Melusine put herself entirely at the disposal of her princely lover. She was very much a ‘helpmeet’, ready to perform the duties of a consort alongside the more informal diplomatic role she had become so proficient at performing. For example, in 1713 she had supper in Hanover, probably at the Leineschloss, with the sisters of Princess Ursula Katherina Lubomirska, mistress of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and king of Poland. The Holy Roman Emperors were adept at recognizing their Electors’ affairs of the heart. Ursula was created a Reichsfürstin, or Princess of the Empire, by Emperor Leopold I soon after the birth of her son in 1704 and Melusine became a Princess in 1722, in acknowledgement of her high standing with George.
She lived an extremely privileged lifestyle, a round of parties, balls, salons and the hunt at the Leineschloss, Herrenhausen and Göhrde. For holidays, there were the spa towns of Bad Pyrmont and Wiesbaden, and occasional visits to Vienna. Such a lifestyle demanded exquisite clothes. Sumptuary laws which strictly controlled the clothing that could be worn by each class or profession had caused costume to become synonymous with status. Even though the rules had relaxed by the end of the seventeenth century, high fashion and superb fabrics were still the province of the aristocracy and the wealthy. All fashionable life centred upon the court, and attendance required high standards of costume. For members of the royal family and their courtiers, such as Melusine, it was expected that they wear only the best. And the best, typically, was French.
The court enthusiastically embraced the emulation of French dress. The pomp of Louis XIV’s Versailles had created a certain stiffness in clothing, with increasingly elaborate and impractical wigs. When Liselotte’s son, Philippe duc d’Orléans, became regent in 1715 for his five-year-old nephew Louis XV, fashion in France underwent a radical change, favouring a less formal style, which reverberated throughout Europe. But, as the costume historian Aileen Ribeiro has shown, as with all seismic shifts, the old continued to coexist alongside the new for a considerable time. Those who clung to the older fashions were not without their critics. In 1711, three years before Melusine and George came to England, Jonathan Swift, the Tory propagandist who was to become such a critic of the new king and his mistress, bitchily said of the Duchess of Grafton that she wore at dinner ‘a great high headdress such as was in fashion 15 years ago and looks like a mad woman in it’.19
Elaborate curls and, if a woman could achieve them, cascades of ringlets were de rigueur in Hanover, as we can see from Melusine’s and Sophia Dorothea’s portraits from the 1680s and 1690s. Because a woman’s coiffure and dress was so elaborate, even when the so-called ‘freer’ style of the French Regency took hold, women such as Melusine needed assistance dressing. Stays needed to be laced tightly, hair needed to be curled, and help was needed to put on the heavy dresses themselves. Court costume was predominantly the so-called open-robe. The shape was made up of a bodice joined to an overskirt, with the skirt open to show a petticoat beneath. Petticoats were worn over wide hoops, which grew so wide as the century progressed that in France in the 1720s, gentlemen complained they had no room to sit at the theatre because the ladies’ skirts took up all the room.20
The ‘mantua’, a formal court gown of the beginning of the century, began as a loose-fitting negligee, almost like a male nightgown. It developed to have wide pleats at the back with a small train. In 1712 the author of The Present State of France remarked that ‘The Quality trail behind ’em a long tail of gold or silk, with which they sweep the churches and gardens.’21 This fashion certainly found its way to Hanover.
The styles were elegant, but the fabrics and the finish were what made these dresses gorgeous. Elaborate patterned damasks, woven silks, fur petticoats, embroidery in gold and silver thread, delicate floral patterns, striped or plain silks, painted silks, lace, muslins – the list of materials is mouth-watering. In 1724 Mrs Delany wrote adoringly of Lady Sunderland’s – an English courtier’s – dress that it was ‘the finest pale blue and pink, very richly flowered in a running pattern of silver frosted, and tissue with a little white . . .’22
Wide hoops made the skirts swing as women walked. With the swing, a tantalizing view of ankle and shoe was revealed. The stockings beneath were brightly coloured. The delicate shoes, made of silk, leather or damask, had an attractive heel of up to three inches. It was the first time fashion had allowed the foot to be on show, and many found it remarkably alluring.
