But we know he was not in favour with the
Kaiser, in those old years; so the military coercion had
been done by other hands, and he had not shared in
the management at all.
Kaiser, in those old years; so the military coercion had
been done by other hands, and he had not shared in
the management at all.
Thomas Carlyle
159
1729.
Friedrich Wilhelm, for his own part, had seen in
the death of George I. an evil omen from the English
quarter; and all along, in spite of transient appearances
to the contrary, had said to himself, "If the First
George, with his solemnities and tacit sublimities, was
offensive now and then, what will the Second George
be? The Second George has been an offence from the
beginning! " In which notions the Smoking Parliament,
vitally interested to do it, in these perilous Soissons
times, big with the fate of the Empire and Universe, is
assiduous to confirm his Majesty. The Smoking Par-
liament, at Potsdam, at Berlin, in the solitudes of
Wusterhausen, has been busy; and much tobacco, much
meditation and insinuation have gone up, in clouds more
abstruse than ever, since the death of George I.
It is certain, George II. was a proud little fellow;
very high and airy in his ways; not at all the man to
Friedrich Wilhelm's heart, nor reciprocally. A man of
some worth, too; "scrupulously kept his word," say
the witnesses: a man always conscious to himself, "Am
not I a man of honour, then? " to a punctilious degree.
For the rest, courageous as a Welf; and had some sense
withal, -- though truly not much, and indeed, as it
were, none at all in comparison to what he supposed
he had! -- One can fancy the aversion of the little
dapper Royalty to this heavy-footed Prussian Barbarian,
and the Prussian Barbarian's to him. The bloody nose
in childhood was but a symbol of what passed through
life. In return for his bloody nose, little George, five
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? 160 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [book vI.
1729.
years the elder, had carried-off Caroline of Anspach;
and left Friedrich Wilhelm sorrowing, a neglected cub,
-- poor honest Beast tragically shorn of his Beauty.
Offences could not fail; these two Cousins went on
offending one another by the mere act of living simul-
taneously. A natural hostility, that between George II. and Friedrich Wilhelm; anterior to Caroline of Anspach,
and independent of the collisions of interest that might
fall-out between them. Enmity as between a glancing
self-satisfied fop, and a loutish thick-soled man of parts,
who feels himself the better though the less successful.
House-Mastiff seeing itself neglected, driven to its hutch,
for a tricksy Ape dressed-out in ribbons, who gets favour
in the drawingroom.
George, I perceive by the very State-Papers, George
and his English Lords have a provoking slighting tone
towards Friedrich Wilhelm; they answer his violent
convictions, and thoroughgoing rapid proposals, by brief
Official negation, with an air of superiority, -- traces
of a polite sneer perceptible occasionally. A mere Clown
of a King, thinks George; a mere gesticulating Cox-
comb, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. "Mem Bruder der
Comodiant, My Brother the Playactor" (particoloured
Merry-Andrew of a highflying turn)! was Friedrich Wil-
helm's private name for him, in after days. Which
George repaid by one equal to it, "My Brother the
Head-Beadle of the Holy Roman Empire," -- "Erz-
Sandstreuer," who solemnly brings up the Sandbox (no
blotting-paper yet in use) when the Holy Roman Em-
pire is pleased to write. "Erz-Sandstreuer, Arch-Sand-
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? CHAr. vI. ] IMMINENCY OF WAR OE DUEL. 161
1729.
box-Beadle of the Heilige Romisehe Reich:" it is a lum-
bering nickname, but intrinsically not without felicity,
and the wittiest thing I know of little George.
Special cause of quarrel they had none that was of
the least significance; and, at this time, prudent friends
were striving to unite them closer and closer, as the
true policy for both; English Townshend himself rather
wishing it, as the best Prussian Officials eagerly did;
Queen Sophie passionate for it; and only a purchased
Grumkow, a Seckendorf and the Tobacco-Parliament
set against it. The Treaty of Wusterhausen was not
known; but the fact of some Treaty made or making,
some Imperial negotiation always going on, was too
evident; and Friedrich Wilhelm's partialities to the
Kaiser and his Seckendorf could be a secret nowhere.
Negotiation always going on, we say; for such in-
deed was the case, -- the Kaiser striving always to be
loose again (having excellent reasons, a secret bargain
to the contrary, to wit! ) in regard to that Julich-and- Berg Succession; proposing "substitutes for Jtilich and
Berg;" and Friedrich Wilhelm refusing to accept any
imaginable substitute, anything but the article itself.
