Having settled the matter between them, there remained only the challenge of convincing the other interested parties to accept this somewhat unorthodox arrangement, beginning with their middle brother, Duke John Frederick. It must be confessed that his reaction did not bode well for the success of the initiative. “Duke John Frederick by no means relished this proposal, and replied to the Duke of Hanover: ‘Why should you give the Princess to my brother and not to me? It would be absurd on my part to grant such an advantage to the youngest!’” But George William, who favored Ernst Augustus, had no intention of allowing sibling rivalry to undermine so excellent a solution to his predicament. “The Duke of Hanover was so enraged by this answer that he drove John Frederick in the rudest manner out of the palace,” Sophia observed.
His advisers’ views of this scheme were also given short shrift. The duke of Hanover, who had learned his lesson about asking for consent, simply presented the plan to them as a fait accompli. “George William announced to his Council that, being resolved never to marry, he had persuaded his brother Ernst Augustus to bear for him the burden which he could not bring himself to endure,” Sophia recounted. “He, therefore, demanded that his brother’s income should be so considerably increased as to enable him to maintain a wife. Though this speech was by no means to the taste of the audience, still they were forced to content themselves with it, and obey their master by raising the funds required.”
There remained then only the necessity of informing the unwanted fiancée and her brother of the last-minute change of bridegroom. George William not having the courage to break this news in person, a messenger was accordingly dispatched to Frankenthal, about ten miles northwest of Heidelberg (where Karl Ludwig, “to avoid disturbances at home,” had “taken refuge”). The envoy presented the details of the new plan, assuring Karl Ludwig that “I should be mistress at Hanover, for my children, should God grant me any, were to inherit all the Brunswick possessions, seeing that… John Frederick [the middle brother] was too stout ever to have any,” Sophia reported. “I, therefore, should become mother to the family and country as effectually as though I had been made the wife of Duke George William. The Elector listened with considerable surprise to this discourse,” she noted.
But being in the middle of his own highly irregular divorce and general marital finaglings, Karl Ludwig was hardly in a position to object. He did voice concern that Duke George William would later change his mind about remaining single, but, being “assured that he need entertain no apprehensions on that score,” he agreed to write to Sophia to see what she thought of the substitution. With the detested Adolf still lurking in the background, Sophia answered “that a good establishment was all I cared for, and that, if this was secured to me by the younger brother, the exchange would be to me a matter of indifference,” a demonstration of clearheaded reasoning worthy of the protagonist in a Jane Austen novel.
And so a new marriage contract was drawn up to which was attached a singular document, dated April 11–12, 1658, entitled Renunciation of Marriage on the Part of Duke George William of Hanover. “Having perceived the urgent necessity of taking into consideration how our house of this line may best be provided with heirs and be perpetuated in the future,” it began, “yet having been and remaining up to the present date both unable and unwilling in my own person to engage in any marriage contract, I have rather induced my brother, Ernst Augustus… and he is prepared forthwith and without delay to enter into holy matrimony.”
And this time, the duke was as good as his word. The wedding took place in Heidelberg on October 17, 1658. Ernst Augustus was a month shy of his twenty-ninth birthday; Sophia had just turned twenty-eight. “I was dressed, according to the German fashion, in white silver brocade, and my flowing hair was adorned with a large crown of the family diamonds,” Sophia remembered with pleasure. “My train, which was of enormous length, was borne by four maids of honor… I was escorted by the Elector and my brother, Prince Edward; Duke Ernst Augustus by the little Electoral Prince [Karl Ludwig’s seven-year-old son] and the Duc de Deux-Ponts. Twenty-four gentlemen marched before us, bearing lighted torches, adorned with ribbons of our armorial colors, blue and white for me, red and yellow for the Duke. Cannons were fired at the moment when the clergyman united us.” The religious ceremony was followed by a splendid supper ball, where “we danced in German fashion, the princes dancing before and behind us with lighted torches in their hands.” Best of all, Sophia’s surrogate husband turned out to be just as charming, and certainly more enthusiastic, than her original intended. “I, being resolved to love him, was delighted to find how amiable he was,” she observed with relief.
A few days later, Ernst Augustus left Heidelberg to arrange an appropriately elaborate welcome for his bride in her new home, and soon after an impressive retinue arrived to escort Sophia to her husband. She traveled by carriage from Mainz to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Cassel, and finally to Hanover, where both dukes—Ernst Augustus and his older brother George William, in whose house they would all be living together—were waiting for her.
CONSIDERING ITS UNUSUAL GENESIS, Sophia’s marriage, at least in the beginning, was all she could have hoped for. No sooner had she arrived than “the Duke my husband, taking my hand, led me to a very fine room, which the Duke of Hanover [George William] had had built expressly for me,” she reported with pride. The palace was full of aristocratic company who had been invited to meet the bride, and a second wedding ceremony took place in front of this august body, followed again by an evening ball. But best of all was the improbable exhilaration the newlyweds found in each other’s company. “I take pleasure in remembering how rejoiced we were to be left to ourselves when all the guests were gone, and how great was the Duke’s devotion to me,” Sophia reminisced. “Marrying from interest only he had expected beforehand to feel nothing but indifference for me; but now his feelings were such that I had the fond conviction that he would love me forever, while I in return so idolized him that without him I felt as if I were lost. We were never apart,” she recalled wistfully. But of course, they couldn’t be completely by themselves, as Duke George William was living there too. “He took part in all our amusements, cards, hunting, and walking, and in return spared no pains to make himself agreeable to me,” Sophia noted. “The Duke my husband, who knew him better than I did, began to be jealous; but of this I was wholly unaware.”
