of this is the private royal hospitality shown to a young diplomat of that name who represented the republic of Venice in London after 1714.10 The appointment of Georg Friedrich Handel in 1710 as Kapellmeister in Hanover on Steffani's retirement marks, all the same, a shift towards a more northern Protestant orientation not unconnected with George's prospects in England. It is also worth stressing that, though the elector still sent his gardeners to France,11 it was in the Dutch Republic that he ordered the tapestries and furniture and objets d'art in 1705 which he wanted for his refurbishing of Herrenhausen: thanks to the many Huguenot artists who had settled in the northern Netherlands French craftsmanship was available even to those who did not want to enrich Louis XIV's France by their purchases.12
George's patronage of Huguenot artists and craftsmen formed one bond with the duchy of Celle where the court, ever since Georg Wilhelm's marriage to Eléonore d'Olbreuse, had been a haven for French Protestants. More important for the Celle duchy as a whole was George's great interest in Göhrde. Here, on the site of Georg Wilhelm's hunting lodge, he built a minor palace after his own taste, with fine stables but also with a theatre where plays and ballets were performed.13 The hunting was good, the comfort and entertainment of guests generous. British undersecretaries shook their heads at the extravagance of their ruler and expressed relief in 1723 that expenses for 60 guests and 300 horses were paid from George's Hanoverian pocket.14 That year was, however, exceptional in that lavish Göhrde hospitality for large numbers was dictated by diplomatic considerations. The number of non-family visitors was usually more modest, though the standard of hospitality was equally high. George's predilection for the palace, quite apart from the fine hunting of the region, may have owed something to the fact that it was more ‘his palace’, and Melusine's, than Herrenhausen which Ernst August had left, with its surrounding villages, to Sophia during her widowhood.
GEORGE'S HOUSEHOLD AFTER 1698
George had, however, also begun to set his mark on Herrenhausen. Already in 1699 Sophia transferred the income willed to her for the upkeep of that palace to George on condition that he would take care of all expenses connected with it and its grounds. This was the start of a successful expansion programme of palace and gardens, in the main completed by 1708, but which did not end till George's death. The magnificent Galerie, with its huge ground-floor room for summer festivities, was now decorated and embellished with marble busts of Roman emperors. An outside orange garden was laid out and added to by transfer of trees from Celle in 1705 and later purchases: by 1720 the trees were so numerous that they could no longer be kept over the winter in the Galerie, and a new orangery was built. Fountains were improved, the ‘Big Fountain’ being completed by 1720; canals were dug and gondolas obtained; huge vases were ordered and skilfully placed; and the fine Herrenhausen allée, of more than 1300 linden trees, was planted.*
At Göhrde, and to some extent also at the Leineschloss and at Herrenhausen, Melusine was, after 1698, openly George's hostess. She was given precedence over all other ladies at court with the exception of the dowager electress and visiting royalty. Sophia did, in any case, usually keep to her own quarters, the magnificently decorated suite of rooms on the first floor of the Galeriegebäude, though she often took her meals with George. She was thrown more closely together with Melusine on visits to Göhrde, but all she would permit herself in her correspondence in the nature of complaint was that Mlle von der Schulenburg could ‘hardly be reckoned to her court-ladies any more’.15 She did resent, however, George's strict control – even when he was absent with the army during the War of the Spanish Succession – of the allocation of rooms at Herrenhausen lest the raugravines should steal a march on Melusine; Sophia's ruse, to permit visiting raugravines state rooms, was politely but firmly checkmated lest it prove a step up the ladder of precedence for them.16
