Princess Sophia - Seduced, Abandoned and Blackmailed

This is the sad story of Princess Sophia. An unworldly and shy woman who was seduced by a man 33 years her senior, gave birth to his illegitimate child, and was blackmailed by her son to pay his father's debts.

Princess Sophia, aged 5 in 1782
by Thomas Gainsborough
The Royal Collection

According to biographer Christopher Hibbert, in her young adulthood Princess Sophia, the 5th daughter of King George III, was a "delightful though moody girl, pretty, delicate and passionate." She was devoted to her father, though she occasionally found him exasperating. She wrote that "the dear King is all kindness to me, and I cannot say how grateful I feel for it."

The King had told his daughters he would take them to Hanover and find them suitable husbands despite misgivings concerning marriage; he was well aware of his sisters’ experience. His eldest sister, Augusta had never fully adapted to life in Brunswick after her marriage to Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. She did not like the German court and they did not like her. Her situation was made worse by the fact that her eldest sons were born with disabilities.

George’s sister Caroline had suffered a far worse fate; at the age of 15 she was married to her cousin, Christian VII of Denmark in 1766. A year later her husband abandoned her for his mistress Støvlet-Cathrine publicly declaring that he could not love Caroline, because it was "unfashionable to love one's wife". Caroline was left neglected and unhappy as her young husband sank into a mental stupor of paranoia, self-mutilation and hallucinations.

A Royal Affair is a 2012 historical
drama film directed
by Nikolaj Arcel, starring
Mads Mikkelsen, Alicia Vikander
and Mikkel Følsgaard.

She took comfort with her husband’s doctor, Johann Friedrich Struensee, and Enlightenment man who ran Denmark with the half-crazed King introducing widespread reforms. The affair between Caroline and Struensee resulted in Caroline giving birth to his child, her divorce, and Struensee’s execution in 1772. Caroline, retaining her title but not her children, eventually left Denmark and passed her remaining days in exile at Celle Castle in Hanover. She died there of scarlet fever on 10 May 1775, at the age of 23.

Princess Sophia, 1792
 by Sir William Beechey
The Royal Collection

George was unable to keep his promise due to his own ill health but when Sophia was born the King went to Parliament to negotiate allowances for his daughter and his younger sons. Like her siblings Sophia was to receive an allowance of £6,000 a year either upon her marriages or the king's death.  This would have made her an attractive marriage prospect but Sophia ruined what prospects she had when she met and fell in love with one of her father’s equerries, Colonel, Thomas Garth, a man thirty-three years her senior.

Garth had a large purple birthmark on his face, causing Sophia's sister Mary to refer to him as "the purple light of love." Courtier and diarist Charles Greville, on the other hand described
him as a "hideous old devil," and one of her ladies-in-waiting wrote, "the princess was so violently in love with him that everyone saw it. She could not contain herself in his presence."

Princess Sophia, 1825
by Thomas Lawrence in
The Royal Collection

Sophia’s downfall came when she found herself pregnant with Garth’s child. Although there has been much debate amongst historians as to whether the child was Garth’s or her uncle’s, the Duke of Cumberland’s, Thomas Garth adopted the child, educated him and brought him into his regiment calling him his nephew.

Sophia never married and remained at court until her mother Queen Charlotte died. After the queen's death, Sophia lived in Kensington Palace next to her niece Princess Victoria of Kent, the future Queen Victoria. Like her sister-in-law the Duchess of Kent, Sophia fell under the spell of Victoria's comptroller Sir John Conroy and let him manage her money. The lonely and unworldly Sophia fell under Conroy’s spell and he used her affection to rob her.

Her son, Tommy Garth of the 15th Hussars (1800-1873), learned of his true heritage when his father thought he was on his deathbed in 1828. With the family deep in debt he tried to blackmail the royal family with evidence of his mother’s true identity. As historian Flora Fraser writes, all parties played unfair. The royal family offered young Garth £3,000 for his box of evidence; they took the box but did not pay him so he went to the papers. The press dug up the gossip concerning the possibility of the Duke of Cumberland being his true father making the latter part of Sophia’s life very difficult.

Charles Greville summed Sophia up with he wrote in his diary in May 1848, shortly after she died: "The Princess Sophia died a few days ago, while the Queen [Victoria] was holding the Drawing-room for her Birthday. She [Sophia] was blind, helpless, and suffered martyrdom; a very clever, well-informed woman, but who never lived in the world."

