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

November Blogs - Georgian Queens and Princesses

Princess Caroline of Brunswick

In this month’s posts, I will be looking at the lives and loves of some of Britain’s Georgian Queens and Princesses with the help of my guest contributors, American author and historian Geri Walter and the British genealogists and historians Joanne Major and Sarah Murden.

Novelist Hilary Mantel wrote in an article in the London Review of Books in 2013 that she was asked by an interviewer at the Hay-on-Wye literature festival to choose a famous person to give a book to and to choose the book to give them. Many readers of this blog will find her choice of book and the person she chose to give it to shocking because she chose to give a book published in 2006, by the cultural historian Caroline Weber; called Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution,  to Catherine Duchess of Cambridge.

Portrait of Marie Antoinette
Artist: Elisabeth Louise Vigee-Lebrun. 

“It’s not that I think we’re heading for a revolution,” said Mantel. She was concerned that Kate becoming a jointed doll on which certain rags were hung. “Marie Antoinette was a woman eaten alive by her frocks,” says Mantel. “She was transfixed by appearances, stigmatised by her fashion choices. Politics were made personal in her. Her greed for self-gratification, her half-educated dabbling in public affairs, were adduced as a reason the French were bankrupt and miserable. It was ridiculous, of course. She was one individual with limited power and influence, who focused the rays of misogyny. She was a woman who couldn’t win. If she wore fine fabrics she was said to be extravagant. If she wore simple fabrics, she was accused of plotting to ruin the Lyon silk trade. But in truth she was all body and no soul: no soul, no sense, no sensitivity. She was so wedded to her appearance that when the royal family, in disguise, made its desperate escape from Paris, dashing for the border, she not only had several trunk loads of new clothes sent on in advance, but took her hairdresser along on the trip. Despite the weight of her mountainous hairdos, she didn’t feel her head wobbling on her shoulders. When she returned from that trip, to the prison Paris would become for her, it was said that her hair had turned grey overnight.”

The Duchess of Cambridge is of course no Marie-Antoinette. She is a modern, educated woman who has married for love but Mantel is right about royal women of the past and strangely prophetic in describing what has happened to Kate in the press recently. Duchess of Drab! wrote Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail on 8th April 2016, “It's the mystery of the cosmos... How DOES a beautiful woman make designer outfits look so frumpy?”



Unlike her late mother-in-law, Diana Princess of Wales, Kate has not courted fashion or the press a crime she will pay heavily for I suspect but as a woman with a mind, she probably knows she’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. If she courts fashion and sex appeal, she will be lambasted and lauded like tragic Diana, if she doesn’t she’ll remain a dowdy, uptight mouse.
The TV coverage is hardly better; Kate’s ‘achievements’ so far are those of her womb; her ability to supply an heir to the throne.

Celebrations at the birth of Princess Charlotte, May 2015.

In this respect, Kate is like so many royal women in the past who receive only a passing reference in mainstream history books. When Kate ventures out to visit to some charity or other on her own she is lauded patronisingly by the newscasters as if they were praising a child. Surely, it’s not hard for a woman in possession of one of the country’s most expensive educations and a good university degree to talk to children or politicians for a half an hour after a briefing by Palace aids!

The Duchess of Cambridge is just the most recent in a line of royal women living out their lives in gilded cages. The difference between Kate and her Georgian forbears is that she has chosen her life and consciously sacrificed her private life and career success for love. This was not a luxury afforded to princesses in the past.

Disney may believe every girl wants to be a pastel packaged franchise of a slender-waisted fairy-tale princess but if they knew what most princesses went through in the past and even today they would not be so keen to join their ranks. The truth is many of these women were child brides, exchanged by their families to secure dynastic advantage or to settle political deals; personal happiness and fulfilment was never part of the transaction. To find out more follow this month’s posts.

Sources:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3530869/Duchess-Drab-s-mystery-cosmos-DOES-beautiful-woman-make-designer-outfits-look-frumpy.html
http://ipost247blog.ipost247.com/royal-baby-girl-kate-middleton-duchess-cambridge-gives-birth-2nd-child-girl-photos/

Nabobs of the North

Sir Lawrence Dundas and Daughter, Zoffany, 1775

Bankers and men of property are some of the richest men on the planet today. Their relationship with governments and the democratic process is a battle for power fought in a war of attrition between the bankers' desire to operate freely and governments' desire for responsibility through regulation. Richer than countries and certainly richer than elected heads of state the influence of these multi-billionaires is profound but this is not a new phenomena as the story of the Dundas family reveals.