The position at court of George's half-sister, Sophia Charlotte von Platen, married in 1701 to Johann Adolf von Kielmansegg, at times caused problems. We hear of some offence given by her to Georg August and of Ernst August smoothing over the difficulties that ensued. Here we may have the beginning of a certain tension between Sophia Charlotte and Caroline, which became noticeable in the post-1714 years to the extent that English ladies warned each other against praising one to the other and English statesmen tried to use either one or the other as a channel of communications, and it was hoped influence, with George I.17 Johann Adolf shared an interest in opera and music with George, and in many ways typified the younger generation of servants that George brought into his household. He was given the post of Oberstallmeister in Hanover, moved with his family to England in 1714 and, though never formally English master of the horse, held most of the prerogatives – though not the salary – of that position from the autumn of 1714 till his death three years later.18 Of an even younger generation we should note Melusine's half-brother, Friedrich Wilhelm, whose studies abroad George had sponsored and whom he used for a mission to ‘Carlos III’ during the War of the Spanish Succession, before bringing him formally into his household in England,19 and Friedrich Ernst von Fabrice, the son of the jurist already mentioned, in whose services as a Holstein-Gottorp diplomat George took an interest before employing him as a semi-official diplomat and, eventually, finding him a Hanoverian court post in 1719.20 As personal attendants on George two Turks, Mehemet and Mustafa, held long-established positions though they were, and remained, body-servants without political influence. Contrary to popular legend neither had been captured by George during his Hungarian campaigns: English historiography would seem to have confused them with a young Turkish boy whom George did capture and send home to his mother.21 Mehemet was brought to Hanover by an officer under George's command, and Mustafa – after a period in the service of the Swedish officer who had captured him – was transferred to that of George. Of the two, both so much a fixture at George's court in England that they were depicted in the murals of Kensington Palace, Mehemet held the more responsible position and was in charge of George's private accounts, the Schatullrechnungen or Quittungen from 1699 until his death in 1726.22 The surname he adopted on his ennoblement in 1716, von Königstreu (lit. true to the king), can be assumed to have been chosen by himself –since self-advertisement was against George's temperament – and tells us something of his attitude to his master.
THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION
Both before and after 1705, foreign affairs were of prime importance for George. He took an interest in the strategy and tactics of the War of the Spanish Succession, and kept a watchful eye on English affairs and on Hanover's relationship to the emperor and the Empire. His knowledge of the Rhine frontier as well as of the Netherlands battlefields explains a scheme which he pushed, with his uncle Georg Wilhelm, in the early stages of the war for massive deployment on the Middle and Upper Rhine of German troops independently maintained or in the pay of the Maritime Powers. Versions of this plan were never far from his thoughts. Once the danger to the Empire after the French victories of 1702 became apparent, he was one of those who urged a campaign in Bavaria by Marlborough and prince Eugene. There has been much discussion of the ‘originator’ of the 1704 Blenheim campaign. Recent English historians have been more inclined to give part at least of the glory, earlier reserved for Marlborough alone, to the Habsburg diplomat Wratislaw who persuaded Marlborough to go south.23 But behind Wratislaw we can discern men of military experience on the Rhine, and George especially. Documents preserved in the Bernstorff archive show that he urged such a campaign as the only solution to the predicament of Leopold, ground between Hungarian revolt in the east and French advances in the west.24
Sophia, proud of her son's successful intervention in the Holstein-Gottorp affair in 1700, hoped that the War of the Spanish Succession would give him an opportunity to add laurels to his fame. Might he not be made the leader of the coalition against Louis XIV, inheriting the mantle of William III? Individual Dutchmen suggested him as commander-in-chief for the army of the United Provinces: he had, in their opinion, all the qualities of a ‘great general’.25 Such dreams were, however, unrealistic. Hanover could not bear war costs in any way comparable to those undertaken by the Maritime Powers. Those who paid the piper felt entitled to call the tune and, by 1705, when George had inherited Celle and had more money at his disposal, the experience of Marlborough and Eugène in commanding large-scale forces far outweighed his. So did their ambitions. They had their way to make in the world and had no intention of letting the elector of Hanover take up any position which might detract from their search for glory and its rewards. This explains, in part, why George's hopes, limited to an independent command of part of the allied army, were frustrated. After 1705, he was willing to furnish sizable forces at his own cost to breach the French positions on the Middle and Upper Rhine. But he was not taken seriously; indeed, at times he was deceived by the chief allied commanders in the interests of the strategy on which they had privately agreed.
