When George I came to England, he commanded his son to join him. George Augustus, the new Prince of Wales, obeyed with little enthusiasm. With neither the elector nor his heir left in Hanover, George Louis decided that his grandson, Frederick, would stay in the ancestral electorate and act as an official figurehead. At the time of George Louis and George Augustus’ departure, Fred was only seven and, just as the relationship between the king and his son had grown increasingly frosty, now the relationship between George Augustus and his own heir would follow the same sorry path. George Augustus and Caroline of Ansbach were forbidden by the king from returning to Hanover at all and instead, George Louis became young Fred’s mentor and guide. As the bond between grandfather and grandson deepened, George Augustus became more and more convinced that his father was poisoning his son against him, leading to yet another fracture in the House of Hanover.
As the years went on and his grandchildren grew, George Louis began to comb the courts of Europe for suitable spouses for them. He found some likely candidates in the Prussian court of his daughter, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, and her husband, Frederick William I. Marriage between the couple’s children and those of George Augustus seemed like an elegant solution to the problem of finding suitable spouses. The Houses of Hanover and Hohenzollern would be more powerful than ever if the cousins were to marry, furthering the dynastic ambitions of George Louis and Frederick William alike. Crucially, just as the doomed marriage between George Louis and Sophia Dorothea had been conceived to ensure that money and territory stayed in the family, marriages between the courts of Great Britain and Prussia would serve the same end.
George Louis and Melusine took a trip to the continent and visited the Hohenzollern court to discuss the possibility of a double wedding. The proposed marriages would unite George Augustus’ second daughter, Amelia, and eldest son, Frederick, with their cousins, the future Frederick the Great and Wilhelmine of Prussia. The marriage plans had originally been mooted by George Louis’ late mother, the formidable Electress Sophia, and they had been enthusiastically rekindled by George Louis’ daughter, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. It was Sophia Dorothea who kept her father’s interest in the scheme alive, but she’d reckoned without a vengeful governess looking to make trouble.
Wilhelmine was cared for in her youth by a governess named Léti, who was the daughter of a monk. Léti had been recommended to the family by Melusine’s rival, Sophia Charlotte von Kielmansegg, and it was through her that Sophia Charlotte was kept abreast of everything that was happening in the Prussian court. Léti was a brutal caretaker who regularly beat her charge black and blue, but Wilhelmine was too frightened of her retaliation to tell her parents what was happening. With nobody to challenge her, Léti’s tyranny continued and she punctuated her cruelties with everything from gentleman callers to court intrigues, as her abuse went unnoticed. Eventually Léti decided that she deserved more than the simple privileges of a governess and she enlisted her old friend, Sophia Charlotte, by now Countess of Darlington, to help her get what she believed was her due. Sophia Charlotte wrote a letter in which she promised Léti a role at the British court if she was willing to leave Prussia. Léti showed it to Queen Sophia Dorothea, expecting that her mistress would offer all manner of sweeteners to keep her from accepting Lady Darlington’s generous offer. Needless to say, things didn’t quite go to plan.
Sophia Dorothea was aware of the influence of Sophia Charlotte over the king and feared that Léti could cause all sorts of trouble in George Louis’ household. When the conflicted queen didn’t immediately meet Léti’s demands she tightened the screws, but the added pressure backfired on her. Léti had gone too far and this time, Wilhelmine’s maids spoke up. They told Wilhelmine’s horrified parents all about the beatings, which left Frederick William beside himself with anger. It was only Sophia Dorothea’s surprisingly merciful intervention that stopped the furious king from having the brutal governess incarcerated and instead he contented himself with exiling Léti from court. She remained as shameless as ever and when she left, she took with her a closet full of Wilhelmine’s finest gowns and all the gifts she had received throughout her employment. Her haul was worth a small fortune.