Sources:

Fraser, Flora (2004). Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III. London: John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-6109-4.

Hibbert, Christopher (2000). George III: A Personal History. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02724-5.

Hibbert, Christopher (2001). Queen Victoria: A Personal History. De Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81085-9.

The Swan and the Prince

Princess Dorothea von Lieven (1785 – 1857) was the wife of Prince Khristofor Andreyevich Lieven, Russian ambassador to London from 1812 to 1834. Considered cold and snobbish by London Society Dorothea was not an instant success when she arrived fresh from the Russian court.

Her long elegant neck earned her the nickname, “the swan” by those who loved her and “the giraffe” by those who did not. Reputation did not bother her however; she was not after friendship she was after power and she used all her intelligence, charisma, and social skills to get what influence she could for the Tsar and the Holy Alliance in negotiations concerning the defeat of Napoleon and reestablishment of absolutist monarchy in Europe.  Not only did she become the Austrian Chancellor, Prince Metternich’s lover she was also reputed to have had affairs or at least very close friendships with Lord Palmerston, Lord Castlereagh and Lord Grey while she was in London.

Her hard work paid off and soon invitations to Dorothea’s home became the most sought after in capital. She was the first foreigner to be elected a patroness of Almack's where she is said to have introduced the waltz, a dance considered riotous and indecent, to England, during Tsar Alexander’s visit in 1814. It was during that visit she first met Metternich. It seems they took an instant dislike to one another. She thought he was cold and intimidating and far too self- important. He dismissed her as just a pretty woman travelling in the Tsar’s wake and treated her with complete indifference.

Some four years later, the pair met again at the Dutch Ambassador’s party at Aix-La-Chappelle. Sitting next to each other they found they had much in common  – they both hated Napoleon.  Their notorious liaison began a few days later when Dorothea entered the Prince’s apartment incognito.

Prince of Metternich-Winneburg-Beilstein;
(1773 – 1859)

In Metternich Dorothea had found her equal, a man who could satisfy her physically, emotionally and intellectually. She wrote, “Good God! My love, I know how to rejoice in so few things, do you understand what makes me feel true happiness, it is you, only you! My Clement, if you cease to love me what will become of me?  ... My dear friend promise to love me as much as I love you; our lives are pledged in this promise.”

In Dorothea, Metternich had met the woman of his dreams; she could match his intellect and his passion. He wrote, “My happiness today is you. Your soul is full of common sense your heart is full of warmth ... You are as a woman what I am as a man.”

Their heated, clandestine affair soon succumbed to the requirements state; they met occasionally but corresponded frequently. Like many illicit lovers, they were tortured by their separation and the knowledge they could never be together.

Dorothea was well aware of Metternich's reputation as a libertine seducer but she continued the relationship for eight years until she heard he had thrown her over for a younger woman. Desolate, she broke off their relationship in 1826. By the end references to Metternich in her letters were cold and spiteful and it seems time did not heal her broken heart. She had nothing good to say about him or his third wife when she saw him in Brighton in 1849 describing him as "slow and tedious" and his wife as "stout and well-mannered."

She ended her days in Paris as the ‘wife’ of the French politician Guizot. It was said that although  she was a widow she refused to marry Guizot because it would mean giving up her title ‘Serene Highness’ something the proud and regal woman was never going to do. Like her former lover, she was ancien regime through and through.

Dorothea died peacefully at her home in Paris, aged 71, in January 1857. She is a recurring minor figure in many historical novels, notably those of Georgette Heyer. Heyer portrays her as a haughty, formidable, and unapproachable leader of society, but in The Grand Sophy she is described as "clever and amusing", and there is a passing reference in that book to her role in political intrigues. Metternich died in Vienna two years later aged 86 the last guardian of the ancien regime, which had long since passed into history.

Princess Dorothea von Lieven (1785 – 1857) 

Sources:

Dorothea Lieven: A Russian Princess in London and Paris, 1785-1857 By Judith Lissauer Cromwell

The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics After Napoleon By Brian E. Vick

1815: The Roads to Waterloo By Gregor Dallas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemens_von_Metternich

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2015-01-28-sluga-en.html

Guest Blog - A Highly Unsuitable Marriage

I am delighted to welcome Joanne Major and Sarah Murden as my guests today.