So that, I believe, the Treaty of Wusterhausen was
never perfectly ratified, after all; but hung, for so many
years, always on the point of being so. These are the
uses of your purchased Grumkow, and of riding the
length of a Terrestrial Equator keeping a Majesty in
company. If, by a Double-Marriage with England,
that intricate web of chicanery had been once fairly slit
in two, and new combinations formed, on a basis not
Carlyle, Frederic the Great. III. 11
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? 162 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [book vI.
172'J.
of fast-and-loose, could it have been of disadvantage to
either of the Countries, or to either of their Kings? --
Real and grave causes for agreement we find; real or
grave causes for quarrel none anywhere. But light or
imaginary causes, which became at last effectual, can
be enumerated, to the length of three or four:
Cause First: the Hanover Joint-Heritages, which are not
in a liquid state.
First, the "AhldenHeritage" was one cause of dis-
agreement, which lasted long. The poor Mother of
George II. and of Queen Sophie had left considerable
properties; "three million thalers," that is, 900,000/. ,
say some; but all was rather in an unliquid state, not
so much as her Will was to be had. The Will, with
a 10,0001, or so, was in the hands of a certain Graf
von Bar, one of her confidants in that sad imprison-
ment: "money lent him," Biisching says,* "to set-up a
Wax-Bleachery at Cassel:" -- and the said Count von
Bar was off with it, Testamentary Paper and all; gone
to the Beichshofrath at Vienna, supreme Judges, in the
Empire, of such matters. Who accordingly issued him
a "Protection," to start with: so that when the Hanover
people attempted to lay hold of the questionable wax-
bleaching Count, at Frankfurt-on-the-Mayn, -- secretly
* Beytrdge zur Lebensgeschichte denkwitrdiger Personen (Halle, 1783-
1789), 1. 306, ? NUssler. Some distracted fractions of Business Correspond-
ence with this Bar, in Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea -- unintelligible as
usual there.
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? Cnxr. vI. ] DttMlNENCy OP WAR OR DUEL. 163
172U.
sending "a lieutenant and twelve men" for that object,
-- he produced his Protection Paper, and the lieutenant
and twelve men had to hasten home again. * Count
von Bar had to be tried at law, -- never ask with what
results; -- and this itself was a long story. Then as
to the other properties of the poor Duchess, question
arises, Are theyjillodja, oij&&_jhsgJ'euda+. -- jthat-is
to say, shall the Son have them, or the Daughter? In
short, there was no end to questions. Friedrich Wil-
helm has an Envoy at Hanover, one Kannegiesser,
labouring at Hanover, the second of such he has been
obliged to send; who finds plenty of employment in
that matter. "My Brother the Comddiant quietly put
his Father's Will in his pocket, I have heard; and paid
no regard to it (except what he was compelled to pay,
by Chesterfield and others): will he do the like with
his poor Mother's Will? " Patience, your Majesty: he
is not a covetous man, but a self-willed and a proud, --
always conscious to himself that he is the soul of honour,
this poor Brother King!
Nay withal, before these testamentary bickerings
are settled, here has a new Joint Heritage fallen: on
which may rise discussions. Poor Uncle Ernst of Osna-
briick, -- to whom George I. , chased by Death, went
galloping for shelter that night, and who could only
weep over his poor Brother dead, -- has not survived
him many months. The youngest Brother of the lot is
now gone too. Electress Sophie's Seven are now all
* Beytr&ge zur Lebensgescltichle denkwurdiger Personen (Halle, 1783- 1789), i. 306, ? Msiler.
11*
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? 164 DODBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADEIFT. [book vt
1729.
gone. She had six sons: four became Austrian soldiers,
three of whom perished in war long since; the other
three, the Bishop, the King, the eldest of the Soldiers,
have all died within two years (1726--1728):* Sophie
Charlotte, "Republican Queen" of Prussia, Friedrich
Wilhelm's Mother, whom we knew long since, was the
one Daughter. Her also Uncle Ernst saw die, in his
youth, as we may remember. They are all dead. And
now the Heritages are to settle, at least the recent part
of them. Let Kannegiesser keep his eyes open. Kan-
negiesser is an expert high-mannered man; but said to
be subject to sharpness of temper; and not in the best
favour with the Hanover people. That is Cause first.
Cause Second: the Troubles of Mecklenburg.
