Three decades after she was locked away behind the walls of Ahlden House, Sophia Dorothea of Celle lingered on the threshold of death. Her life had been comfortable but lonely, one of constant observation and pitifully restricted horizons and now, in the last months of 1726, the mother who had been kept from her children and whose very name was forbidden, drew her last breath. Sophia Dorothea died on 13 November 1726, having spent more than half her lifetime as a prisoner.
George Louis had sent the best doctors that money could buy to tend his ailing former spouse, but to no avail. In the moments before she passed away, Sophia Dorothea supposedly cursed the king’s name, damning him. Horace Walpole claimed that a prophet had once “warned George I to take care of his wife, as he would not survive her a year”, and that prophecy proved to be true. Walpole slyly theorised that the fanciful rumour had been put about by Sophia Dorothea’s parents, who feared that Melusine’s ambition might tempt her to arrange the death of their imprisoned daughter, but Melusine wasn’t the murdering type.
There was nothing Horace Walpole loved more than to be the man behind the juiciest gossip and at the time of Sophia Dorothea’s death he was himself only nine years old. In fact, not long before the king left England for his final trip to Hanover, Horace had seen Melusine’s influence firsthand when he had become determined to meet the king. “This childish caprice was so strong,” he wrote, “that my mother solicited the Duchess of Kendal to obtain for me the honour of kissing his Majesty’s hand before he set out for Hanover.”86 As the son of Robert Walpole the honour was naturally granted and a private audience was arranged for 10.00 pm, on the evening before the sovereign departed for his last journey. Little Horace was taken to Melusine’s apartments and there kissed the hand of King George I. Melusine, sadly, made little impression.
“The person of the king is as perfect in my memory as if I saw him but yesterday. It was that of an elderly man, rather pale, and exactly like his pictures and coins; not tall; of an aspect rather good than august; with a dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the same colour, and a blue riband over all. So entirely was he my object that I do not believe I once looked at the duchess; but as I could not avoid seeing her on entering the room, I remember that just beyond his Majesty stood a very tall, lean, ill-favoured old lady; but I did not retain the least idea of her features, nor know what the colour of her dress was.”87
Melusine was of no interest to the ambitious little courtier, but the death of Sophia Dorothea would certainly be of interest to Melusine. As Sophia Dorothea’s coffin languished in the vaults at Ahlden awaiting a burial that was delayed by floods, Melusine woke from a nightmare with a terrified start. She told George Louis that his late wife’s wrathful spirit had visited her dream to demand that she must be buried in Celle. If that wish were not granted, Sophia Dorothea would never let George Louis rest. Whether the nightmare had anything to do with his decision or not, George Louis swiftly gave his permission for the coffin to be interred in the ducal vault of Celle Castle, where it rests to this day. No monument was erected in memory of Sophia Dorothea.
George Louis forbade all mourning for his former wife and when he heard that his daughter had put her Prussian court into mourning despite his instructions, he was furious. Perhaps feeling his age, perhaps wondering at his apparently declining influence over his family, George Louis reasserted himself by taking a rather unusual decision. He decided to acquire his first and only English mistress. Though Mary Wortley Montagu might have mused that “Monarchs and beauties rule with equal sway” at the court of King George I, in Melusine’s case transitory beauty took second place to lifelong companionship. Lifelong companionship, however, occasionally took second place to amour.
The lady George Louis chose to make him feel like a young man again was 20 year old Anne Margaretta Brett, daughter of the scandalous Countess of Macclesfield88. One of the court’s most striking beauties, Anne knew that bedding the old king would do wonders for her career prospects. George Louis installed Anne in an apartment in St James’s Palace and her every wish was his command. When Anne wanted a door to be made in her apartment so that she could directly access the gardens, George Louis had the alteration carried out. The king’s granddaughters objected to seeing Anne when they took their walks and commanded that the newly created door be walled up. It was not. That sent a clear signal that Anne Brett was not a lady to be trifled with.
Melusine and George Louis departed for Hanover the day after their meeting with young Horace Walpole. It was to be their last trip together. The passing of Sophia Dorothea of Celle had left the couple free to make their union official at last but if they had any plans to do so, they were never committed to paper nor came to fruition. What Melusine made of Anne Brett we will never know, but Anne fully expected that George Louis would make her a countess when he returned from Hanover. That would have set in stone her place in the second rank, behind Duchess Melusine, but the king was fated never to see England again. Just like Bolingbroke, Mistress Brett was left in the lurch89.
George Louis spent his last conscious night with Melusine at Delden. Over breakfast the following morning he complained that his sleep had been interrupted by indigestion caused by a supper of strawberries, but he felt sufficiently recovered to travel on. The sea voyage from England had left Melusine unwell and she and George Louis agreed that he would tackle the next leg of the journey alone, leaving her and Young Melusine to follow once she had recovered. The king had always been an early riser and by 7.00 am he was on the road, sharing his carriage with his chamberlain, Friedrich von Fabrice, and Hardenburg. During the journey, George Louis complained of an uncontrollable tremor in his right hand. Minutes later, he suffered a catastrophic stroke.
On his arrival in Osnabrück, George Louis was taken straight to bed. He fell into a deep sleep from which he never awoke, and died just after midnight on 22 June. A messenger was sent to summon Melusine with news of George Louis’ collapse and she set out at once for his bedside, only to be intercepted by a second messenger who brought the update that she had been dreading. By the time Melusine and her daughter arrived in Osnabrück early the following day, the king was dead. The news shattered Melusine. She was hysterical with grief.
“Yesterday arrived an Express, dispatch’d by the Right Hon. The Lord Viscount Townsend [sic], with the melancholy News that his most Excellent Majesty King George fell ill upon the Road to Hanover, and died as Osnabrug [sic] (as we are inform’d) upon which the Guards were doubled. […] His late Majesty died, very much regretted, in the 68th Year of his Age, and in the 13th of this Reign.”90
King George I took his last breath on 22 June 1727, just hours before Melusine reached his side. As the prophet had supposedly predicted, George Louis did not survive Sophia Dorothea by a year. Soon the unhappy event had been given a Gothic rewrite, with unfounded tales spreading that a black-garbed rider on an ebony steed had thrust a deathbed curse written by Sophia Dorothea through the window of the king’s carriage. As soon as he read it, so the story went, George Louis collapsed.
Melusine was heartbroken. She had lost the man who had been her rock for thirty years and as the funeral plans were made in Hanover, she drew her surviving daughters close. George Louis was laid to rest in the chapel of the Leineschloss91. For the first time in three decades, the Duchess of Kendal was alone.