Sarah and Joanne

Joanne and Sarah are genealogists, historians and co-authors of An Infamous Mistress: The Life, Loves and Family of the Celebrated Grace Dalrymple Elliott and A Right Royal Scandal: Two Marriage that Changed History.

They are also joint hosts of the blog, 'All Things Georgian', where they publish twice weekly with a wide remit of writing about ‘anything and everything’ connected to the Georgian era. Expect everything from extra and exclusive information relating to their biographies to articles about false bums and tums (fashion victims are nothing new!) and local murder mysteries. If it grabs their attention, then they hope it will interest their readers too. Nothing is off limits!

Guest Blog - A Highly Unsuitable Marriage

Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick
with her son
by Angelica Kauffmann, 1767

Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was born on 17th May 1768 at Brunswick in Germany, the daughter of Charles William, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Princess Augusta, elder sister of George III. Family life was awkward; Caroline’s father neglected her mother for a series of mistresses and Augusta brought up her daughter strictly and in seclusion.

In 1794, despite being his first cousin, Caroline was chosen to be the bride of the dissipated George, Prince of Wales; heavily in debt, he agreed to marry in return for an increased allowance. The choice of suitable Protestant princesses was limited and the prince’s lover, Frances, Countess of Jersey, encouraged his suit for the hand of Caroline of Brunswick, knowing full well that the two would be ill-matched. James Harris, Baron Malmesbury (later the 1st Earl of Malmesbury) was despatched to Brunswick to escort Princess Caroline to her new life in England.

Caroline of Brunswick (1768-1821)
when Princess of Wales
by Gainsborough

Lord Malmesbury first met Caroline on 20th November 1794 and was tolerably pleased with what he saw. He recounted his first impressions in his diary. 'The Princess Caroline much embarrassed on my first being presented to her – pretty face – not expressive of softness – her figure not graceful – fine eyes – good hand – tolerable teeth, but going – fair hair and light eye-brows, good bust – short, with what the French call “des epaules impertinentes” [impertinent shoulders]. Vastly happy with her future expectations. The Duchess full of nothing else – talks incessantly.'

Almost a week later, Malmesbury recorded that, ‘Princess Caroline improves on acquaintance, is gay and cheerful, with good sense’ but, worried by her lack of tact and tendency to talk too much and too indiscreetly, he set about ‘coaching’ the princess, fearing her education inadequate to her new position. The Duke of Brunswick’s opinion of his daughter was that ‘she's not stupid, but she has no judgement - she was raised sharply, and it was necessary.’

The Princess Augusta was not known for her tact, nor for keeping her tongue still and had happily regaled Malmesbury with anecdotes about her royal relations. Caroline was made in the same mould but her particular fondness was for matchmaking.

Blankenburg, Brunswick Duchy
by Johann Heinrich Bleuler

'Princess Caroline very missish at supper. I much fear these habits are irrecoverably rooted in her – she is naturally curious, and a gossip – she is quick and observing, and she has a silly pride of finding out everything – she thinks herself particularly acute in discovering likings, and this leads her at times to the most improper remarks and conversation.'

Caroline of Brunswick (1768–1821),
in her wedding dress.

All the German princesses had been taught to speak English, in anticipation of becoming Princess of Wales, and so Caroline was reasonably fluent in the language and spoke French. But other aspects of her education had been woefully neglected. Lord Malmesbury tactfully addressed the issue of Princess Caroline’s toilette and cleanliness.

'On these points I endeavoured, as far as was possible for a man, to inculcate the necessity of great and nice attention to every part of dress, as well as to what was hid, as to what was seen. (I knew she wore coarse petticoats, coarse shifts, and thread stockings, and these never well washed, or changed often enough.) I observed that a long toilette was necessary, and gave her no credit for boasting that hers was a “short” one.'

Despite all this, Caroline was charming company; Malmesbury noted that ‘she improves very much on closer acquaintance – cheerful, and loves laughing.’ But poor Caroline faced a losing battle at the outset. She had an exuberant personality but had led a sequestered existence; just when she saw a chance to enjoy herself she was being told to rein herself in. George III wrote to his sister saying he hoped his niece would not have too much vivacity, and would lead a sedentary and withdrawn life. With Lady Jersey meddling behind the scenes back in England, desperate to keep the Prince of Wales’ affections, it was no surprise that the marriage was to prove a disaster.