Then, secondly, there is the Business of Mecklen-
burg; deplorable Business for Mecklenburg, and for
everybody within wind of it, -- my poor readers in-
cluded. Readers remember, -- what reader can ever
forget? -- that extraordinary Duke of Mecklenburg, the
"Unique of Husbands," as we had to call him, who
came with his extraordinary Duchess, to wait on her
Uncle Peter, the Russian (say rather Samoiedic) Czar,
at Magdeburg, a dozen years ago? We feared it was
in the fates we might meet that man again; and so it
turns out! The Unique of Husbands has proved also
to be the unluckiest of Misgoverning Dukes in his
* Michaclis, i. 153. Sec Fcder, Kurfurstinn Sophie; Hoppe, Geschichle
der Sladt Hannover; &c.
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? CHAP. VI. ] DTMINENCY OF WAR OE DUEL. 165
1729.
epoch; and spreads mere trouble all round him. Meck-
lenburg is in a bad way, this long while, especially
these ten years past. "Owing to the Charles-Twelfth
Wars," or whatever it was owing to, this unlucky Duke
had fallen into want of more money; and impoverished
Mecklenburg alleged that it was in no condition to pay
more. Almost on his accession, while the tar-barrels
were still blazing, years before we ever saw him, he
demanded new subvention from his Bitters (the "Squires"
of the Country); subvention new in Mecklenburg, though
common in other sovereign German States, and at one
time in Mecklenburg too. The Ritters would not pay;
the Duke would compel them: Ritters appeal to Kaiser
in Reichshofrath, who proves favourable to the Ritters.
Duke still declines obeying Kaiser; asserts that "he is
himself in such matter the sovereign:" Kaiser fulminates
what of rusty thunder he has about him; to which the
Duke, flung on his back by it, still continues contu-
macious in mind and tongue: and so between thunder
and contumacy, as between hammer and stithy, the
poor Country writhes painfully ever since, and is an
affliction to everybody near it.
For ten years past, the unluckiest of Misgoverning
Dukes has been in utter controversy with his Ritters;
-- at law with them before the Courts of the Empire,
nay occasionally trying certain of them himself, and
cutting off their heads; getting Russian regiments, and
then obliged to renounce Russian regiments; -- in short,
a very great trouble to mankind thereabouts. * So that
* Michaelis, ii. 416-435.
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? 166 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [bookvT.
1729.
the Kaiser in Reichshofrath, about the date indicated
(Year 1719), found good to send military coercion on
him; and entrusted that function to the Hanover-Bruns-
wick people, to George I. more especially; to whom,
as Kreis-Hauptmann ("Captain of the Circle," Circle of
Lower-Saxony, where the contumacy had occurred),
such function naturally fell. The Hanover Sovereignty,
sending 13,000 men, horse, foot and artillery into
Mecklenburg, soon did their function, with only some
slight flourishes of fighting on the part of the con-
tumacious Duke, -- in which his chief Captain, one
Schwerin, distinguishes himself: Kurt von Schwerin,
whom we shall know better by and by, for he went
into the Prussian service shortly after. Colonel von
Schwerin did well what was in him; but could not
save a refractory Duke, against such odds. The con-
tumacious Duke was obliged to fly his country; --
deposed, or, to begin with, suspended, a Brother of his
being put in as interim Duke: -- and the Unique of
Husbands and paragon of Mismanaging Dukes lives
about Dantzig ever since, on a Pension allowed him
by his interim Brother; contumacious to the last; and
still stirring-up strife, though now with diminished
means, Uncle Peter being now dead, and Russian help
much cut off.
The Hanover Sovereignties did their function soon
enough: but their "expenses for it," these they have in
vain demanded ever since. No money to be got from
Mecklenburg; and Mecklenburg owes us "ten tons of
gold,"-- that is to say, 1,000,000 thalers, "ton" being
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? CHAP. vI. ] DfcCMINENCY OP WAR OK DUEL. 167
J 723.