Underwear was always fine linen edged with lace or linen at the neck and sleeves, which remained visible beneath the gown. Stays were laced over the linen shift, and the gown was placed on top. For riding there were attractive riding habits with long sleeves and waistcoats, and for walking out of doors there was the ubiquitous cloak, usually hooded. The cloak served three purposes; for warmth, to cover increasingly low-cut dresses, and for its comfortable fit over the large hoop.
Dress was about theatre and show, and most women wore masks when walking out of doors. Some used them to enhance their allure with mystery, but others were more practical, sporting a mask to hide a disfigurement (many had suffered from smallpox). In 1717 the author of the poem The Art of Dress wrote: ‘When for the morning Air abroad you steal, the Cloak of Camlet may your Charms conceal; . . . That, with a Mask, is such a sure Disguise, T’would cheat an Argus, or a Spaniard’s Eyes.’23
In each of the four portraits of Melusine that survive, she wears the very best that fashion had to offer. The portrait of her head and shoulders dating from about 1691 shows her curly dark hair parted in the middle, with short curls framing her face and longer ringlets resting on her bare shoulders. White flowers, possibly jasmine, are braided through the right side of her hair, and the flowers are repeated in the centre of her neckline. Her dark dress is edged with pale lace, and lace is visible at the bottom of her sleeves, suggesting a three-quarter-length sleeve finished in lace.
Then there are the three three-quarter-length portraits, painted in Hanover or Celle when she was in her late forties or early fifties. One shows her with an elaborate fanning of lace at the top of her extremely low-cut dress her chest is practically exposed. Her gown is made of heavy silk in contrasting colours and her hair is dressed closer to her head with a solitary thick ringlet resting on the left side of her neck, following the French fashion. The second, at the convent of Barsinghausen, shows her wearing an elaborate blue and gold damask gown, with a more modest but still low neckline edged with lace. A scarlet and orange velvet stole rests on her shoulders, and she wears a thick rope of pearls. Interestingly Trudchen wore a dress in the same fabric when sitting for her portrait, which was probably painted at the same time as her mother’s.
Today they hang together in the same tiny picture cabinet of the convent. The third portrait reflects her near-royal status. It was commissioned by George sometime between 1716 and 1725. Here, Melusine wears sumptuous blue velvet and lace cuffs adorn her wrists. Grecian columns flank her and scarlet drapes denote the theatricality of the portrait. This portrait is all about rank, and the high esteem in which George holds his mistress. Most tellingly, she is portrayed sitting amidst a swathe of ermine. In the painting Melusine is no longer the ‘scarecrow’ that Sophia complained about. Three pregnancies left her fuller in the face and her figure was now more in keeping with the contemporary preference for plump women.
A typical day at Göhrde or Herrenhausen, with either a large party including extended family and foreign envoys, or even on occasion George’s grand Prussian relatives, or a more intimate family affair, would have begun in George’s anteroom at eight o’clock for hot chocolate, prior to a hunt in the lush forest. The greater the number of foreign dignitaries, the grander the affair.
After a strenuous morning’s exercise the family and their guests would dine in the big hall. Following a large meal all those who felt sociable would go to Melusine’s apartments to drink coffee – still a luxurious and exotic drink, having reached Europe only very recently from the Ottoman Empire – and to chat. In the evening there wou
ld be a play – Göhrde, like Herrenhausen, had its own theatre – or a ball. For the immediate family circle of Melusine, George, the three girls, Ernst August, on occasion Melusine’s sisters and their families, and Johann Matthias, the day followed a similar pattern but was far less grand.24
For the girls there were lessons with private tutors, with an emphasis on the study of music. Both Melusine and George were passionate about opera and the theatre – a love that George had inherited from his parents. When Agostino Steffani, who had so added to the glory of the house with his opera Henry the Lion, retired in 1710 he was replaced as Kappelmeister by George Frideric Handel. Handel became music master to Louise, young Melusine and Trudchen, and eventually to Georg August’s and Caroline’s growing family.