A miniature of Caroline.

The scheming Lady Jersey was to be the new Princess of Wales’ Lady of the Bedchamber and was there to meet Caroline when she stepped off the royal yacht at Greenwich on 5th April 1795. Instantly, Lady Jersey set about humiliating her new mistress, criticising her clothes and insisting, against royal protocol, on sitting facing forwards in the carriage she was to share with Caroline, claiming she felt sick travelling backwards. Lord Malmesbury was having none of it and took Lady Jersey into his own carriage while Caroline travelled with Mrs Hervey Aston (a Woman of the Bedchamber who dutifully accepted her allotted position in the carriage) to the Duke of Cumberland’s apartments at St James where she was to meet her new husband for the first time. As the Prince of Wales entered the room, Caroline sank into a curtsey from which George raised her, before leaning in to embrace his bride-to-be. And then he left, quite abruptly. At dinner that evening, Lord Malmesbury was outraged by Caroline’s behaviour (it would seem that the princess had the measure of Lady Jersey by this time).

[Caroline] was flippant, rattling, affecting raillery and wit, and throwing out coarse vulgar hints about Lady [Jersey] who was present, and though mute, le diable n’en perdait rien. The Prince was evidently disgusted, and this unfortunate dinner fixed his dislike, which, when left to herself, the Princess had not the talent to remove; but, by still observing the same giddy manners and attempts at cleverness and coarse sarcasm, increased it till it became positive hatred.

The Marriage of George IV (1762-1830)
when Prince of Wales by Henry Singleton, 1795

The marriage went ahead three days later, the prince rolling drunk at the ceremony. Despite (or maybe because of) his drunkenness, he managed to consummate his marriage despite his revulsion before, as Caroline claimed, ‘he passed the greatest part of his bridal night under the grate, where he fell, and where I left him.’ George later claimed that he had been intimate with Caroline only three times, twice on his wedding night and once more on the following evening. It proved to be enough; Caroline gave birth to a daughter, Princess Charlotte Augusta, nine months later.

Her Royal Highness Caroline,
Princess of Wales and the Princess Charlotte,
engraving by Colnaghi, 1799

Caroline and George lived separately and the prince cruelly restricted Caroline’s access to her daughter; the Princess of Wales, hugely popular with the British people, led an increasingly erratic life. The ‘Delicate Investigation’ in 1806 looked into claims of her infidelity and she was later accused of being the mistress of her Italian servant, Bartolomeo Pergami, with whom she lived in Italy. In 1817, when Princess Charlotte of Wales died in childbirth, her child perishing with her, Caroline was not informed of her daughter’s death and only heard of it from a passing courier. George, now the Prince Regent, instigated proceedings against his wife, determined to find evidence of her adultery in order to divorce her (his own adultery did not count!) and while this was ongoing George III died; Caroline was now a queen.

George IV’s coronation was held on 19th July 1821. Caroline was determined to be there but, on the day, she was refused admittance to Westminster Abbey and denied the chance to be crowned. She fell ill and died shortly thereafter, on the 7th August 1821.

Our book, A Right Royal Scandal: Two Marriages That Changed History charts a forgotten chapter in the history of the British royal family. Almost two books in one, A Right Royal Scandal recounts the fascinating history of the irregular love matches contracted by two successive generations of the Cavendish-Bentinck family, ancestors of the British Royal Family. The first part of this intriguing book looks at the scandal that erupted in Regency London, just months after the Battle of Waterloo, when the widowed Lord Charles Bentinck eloped with the Duke of Wellington's married niece. A messy divorce and a swift marriage followed, complicated by an unseemly tug-of-war over Lord Charles' infant daughter from his first union. Over two decades later and while at Oxford University, Lord Charles' eldest son, known to his family as Charley, fell in love with a beautiful gypsy girl, and secretly married her. He kept this union hidden from his family, in particular his uncle, William Henry Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland, upon whose patronage he relied. When his alliance was discovered, Charley was cast adrift by his family, with devastating consequences.

 A love story as well as a brilliantly researched historical biography, this is a continuation of Joanne and Sarah's first biography, An Infamous Mistress, about the eighteenth-century courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott, whose daughter was the first wife of Lord Charles Bentinck. The book ends by showing how, if not for a young gypsy and her tragic life, the British monarchy would look very different today.