The Dundas family were one of Scotland's leading land owners but it fell on hard times during the failed Scottish rebellions: Head of the clan, William Dundas of Kincavel was imprisoned for his part in the 1715 Jacobite rebellion and many of the Dundas estates were forfeited to the British Crown after the 1745-1746 Jacobite rebellion.

Their humbler relatives were landless and urban living and working in trade and the newly emerging professions in Edinburgh. Lawrence Dundas the first of great Dundases was the younger son of landless branch of the family. His father,Thomas owned a drapery shop and woollen business in the Luckenbooths, a range of tenements which formerly stood immediately to the north of St. Giles' Kirk in the High Street of Edinburgh.

Sir Lawrence Dundas

Sir Lawrence Dundas (1710-1781)  known as the "Nabob of the North" even in his own lifetime was one of the new breed of men who made their fortune through servicing what we call the public sector today. He used the money he earned in the service of the King to invest in property and banking. He was the forerunner of many successful money men today who provide governments with armaments and supply multi-million pound government contracts.

Lawrence left his father's business and set up in as a merchant contractor and with his friend James Masterton, he obtained contracts to supplying the army of the Duke of Cumberland in the 1745 rebellion. Being successful with Cumberland further work came his way. His greatest money making opportunity  came during the Seven Years War (1756-1763), when he secured even greater contracts to supply the armies of the anti-French allies in Europe and Canada.  It was not all plain sailing though. He ran into trouble with Thomas Orby Hunter, the commissaries of control, and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick-Lüneburg the  a German-Prussian field marshal (1758–1766) who led the Anglo-German army in Western Germany. who, according to Prime Minister Walpole,  threatened to hang him for late fulfilment.

James Boswell claimed Lawrence Dundas brought home, 'a couple of hundred thousand pounds’ from that war but some historians estimate actual figure was nearer to £2 million the equivalent of more than £200m in today's money which put him in the class of a billionaire today.

Having made one fortune Lawrence went into two others, both in the 18th century's growth industries - banking and canals. Dundas was a man who understood the future was in money not land. Banking in Scotland was dominated by two Edinburgh based institutions; the Bank of Scotland and what became The Royal Bank of Scotland. The two institutions were fierce rivals. Both had the power to issue bank notes but the The Bank of Scotland was deemed to be tainted by its past Jacobite inclinations so it is no surprise, given his support for the British, Lawrence Dundas invested heavily in its rival the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Route of the Forth and Clyde Canal

He completed the development of the port of Grangemouth in 1777, which linked his other major investment the construction of the Forth and Clyde Canal to the sea. Dundas ran the canal through his estate, of Kerse House, near Falkirk, he was a canny operator.

Like Billionaires today who build themselves lavish houses in places like the Hamptons, Dundas set about building himself a few mansions. He built what Scottish writer Hugo Arnot described as  "incomparably the handsomest townhouse we ever saw," in St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh. Designed by Sir William Chambers, it became the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1825.

Head Office of the Royal Bank of Scotland

In 1754 he made his second attempt to gain a seat in Parliament. He lost but not before he had spent a fortune on bribes which was the 18th century way of currying favour with the electorate and he was disappointed again in 1761 election. Having failed to get a seat he turned to his friend Lord Shelburne for help. On 19 August 1762 Shelburne wrote to Henry Fox: ‘Dundas, the Nabob of the North, writes me to desire I’ll get him made a baronet.’ On 20 October Dundas duly received his baronetcy.

With his baronetcy in hand he made his move south but not without comment. He bought the Aske Estate, near Richmond in North Yorkshire in 1763 from Lord Holderness for £45,000 and proceeded to enlarge and remodel it in Palladian taste by the premier Yorkshire architect, John Carr, who also designed new stables for him.

Aske Estate

On 3 May 1763 Lord Hardwicke wrote to Lord Royston,"Sir Lory Dundas, who extends his conquests from North to South, has purchased Moor Park from Lord Anson’s heirs for £25,000 for which he ordered a set of Gobelins tapestries with medallions by François Boucher and a long suite of seat furniture to match, for which Robert Adam provided d

esigns: they are among the earliest English neoclassical furniture. A few months later he bought Lord Granville’s London house for about £15,000.

