The King's Mistress: The True & Scandalous Story of the Woman Who Stole the Heart of George I

by Gold, Claudia

  George employed the French architect Rémy de la Fosse to build a new palace. It took four years to complete. There is an anonymous painting on display at the Royal Collection at Windsor which, although dated 1725, shows a hunting party at Göhrde in 1723.2 From the painting we can see it has mellow golden walls and a bright red roof. But it is not a rustic retreat. Elaborate gates lead to a grand Palladian building, perfect not only for the private life Melusine and George craved, but also for entertaining on a large scale. George bought 500 paintings for the refurbished palace. Melusine, in keeping with her almost pathological desire for privacy, is not shown in the painting, but many of the family and courtiers are. George is there with his Prussian son-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm – the young Sophia Dorothea’s husband – and George’s grandson prince Frederick. Also present are two servants of whom George was extremely fond – the Turks Mehemet von Königstreu (literally ‘true to the king’) and Mustapha de Mistra. Mehemet, who had been captured by the Hanoverian army in Turkey and later converted to Christianity, was far more than just a servant to the couple. He became a friend and confidant. They both followed him to England. With so many members of his court and family present, the painting testifies to the centrality of this palace in George’s life.

  Herrenhausen and the Leineschloss were Sophia’s homes, and the dowager Electress endeavoured to avoid Melusine as much as possible when both were in residence. At Göhrde Melusine was truly mistress; Sophia loathed visiting because she found herself too much in Melusine’s company. For both Melusine and Sophia, the situation was rendered even more awkward after the old Elector’s death. Sophia relied on George completely. Figuelotte was in Berlin, Max was sulking abroad, and Christian constantly badgered her for money. Her youngest child, Ernst August, was so inexperienced compared with George that she found herself gravitating towards her first-born as a confidant, adviser and sparring partner. Although Melusine was quiet and patient, she must have felt the strain of a difficult ‘mother-in-law’, particularly as there were few opportunities to completely escape her company. Sophia was a fact of life who had to be borne for the sake of harmony.

  In 1701, at the age of thirty-three, Melusine gave birth to her last child, also a daughter. The large gap between her second and third daughters – young Melusine was eight years old when the baby was born – suggests that there may have been failed pregnancies during the intervening years. But typically discreet, Melusine makes no reference to her childless years in any surviving correspondence. The addition to their family only added to Melusine and George’s domestic joy.3

  Once again George did not acknowledge the child, even though he was now the Elector, divorced, and no longer had a father to please. Perhaps it would have been too awkward to admit that he and Melusine had effectively lied about the parentage of the two older girls and they thought it best to keep it an open secret. The newly gained electoral cap was still, George believed, precarious, and he wished to avoid any scandal.

  Melusine’s family stepped in yet again to save her honour. Her adored eldest sister, Margarete Gertrud, who had so willingly accepted the maternity of Melusine’s first two daughters, had died in 1697. This treasured sister, wife and mother was honoured with the epitaph on her headstone: ‘Here lies this fine woman, and a true heart is buried.’4 Melusine, as a mark of her great feeling for her sister, named her baby daughter Margarethe Gertrud, but the child was always known by the affectionate diminutive Trudchen. Now it was Melusine’s sister Sophia Juliane and her husband, Rabe Christoph von Oeynhausen, who claimed Trudchen as their own daughter.

  As Trudchen grew older she was known as ‘die schöne Gertrud’ (the beautiful Gertrud). A portrait survives which today hangs at the convent of Barsinghausen, near Hanover. It was probably painted when she was in her early twenties and it shows an extremely beautiful young woman with long dark curly hair and a rosy mouth and cheeks. She resembles her mother.