Sources:
Diaries and Correspondence of James Harries, First Earl of Malmesbury, volume III, London, 1844
The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline, Flora Fraser, Macmillan, 1996

Image credits:
Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick with her son by Angelica Kauffmann, 1767. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016
Blankenburg, Brunswick Duchy by Johann Heinrich Bleuler. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016
The Marriage of George IV (1762-1830) when Prince of Wales by Henry Singleton, 1795. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016
Queen Caroline (1768-1821), when Princess of Wales, miniature by Philip Jean, 1795. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016
Caroline of Brunswick (1768-1821) when Princess of Wales by Gainsborough Dupont, 1795/6. The Princess is depicted in her wedding dress, wearing a miniature of her husband on her breast. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016
Caroline of Brunswick (1768–1821), Queen of George IV by Thomas Lawrence, 1798. Victoria and Albert Museum
Her Royal Highness Caroline, Princess of Wales and the Princess Charlotte, engraving by Colnaghi, 1799. Biblioteca Nacional de España

Princess Sophia Dorothea the uncrowned queen of Britain

Princess Sophia Dorothea of Celle

This is the shocking case of the Princess who was married against her will, spurned, divorced, and imprisoned for 33 years.

In August 2016, a human skeleton was found under the Leineschloss (Leine Palace, Hanover) during a renovation project; the remains are believed to be those of Swedish count, Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, (1665-1694) a soldier in the Hanoverian army and the lover of Princess Sophia Dorothea the wife of the first Hanoverian king of Britain.

Sophia Dorothea was just sixteen years old when she was married her cousin, George Louis of Hanover, the future king of Great Britain and Ireland. in 1705. She did not have a good start in life; she was born illegitimately; the daughter of her father’s long-term mistress, Eleonore d'Esmier d'Olbreuse, Countess of Williamsburg (1639–1722) on 15 September 1666. Her father, Prince George William, Duke of Brunswick Lüneburg, eventually did the right thing and married his mistress which had the effect of legitimising his only child.

George I of Britain

Sophia Dorothea was ten years old when she became heir to her father’s kingdom, the Principality of Lüneburg. This made her a good catch despite her problematic origins because Luneburg was a wealthy principality and Sophia Dorothea, like her mother, was attractive and lively.

Along with her legitimacy came talk of marriage. In the six years between her acceptance into the royal family and her eventual marriage, three prospective husbands were considered for her. First there was talk of marriage to the Danish heir presumptive. Some years later her engagement to the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was broken off by her father after her aunt, Duchess Sophia of Hanover, convinced him she should marry her cousin, George Louis of Hanover to join their two duchies together. Duchess Sophia hated her niece whom she considered brazen, coquettish, and uneducated. When told of the change of plan, sixteen year old, Sophia Dorothea shouted, "I will not marry the pig snout!"

Twenty-two year old George Louis was not keen on the match either; he already had a mistress and was happy with his life as a soldier. Although he was a prince he was ugly and boring, even his mother didn’t like him. Nevertheless Duchess Sophia was determined to keep the family fortune together and despite both Sophia Dorothea’s and her son’s objections the pair were married on 22 November 1682, in Celle. For his pains, George Louis received a handsome dowry and was granted his father-in-law’s kingdom upon his death and Sophia was left penniless.

The state parliament in the former Leineschloss /
Leine Castle in Hannover Lower Saxony Germany

The unhappy couple set up home in Leine Palace in Hanover where Sophia Dorothea was under the supervision of her odious aunt, the Duchess Sophia, and spied on by her husband’s spies when he was away on campaign. Despite their unhappiness the pair produced two children; George Augustus, born 1683, who later becmme King George II of Great Britain and a daughter born 1686 when Sophia Dorothea was twenty.

Sophia Charlotte
von Keilmannsegg

Having produced two children George became increasingly distant from his wife spending more time with his dogs and horses and his nights with his mistress, the married daughter of his father’s mistress, a woman called Sophia Charlotte von Keilmannsegg, who was rumoured to be George Louis’ half sister.

Aggrieved, lonely, and unhappy Sophia Dorothea found a friend in the Swedish count Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, (1665-1694) who was a soldier in the Hanoverian army. Philip was a year older than Sophia Dorothea and the antithesis of her ugly, boorish husband.

