I came across an old Jean Plaidy novel – I haven’t read one for years but, unusually, being short of a book I started reading and am hooked – I may even start to take a more lively interest in the Hanoverians so long as I don’t get mired in Whigs and Tories.
Caroline was George II’s wife. The thing that’s impossible to escape in the fictional account is that Caroline spends a lot of time pretending to be rather dim whilst actually manipulating her husband, George II, in terms of political decision making.
Inevitably I’ve gone off to the history books to find out more. George I and George, then Prince of Wales, had an almighty row and as a consequence George and Caroline were sent away from court. Even worse Caroline was separated from her daughters. She’d already had to leave her son Frederick in Hanover when the family came to England in 1714.
George I died in 1727 at which point George II became king. Caroline formed an alliance with Walpole who held a substantial majority in Parliament. Initially they formed an alliance about the amount that the civil list would pay. During the rest of her life they persuaded the king to do what Walpole wanted. This meant that Caroline had some sort of say in what happened in England. Lord Hervey, Walpole’s political opponent cultivated the king’s mistress and discovered that it didn’t get him very far at all.
Caroline arrived in England as Princess of Wales when George, Elector of Hanover became king of England in 1714. She immediately became the most important woman at court because George I was short of a queen. George I had locked his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Celle, (who was also George’s first cousin) in Ahlden Castle. She’d been there since 1694 on account of her affair with Count von Königsmarck. The count was rather more unfortunate – his body was apparently disposed of in a river. Sophia Dorothea died in 1726. George did bring his half sister and his mistress with him but they hardly counted in terms of the court scene, even though they did gain the names of the Elephant and the Maypole based on their looks.
Initially her court was almost separate from that of her husband – this wasn’t unusually what was different was that she filled it with intellectuals. This must have come as a bit of a surprise after Queens Mary and Anne who weren’t known for their brains. She deliberately sought out Sir Issac Newton and was friends with Jonathan Swift. She also set about trying to improve the lives of the people of England. In 1722 she had all of her children inoculated against small pox – using a cow pox vaccine making the whole thing wildly fashionable. I’m less sure how warmly I feel about the fact that she had all the foundlings in London’s Foundling hospital inoculated before her own children.
Lucy Worsley says that she was the cleverest queen consort to sit on the throne. Walpole commented that he’d taken the “right sow by the ear” when he chose to work with her. Certainly when George went back to Hanover he trusted her sufficiently for her to rule as regent, during which time she wanted a closer look at the penal code of the time. She was liberal in thought and behaviour and demonstrated compassion not only to the country’s imprisoned masses but also tried to plead leniency for the Jacobites in 1715.
Most important of all was that she was able to soothe George’s ruffled feathers, make him believe her words were his ideas and withstand his rudeness to her in public. Whilst she had her husband fooled the public weren’t so easily hoodwinked:
You may strut, dapper George but ’twill all be in vain:
We know ’tis Queen Carline, not you, that reign.
The truth was that everyone apart from her husband knew that she was an intelligent and able consort.
Was she a successful queen? The terms by which queen consorts are judged are not by their capacity to manipulate their spouses but by the children they produce. Caroline was pregnant on at least ten occasions and had eight children. She’d already had a son and three daughters by the time she became Princess of Wales. Her favourite son was William whom history calls Butcher Cumberland. Together with her husband she didn’t much like her eldest son Frederick and was horrible to both him and his wife continuing a Hanoverian traction that would be maintained throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Caroline who had become rather overweight in later years died in November 1737 from a strangulated bowel that was in part the product of poor treatment after the birth of her youngest child. She underwent several rather unpleasant operations without any painkillers, although she did apparently find the fact that her surgeon managed to set his wig on fire with a candle rather amusing. She finally died whilst holding her husband’s hand.
George II announced that no other woman he knew was fit to buckle her shoe – though that hadn’t stopped him from having many mistresses during their marriage or telling Caroline that she should love one mistress because the mistress loved him.
Dennison, Mathew. The First Iron Lady
http://www.lucyworsley.com/poor-queen-caroline-and-her-horrible-death/
On which note let us proceed to the Second Duke – unsurprisingly called William. William had gained the title Marquis of Hartington on his father’s elevation to a dukedom in 1594. This is the title by which the heir of the current duke is still known. This William was not a chip off the old block. He did not become involved in drunken brawls or debauchery. His marriage, arranged by his father to show his political loyalties, was to Lady Rachael Russell the daughter of William Russell who was executed in 1683 after attempting to have the Catholic Duke of York excluded from the succession. Charles responded by dissolving parliament thus removing the Whig voice. Russell was ultimately implicated in the Rye House Plot to assassinate Charles II – He hadn’t actually been involved in the actual plot, it was enough that he was a leading Whig – at worst his crime was misprision of treason which wasn’t a capital offence, which basically means that he knew something treasonous was about to happen but he didn’t tell the authorities. The political union between William and Rachael evolved into a love match rather to the first duke’s irritation.
The third duke is, completely unsurprisingly, also a William. He became duke in 1729 following his Oxford education and stint in parliament representing various counties. Dr Johnson who we have already seen was not keen on Whigs made an exception for the Third Duke of Devonshire. He described him as “a man faithful to his word” – though not necessarily of “superior abilities.” He was also described as a man of untidy dress, plain habits and noted on on account of the astonishing amount that he could drink.
In 1718 William, then Marquis of Hartington, married Katherine Hoskins. It was not a match arranged by the second duke. The marquis had fallen in love with a merchant’s daughter – fortunately the merchant was wealthy. Hugh Walpole described Katherine as “delightfully vulgar.” The pair had seven children upon whom their father doted (I’m warming to this Cavendish).
Which brings us to the Fourth Duke – yes his name is William. He was born in 1720. and like his forefathers became an MP and served in Government – briefly becoming Prime Minister. He married aristocratically to Elizabeth Boyle, the 6th Baroness Clifford which is why the Cavendishs own Bolton Abbey. In addition to which she brought huge quantities of London property and other assets into the Cavendish fold. All I really want to add about duke number four is that he arranged for Capability Brown to landscape Chatsworth and he was the chap who had the rather grand stable built.
Finally we arrive at the Fifth Duke of Devonshire and the nineteenth century. Yes, his name was William Cavendish – there does seem to be a bit of a pattern emerging. Like his father the fifth duke was Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire handheld administrative posts in Ireland but unlike his father who must have held the office of Prime Ministers for one of the shortest periods of time ever he declined cabinet positions. The Fifth Duke is more famous for his marriages, firstly to Lady Diana Spencer and secondly to his long term mistress Lady Elizabeth Hervey but that’s a post for another time as is the development of Buxton as a fashionable eighteenth century spa town.