  During these years, Melusine was seemingly liked and admired by everyone – save for the chilly Sophia. John Toland, an Irishman who served as a diplomat to the court of Hanover, wrote to his patron William III in 1701 on the occasion of the deliverance of the Act of Settlement to Sophia by Lord Macclesfield: ‘The Electress’s [Sophia’s] maids of honour are worthy of the rank they enjoy, especially Mademoiselle Schulenburg, who in the opinion of others as well as mine is a lady of extraordinary merit.’5

  Toland was obviously enamoured of Hanover. Many Englishmen imagined the state a mere provincial backwater, but Toland disagreed. He was impressed by the ‘fine, and richly furnished’ palace apartments and ‘a pretty theatre’. He observed that: ‘the opera house in the castle is visited as a rarity by all travellers, as being the best painted and the best contrived in all Europe . . .’

  As to court life, he observed that it was ‘extremely polite, and even in Germany it is accounted the best, both for civility and decorum . . . Strangers of figure or quality are commonly invited to the Elector’s table, where they are amazed to find such easy conversation . . .’ He thrills at ‘well-bred . . . obliging’ and ‘handsome’ court ladies and singles out Sophia Charlotte, daughter of Klara Platen and George’s half-sister, who was growing into an intelligent and vivacious woman. Her sister-in-law, Countess Platen, he comments, ‘may pass for a beauty in any court whatsoever.’ He was equally enamoured of the intellectual life of the court, which despite Leibniz’s complaints that it was not up to London or Paris, Sophia had made into one of the most interesting in Europe.

  Toland was particularly impressed with George, and his writing glowed when describing England’s putative future monarch:

  He understands our constitution the best of any foreigner I ever knew; and though he be well versed in the art of war, and of invincible courage, having often exposed his person to great dangers in Hungary, in the Orea, on the Rhine, and in Flanders . . . yet he is naturally of peaceable inclinations . . . He is a perfect man of business, exactly regular in the economy of his revenues, reads all dispatches himself at first hand, writes most of his letters, and spends a very considerable part of his time about such occupations in his closet, and with his ministers. I hope therefore that none of our countrymen will be so injudicious as to think his reservedness the effect of sullenness or pride, nor mistake that for state which really proceeds from modesty, caution and deliberation: for he is very affable to such as accost him, and expects that others should speak to him first . . .6

  Significantly, Toland was writing around the time when George’s position was strengthened both in England and in Germany. The Act of Settlement automatically naturalized him as an Englishman in anticipation of his inheriting the throne. Sophia was thirty-five years older than Queen Anne, leading many to assume that it would be George, and not Sophia, who would succeed her.

  For Melusine, irrespective of the developments regarding George’s likely succession to the English throne, life continued to revolve around her immediate family circle – George, her daughters, and her brothers and sisters who were frequent visitors to Hanover. From 1695, the year of his father’s illness, George remained in Hanover rather than going on campaign, enhancing his intimacy with Melusine. Family life was enriched by the arrival of Melusine’s clever and ambitious half-brother Frederick William around 1700, who relied on his highly-placed sister to advance his career. George, who obviously had an immediate liking for the young man as well as an obligation to Melusine, undertook the completion of his education. The Elector was impressed, and used him on at least one diplomatic mission during the War of the Spanish Succession.7 Friendship followed; when George went to England he appointed Frederick William a gentleman of his bedchamber. Melusine’s young brother was now officially a member of her lover’s most intimate circle.

  Another of her brothers who moved in the couple’s orbit was Johann Matthias, who served the Doge of Venice for much of his career but had come to use his sister as a sounding board. He took up residence at the Palazzo Loredan in Venice when he retired from fig
hting the battles of European princes, and became an art collector. George regularly sought his opinion and advice, and Melusine’s relationship with her eldest brother enhanced her stock at Hanover. He was a gifted soldier and astute statesman who made it his business to know all the European gossip and was enormous fun to be with. Johann Matthias visited Hanover to see his sister as often as possible, on average once a year between 1705 and 1713. Melusine probably never visited Venice. Once George became Elector he took his responsibilities far too seriously to journey far from home for a holiday, preferring to visit Göhrde and the spa town of Bad Pyrmont, and it is unlikely that Melusine would have gone without him.