Countess of Platen

Sophia Dorothea was no saint. She was quick-tempered and rarely discrete and her choice of Von Königsmarck as lover was not the best. Königsmarck was a dashing handsome gigolo and the former lover of her father-in-law’s mistress, the
Countess of Platen and the Countess had a jealous nature.

Königsmarck and Sophia Dorothea began a love affair of clandestine trysts, physical love, and coded correspondence facilitated by a trusted go-between but their love affair was uncovered in 1692 when the Duchess of Platen presented a collection of their correspondence to her lover, Sophia Dorothea’s father-in-law the Elector of Hanover.

Von Königsmarck was banished from the Hanoverian court but soon found a position in the neighbouring court of Saxony where one night when he was deep in his cups he let slip the state of affairs in the bedchambers of the royal house of Hanover. George Louis got wind of what had been said and on the morning of 2 July 1694, after a meeting with Sophia at Leine Palace, Königsmark was seized.

Philip Christoph von Königsmarck,
(1665-1694)

Dorothea never saw her lover again. George Louis divorced her in December and early the following year she was confined her to Schloss Ahlden a stately home on the Lüneburg Heath in Lower Saxony. She stayed there for the rest of her life. Her children were taken away from her and she was forced to live alone.

When Sophia Dorothea died in 1726 she had spent 33 years in her prison. Before she died she wrote a letter to her husband, cursing him for his treatment of her. A furious George forbade any mourning of her in Hanover and London. George I died shortly after her exonerated from any involvement in Von Königsmark’s death by the death bed confessions of two of Countess Platen’s henchmen. However, his son George II never forgave his father for his treatment of his mother.


Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Dorothea_of_Celle
Notorious Royal Marriages: A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty By Leslie Carroll
The Georgian Princesses By John Van der Kiste

Guest Post - Queen Charlotte’s Fictitious Sister

I am delighted to welcome Geri Walton as my guest today.


Geri is a history graduate and writer. Her first book, Marie Antoinette’s Confidante: The Rise and Fall of the Princesse de Lamballe, examines the relationship between Queen Marie Antoinette and Marie Thérèse, the Princess de Lamballe. Based on a wide variety of historical sources it captures the waning days and grisly demise of the French monarchy. 

Guest Post - Queen Charlotte’s Fictitious Sister

When Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz arrived in England, no one would have called her a beauty. However, she did have other impressive qualities. She had an agreeable manner, "unaffected modesty," and a graceful and expressive way of speaking. Charlotte was also unbendingly loyal to her servants and there were no household upheavals related to party connections or political issues. Yet, of all the Queen's qualities, it was her goodness that shone the most and the thing that many people remembered.

Pastel of Queen Charlotte
 with her eldest daughter Charlotte
by Francis Cotes in 1767,
Courtesy of Wikipedia

An example of the Queen’s goodness was demonstrated around 1771. In June, shortly after the Queen delivered her son Ernest-Augustus, a woman name Sarah Wilson became a maidservant to Caroline Vernon. Vernon was lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte, and because of that, Wilson was allowed access to the Queen's apartments.

With access to the Queen's apartments, Wilson snuck in and pilfered clothing and other items belonging to the Queen. Wilson also broke open a locked cabinet, rifled through it, and stole several valuables. Of course, it did not take long for the thefts to be discovered and for Wilson to be charged as a thief.

After Wilson was apprehended, she was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. The Queen’s goodness showed when she intervened on Wilson's behalf and had Wilson's sentence reduced: Wilson would not be executed but rather sent to the colony of Maryland. Thus, Wilson arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, in the fall of 1771 and subsequently became an indentured servant to a William Devall of Bush Creek, of Frederick County.

Henrietta Maria, the French Princess
 and Queen Consort of Charles I
 after whom "Maryland," was named.
Courtesy of Wikipedia

Wilson did not remain with Devall for long. A few days after Wilson began working for Devall, she escaped to Charlestown, South Carolina, and there began to pass herself off as a sister to the Queen. Wilson called herself Princess Susannah Caroline Matilda. Apparently, Wilson had also retained some clothes of the Queen, some jewels, and a few other possessions, "among which was a miniature of Her Majesty." These possessions allowed Wilson to appear regal and royal.