the tenth part of a million in that coin. Hanover,
therefore, holds possession, -- and has held ever since,
with competent small military force, -- of certain
Districts in Mecklenburg: Taxes of these will subsist
our soldiery in the interim, and yield interest; the
principal once paid, we at once give them up: prin-
cipal, by these schedules, if you care to count them, is
one million thalers (ten Tonnen Goldes, as above said),
or about 150,000Z. And so it has stood for ten years
past; Mecklenburg the most anarchic of countries, owing
to the kind of Bitters and kind of Duke it has. Poor
souls, it is evident they have all lost their beaten road,
and got among the ignes fatui and peat-pools: none
knows the necessities and sorrows of this poor idle
Duke himself! In his young years, before accession,
he once tried soldiering; served one campaign with
Charles XII. , but was glad to "return to Hamburg"
again, to the peaceable scenes of fashionable life there. *
Then his Russian Unique of Wives: -- his probable
adventures, prior and subsequent, in Uncle Peter's
sphere, can these have been pleasant to him? The
angry Ritters, too, their country had got much trampled
to pieces in the Charles-Twelfth Wars, Stralsund Sieges:
money seemed necessary to the Duke, and the Ritters were very scarce of it . Add, on both sides, pride and
want of sense, with mutual anger going-on crescendo;
and we have the sad phenomenon now visible: A Duke
* See German Spy (London, 1725, by Lcdiard, Biographer of Marl-
borough) for a lively picture of the then Hamburg, -- resort of Northern
Monied-Idleness, as well as of better things.
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? 168 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [BOOK VI.
1729.
fled to Dantzig, anarchic Ritters none the better for
his going; Duke perhaps threatening to return, and
much flurrying his poor interim Brother, and stirring
up the Anarchies: -- in brief, Mecklenburg become a
house on fire, for behoof of neighbours and self.
In these miserable brabbles Friedrich Wilhelm did
not hitherto officially interfere; though not uninterested
in them; being a next neighbour, and even, by known
treaties, "eventual heir," should the Mecklenburg Line
die out.
But we know he was not in favour with the
Kaiser, in those old years; so the military coercion had
been done by other hands, and he had not shared in
the management at all. He merely watched the course
of things; always advised the Duke to submit to Law,
and be peaceable; was sometimes rather sorry for him,
too, as would appear.
Last year, however (1728), -- doubtless it was one
of Seckendorf's minor measures, done in Tobacco-Par-
liament, -- Friedrich Wilhelm, now a pet of the Kai-
ser's^ is discovered to be fairly concerned in that matter;
and is conjoined with the Hanover-Brunswick Commis-
sioners for Mecklenburg; Kaiser specially requiring that
his Prussian Majesty shall "help in executing Imperial
Orders" in the neighbouring Anarchic Country. Which
rather huffed little George, -- hitherto, since his Father's
death, the principal, or as good as sole Commissioner,
-- if so big a Britannic Majesty could be huffed by
paltry slights of that kind! Friedrich Wilhelm, who
has much meditated Mecklenburg, strains his intellect,
sometimes to an intense degree, to find out ways of
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? CHAP. vI. ] DliONENCT OF WAR OB DUEL. 169
1729.
settling it: George, who has never cared to meditate it,
nor been able if he had, is capable of sniffing scorn-
fully at Friedrich Wilhelm's projects on the matter, and
dismissing them as moonshine. * To a wise much-me-
ditative House-Mastiff, can that be pleasant, from an
unthinking dizened creature of the Ape species? The
troubles of Mecklenburg, and discrepancies thereupon,
are capable of becoming a second source of quarrel.
Causes Third and Fourth; -- and Cause Fifth, worth all
the others.
Cause third is the old story of recruiting; a standing
cause between Prussia and all its neighbours. And the
fourth cause is the tiniest of all: the "Meadow of Cla-
mei. " Meadow of Clamei, some square yards of boggy
ground; which, after long study, one does find to exist
in the obscurest manner, discoverable in the best Maps
of Germany, -- some twenty miles south of the Elbe
river, on the boundary between Hanover-Luneburg and
Prussia-Magdeburg, dubious on which side of the boun-
dary. Lonesome unknown Patch of Meadow, lying far
amid peaty wildernesses in those Salzwedel regions:
unknown to all writing mortals as yet; but which
threatens, in this summer of 1729, to become famous
as Runnymead among the Meadows of History! And
the fifth cause -- In short, there was no real "cause"
of the least magnitude; the effect was produced by the
combination of many small and imaginary ones. For
* Dubonrgay Despatches and the Answers to them (more than once).
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? 170 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT. [BOOK VI.
1729.
if there is a will to quarrel, we know there is a way.
And perhaps the fifth nameable cause, in efficiency
worth all the others together, might be found in the
Debates of the Smoking Parliament that season, were
the Journal of its Proceedings extant! We gather
symptoms, indisputable enough, of very diligent elabo-
rations and insinuations there; and conclude that to
have been the really effective cause. Clouds had risen
between the two Courts; but except for the Tobacco-
Parliament there never could have thunder come from
them.