Léti headed for England and the household of Sophia Charlotte, Countess of Darlington, where she conceived a spiteful plan to ruin Wilhelmine’s marriage prospects. She plied Sophia Charlotte with fictitious but shocking accounts of Wilhelmine’s bad character, claiming that the young lady was violently insane. Years later Wilhelmine discovered that Léti had claimed her temper was “as bad as I was ugly, and [so] violent that my violence often caused me to have epileptic fits.”62
Dripping in false sincerity and perfectly pitched concern, Sophia Charlotte helpfully conveyed Léti’s reports to George Louis, aware that she would be scuppering the marriage plans in doing so. With the king and his mistress about to travel to Hanover and ink the contract on the prospective double marriage, her timing couldn’t have been better.
When Sophia Dorothea and Frederick William met George Louis in Hanover, they were expecting that signing off the double marriage would be a matter of formality. Instead they found George Louis happy to agree to the marriage of Amelia and Frederick, but considerably less enthusiastic about the proposed match between Fred and Wilhelmine. Sophia Dorothea was furious. She had nurtured plans for the double wedding for years and spent a considerable amount of money in doing so. To have it undermined by a mere servant was an insult. Caught in the middle of a power play between the Countess of Darlington and the Duchess of Kendal, she was determined not to let her plans fall victim to Léti and Sophia Charlotte’s scheming.
Sophia Dorothea knew better than to argue the point with her father and instead took the well-trodden path to Melusine’s door, no doubt with her purse strings suitably loosened. Soon the Duchess of Kendal was encouraging George Louis to approve the marriage of Fred and Wilhelmine and eventually he agreed to visit Berlin and meet his granddaughter in person. Only then could he really know if Léti and Sophia Charlotte’s damning reports of the girl were true.
On the night of the king’s arrival in Berlin, Sophia Dorothea prepared her daughter to meet him with a sergeant major’s eye for detail. Wilhelmine wasn’t a slender girl but Sophia Dorothea laced her so tight that she could neither eat nor drink and when Wilhelmine dared to voice doubts about marrying a suitor she didn’t know, her mother went into a rage that would have shamed even Léti. Sophia Dorothea picked up where Léti had left off, constantly criticising Wilhelmine for her behaviour or language, telling her that Fred wouldn’t approve of this or that and reminding her that this was all for her own good. Yet if she had to change to please her bridegroom, Wilhelmine decided that she would rather remain unmarried. “I went in despair to my own room,” she admitted after she was dismissed from her mother’s company after yet another showdown, “determined that my consent should not be so easily gained.”63
When George Louis and Melusine arrived in Berlin, Wilhelmine and her brother Frederick were presented to the royal party. George Louis took a candle and silently passed it over Wilhelmine, examining her from head to toe with an expression of utter disdain. Without saying a word, he put the candle down and turned to address Frederick, at which point George Louis suddenly transformed into the very model of an avuncular grandfather. He was as chatty and good humoured with the young man as he had been sullen and imperious to his sister. For Wilhelmine, it was an upsetting experience and one that shines a harsh light on the lot of a young female royal.
The whole trip was planned with military precision and the sole aim of securing the two marriages, but when George Louis fell ill those plans were thrown into disarray. The king had just finished dining when he collapsed to the ground in a dead faint. When he regained consciousness he could barely speak and had to be helped to bed. It’s likely that George Louis had suffered a mini-stroke and though he made a swift recovery, Melusine was shaken by the stark reminder that he was getting older and more infirm with every passing day. Yet George Louis was soon back on his feet and at the end of the festivities, the matter was decided. The hard sell had paid off and there would be a double marriage between the grandchildren of King George I. When it came to the battle of Sophia Charlotte and Melusine, it looked as though Melusine had got her way. In fact, her victory was a fleeting one.
In the end neither of the marriages took place. The death of King George I put a stop to the plans for a double marriage once and for all, as his successor sought to stamp his own mark on the court he had inherited and called off negotiations64. By that point, the ambitious Countess of Darlington was long dead and for the grieving Melusine, dynastic marriages were of no interest whatsoever. For now, though, the victory was hers to enjoy.