To ensure the ruse worked, Wilson told everyone she left England to avoid an unpleasant marriage that was about to be thrust upon by her "august relations." Her ruse was so perfect that the Charlestown town crier announced her as "her Serene Highness," and she met some of the most respectable and important people of the area. In addition, under this pretense as the Queen’s sister, Wilson travelled from house to house making "astonishing impressions in many places, affecting the mode of royalty so inimitably, that many had the honour to kiss her hand."

Advertisement by William Devall
to Retrieve Sarah Wilson,
Public Domain

Despite Wilson’s skill at impersonating royalty, not everyone she met was gullible. Some people questioned why Wilson only spoke English, when, similar to Queen Charlotte, she was supposedly born in Germany. Another thing that raised people's suspicions was that most people were unaware Queen Charlotte had a sister, let alone a younger one.

Eventually, Wilson’s impersonation ruse came to an end when Devall received word that someone looking much like Wilson was claiming to be the Queen's sister. He published a notice in the newspaper that stated: "SARAH WILSON ... has changed her name to Lady Susanna Caroline Matilda, which made the public believe that she was his Majesty's sister; she has a blemish in her right eye, black rolled hair, stoops in the shoulders, makes a common practice of writing and marking her clothes with a crown and a B. Whoever secures the said servant woman, or takes her home, shall receive Five Pistoles, besides all costs and charges.”

The five pistoles went to a Michael Dalton who found Wilson near Charlestown in Virginia and dragged her back to Bush Creek. There Wilson remained for two years, until Devall became a rebel in America's War of Independence. At that time, Wilson once again fled. The last report of Wilson was when she married a Dragoon officer named William Talbot. They later opened a business in the Bowery area of New York and had a large family.

References:

“Advertisement,” in Caledonian Mercury, 26 June 1773

"America," in Caledonian Mercury, 26 June 1773

"America," in Reading Mercury, 28 June 1773

Appleby, Joyce and et al, Encyclopedia of Women in American History, 2015

Watkins, John, Memoirs of Her Most Excellent Majesty Sophia-Charlotte, 1819

You can find out more about Geri and her book using the following links:

Website - http://.geriwalton.com/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/geri.walton

Twitter - @18thCand19thC

Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1473853338/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473853338&linkCode=as2&tag=geriw-21

Pen and Sword - http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Marie-Antoinettes-Confidante-Hardback/p/12260/aid/1154

Princess Anne: Artist, Musician and Politician

Self Portrait, 1740

 Princess Anne, the Princess Royal was the eldest daughter of George II. She was born into what we would call an extremely dysfunctional family in May 1709. (For more information about her grandmother and the House of Hanover read my blog on 15^th November.) Anne was a remarkable woman in many ways; she is criticised and praised by contemporary chroniclers for her arrogance and her accomplishments both of which she had in equal measure.

Anne was born at Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover, five years before her paternal grandfather, Elector George Louis, succeeded to the British throne as George I. Her parents’ relationship with King George I was a troubled one. Her mother, Caroline of Ansbach, had been brought up in the Prussian Court where she had been treated as a surrogate daughter and had been well educated. It is difficult to know to what extent her experience of life at the boorish and brutal Hanoverian Court influenced her opposition to George I in England. Did Caroline suspect her father-in-law of having her mother-in-law’s lover killed? Did she support her husband’s desire to set his mother free from her imprisonment at Ahlden? Whatever the case Anne’s parents left Hanover in 1714 and did not return.

Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover

Political differences between father and son led to factions in the court in Hanover from the late 1710s and these disagreements were carried over the British court coming to head following the birth of George and Caroline’s second son, Prince George William in 1717. At the baby’s christening, Anne’s father publicly insulted the Duke of Newcastle. This so infuriated George I he banished his son and daughter-in-law from St James’s Palace and kept their children, including Anne under his guardianship at Leicester House. The family rift was healed, in part at least, in 1720 when Anne’s brothers were returned to care of her parents but the girls remained the wards of the King.

Anne’s sisters, Princess Caroline (1713-1757) left,
Princess Amelia (1711-1786), right.

That year Anne’s body was ravaged by smallpox. The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans a year during the closing years of the 18th century. This near death experience and her parent’s experience of the disease at the beginning of their marriage caused her to support her mother’s efforts to test the practice of variolation (an early type of immunisation against smallpox), which had been witnessed by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Charles Maitland in Constantinople. At the direction of her mother, Caroline, six prisoners condemned to death were offered the chance to undergo variolation instead of execution: they all survived, as did six orphan children given the same treatment as a further test, (there were no medical ethics committees then). Convinced of variolation’s safety, the Queen had her two younger daughters, Amelia and Caroline, inoculated and with this royal patronage the practice spread amongst the upper classes.