Very soon after George's accession there began
clouds to rise; the perfectly accomplished little George
assuming a severe and high air towards his rustic
Brother-in-law. "We cannot stand these Prussian en-
listments and encroachments; rectify these, in a high
and severe manner! " says George to his Hanover
Officials. George is not warm on his throne till there
comes in, accordingly, from the Hanover Officials a
Complaint to that effect, and even a List of Hanoverian
subjects who are, owing to various injustices, now
serving in the Prussian ranks: "Your Prussian Majesty
is requested to return us these men! "
This List is dated 22d Jannary 1728; George only
a few months old in his new authority as yet . The
Prussian Majesty grumbles painfully responsive: "Will,
with eagerness, do whatever is just; most surely! But
is his Britannic Majesty aware? Hanover Officials are
quite misinformed as to the circumstances;" -- and
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? CHAP. vI. ] IMMINENCT OP WAR OE DUEL. 171
]729.
does not return any of the men. Merely a pacific
grumble, and nothing done in regard to the complaints.
Then there is the Meadow of Clamei which we spoke
of: "That belongs to Brandenburg, you say? Never-
theless the contiguous parts of Hanover have rights
upon it. Some 'eight cart-loads of hay,' worth say
almost 5/. or 10Z. sterling: who is to mow that grass,
I wonder? " --
Friedrich Wilhelm feels that all this is a pettifogging
vexatious course of procedure; and that his little Cousin
the Comodiant is not treating him very like a gentleman.
"Is he, your Majesty! " suggests the Smoking Parlia-
ment. -- About the middle of March, Dubourgay hears
Borck, an Official not of the Grumkow party, sulkily
commenting on "the constant hostility of the Hanover
Ministry to us" in all manner of points; -- inquires
withal, Could not Mecklenburg be somehow settled, his
Prussian Majesty being somewhat anxious upon it? *
Anxious, yes: his poor Majesty, intensely meditative
of such a matter in the night-watches, is capable of
springing out of bed, with an "Eureka! I have found
what will do! " and demanding writing materials. He
writes or dictates in his shirt, the good anxious Ma-
jesty; despatches his Eureka by estafette on the wings
of the wind: and your Townshend, your un-meditative
George, receives it with curt official negative, and a
polite sneer. **
A few weeks farther on, this is what the News-
* Despatch, 17th March 1729.
** Dubourgay, 12th-14th April 1729; and the Answer from St. James's.
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? 172 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT. [BOOKvI.
1729.
papers report of Mecklenburg, in spite of his Prussian
Majesty's desire to have some mercy shown the poor
infatuated Duke: "The Elector of Hanover and the
Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel," his Britannic Majesty
and Squire in that sad Business, "refuse to withdraw
"their forces out of Mecklenburg, or part with the
"Chest of the Revenues thereof, until an entire satis-
"faction be given them for the arrears of the Charges
"they have been at in putting the Sentence of the
"Aulic Council" (Kaiser's Reichshofrath and rusty
thunder) "against the said Duke. "*
Matters grew greatly worse when George paid his
first Visit to Hanover in character of King, early in the
Summer of 1729. Part of his road lies through Prus-
sian territory: "Shall he have free post-horses, as his
late Majesty was wont? " asks the Prussian Official
person. "If he write to request them, yes," answers
Friedrich Wilhelm; "if he don't write, no. " George does
not write; pays for his post-horses; -- flourishes along
to Hanover, in absolute silence towards his clownish
Brother-in-law. You would say he looks over the
head of him, as if there were no such clown in exis-
tence; -- he has never yet so much as notified his ar-
rival. "What is this? There exists no Prussia, then,
for little George? " Friedrich Wilhelm's inarticulate,
interjectionary utterances, in clangorous metallic tone,
we can fancy them, now and then; and the Tobacco-
* Salmon's Chronological Historian (London, 1748, -- a Book never to
be quoted without caution^ il. 216; -- date (translated into new style),
10th July 1729.
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? CHAP. vI. ] IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL. 173
1729.
Parliament is busy! British Minister Dubourgay, steady
old military gentleman, who spells imperfectly, but is
intent to keep down mischief, writes at last to Hanover,
submissively suggesting, "Could not, as was the old
wont, some notification of the King's arrival be sent
hither, which would console his Prussian Majesty? "
To which my Lord Townshend answers, "Has not
been the custom, I am informed" {wrong informed,
your Lordship); "not necessary in the circumstances. "
Which is a high course between neighbours, and royal
gentlemen and kinsfolk. The Prussian Court hereupon
likewise shuts its lips; no mention of the Hanoverian
Court, not even by her Majesty and to Englishmen,
for several weeks past. * Some inarticulate metallic
growl, in private, at dinner or in the Tabaks-Collegium:
the rest is truculent silence. Nor are our poor Hanover
Recruits (according to our List of Pressed Hanoverians)
in the least sent back; nor the Clamei Meadows
settled; "Big Meadow" or "Little one," both of
which the Brandenburgers have mown in the mean
time.