  That Melusine’s advice was valued by her brother Johann Matthias is evident from a letter he wrote to her in February 1706.8 He writes to her in distress and disbelief following his rout at Sorau (now in Poland) during the Great Northern War, in the service of Augustus of Saxony against the Swedes. This debacle was unusual in Johann Matthias’s otherwise highly successful career. He had obviously discussed the war in depth with Melusine, as he begins the letter: ‘Your predictions, my dear sister, have been but too just.’ He speaks frankly: ‘There is no army in Europe worse disciplined than this: the thefts, cruelties, and murders which the dragoons and troopers committed after their flight are unheard of, and that even from the field of battle itself to Saxony . . . and I am inconsolable for having been at the head of the army in this in famous action, which cannot fail to cause the greatest disorder in his [Augustus of Saxony’s] affairs.’ He promises to tell her more at a later date. But meanwhile, he asks her to communicate the news to Leibniz, now an important diplomat in Hanover: ‘Have the goodness at once to show and communicate the plan and the relation, which has been drawn up in haste, to M. de Leibnitz [sic], to whom I cannot write at full.’ Significantly, it was Melusine, and not Leibniz – who was the official channel of communication – who was informed of the disastrous news first.

  George’s youngest brother Ernst August was also in the inner circle. He was fourteen years George’s junior and he saw his eldest brother as something of a father figure. According to Sophia he followed George ‘like a dog’ and regularly stayed with them at Göhrde. Ernst August never questioned primogeniture, not simply because of his loyalty to George, but because he was probably homosexual and as such, unlikely to have children. Primogeniture and the resultant loss of inheritance was therefore not an issue for him. He remained fiercely devoted to George and Melusine and was one of only two of George’s siblings who remained on speaking terms with the Elector.

  Melusine was pivotal to the maintenance of friendly relations between George and the rest of his family. This would continue until George’s death. Melusine and Figuelotte kept up a regular correspondence, George’s only sister pragmatically making the leap of forming a friendship with the mistress once the wife was removed. More important was her relationship with his legitimate children. George was a formal and distant parent with the son and daughter he had with Sophia Dorothea. Though Liselotte’s judgement of him is perhaps unfair, in March 1707 she wrote to the raugravine Louise: ‘It is not surprising that the old gay good humour is no longer to be found at Hanover. The Elector is so cold that he freezes everything into ice. Neither his father nor his uncle were of that nature.’9

  Young Sophia Dorothea and Georg August were not allowed to mention their mother’s name in their father’s presence, which must have had a terrible impact on such young children. Hatton repeats a story, possibly apocryphal, of how, on his father’s death, Georg August put up a portrait of his mother. She notes that: ‘His presumed change of attitude to her memory (he became noticeably less enthusiastic about his mother) in his own reign has been attributed to his reading of a document after 1727 in the Hanover archives which convinced him of her adultery.’ The children were obviously sheltered from the ‘Königsmarck’ affair. It is unclear if any explanation was ever given as to their mother’s complete removal from their lives.

  But while George could be reserved towards his legitimate children, Melusine was warm and loving. Her friend Joanne Sophie, Countess of Schaumburg-Lippe, described her desire ‘to do all the good she can’.10 She might have added that this was particularly true when her ‘goodness’ facilitated George’s well-being. Melusine’s kindness was possibly tinged with pragmatism: it served her interests to be on good terms with George’s legitimate children and it pleased him.

  Although for years Melusine had patiently stayed in the shadows to avoid embarrassing her illustrious lover, his children by Sophia Dorothea liked her and accepted her as one of the family. Georg August, like his sister, was very fond of Melusine. This is extraordinary considering George’s treatment of his mother and is testament to Melusine’s empathetic nature.

  In 1705 Georg August married the attractive and clever Princess Caroline of Ansbach in Hanover. Although the court was grieving for George’s uncle, George William, who had died in late August, mourning was temporarily suspended to enable the prince and his new bride to celebrate their marriage.11 The courtship and marriage had fairytale beginnings when the young prince journeyed incognito to Ansbach to propose.

  The following year young Sophia Dorothea, now nineteen, left court to marry Figuelotte’s son, the volatile and not entirely sane Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia. And in 1707 Melusine shared George’s delight when Caroline gave birth to George’s first grandchild – a boy, Frederick Louis. This child would receive all of the love and attention that George had never given his own son.