Quite apart from Marlborough's and Eugène's fears that George's rank would create problems (might he not try to impose his ideas on them?), the elector suffered from the lack of confidence of the Anglo-Dutch leadership in the emperor's willingness to put the Empire first. Leopold had his eyes firmly fixed on Italy; there, once troops could be spared from Hungary, he wanted to direct the main Habsburg war effort. Better things were expected from Joseph (who succeeded Leopold in 1705), but the Reichsarmee continued to be starved of troops. Its commander, margrave Ludwig of Baden, was known to be dissatisfied with the way the initiative was monopolized by Eugene, always concerned with the interests of the house of Habsburg. Marlborough for his part was content, after the successful campaign in Bavaria of 1704, to let the war in the Empire rest so that he might pursue vigorous campaigns in the Netherlands in the hope of a breakthrough into France.
The German princes, however, had war aims of their own. The allied occupation after 1704 of the territories of the two electors who had sided with Louis XIV, Bavaria and Cologne, excited the appetites of some of these princes; though it was realized that the emperor would demand the lion's share of Bavaria. All of them were vocal in demanding that Alsace and Strassburg and, if possible, also Franche-Comté (which, though a Spanish possession before 1678, had once formed part of the Imperial circles) should be regained for Germany as a barrier against France. The house of Habsburg was strongly in favour of such reconquests, which constituted its ‘German mission’. But it held that they could be won at the negotiation table as long as the emperor made sure of conquering, with Anglo-Dutch naval help, all Spain's Italian possessions; much as Marlborough argued that Spain could be wrested from Philip V if France was beaten in the Netherlands. The Hofburg and Whitehall had nothing against diversionary military efforts on the Middle and Upper Rhine, and at times encouraged them. With financial resources stretched to the utmost on the other fronts, however, they regarded such efforts as bows at a venture: if they succeeded good and well, if they failed nothing much was lost.
This attitude was naturally galling to the Imperial field marshal, to his second-in-command Thüngen (to whom he increasingly left the thankless task of leading the Reichsarmee) and to all ‘honnêtes gens’ in the Empire.26 When the margrave died in January 1707, it was not easy to find a successor. The Imperial diet unanimously chose prince Eugène so as to animate the Habsburg ‘German mission’. But Joseph was not prepared to spare his best general: 1707 was the year of the allied Toulon attempt and the Austrian conquest of Naples.
In Germany that year's campaign gave cause for alarm. French invasions threatened all along a western frontier too thinly defended. The new Reichsfeldmarschall, the margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, showed little or no initiative. The reputation of George, who with a Hanoverian contingent had command of one section of the western front, rocketed, however, during 1707 and he was generally lauded as ‘the saviour of the fatherland’.27* It is now known that the French commander Villars' withdrawal to the left bank of the Rhine in July 1707 was the result less of George's military exploits than of the danger which threatened France from the Austro-Savoyard march towards Toulon; but the lustre which was added to the elector of Hanover's name explains why he was pressed to accept the Imperial field marshal's baton for the rest of the campaign and also why he acquiesced. He was fully aware of the difficulties under which his predecessors had laboured, but hoped that he could pin down Vienna and the Imperial diet firmly enough over money and men to make something of his command. He had little difficulty with the diet. Money and men were promised and George showed great energy and resourcefulness in making sure that these promises were kept.