On 22 June 1727, George I died while in Germany, making Anne’s father king. The following year, her elder brother, Frederick, who had been educated in Germany, was brought to England to join the court. Father and son had not seen one other in 14 years and when they did the fireworks began. Their relationship was even more tempestuous than the one between George I and George II especially after 1733 when Frederick purchased Carlton House and set up what George II considered to be a rival court.

As a daughter of the future British King Anne’s marriage was always going to be a dynastic one. As a princess requiring a protestant marriage her options were limited. The government hit on the idea of a marriage with the rather lowly William, Prince of Orange-Nassau to sure up their anti-French alliance. George II was not enamoured with the proposal and Anne was concerned herself for William had a well-known physical deformity. She dispatched Lord Hervey, a close confident, to report on its extent. Hervey reported that although William was no Adonis and his body was as bad as possible; William suffered from a pronounced curvature of spine, probably the result of sclerosis like the English King Richard III; he had a pleasing face.

Willem Karel Hendrik
Friso van Oranje-Nassau, 1751

Despite his deformity and the inferior territory Anne decided she would take him. She was already 25 years old and did not want to end up an old maid surrounded by her warring relatives. When they married in 1734, her mother and sisters wept through the ceremony and Lord Hervey described the marriage as more sacrifice than celebration.

As an outsider and British, Anne was not popular in the Netherlands. Her life must have been a lonely one as she did not get along with her mother-in-law and her husband was frequently on campaign, his power base dependent on his ability to protect the states of the Dutch Republic from its enemies. In these lonely years Anne concentrated her efforts on literature and playing the harpsichord; she was an accomplished, artist, musician, and lifelong friend of her music teacher Handel.

Producing the required heir was problematic too. In 1736, she gave birth to a stillborn daughter and another in 1739. Her first live birth came in 1743 with the arrival of Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau who was followed by another daughter, Princess Anna two years later. Her only son arrived in 1748 when she was 39 years old.

When her husband died three years later in 1751 at the age of 40, Anne was appointed regent for her 3-year-old son, Prince William V. She was given all prerogatives normally given a hereditary Stadtholder of the Netherlands, with the exception of the military duties of the office, which were entrusted to Duke Louis Ernest of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

To say that she took to the role like a duck to water would not be an exaggeration. Finally free to exercise some power, in true Hanoverian style, Anne used her wit and her determination to secure her personal power base and with it the dominance of her family and the Orange dynasty.

She was hard-working but remained unpopular. Commercial rivalry between the Dutch and the British East India Companies was part of the cause. Another reason was the constitution of the United Provinces. But what made her most unpopular was that she seized the opportunity to centralise power in the office of the hereditary Stadtholder over the traditional rights of the Dutch states particularly the State of Haarlem and in her foreign policy, she favoured the British-German alliance over alliance with the French. 

Ultimately, as a woman she was reliant on the men around her and it is fair to say that her husband and her son were fighting a losing battle against the tide of history at the end of the 18^th century and Anne with all her skills could not realise the ambitions of the House of Orange on her own. She ruled the Netherlands for eight years dying of dropsy in 1759 when her son was 12. She was replaced as regent by her mother-in-law, Marie Louise of Hesse-Kassel and when she died in 1765,  Anne's daughter, Carolina, was made regent until William V turned 18 in 1766.

Anne was a remarkable woman. With her beauty shredded by smallpox she took on the world and won. (I am sure she took the opportunity to show herself in her best light in her self-portrait above.) She accepted and made a success of her marriage which on the face of it held little prospect for personal happiness. She was an intelligent if haughty woman who endured years of loneliness, the pain of 2 stillborn children and widowhood. She exercised the role of Staadholder (chief executive of the Dutch Republic) as effectively as any man and laid the foundations of the Dutch royal family. Her grandson, William I became the first king of the Netherlands in 1815.

Sources:

George II: King and Elector By Andrew C. Thompson, 2011, Yale University Press

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Princess_Royal_and_Princess_of_Orange

Photo credits:

http:/ https://en.wikipedia.org

/in-luxembourg.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/trip-to-schloss-herrenhausen-hannover.html