From 1766 Dundas set about securing his political influence in Scotland. In July that year be he purchased the Orkneys and Shetlands from the Earl of Morton for £63,000, thereby obtaining the parliamentary seat for his brother, he obtained Stirlingshire for his friend Masterson, Linlithgowshire and Fife went to another friend James Wemyss, the Yorkshire seats of Richmond were given to two proxies Norton and Wedderburn to be controlled directly by Dundas himself; the seat for Edinburgh he kept for himself. His 'purchase' of these seats secured him 8 or 9 votes in the Commons which he was willing to be courted by both Government and opposition alike but generally he voted in support of the Hanoverian king.

East India House, Leadenhall Street, 1800

Although Dundas never obtained high office either for himself or his followers it was generally believed that ‘without the name of minister’ he had ‘the disposal of almost everything in Scotland’ and in the East India Company. The Duke of Queensberry or Lord Marchmont got most of appointments available in Scotland through his influence but many he saved for himself. As governor of the Royal Bank of Scotland, 1764-77, he exercised great influence in the financing of new projects, notably his own project, the Forth and Clyde canal, while he worked in Parliament to prevent his rival, Lord Argyll, developing the Glasgow and Clyde Canal. He also provided government supporters with shares in the East India Company to boost their wealth to meet the selection criteria in the 1770 election.

But as the 1770s progressed Sir Lawrence's star was dimming. His new rival came not from the aristocracy but from a distant family connection Henry Dundas, with whom Sir Lawrence's family had  long been on bad terms.

Henry Dundas

Henry was a skilled lawyer and was as unscrupulous as Sir Lawrence when it came to politics and the two would wage war on each other's interests in Scotland and the East India Company through their proxies until Lawrence died.

Henry rose quickly through the Scottish legal system and became a Member of Parliament in 1774. The two men were arch enemies. Henry was more than a match for the older man when it came to politics.After holding subordinate offices under William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne and William Pitt the Younger, he entered the cabinet in 1791 as Secretary of State for the Home Department where he successfully held back the abolition of slavery arguing the country made too much money out of it to give it up in a time of war.

Always viewed as an outsider, and as a man more interested in himself than King and country, Sir Lawrence's influence waned. He never received the peerage he felt he deserved for his support to the King neither did he manage to maintain his family's political position. He died on 21 September 1781, leaving an estate worth £16,000 p.a. and a fortune of £900,000 in personal and landed property. His son Thomas was elevated to the peerage as Baron Dundas of Aske in August 1794, and was also Lord Lieutenant and Vice Admiral of Orkney and Shetland. In 1892, the family gained the title Marquis of Zetland.

Henry Dundas went onto to be Prime Minister Pitt's fixer and War Secretary at the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1802 he was elevated to the Peerage as Viscount Melville and Baron Dunira and in 1804 he became First Lord of the Admiralty. He introduced a number of improvements there but questions were asked about his financial management of the department which resulted an impeachment trial for the misappropriation of public funds.

Henry Dundas was an accomplished politician and scourge of the Radicals, his deft and almost total control of Scottish politics through the 1790 when no monarch visited the country, led to him being pejoratively nicknamed King Harry the Ninth, the "Grand Manager of Scotland" a play on the masonic office of Grand Master of Scotland, or the "Great Tyrant" and "The Uncrowned King of Scotland." Indeed by 1790 Dundas was in Pitt’s own word the ‘indispensable’ coadjutor of his ministry and the prime minister’s friend par excellence. His hold over Pitt seemed to many observers unaccountable: but, "Dundas brought to market qualities rarely combined in the same individual. Conviviality at table: manners frank and open and inspiring confidence: eloquence bold, flowing, energetic and always at command: principles accommodating, suited to every variation in government, and unencumbered with modesty or fastidious delicacy."(1)

But Henry over stepped the mark and was accused of withdrawing money from the Bank of England and placing it in his own account at Coutts for speculation, primarily in the East India Company. Although Dundas lost his job as Minister Treasurer of the Navy in 1783 he was made a member of the Board of Control for India in 1784 and became its President from 1793-1802. During this period he held a number of other political appointments most notably from 1791-1794 as Home Secretary, during which he defended the East India Company from his position as Secretary of War in 1794. When it came to his trial his prosecutors found he had conveniently destroyed all his records so the case was largely based on the testimony of his accusers. Lacking any material evidence Dundas could only be formally censured by the House of Commons Henry and was acquitted 1806, but he never held public office again.

Melville Monument

Henry is commemorated by one of the most prominent memorials in Edinburgh, the 150-foot high, Melville Monument at St Andrew Square, which stands looking down on the house of his rival Lawrence. The house is now the headquarters of The Royal Bank of Scotland.

In 2008, the UK Treasury had to inject £37 billion ($64 billion, €47 billion, equivalent to £617 per citizen of the UK) of new capital into Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Lloyds TSB and HBOS plc, to avert financial sector collapse.