Plans for the coming campaign were co-ordinated in April 1708 in Hanover with Marlborough and Eugène: the greatest strength was to be concentrated on the Rhine-Moselle fronts, with George and Eugene in independent command of two separate armies, while Marlborough with Anglo-Dutch forces would act defensively to tie France down in the Netherlands. The prospect of offensive action was more important to George than the title of Reichsfeldmarschall; and the disillusionment he suffered later in the year, when it dawned upon him that Marlborough and Eugène had deliberately deceived him, was severe. They had privately agreed, long before April 1708, that the main allied effort was to be in the Netherlands and that by means of ostensibly confidential letters during the campaign, addressed to each other but meant to be passed on to George, they would pretend that a sudden emergency had occurred which made it necessary for Eugène's Moselle army to join Marlborough. The only other person who was privy to this secret, if in general terms, was the emperor Joseph; and he, like Marlborough and Eugène, judged the deceit of George essential so that the French might be lured to draw the major part of their forces to the Rhine and the Moselle. Only in this way could Marlborough and Eugène attempt to break Louis XIV's fortified lines to thrust at the heart of France. ‘I do not like having to deceive the Elector’, wrote Marlborough; but while the historian appreciates his and Eugène's motives, their natural desire to keep control in their own hands being strengthened by their disbelief in the efficacy of the Reichsarmee, he may conclude that the better course might have been to take the elector into their confidence. To judge from all evidence available, and especially from George's lack of rancour in his later cooperation with the two commanders, his consent would have been given. As it was, the resources of the Empire were needlessly wasted.28
The campaign of 1709, as far as the Reichsarmee was concerned, proved just as frustrating and more damaging to George's reputation. Again George did wonders in rallying the diet and obtained firm promises of money, especially from the Hanse towns. He worked out a plan which, though this time only diversionary, might make a real contribution to the allied war effort. Moreover, he made sure that the Maritime Powers, and prince Eugène personally, accepted the scheme as part of a strategy of encouragement for revolts inside France to facilitate allied invasions on several fronts. That the Allies hoped to use the revolt of the Camisards in the Cevennes to weaken Louis is well-known, ‘the affair of Besançon’ less so. Negotiations had long been afoot with discontented French subjects in Franche-Comté. It was assumed that if the Reichsarmee arrived there in strength in 1709, men of standing would make common cause with Louis' enemies or at least make occupation of the province easier and thus help build the western barrier against France. Swiss sympathizers with the Imperial cause had suggested a route for the Reichsarmee which, in part, traversed canton territory. Success was reckoned likely.
Habsburg measures, however, ruined George's prospects of carrying out his plan. Emperor Joseph appropriated the Hanse money for his own army to achieve his house's priority aims. This in its turn brought other defections in assignations, troops and quarters by German princes. The result was that the Reichsfeldmarschall had to open his campaign with too few troops to take the initiative. He could not even revenge the defeat at Rumersheim of general Mercy, one of his commanders who, during an exploratory manoeuvre, was surprised by the French. Whether George would have succeeded if he had been given a freer hand cannot be answered. It is, however, unlikely. French intelligence had got wind of the invasion scheme and had arrested some of its key men in Franche-Comté. George never blamed Mercy, a brave officer; though he let it be known among those who were closest to him that the general had acted without his knowledge. He himself was, however, held responsible for the defeat at Rumersheim; not by the German princes, who were well informed of the problems which any commander of the Reichsarmee faced, but by other allied commanders who sought a scapegoat. Later Jacobite propaganda even contrived to insinuate that it was George in person who had been defeated at Rumersheim.
For his part George felt he had had enough. In the given circumstances it was impossible to deploy the Reichsarmee profitably and he laid down his field marshal's baton, never to go on active service again.29 A significant gain had, however, come to Hanover in 1708; partly because of George's rise in reputation in the campaign of 1707 and partly because of his skilful use of the opportunity offered when all the chambers of the diet begged him to take on the command of the Imperial army. As all electors, Catholic and Protestant, wished to secure his services, his suggestion that Hanover should, at last, be admitted to the Electoral College could not be refused. From 1708 onwards the ninth electorate took its seat in that college; and in 1710, when George was allotted one of the Imperial offices, the arch-treasureship, he could feel that he had completed the work of Ernst August.
DEATH OF QUEEN ANNE: THE ‘ACT OF SETTLEMENT’ PUT INTO EFFECT
After the frustrations suffered in the 1708 and 1709 campaigns George concentrated on the English succession. Since the crisis of 1705–06 he had kept control of Hanoverian policy in his own hands. He had taken a close interest in the negotiations for the Union between England and Scotland, well aware that only such a union could safeguard the Hanoverian succession in Scotland. The pro-Hanoverians were in a majority among the English members of the commission which negotiated the union; the secretary of the commission reported regularly to George and was later well rewarded.30 The elector was greatly pleased with the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of Barrier and Succession of 1709 which promised Dutch military help if the Hanoverian cause seemed in danger; and Townshend, the Whig negotiator of that treaty, was marked for future promotion.