Melusine was an enthusiastic churchgoer – far more so than Sophia – and prayer was an integral part of her daily routine. It is interesting to speculate how she reconciled her religion with her domestic arrangements, for she took her faith seriously and the absence of a marriage with George, at least while Sophia Dorothea lived, must have troubled her.
A letter from her brother Johann Matthias to his dear friend Friedrich Ernst von Fabrice, a Hanoverian courtier and diplomat who was also close to Melusine, shows us that the nature of her relationship with George often left her feeling anxious and insecure. Although the letter was written in March 1728, after George’s death when she was still in deep grief, it is relevant to Melusine’s state of mind at the turn of the century. The letter is worth quoting in full as it throws light on Melusine’s passivity and Johann Matthias’s frustration with his sister at allowing George to treat her, in his view, so poorly:
. . . I finally received a letter from my dear sister, whom I honour and respect as much as I pity her. Neither advantage nor luck were of permanence or long duration for her. If one is not able to draw immediate benefit from a stroke of fortune, afterwards it becomes almost impossible to undo any wrong step one has taken. Without question one must know the difference between destiny and luck. However, I am firmly of the opinion that luck, whether good or bad, relies principally on our disposition. One should investigate without prejudice whatever generally comes the way of mortals, and one will duly recognise that they themselves almost always represent its direct or indirect cause. I am sure that, wherever passions or tempers rule, neither reason nor healthy human understanding can find a place. If my sister is not one of the happiest human beings of her time, and if she is currently not in an agreeable situation and not completely independent, then she really only has herself to blame. She was wary of opening her heart to anyone, even those closest to her, and proved even less ready to listen to her friends or her relatives; rather she put her trust in those who hardly considered what would be conducive to her interests – may that last comment remain between you and me! I know very well what she would say to me on this, to which I could only answer: If one knows the people with whom one is dealing, then one knows how one must behave; if, moreover one realises the nature of the matter, then it is only right and proper that one should in many cases reconcile oneself with a situation and that, as and when, one should attempt to influence circumstances oneself, with the aim of achieving one’s aims at a decisive point and in the proper place. For this one needs much perspicacity and an unshakeable patience, and that does not grow on trees . . .25
While Johann Matthias thought George had been selfish to put his sister in such a precarious position, Melusine rarely gave her lover a hint of any misgivings at her insecurity over her financial situation, over the future of the girls, who were never legitimized, or concerning what would become of her should George discard her. All was perfect harmony in their household. Except, that is, for the tempestuous and ‘difficult’ Sophia Charlotte.
Sophia Charlotte, George’s illegitimate half-sister, was a vibrant and vivacious woman who courted intrigue. Later, Sophia Charlotte was teased for her enormous bulk – English wags bitchily described her as the ‘Elephant’ to Melusine’s ‘Maypole’. But in her youth she was a plump and fashionable beauty – lively, clever, and at the centre of court gossip. Contemporaries were convinced that George and Sophia Charlotte were lovers, and even Liselotte mentioned it. George’s mother, aware of the rumours, felt compelled to deny these charges of an incestuous relationship, stating in 1701 that ‘to her certain knowledge, it was not so’.26
Considering George’s personality, this alleged incestuous affair does seem unlikely – he enjoyed domestic bliss with Melusine, and this was coupled with a strong sense of duty. But although he found Sophia Charlotte at times irritating she was very much at the centre of his intimate circle, a fixture entrusted by George with politically sensitive tasks such as choosing presents for his Prussian daughter. Sophia Charlotte was his sister, and his siblings were precious to him, particularly after the treachery of Max and Christian Heinrich, and Figuelotte’s untimely death. Furthermore she remained loyal to George until her death, a quality he had learned through experience to value highly. She may have been difficult, but she was also witty, pretty and entertaining. And George liked flirtatious, attractive women.
