Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/146

Caroline charming wife, Sophia Charlotte, daughter of the Electress Sophia of Hanover (, 'Sophia Charlotte,' in Biographische Denkmäler, 3rd edit. 1872, iv. 278). In 1696 Caroline was left an orphan by the death of her mother, and after this event she seems to have spent some years under the care of her guardian and his consort at Berlin, though doubtless paying occasional visits to Ansbach and other courts. It must have been near the time of her mother's death that, if there be any truth in the story retailed by Horace Walpole (Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of George II, 4to, 1822, 158-9), Caroline fell in love with Frederick II, duke of Saxe-Gotha, who married in 1696, and whose daughter was afterwards married to Caroline's eldest son.

Caroline's sojourn with her guardian's wife, the Electress Sophia Charlotte (queen of Prussia from 1701), largely helped to mould her mind and character. Sophia Charlotte was a woman of unusual intellectual gifts, which had been fostered by the training given to her 1 by her mother, and more especially by the influence of her mother's faithful friend, Leibniz, who during these years was a constant visitor at Berlin and at Lützenburg, the new château since famous under the name of Charlottenburg ( and Correspondance, vol. iii. passim. See ib. iii. 104-5 Leibniz's tribute to Caroline's vocal powers). Sophia Charlotte entertained a warm affection for the young Ansbach princess, without whom Berlin seemed to her 'a desert' (see Leibniz's letter to the queen, 17 Nov. 1703, in, 322); and this affection was shared by the old Electress Sophia, who made Carolines acquaintance at Berlin (Correspondance, iii. 100). Already, in October 1704, the old lady is found manifesting a wish that by marrying her grandson, the Electoral Prince of Hanover, Caroline might have been saved the trouble inflicted upon her in connection with a proposal of more brilliant promise. The scheme of marrying the Ansbach princess to the Archduke Charles, afterwards titular king of Spain and emperor under the designation of Charles VI, appears to have been entertained as early as 1698 (see Leibniz's letter to the Duchess Benedicta in, 322); but negotiations were not actually opened on the subject till about 1704, when the Elector Palatine, John William, solicited Caroline's hand for the archduke. As her conversion to the church of Rome was an indispensable preliminary for such a marriage, the jesuit father, Orbanus, a personage highly praised by Leibniz, was permitted to instruct her in the faith, and the Electress Sophia very graphically describes the intelligent girl's disputations with her tutor, and her tears when the arguing had unsettled her mind (Correspondance, iii. 108). The old electress and Leibniz were supposed to have encouraged Caroline in her resistance (ib. iii. Introd. 39), and Leibniz certainly drafted for her the letter to the elector palatine, in which she declined further negotiations (ib. iii. 108-9). But 'Providence,' as Addison afterwards put it (see extract from the 'Freeholder,' No.21, in Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, ii. 270), 'kept a reward in store for such an exalted virtue,' and her 'pious firmness,' as it was styled by Burnet (Own Times, 1833 edit. v. 322), was not to go unrequited, 'even in this life.' After a decent interval the Hanoverian family and their relations resumed the project of a match between Caroline and the electoral prince, and by the close of the year she considered the Spanish project at an end (Correspondance, iii. 113;, 383), though it seems to have been transitorily resumed about March 1705 (Correspondance, iii. 119). Late in 1704 she had returned to Ansbach, and it was here that she learnt with the deepest sorrow of the death of her kind friend and protectress, Queen Sophia Charlotte of Prussia (see her letter to Leibniz, in, 435). Her stay at her native place was soon to come to an end; but she seems always to have retained a warm interest in the family from which she sprang (see the statement, probably true in substance, though certainly inaccurate, as to her kindness in her later years towards the infant margrave of Ansbach, in the Memoirs of the Margravine of Ansbach, 1826, i. 177-8).

On 2 Sept. 1705 Caroline was married to George Augustus, electoral prince of Hanover, who had visited Ansbach incognito a few weeks before, and had been captivated by the charms of her person and conversation (, ii. 270, from the 'Marlborough Papers'). The ensuing nine years, which she spent as electoral princess at Hanover and its neighbourhood, were probably among the happiest in her life. Soon after her marriage she had an attack of the small-pox, from which she was in 1707 thought to have just escaped (, 448); but it neither altogether destroyed her personal charms (see Reminiscences, 304), nor put an end to their power over her husband. Their eldest son, Frederick, afterwards prince of Wales, was born on 6 Jan. 1707, and their eldest daughter, Anne, afterwards princess of Orange, in 1709. Two other daughters were born, in 1711 and in 1713; and afterwards in England, between 1721 and 1724,