George was not merely a passive observer. He watched carefully that no interference which he thought prejudicial to the cause of his house should occur: James Scott – who had been in Sophia's service and who in 1707 paid a private visit to England – was told that he was no longer persona grata in Hanover as his private diplomacy to have Sophia invited to England counteracted that of the elector.31
George's decisive and open actions took place after queen Anne dropped Marlborough and Godolphin and made Harley her chief manager. The elector was initially motivated less by a belief that Anne and her ministers would bring in the Pretender (though this was widely rumoured in Europe, and Sophia was worried that this was the reason for the change of government in England)32 than by his alarm at the English separate peace. George was convinced that the cause of Hanover and the Empire was best served by the Marlborough-Godolphin duumvirate and protested against the removal of the general who had become identified with the English war effort on the European continent.33 The elector shared the general resentment of Britain's allies at being left in the lurch by Ormonde's ‘restraining orders’ of May 1712 (which forbade that commander to act against the French armies) and their indignation when it became clear that these orders had been secretly communicated to Louis XIV's general, Villars, permitting him to trap France's remaining enemies at Denain. George, like other German princes who had subsidy treaties with queen Anne, disassociated himself from her government and carried on the fight against Louis at his own expense, helped by the Dutch Republic. Their loyalty to emperor and Empire dictated their unanimous decision to stay put when Ormonde's British regiments left the field. So did their hope that such a demonstration might have some effect on Harley (now earl of Oxford)* and St John and halt them on their road to a separate peace. Their self-interest was naturally involved: since the peace negotiations were conducted solely between Britain and France, specific Dutch, German and Habsburg objectives could only be achieved in so far as they suited queen Anne's government. It was the lack of consultation that rankled. The Dutch and the Germans, as war-weary as the British, found it galling to see the Grand Alliance break up after so many years of joint effort: they realized that without Britain it was unlikely that the other allies could for long avoid coming to terms with Louis, negotiating now from strength.
In the event George did not come out badly in the peace-makings of 1713–14. Queen Anne's new government repudiated the 1709 barrier treaty with the Dutch, but the treaty negotiated in 1713 still contained a Dutch guarantee of the Protestant succession; and in his treaty with the Empire of 1714 Louis XIV recognized the ninth electorate. The German barrier was not obtained, but this affected Hanover less than more west-lying states of Germany, and George was (as we shall see) at this time more concerned with developments in north Germany than with the west and south of the Empire.
Yet George protested at Britain's separate peace in firmer words than was relished by Anne and her ministry.34 He did so from a variety of motives. Since he was in the line of succession he wished to take a clear stand. As a soldier he felt Britain's honour was besmirched by her defection and wanted no stain on his own reputation by seeming to condone it. He had little expectation that his action might restrain Anne's ministers, but it was worth giving notice of future displeasure lest worse should follow. We now know that queen Anne was no Jacobite, and that after March 1714 neither Oxford nor St John seriously expected that James Edward Stuart stood a chance of succeeding her. Up to then they had given guarded promises (always with the proviso that James would have to turn Anglican even if he remained a Catholic at heart) via the French foreign minister, Torcy, who skilfully hid from Saint-Germain the demand for a public change of religion until the Anglo-French peace was secure. The promises of the English ministers were no doubt greatly influenced by their desire for a peace with France: by holding out hopes that they would work for James they prevented Louis XIV from bringing the Dutch into the negotiations until they had tied France to a settlement which gave Britain the greater advantages. The need for reinsurance also operated with the two chief ministers. They were bound to offend George by their separation from the Grand Alliance, and who could tell what the future might bring? James, if he turned Anglican, would be far preferable to many Britons than the octogenarian Sophia and her German son. The negotiations which touched upon James's succession, and in which Oxford played a greater role than St John (now Bolingbroke) did not remain a secret: at The Hague and in Hanover it was believed that the British ministry was plotting to subvert the Hanoverian succession even after James's declaration in March 1713 that he would never change his own religion, though he promised not to interfere with the Anglican beliefs of his subjects, had made Oxford and Bolingbroke good Hanoverians once more.35