Hanover Pressed men not coming home, -- I think,
not one of them, -- the Hanover Officials decide to
seize such Prussian Soldiers as happen to be seizable,
in Hanover Territory. The highway in that border
country, runs now on this side of the march, now on
that; -- watch well, and you will get Prussian soldiers
from time to time! Which the Hanover people do;
and seize several, common men and even officers. Here
* Dubourgay.
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? 174 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [book vI.
28th Juno 1729.
is once more a high course of proceeding. Here is
coal to raise smoke enough, if well blown upon, --
which, with Seckendorf and Grumkow working the
bellows, we may well fancy it was! But listen to what
follows, independently of bellows.
On the 28th June 1729, hay lying now quite dry
upon the Meadow of Clamei, lo, the Bailiff of Hano-
verian Buhlitz, -- Unpicturesque Traveller will find
the peat-smoky little Village of Buhlitz near by a dusty
little Town called Liichow, midway from Hamburg to
Magdeburg; altogether peaty, mossy country, in the
Salzwedel district, where used to be Wendic popula-
tions, and a Mark or Border Fortress of Salzwedel set
up against them: -- Bailiff of Buhlitz, I say, sallies
forth with several carts, with all the population of the
Village, with a troop of horse to escort, and probably
flags flying and some kind of drums beating; -- pub-
licly rakes together the hay, defiant of the Prussian
Majesty and all men; loads it on his carts, and rolls
home with it; leaving to the Brandenburgers nothing
but stubble, and the memory of having mown for
Hanover to eat. This is the 28th June 1729; King
of Prussia is now at Magdeburg, reviewing his troops;
within a hundred miles of these contested quag-coun-
tries: who can blame him that he flames-up now into
clear blaze of royal indignation? The correspondence
henceforth becomes altogether lively: but in the Bri-
tannic Archives there is nothing of it, -- Dubourgay
having received warning from my Lord Townshend to
be altogether ignorant of the matter henceforth, and
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? CHAP. vI. ] LMMINENCY OP WAR OR DUEL. 175
July 1729.
let the Hanover Officials manage it. His Prussian
Majesty returns home in the most tempestuous con-
dition.
We may judge what a time Queen Sophie had of
it; what scenes there were with Crown-Prince Friedrich
and Wilhelmina, in her Majesty's Apartment and else-
where! Friedrich Wilhelm is fast mounting to the
redhot pitch. The bullyings, the beatings even, of
these poor Children, love-sick one of them, are lament-
able to hear of, as all the world has heard: -- "Dis-
obedient unnatural whelps, biting the heels of your
poor old parent mastiff in his extreme need, what is to
be done with you? " Fritz he often enough beats,
gives a slap to with his rattan; has hurled a plate at
him, on occasion, when bad topics rose at table; nay
at Wilhelmina too, she says: but the poor children
always ducked, and nothing but a little noise, and loss
of crockery ensued. Fritz he deliberately detests, as
a servant of the Devil, incorrigibly rebelling against
the paternal will, and going on those dissolute courses:
a silly French cockatoo, suspected of disbelief in
Scripture; given to nothing but fifing and playbooks;
who will bring Prussia and himself to a bad end.
"God grant he do not finish on the gallows! " sighed
the sad Father once to Grumkow. The records of
these things lie written far and wide, in the archives
of many countries as well as in Wilhelmina's Book.
To me there was one undiplomatic reflection con-
tinually present: Heavens, could nobody have got a
bit of rope, and hanged those two Diplomatic swindlers;
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? 176 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [book vI.
July 1729.
clearly of the scoundrel genus, more than common
pickpockets are? Thereby had certain young hearts,
and honest old ones too, escaped being broken; and
many a thing might have gone better than it did.