  Relations between the Electorates of Hanover and Prussia had become, with young Sophia Dorothea’s marriage, even more personal. The marriage tested Melusine’s skills as an unofficial diplomat and conduit to George as she maintained a friendly correspondence with Sophia Dorothea, the new Prussian queen, who had been encouraged to think of Melusine as a stepmother. (Her own daughter Wilhelmine in turn thought of Melusine as a grandmother.) This relationship exemplified the way in which Melusine’s role was changing as she began to prove her usefulness to both foreign diplomats and family members. She gradually moved away from an exclusively domestic role to become an unofficial gatekeeper and counsellor, best able to deal with the less approachable George.

  The young Sophia Dorothea actually enjoyed a welcome renaissance in her relationship with her father when she left Hanover after her marriage. George, often shy, felt freer to express his affection via correspondence rather than in person, and the forty-five letters to her found in the Prussian archives are full of warmth.12 He addresses her as ‘ma chère Fille’ (my dear daughter), he worries over her health, he sends his physician, La Rose, to attend her at the births of her children, and he assures her of his ‘véritable tendresse’ (true tenderness) for her.13 Sophia wrote in delight: ‘With even greater pleasure I could now witness, how much her father loves her – which has been concealed from us so far due to his frosty nature; but now everything finally emerges.’14 Even his mother thought him at times cold towards his legitimate children.

  By contrast he lavished his huge reserves of affection on the children – his daughters by Melusine, and eventually his grandchildren – who were present in Hanover. His brother Ernst August’s letters are filled with comments about the girls – Louise, young Melusine and Trudchen – managing to twist their father around their little fingers, and George’s obvious delight in their precocity. It was George, and not the comparatively strict Melusine, who allowed his daughters to hunt from an early age, who listened with rapt attention to their remarks on the day’s political events, and who eventually sheltered Louise from a string of failed love affairs.

  Louise was beautiful, wild and independent, and Melusine – increasingly strait-laced as she aged – disapproved. Louise married Philipp von dem Bussche-Ippenburg, a Hanoverian courtier, in 1707. She was only fifteen years old. Ernst August’s letters suggest that Louise forced the marriage against her parents’ wishes because the couple believed themselves to be deeply in love. There is a
vague implication that they may already have slept together. Melusine was furious, not least because Louise had been promised to her dear friend and George’s, Alexander von Hammerstein.15 Hammerstein was the same age as George, and it is unlikely that the young Louise found him an appealing prospect. Even so, Melusine could not even bring herself to speak to Louise, but George came to his daughter’s defence and obviously talked his mistress round. The marriage took place.16 But to Melusine’s annoyance the haughty von dem Bussche family approved of neither the alliance nor her daughter. They took years to properly acknowledge Louise.17 George, at Louise’s cajoling, had shoehorned Melusine and the von dem Bussche family into accepting the match at least superficially. When it failed at some point before 1714 her father, perhaps feeling guilty at acting against Melusine’s wishes, ensured that Louise obtained a divorce. She would never marry again, preferring the freedom of an independent life and lovers rather than a husband. Of Melusine’s three daughters, her relationship with Louise remained the most uneasy.

  Melusine offered her own lover her complete loyalty and consistently provided a tranquil haven from the upheavals of the outside world. She was calm when William III died in 1702, making Sophia Queen Anne’s heir. She provided solace to George’s racking grief when Figuelotte died while visiting Hanover in 1705. George’s servant Mehemet later recalled how his master had barricaded himself in his room, kicking at the walls while he grieved for his only sister. George loved Figuelotte, and considering the fractured nature of his relationship with his other siblings (with the exception of Ernst August) their relationship was extremely important to him. The death of his uncle, George William, in the same year was perhaps sweetened by the change in status and influence it effected. The unification of Hanover and Celle brought vast increases in population, territory and income. Hanover’s population doubled to roughly 400,000, and her territory increased from 7,000 square kilometres to nearly 20,000.18