In fact, in the face of so much obvious affection (not to mention sexual fulfillment), George William was clearly having second thoughts. Apparently, when debating the merits of man-about-town over matrimony, he had not sufficiently taken into consideration the concept of the honeymoon. Now he was forced to witness this seductive interlude from the unenviable viewpoint of the third wheel. “He actually told me one day that he much regretted having given me up to his brother,” Sophia volunteered. “This speech I cut short by pretending not to hear it.”
But try though Sophia might to ignore her brother-in-law, George William’s attentions were sufficient to arouse the notice of her husband. They had a big fight, with Ernst Augustus accusing Sophia of preferring his older brother to himself. Shocked and in tears, she vehemently denied the charge. They made it up, but Ernst Augustus continued to maintain his suspicions. “I took pleasure even in his precautions to guard me, for after dinner, when he took a siesta, he would seat me opposite to him, and place his feet on the sides of my chair so that I could not stir; this would last for hours together, and to anyone who loved him less than I did, would have been very wearisome,” Sophia admitted. She did everything she could to ease his mind, shunning George William’s company except when absolutely necessary. “I now hardly ever saw his brother except at table, or, to speak more correctly, I sat at table without seeing him at all, having taught myself to turn away my eyes from him altogether, in order to avoid my husband’s reproaches. Indeed, I can say with truth, that for years the Duke of Hanover handed me to dinner without my seeing so much as his shadow,” Sophia observed wryly.
The awkwardness of her situation was somewhat alleviated in November of 1659 with the dukes’ winter sojourn to Italy, an annual holiday that clearly neither brother had any intention of giving up just because one of them was now married. Sophia was by this time pregnant and unable to undertake a long journey, so Ernst Augustus proposed that she instead visit her mother in Holland while he and George William were away. Sophia agreed to this suggestion with alacrity, particularly as “he assured me… that he would never again be jealous, as I had entirely cured him of that fault.” She took her seven-year-old niece Liselotte, Karl Ludwig’s daughter, with her to The Hague as a treat.
In fact, owing to the strained relationship between her own parents, Liselotte was by this time living with her aunt Sophia in Hanover. Karl Ludwig, having obtained his divorce decree from the Diet of Ratisbon (the German governing body) in 1657, had the following year married Louise von Degenfeldt in a quiet ceremony, and by 1659 the couple, along with two children born to Louise, had moved back to Heidelberg. As Charlotte had declined to recognize the legality of the divorce and had adamantly refused to move out, both of Karl Ludwig’s families were now living together in the ancestral castle. (“I have already ousted X [Charlotte] from the upper story and I have given her the old bedroom downstairs,” Karl Ludwig reported to Louise before moving her in.)
As may be imagined, this arrangement was hardly conducive to domestic harmony. Matters were not improved by Karl Ludwig’s strict approach to child rearing, which provoked many scenes. His son was timid by nature and submitted to his father’s authority, but Liselotte, who naturally took her mother’s side over that of Louise, had a strong character and often talked back or refused to retreat if she did not believe she was in the wrong.* To improve his daughter’s manners and education (and punish Charlotte for her unwillingness to surrender her home and position as electress), in June of 1659 Karl Ludwig sent Liselotte to live with Sophia, whose judgment and erudition he trusted more than his first wife’s.
Liselotte’s removal was a great cruelty to Charlotte but an enormous relief to the girl herself, who adored her aunt Sophia and was thrilled to exchange her strict, unhappy home environment for the pleasures of Hanover. She loved the outdoors and was allowed the freedom to run where she chose and was even given her own pony to ride. Where Karl Ludwig, having grown up always having to beg for money, kept a firm hand on the household accounts, famously weighing the butter before serving it, the two dukes, George William and Ernst Augustus, had the means to support a far more lavish lifestyle, and they took full advantage of it. At her aunt’s house, Liselotte ate as much as she liked of the hearty German sauerkraut and sausages that comprised the dukes’ steady diet and was so impressed by their Christmas celebrations that fifty years later she could still describe the scene as though it were taking place in front of her eyes: “The tables were dressed like altars and were laden with all sorts of things for every child, new clothes, silver ornaments, silk, dolls, sweets and all kinds of things,” she recalled with awe.