In 1701 Sophia Charlotte married Johann Adolf von Kielmansegg. He and George got on immensely well, sharing a love of music and the hunt, and George appointed him Master of the Horse, a lucrative position. But Sophia Charlotte created discord. She was often careless of the feelings of others, and in 1701 she upset a volatile Georg August to the extent that the diplomat of the family, Ernst August, had to intervene to calm everyone down.27 Caroline naturally took her husband’s side, and although we do not know the nature of the ‘offence’ given by Sophia Charlotte, the episode marked the beginning of ill-feeling between the two.
Here, Melusine chimed with Caroline. Neither could abide Sophia Charlotte, and they failed to understand George’s favour towards her. Sophia Charlotte’s relationship with Caroline swiftly deteriorated; perhaps both were too opinionated to enjoy one another’s company. And Sophia Charlotte was extremely jealous of Melusine. This jealousy would eventually lead to her forming a faction with her sister-in-law, Sophie Karoline von Platen (whom we will meet later), against Melusine, which frightened Melusine enough to make her turn to George’s ministers for help in maintaining her position.
Later, in England, Caroline went so far as to refer to Sophia Charlotte as a ‘wicked woman’.28 Wilhelmine, George’s Prussian granddaughter, wrote of her great-aunt that she ‘held the second rank, [and] was the natural daughter of the late Elector of Hanover and a Countess of Platen. It might be truly said of her that she possessed the disposition of a devil; for she was altogether inclined to work evil. She was vicious, intriguing, and . . . ambitious . . .’29
But Sophia Charlotte was not ‘wicked’. She was a charismatic and divisive character whose illegitimacy compelled her to fight harder for respect and recognition at the frequently febrile atmosphere of the court.
Two momentous events occurred in 1714. The first was Sophia’s collapse and death in her garden at Herrenhausen on 8 June, at the age of eighty-four. She was walking with Melusine’s great friend Joanne Sophie, Countess of Schaumburg-Lippe, and Caroline.
It was suitable that Sophia died in her beloved garden. It was here she had sought solace from the horror of the family’s fracture over primogeniture, here that she grieved for her sons lost in battle, here she licked her wounds when her husband suspected her of treason. Just months before her death Sophia had written: ‘I am sitting in my cabinet, right in the sun, like the melons in the hot-house, I have twelve canaries that make a noise as if I were in a thicket. I must thank God for my good constitution, that I can still make the grand tour around the Herrenhausen garden without effort because I very much like to go walking in these beautiful pergolas.’30 She was buried in the Leineschloss church, but after the destruction of Hanover during the Second World War her remains were moved to the beautiful nineteenth-century mausoleum in the grounds of her garden at Herrenhausen.
Sophia had insulted
and ignored Melusine for twenty-three years. The Hanoverian residences were not vast and Melusine had borne Sophia’s ill will in close proximity with extraordinary good grace.
The second event was the death of Queen Anne on 1 August. Days before Sophia’s death she had received an extremely harsh letter from Anne (actually dictated by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford), admonishing Sophia’s arguably reasonable request that Georg August, created Duke of Cambridge in 1706, might come to London to take up his seat in the House of Lords. On Sophia and George’s part, it was a measure to safeguard the Hanoverian succession. Anne was furious. Like Queen Elizabeth before her, she could not bear to think about her death or the succession. She wrote to Georg August that ‘nothing can be so disagreeable to me’.31 Thus rebuked, Sophia died three days later. We do not know if the English monarch’s words stung her enough to contribute to her death.
Anne’s response to Sophia’s death was callous – she felt dogged by her Hanoverian successors during the latter part of her reign. When Sir David Hamilton ‘ask’d her [Queen Anne] if Princess Sophia’s Death added any thing to Her quiet or disquiet . . . she said, that Princess Sophia was Chipping-Porridge [a thing or matter of little importance], it would neither give more Ease, nor more uneasiness.’32
Anne died at 7.45 a.m. There are rumours that on her deathbed a guilt-stricken queen repented her part in excluding her Catholic half-brother James Stuart from the succession, thereby denying him the throne. But this may be Jacobite propaganda. George was proclaimed king at four o’clock in the afternoon. The proclamation, signed by 127 signatories, read:
The King's Mistress: The True & Scandalous Story of the Woman Who Stole the Heart of George I Page 8