Jarni-Bleu, Herr Feldzeugmeister, though you are an
orthodox Protestant, this thousandfold perpetual habit
of distilled-lying seems to me a bad one. I do not
blame an old military gentleman, with a brow so
puckered as yours, for having little of the milk of
human kindness so-called: but this of breaking, by
force of lies merely, and for your own uses, the hearts
of poor innocent creatures, nay of grinding them slowly
in the mortar, and employing their Father's hand to
do it withal; this -- Herr General, forgive me, but
there are moments when I feel as if the extinction of
probably the intensest scoundrel of that epoch might
have been a satisfactory event! -- Alas, it could not
be. Seckendorf is lying abroad for his Kaiser; "the
only really able man we have," says Eugene some-
times. Snuffles and lisps; and travels in all, as they
count, about 25,000 miles, keeping his Majesty in com-
pany. Here are some glimpses into the interior, dull
but at first-hand, which are worth clipping and conden-
sing from Dubourgay, with their dates:
30th July 1729. To the respectable old Brigadier, this day
or yesterday, "her Majesty, all in tears, complained of her
"situation: King is nigh losing his senses on account of the
"differences withHanover; goes from bed to bed in the night-
"time, and from chamber to chamber, 'like one whose brains
are turned. ' Took a fit, at two in the morning, lately, to be
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? CHAP. VI. ] IMMINENCY OF WAK OB DUEL. 177
July 1729.
"offto Wusterhausen:" -- about a year ago Seckendorf and
Grumkow had built a Lodge out there, where his Majesty,
when he liked, could be snug and private with them: thither
his Majesty now rushed, at two in the morning; but seemingly
found little assuagement. "Since his return, he gives him-
"self up entirely to drink: -- Seckendorf," the snuffling
Belial, "is busy, above ground and below; has been heard
"saying, He alone could settle these businesses, Double-Mar-
riage and all, would her Majesty but trust him! " --
"The King will not suffer the Prince-Royal to sit next
"his Majesty at table, but obliges him to go to the lower
"end; where things are so ordered," says the sympathetic
Dubourgay, "that the poor Prince often rises without getting
"one bit," -- woe's me! "Insomuch that the Queen was
"obliged two days ago" (28th July 1729, let us date such an
occurrence) "to send, by one of the servants who could be
"trusted, a Box of cold fowls and other eatables for his Royal
"Highness's subsistence! " *
In the first blaze of the outrage at Clamei, Fried-
rich Wilhelm's ardent mind suggested to him the
method of single combat: defiance of George, by cartel,
To give the satisfaction of a gentleman. There have
been such instances on the part of Sovereigns; though
they are rare: Karl Ludwig of the Pfalz, Winter-king's
Son, for example, did, as is understood, challenge
Turenne for burning the Pfalz (first burning that poor
country got); but nothing came of it, owing to Turenne's
prudence. Friedrich Wilhelm sees well that it all
comes from George's private humour: Why should
human blood be shed except George's and mine?
* Dubonrgay, 30th July 1729.
Carlyle, Frederic the Great. UU 12
?
1729.
Friedrich Wilhelm, for his own part, had seen in
the death of George I. an evil omen from the English
quarter; and all along, in spite of transient appearances
to the contrary, had said to himself, "If the First
George, with his solemnities and tacit sublimities, was
offensive now and then, what will the Second George
be? The Second George has been an offence from the
beginning! " In which notions the Smoking Parliament,
vitally interested to do it, in these perilous Soissons
times, big with the fate of the Empire and Universe, is
assiduous to confirm his Majesty. The Smoking Par-
liament, at Potsdam, at Berlin, in the solitudes of
Wusterhausen, has been busy; and much tobacco, much
meditation and insinuation have gone up, in clouds more
abstruse than ever, since the death of George I.
It is certain, George II. was a proud little fellow;
very high and airy in his ways; not at all the man to
Friedrich Wilhelm's heart, nor reciprocally. A man of
some worth, too; "scrupulously kept his word," say
the witnesses: a man always conscious to himself, "Am
not I a man of honour, then? " to a punctilious degree.
For the rest, courageous as a Welf; and had some sense
withal, -- though truly not much, and indeed, as it
were, none at all in comparison to what he supposed
he had! -- One can fancy the aversion of the little
dapper Royalty to this heavy-footed Prussian Barbarian,
and the Prussian Barbarian's to him. The bloody nose
in childhood was but a symbol of what passed through
life. In return for his bloody nose, little George, five
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? 160 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [book vI.
1729.
years the elder, had carried-off Caroline of Anspach;
and left Friedrich Wilhelm sorrowing, a neglected cub,
-- poor honest Beast tragically shorn of his Beauty.