Sophia was as happy to have her niece at her side as Liselotte was to be with her. “I shall watch over her as though she were my child,” Sophia promised Karl Ludwig in a letter of April 18, 1659. She was especially gratified to be able to bring the girl with her to The Hague, although even here, Duke George William pursued her and threatened to ruin the visit. “I look for your sister here about Wednesday or Thursday,” the queen of Bohemia observed to Karl Ludwig in December 1659. “Her brother-in-law is yet here, you may chance hear of some love and rumors of love, but do not believe it, for there is no show towards it.” Luckily, Sophia managed to convince George William to carry on with his original plan to winter in Italy, so she and Liselotte were able to enjoy themselves in Holland. “After his departure, I spent my time very pleasantly with the Queen my mother, who graciously expressed great pleasure at having me once more with her,” Sophia remembered. “I had also brought my niece… to whom the Queen was passionately attached, the more so, perhaps, because this princess was the only one of her grandchildren that she had seen.”
“Her shape and humor make me think of my poor Henriette,” the Winter Queen observed wistfully of the little girl.
And then, five months later, on May 28, 1660, Sophia fulfilled the purpose for which she had initially been recruited to Hanover by giving birth, after an extremely difficult delivery in which it was feared that either she or the child would die, to a son. “Great was the joy of the Duke and of all of his subjects when our son was born alive,” she exclaimed. She and Ernst Augustus decided to name the child George, after their benefactor, the older brother who had made their happiness possible.
And then, just at the moment when it seemed that Sophia’s life could not be more complete, as though it had been sent as an unlooked-for christening gift, came the astounding news that Charles II had been restored to the throne of England.
IT SHOULD COME AS no surprise that Charles II’s cynical sacrifice of Montrose, intended to help him secure more advantageous terms in his negotiations with Scotland, had not achieved the desired effect. In fact, once his longtime nemesis had been dispatched, Argyll and the Covenanters had only increased their demands on the young sovereign. In order to be recognized as king of the Scots, Charles II had been instructed not only to swear to uphold Presbyterian rule in Scotland but to promise that it would also be imposed on England. Catholicism was to be outlawed in Ireland as well as in Scotland and England. Personally, Charles (who, like his father, was an Episcopalian) was to abstain from dancing and other forms of revelry, endure long sermons, and dismiss all but nine members of his retinue on the grounds that the rest were not considered sufficiently godly by the Presbyterian ministry. He was to take the oath of the Covenant and never issue a decree or conduct an action contrary to the interests or desires of the Scottish church. Although Charles, by his own admission, “perfectly hated the Presbyterians and all their ways,” he nonetheless submitted to all of these terms on the advice of, among others, the prince of Orange and Queen Christina of Sweden, who told him to promise whatever was necessary and then just go back on his word later, “so that he may be in a capacity to recover all in the end.”*
Nor had the humiliation ended with his arrival in Scotland. The Covenanters kept him under close watch, restricting his movements and subjecting him to more sermons. When, in an effort to prevent the alliance, Cromwell had crossed the border at the head of a large force and defeated the Scottish army in battle, Charles was forced to sign a declaration repudiating his parents and attributing the loss to God’s punishment for his sins or face the prospect of being handed over to Cromwell for execution. Even his coronation was preceded by a lengthy public apology for perceived transgressions committed by his father and grandfather. “I think I must repent too that ever I was born,” he observed wearily after making the required denunciation.
With his crown had come at last the promised Scottish army with which he hoped to invade and conquer England, but alas, Charles was no better at warfare than his father. He was soundly defeated by Cromwell at Worcester, about a hundred miles northwest of London, and just barely escaped with his life. There had followed an urgent flight from the pursuing Parliamentarian soldiers. Charles was hidden at great risk to those who sheltered him and passed from safe house to safe house by his loyal Catholic subjects (the same people he had sworn to persecute in order to obtain the Scottish throne) until he was finally smuggled out of England.
From this point on, his prospects took a steep decline, a misery made worse by the reality of Cromwell’s spectacular rise. Charles could only watch helplessly from abroad as his father’s executioner took command of England, forcibly dissolving Parliament (hilariously, Cromwell also found representative government very difficult to work with) and instead establishing a Protectorate, under which facade he ruled as sovereign in all but name. Aided by a handpicked House of Commons under the direction of a radicalized former leather seller who went by the name of Praise God
Barebone, laws were passed forbidding theater (players were whipped), dancing, sports on Sundays, and Christmas feasts. Fines were imposed for swearing, gambling, and other sinful activities. Catholics were persecuted, bishops deposed, and the Book of Common Prayer prohibited. All this was held in place by Cromwell’s undeniable military abilities, his strong army, and its many victories. This also made him an exceedingly attractive ally, and he was recognized by all the foreign powers as the legitimate ruler of England, a state of affairs that put them at odds with Charles, who was thus forced into exile and abject poverty. Lacking friends or support, constantly on the run, Charles, depressed and beaten, was without hope. Cromwell had prepared for every contingency. He seemed invincible.
But in the seventeenth century, even the invincible were subject to bacteria, and Cromwell came down with a urinary tract infection that quickly turned septic. On September 3, 1658, at the age of fifty-nine, the lord protector of England died, leaving the realm to his eldest son, Richard. It is astonishing how quickly Richard, who had neither his father’s commanding presence nor his military experience, botched it up and was forced out of office by both the army, who refused to follow him, and by a much-reduced and divided Parliament, who greatly feared the army. By the early spring of 1660, England was in turmoil.
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