The serious illness of queen Anne at the turn of the year 1713–14 caused general and growing speculation as to her successor, in Britain as in Europe. The fact that her speech from the throne on 2 March did not mention the Hanoverian succession was thought a bad omen by Bothmer, and George – whose hands were freer since the emperor (after a disappointing campaign) had made peace with Louis XIV – decided that the moment had come to act. Marlborough and his wife had left England in the hope of being able to delay the Habsburg-French peace which had implications for Marlborough in his capacity as prince of Mindelsheim.* George now arranged for Marlborough to have full powers from Hanover to defend the succession should James invade England on queen Anne's death. The British troops stationed in the Southern Netherlands as part of the Anglo-Dutch condominium forces could be used, and reinforced by Dutch and German regiments, if this became necessary. At the same time measures were concerted with the Whigs and the Hanoverian Tories in England. To give them a lever George sanctioned the question which young Schütz put on Sophia's behalf on 12/23 April 1714 ‘whether the electoral prince, as duke of Cambridge, should not have a writ enabling him to take his seat in the House of Lords’. In 1706 George had opposed his mother's desire to have Georg August go to England. Now necessity coincided with opportunity: an open move (cautiously phrased) would bring clarity in the succession issue or, at the very least, help the Whigs and the Hanoverian Tories to counteract measures which they feared were to be taken in favour of James. It certainly put Oxford on the spot. The privy council could find no legal grounds on which to refuse the writ. It was duly issued, but to mark the queen's displeasure Schütz was forbidden the court. Oxford's position was undermined: he had been seen to be powerless to save Anne from the prospect of having a Hanoverian coming to England. Bolingbroke – who was for refusing the writ – rose in favour.
George, however, was shrewd enough not to send his son over despite the pleas of Sophia, Caroline and Leibniz. He accepted the strictures implied in letters from the queen to his mother and his son and repudiated Schütz.* The actual move was no longer essential, he and his Dutch allies agreed, since he had succeeded in giving his supporters in England the lever they wanted: in June 1714 the Whigs, with Hanoverian Tory help, forced through parliament the promise of a reward for the capture of the ‘pretended Prince of Wales’.36
The final touches to George's preparations were made after the death of Sophia on 8 June 1714 NS. The dowager electress's end was, as she had wished, mercifully quick. She felt faint during a walk in the Herrenhausen gardens, having hurried to shelter from sudden rain; she died in the arms of Gräfin Johanne Sophie zu Schaumburg-Lippe – one of her court ladies whom we shall meet again. Whether Sophia's death was hastened by the agitation she experienced on reading the censorious letters from queen Anne (as has often been claimed) is impossible to tell; what evidence we have is that she was only temporarily annoyed or agitated and that she soon mastered her irritation. Her last political act was to arrange for copies of the letters to herself and her grandson to be sent to Marlborough in the expectation that they should be published. It would have been out of character if, at this time, she had done so without consulting George; nor is it likely that Marlborough should have arranged for publication (as he did) if he had thought this would not be condoned by the elector.37
Upon his mother's death, George was the direct heir of queen Anne and as such he could and did revise the list of the Hanoverian chosen regents. The significance of the names on this list, as indications of George's thoughts on what kind of government he hoped to achieve in Britain, will be discussed in the next chapter. What needs stressing here is that during the final crisis at Anne's deathbed everything – in spite of George's careful preparations – depended on the way Anne's high officials used their power.