Sources
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/dundas-henry-1742-1811
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/dundas-sir-lawrence-1710-81
(1)W. L. Clements Lib. Pitt letters, Pitt to Dundas, 22 July [1790]; Wraxall Mems. ed. Wheatley, i. 266.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dundas,_1st_Viscount_Melville
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Lawrence_Dundas,_1st_Baronet

Cabinet of Curiosities

A Cabinets of Curiosities was a feature of many large houses in the 18th century. The collections reflected the particular interests of their curators and as a social device to establish and uphold rank in society. Sometimes called ‘wonder rooms’, they were collections of extraordinary objects which, like today’s museums, attempted to categorise and tell stories about the wonders and oddities of the natural world.

A crocodile skull, part of the collection of curiosities
 at Caulk Abbey

Princes were particularly prone to collecting objects of fascination. Russian Emperor, Peter the Great created his Kunstkamera in Saint Petersburg in 1714. It was a haphazard collection rarities with an emphasis on natural specimens called "naturalia", rather than the man-made objects called "artificialia".




Peter was interested in anatomy and encouraged research into human deformities. He issued a royal edict requiring examples of malformed and still-born infants to be sent from all over the country to the imperial collection and put them on show as examples of accidents of nature in his collection. He also bought many specimens from Holland particularly from the pharmacologist, Albertus Seba, and the anatomist, Frederik Ruysch (1638 - 1731).

A tableau by Ruysch

The illustration to the right shows one of the scenes created by Ruysch and displayed in his museum in Amsterdam; sometimes known as the 8th wonder of the world. His daughter prepared delicate cuffs and collars to be slipped on to arms and necks of the skeletons that were positioned crying into handkerchiefs, wearing strings of pearls, or playing the violin in themed tableaux; for example, our life on earth is short. Ruysch was as much an expert showman as he was a scientist as was the case with many anatomists of his day. His dissections were public spectacles held by candlelight and accompanied by music and refreshments. Peter’s collection of human specimens formed the core of what later became the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1716, he added a mineral cabinet to the Kunstkamera, with the purchase of a collection of 1195 minerals bought from Gotvald, a doctor from Danzig. Russian minerals were added to the collection that eventually became the core of the Fersman Mineralogical Museum in Moscow.

William Hunter teaching anatomy

In Britain anatomists John and William Hunter collected curiosities too. Today the Hunterian Collection is one of the best-known collections of the University of Glasgow. Collected by William Hunter (1718–83). It contains 650 manuscripts and some 10,000 printed books, 30,000 coins and 15,000 anatomical and natural history specimens.



The library and other collections remained in London after Hunter's death for the use of his nephew, the physician and pathologist, Matthew Baillie (1761–1823), as well as William Cumberland Cruikshank (1745–1800). It moved to the University of Glasgow in 1807.

John Hunter

William’s brother John Hunter FRS (13 February 1728 – 16 October 1793) was one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day. He was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific method in medicine, a teacher and friend of, and collaborator with, Edward Jenner, the inventor of the smallpox vaccine.



A bust of John Hunter stands on a pedestal outside the main entrance to St George's Hospital in Tooting, South London, taken from the original Hyde Park Corner building, Lanesborough House. There is a bust of him in the South West corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and one in Leicester Square near where his central London home and anatomy school were situated. In his lifetime, John Hunter collected and prepared numerous natural specimens, which he displayed in his museum from 1783 including the skeleton of the Irish Giant Charles Byrne. In 1799, the British government purchased the collection and presented to the Royal College of Surgeons as an aid to medical education. This formed the basis of the Hunterian Collection which can be viewed at the Royal College of Surgeons Museum today.

Collecting was the range not only for anatomists and princes but for parsons and lords of the manor too. It was part of what has been called the 18th century's elite 'learned entertainment.'

La Ronde, Exmouth

 Many houses had cabinets of curiosities; one of the most beautiful collections of seashells was gathered by two spinster cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter. The two cousins became greatly attached to each other and in 1795 decided to set up home together in Devon. They negotiated the purchase of 15 acres (6.1 ha) of land near Exmouth. Once their house had been built they lived secluded and somewhat eccentric lives for many years until 1811 when Miss Jane died.

Cabinet of shells from La Ronde

http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item107648.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_College_of_Surgeons_of_England#Hunterian_Museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hunter_(anatomist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunterian_Museum_and_Art_Gallery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunstkamera
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/a-la-ronde
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/johnhunter