Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/330

316 Lord Anglesea, Sir Thomas Hanmer, Sir Richard Onslow, and other whigs wrote thus. They represented the insolent carriage of the Jacobites as the queen grew worse and the electoral prince delayed his coming; that the queen evidently favoured them; and when Dr. Bedford had been condemned for writing a pamphlet, proving that the electress had no claim to the English crown, the queen had pardoned him; that the queen was every day worse; that she was now attacked with erysipelas, and that mortification was expected; and that the Jacobites exultingly asked, "Where is your duke of Cambridge? Where is the succession? Is it not more than a mouth since the writ was demanded? "Marlborough, who was now again roused to exert himself on the side of Hanover, either from the neglect of the court of St. Germains, or that he saw the English nation bent on the maintenance of the protestant line, sent a friend of his, Mr. Molyneux, to Hanover, to urge the departure of the prince for London without delay. He represented to the electoral family the strange reconciliation of Oxford and Bolingbroke, or the sorcerer and his familiar, as he termed them, and that there was no safety for the succession but in the prince being on the spot and giving life to his friends.

Things were now come to such a crisis, that Anne contemplated nothing but the setting off of the prince, whether she opposed it or not, and thus roused her to speak out plainly in forbiddance of it. On the 19th of May she had addressed a letter to the electress, telling her that she had never till then believed that she would fall into the idea of fixing a prince of the blood in her dominions during her lifetime; but, hearing that such was now the case, she thought it right to let her know that any such project would draw after it consequences dangerous to the succession itself; that there were, to her misfortune, a great many people seditiously disposed, and she left her to judge what tumults they might be able to raise if they only found a pretext for beginning; that she could not persuade herself that her aunt and cousin would do anything that should encourage this spirit, or disturb the repose of one who would do everything for the succession with zeal, provided it did not derogate from her dignity, which she was resolved to maintain. A similar note was addressed to the electoral prince.

Such was the embittered state of the queen's mind, that at this period she condescended to employ Tom D'Urfey, the song-writer of the time, to indite doggerel lyrics in ridicule of the octogenarian electress; and used to have him during her dinner hours stand by the sideboard to sing them. Fifty pounds is said to have boon the fee for one of these, in which such stanzas as the following appeared:— The crown's too weighty For shoulders of eighty, She could not sustain such a trophy. Her hand, too, already Has grown so unsteady, She can't hold a sceptre— So Providence kept her Away from old dowager Sophy.

But as neither ridicule at home nor remonstrance abroad appeared availing to keep away the prince, on the 30th of May,, Anne indited a more determined epistle to the elector himself:—"As the rumour increases that my cousin, the electoral prince, has resolved to come over to settle in my lifetime in my dominions, I do not choose to delay a moment to write to you about this, and to communicate to you my sentiments upon a subject of this importance. I then freely own to you that I cannot imagine that a prince who possesses the knowledge and penetration of your electoral highness can ever contribute to such an attempt, and that I believe you are too just to allow that any infringement shall be made on my sovereignty which you would not choose should be made on your own. I am firmly persuaded that you would not suffer the smallest diminution of your authority. I am no less delicate in that respect; and I am determined to oppose a project so contrary to my royal authority, however fatal the consequences may be. Your electoral highness is too just to refuse to bear me witness that I give on all occasions proofs of my desire that your family should succeed to my crown, which I always recommend to my people as the most solid support of their religion and their laws. I employ all my attention that nothing should efface these impressions from the hearts of my subjects; but it is not possible to derogate from the dignity and prerogative of the prince who wears the crown without making a dangerous breach on the rights of the successor, therefore I doubt not but, with your usual wisdom, you will prevent the taking such a step, and that you will give me an opportunity of renewing to you assurances of the most sincere friendship, with which I am," &c.

This put matters beyond all chance of mistake. The menace contained in it had such an effect on the aged electress that she was taken ill and died suddenly in the arms of the electoral princess, afterwards queen Caroline. If we are to believe Molyneux, the agent of Marlborough, the shock was made the greater by the express messenger keeping the letter from the day on which he arrived till the next, and meantime announcing that he was come to invite the prince over to England. Molyneux writes to Marlborough that he went, on the 28th of May,, to Herrenhausen, the country seat of the court, and the first thing he heard was that the electress was dying in one of the public walks. He says:—"I ran up there, and found her just expiring in the arms of the poor electoral princess, and amid the tears of a great many of her servants, who endeavoured in vain to help her. I can give you no account of her illness, but I believe the chagrin of those villanous letters I sent you word of last post has been in a great measure the cause of it. The rheingravine, who has been with her these fifteen years, has told me she never knew anything make so deep an impression on her as the affair of the prince's journey, which I am sure she had to the last degree at heart; and she has done me the honour to tell me so twenty times. In the midst of this concern those letters arrived, and those, I verily believe, broke her heart, and brought her with sorrow to the grave."

A shower of rain came on as the electress and her ladies were in the garden, and, whilst walking briskly to avoid it, she fell and instantly expired. Sophia, the electress, was a very accomplished as well as amiable woman. She was perfect mistress of the German, Dutch, French, English, and Italian languages; and, notwithstanding the endeavours of the Jacobite party in England to render her ridiculous, had always maintained an elevated and honourable character. She was more of an Englishwoman than a German, and, had she lived a few weeks longer, would have had—