The dramatic sequence of events is well known. The queen dismissed Oxford as treasurer on 27 July/7 August. Like most of her remaining ministers, she was not keen to put Bolingbroke in supreme command and all agreed that the treasury should be put in commission. Discussions on the composition of the commission took time and Bolingbroke thought himself sure of being head of the government. His friends congratulated him and he began arrangements to send an emissary of his own to Hanover to assure George of his determination to promote the Hanoverian succession. Anne herself, weary unto death, expressed to her physician her desire to send to Hanover for George, so that he could take the responsibility off her shoulders.38 The standard accounts have, however, assumed that the decisive move, the securing of the treasurer's staff to the duke of Shrewsbury, was the work of Bothmer in cooperation with the dukes of Somerset and Argyll who, unbidden, went to Kensington Palace, burst into the privy council meeting and, with Shrewsbury, took control. A recent comparison by Professor Snyder of new material – the journal of the postmaster-general Sir John Evelyn who was related by marriage to the lord chancellor, Simon viscount Harcourt – with the Diarium of Bothmer for 30 July/10 August has shown that this was not so: the vital role was played by the lord chancellor. Once Harcourt had been told by the queen's doctors that she could not survive for more than a few hours, he called together those lords of the committee and members of the privy council who were already at Kensington and proposed to them that the council should advise the queen to make Shrewsbury lord treasurer. As soon as Anne ‘came to her senses’ after her stroke and could recognize people around her (though not articulate beyond Yes and No), a delegation consisting of Harcourt, Buckingham (lord president), Bolton (lord steward), Dartmouth, (lord privy seal) and Bolingbroke (secretary of state) went to give her their recommendation; on the queen's nodding her assent, Harcourt held her hand to direct the staff to the duke of Shrewsbury. Bothmer, fetched by the dukes of Somerset and Argyll at 12 noon, must have arrived at Kensington Palace too late to have influenced this event. Somerset had been alerted by a message, timed 11.30 a.m., sent from Kensington Palace by his wife, a lady of the bedchamber to the queen, conveying an invitation from Dartmouth and Bolton for him to come to Kensington. On his own authority he decided to bring Argyll and Bothmer along. Somerset and Argyll joined the council after Shrewsbury's appointment, and it was Harcourt who made preparations for the patent for Shrewsbury's appointment, brought it to Kensington for the queen's signature (or approval), and saw to it that it was enrolled. Only after that, in the evening, could Shrewsbury take his formal oath as lord treasurer.39
On the first day of August queen Anne died. The list of regents was opened. Those who were in London were sought out and sworn in, and just after one o'clock George I was proclaimed by the usual ceremony of heralds without any untoward incident. The proclamation, with one hundred and twenty-seven signatures, used the traditional forms (which included the British claim to France) and read
We therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the Realm, being here assisted with those of her late Majesty's Privy Council, with numbers of other principal gentlemen of quality, with the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of London, do now hereby with one full voice and consent of tongue and heart, publish and proclaim that the High and Mighty Prince George Elector of Brunswick Lüneburg is now by the death of our late sovereign of Happy Memory, become our lawful and rightful liege Lord, George by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland.40
* The mines of Lauterberg, Klausthal, Andreasberg, Altenau and Elbingerode belonged to Hanover alone; those of Zellerfeld, Wildemann, Lautenthal, Grand and Gittelde were owned jointly with the duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel; the mines of Goslar (the most important was that of Rammelsberg near Goslar) were also jointly owned. A French diplomat (Rousseau de Chamoy) estimated in 1679 that Hanover owned four-sevenths of all mining resources of the region, Wolfenbüttel three-sevenths. After 1679 Ernst August also exploited the Upper Harz mines of Osterode and Herzberg.
† Oberappellationsgericht.
* This long-standing conflict derived from the claim to superior rights over the Gartow district of the Hohenzollern dynasty as former grandmasters. In 1687 Georg Wilhelm dispossessed the then owners (of the von Bülow family) as they had been found guilty of felony by their support for the Hohenzollern claim.
* Hanover was represented in two of these circles (see map 1), that of Westphalia and that of Lower Saxony, while the whole of Celle territory was within the Lower Saxon circle.
* It is clear that the Galerie and the Orangerie were intended as first stages towards a total rebuilding of Herrenhausen, a three-dimensional Modell zum Herrenhausischen Bauwesen having been made as early as 1689 by Johann Heinrich Wachter. The War of the Spanish Succession and George's move to England brought an end to major operations.
* Retter des Reiches
* Harley had been created earl of Oxford in 1711; St John had to wait till July 1712 for his lesser title of viscount Bolingbroke.
* The restoration of the electors of Cologne and Bavaria which Louis XIV obtained in the peace of Rastadt (March 1714) meant that Marlborough lost his principality (though not his title) of Mindelsheim in Bavaria.
* English historians have, therefore, assumed that Sophia was acting without her son's knowledge and have followed Trevelyan, England under Queen Anne III, pp. 278–79 in their accounts; a recent doctoral thesis based on new Hanover material by G. E. Gregg has demonstrated the elector's complicity.