Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/47

 ii s. ix. JAN. 17, 19U.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

41

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, Wlh.

CONTENTiS.-No. 212.

NOTES : William III. and the Elector of Brandenburgh, 41 Robert Baron, Author of ' Mirza,' 43 Inscriptions in Holy Trinity Churchyard, Shaftesbury, 44 Termination < . jie "County of Gloucester: Philip Jones, 45 Cricket in 1773 W. Parsons : Life or Horse Guards, 46 W. Upcottand 'The Anti-Jacobin '" Lunettes d'approche" Suspension of Newspaper Publication on Christmas Day, 47.

QUERIES : Dido's Purchase of Land, 47 Fatima's Hand Sundial Inscription Lock, Fanny Burney's Friend Locke Family Dr. Dundey, 48 ' Nollekens and his Times' Sir G. White Voltaire on the Jews 'Jock Elliot' Sir C. Hamilton Gilbert Family Rule of Succession Middlesex Painted Glass Fire - Walking- Pictures with "Broken -Glass" Effects, 49 T. Tayler, Modeller in Wax" Dowle " Chamber Damant Author Wanted Buckeridge Street Ilf racombe, 50 Coffin- shaped Chapels York House, Whitehall Droitwich Church Plate The Sabbath in Abyssinia Burr Street- Swedish Ambassador, 51.

REPLIES .'Humorous Stories, 51 " Beau - pere," 52 Colour of Liveries "Rucksack" R. Grey Sir John Langham, 53 Kester mel way Agnes Crophall, Lady Devereux Cottington, .")4 " Barring - out "The Great Eastern, 55 Douglas Epitaph in Bohemia Capt. J. Warde Richard- Andre wes Duplicate Marriage Military Coloured Print Hamlett, Profile Artist Picture - Cards" Dilling," 50 Authors of Quotations Wanted Capt. Woodes Rogers Anthony Munday G. F. Raymond Pyrothonide Old London Streets, 57 Badge of the 6th Foot Dickens in London, 58.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' London in English .Literature ' ' John Evelyn in Naples.'

OBITUARY : W. E. A. Axon, LL.D. Notices to Correspondents.

WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND AND THE ELECTOR OF BRANDENBURGH.

IT is well known that both his contem- poraries and posterity have agreed in ascribing the transformation of Frederick I. of Prussia from a simple Elector into a King to his troubles over etiquette. The refusal of the privilege of an armchair to him at his meeting with William III. of England is said to have chagrined him so deeply that he seated himself on a throne as a necessary preliminary to enjoying an armchair in any company whatsoever. Frederick I.'s rest- less vanity and passion for ceremonial, and the fact that his devotion to William III. suddenly gave place to a sharp quarrel, lend .support to a story which has been adorned by numerous moralists and wits. " An arm- chair," says his grandson Frederick II. , "*' nearly estranged these princes for ever."

M. Waddington, in his ' L'Acquisition de la Couronne Royale par les Hoheiizollern,' pp. 35-8, investigates this tale, and comes to the following conclusion. While ad- mitting that there could not be so much smoke without some fire, he shows that Frederick was only following the example of his world in fighting tooth and nail for any sort of addition to his state or power. Besides, it is known from many sources that the misunderstanding between Fre- derick and William arose from the former's suddenly disgracing his chief minister Danckelmann, his former tutor, and a firm and useful friend of the allies (Wadding- ton, pp. 250 sqq.}. M. Waddington, indeed, goes so far in his scepticism as to doubt whether William III. raised any difficulties about his cousin's session at any one of their three meetings in 1691, 1695, and 1696.

The present writer, in the course of researches among the State Papers of the time (especially in P.R.O., State Papers Foreign, Military Expeditions I.), has come on evidence which enables us to dot the is of the French .historian. It shows" that William III. did undoubtedly refuse the armchair to Frederick in 1696. But it is clear that he acted on principle, and refused the same honour to all other Electors. If Frederick resented the slur more keenly than they did, he had a secret source of bitterness, for the dispatches of the English diplomatists Stepney and Prior reveal an unexpected connexion between the niceties of etiquette and a curious and entertaining matrimonial adventure of William III.

When William III. became a widower at the end of 1694, his followers were exceed- ingly anxious for him to marry again, and, if God willed, to leave an heir to his great power and possessions. He still wanted some years of fifty, and, though infirm in health and irritable in temper, was by far the greatest match in Protestant Europe. The daughters of the King of Denmark, the Elector of Brandenburgh, and the Landgrave of Hesse, and even of the Duke of Orleans or the Emperor, were all mentioned as willing to console him in his bereavement.* But of all the fond fathers the Elector of Branden- burgh was the most pressing. Frederick was an inveterate matchmaker, and took a strong reversionary interest in his childless cousin of Orange and all he possessed.

of Buccleuch at Montagu House,' vol. ii. part i., Introduction, p. xix; also 'Lexington Papers,' ad ann.
 * See HistMSS. Comm. Rep., 'MSS. of the Duke