Offences could not fail; these two Cousins went on
offending one another by the mere act of living simul-
taneously. A natural hostility, that between George II. and Friedrich Wilhelm; anterior to Caroline of Anspach,
and independent of the collisions of interest that might
fall-out between them. Enmity as between a glancing
self-satisfied fop, and a loutish thick-soled man of parts,
who feels himself the better though the less successful.
House-Mastiff seeing itself neglected, driven to its hutch,
for a tricksy Ape dressed-out in ribbons, who gets favour
in the drawingroom.
George, I perceive by the very State-Papers, George
and his English Lords have a provoking slighting tone
towards Friedrich Wilhelm; they answer his violent
convictions, and thoroughgoing rapid proposals, by brief
Official negation, with an air of superiority, -- traces
of a polite sneer perceptible occasionally. A mere Clown
of a King, thinks George; a mere gesticulating Cox-
comb, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. "Mem Bruder der
Comodiant, My Brother the Playactor" (particoloured
Merry-Andrew of a highflying turn)! was Friedrich Wil-
helm's private name for him, in after days. Which
George repaid by one equal to it, "My Brother the
Head-Beadle of the Holy Roman Empire," -- "Erz-
Sandstreuer," who solemnly brings up the Sandbox (no
blotting-paper yet in use) when the Holy Roman Em-
pire is pleased to write. "Erz-Sandstreuer, Arch-Sand-
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? CHAr. vI. ] IMMINENCY OF WAR OE DUEL. 161
1729.
box-Beadle of the Heilige Romisehe Reich:" it is a lum-
bering nickname, but intrinsically not without felicity,
and the wittiest thing I know of little George.
Special cause of quarrel they had none that was of
the least significance; and, at this time, prudent friends
were striving to unite them closer and closer, as the
true policy for both; English Townshend himself rather
wishing it, as the best Prussian Officials eagerly did;
Queen Sophie passionate for it; and only a purchased
Grumkow, a Seckendorf and the Tobacco-Parliament
set against it. The Treaty of Wusterhausen was not
known; but the fact of some Treaty made or making,
some Imperial negotiation always going on, was too
evident; and Friedrich Wilhelm's partialities to the
Kaiser and his Seckendorf could be a secret nowhere.
Negotiation always going on, we say; for such in-
deed was the case, -- the Kaiser striving always to be
loose again (having excellent reasons, a secret bargain
to the contrary, to wit! ) in regard to that Julich-and- Berg Succession; proposing "substitutes for Jtilich and
Berg;" and Friedrich Wilhelm refusing to accept any
imaginable substitute, anything but the article itself.
So that, I believe, the Treaty of Wusterhausen was
never perfectly ratified, after all; but hung, for so many
years, always on the point of being so. These are the
uses of your purchased Grumkow, and of riding the
length of a Terrestrial Equator keeping a Majesty in
company. If, by a Double-Marriage with England,
that intricate web of chicanery had been once fairly slit
in two, and new combinations formed, on a basis not
Carlyle, Frederic the Great. III. 11
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? 162 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [book vI.
172'J.
of fast-and-loose, could it have been of disadvantage to
either of the Countries, or to either of their Kings? --
Real and grave causes for agreement we find; real or
grave causes for quarrel none anywhere. But light or
imaginary causes, which became at last effectual, can
be enumerated, to the length of three or four:
Cause First: the Hanover Joint-Heritages, which are not
in a liquid state.
First, the "AhldenHeritage" was one cause of dis-
agreement, which lasted long. The poor Mother of
George II. and of Queen Sophie had left considerable
properties; "three million thalers," that is, 900,000/. ,
say some; but all was rather in an unliquid state, not
so much as her Will was to be had. The Will, with
a 10,0001, or so, was in the hands of a certain Graf
von Bar, one of her confidants in that sad imprison-
ment: "money lent him," Biisching says,* "to set-up a
Wax-Bleachery at Cassel:" -- and the said Count von
Bar was off with it, Testamentary Paper and all; gone
to the Beichshofrath at Vienna, supreme Judges, in the
Empire, of such matters. Who accordingly issued him
a "Protection," to start with: so that when the Hanover
people attempted to lay hold of the questionable wax-
bleaching Count, at Frankfurt-on-the-Mayn, -- secretly
* Beytrdge zur Lebensgeschichte denkwitrdiger Personen (Halle, 1783-
1789), 1. 306, ? NUssler. Some distracted fractions of Business Correspond-
ence with this Bar, in Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea -- unintelligible as
usual there.
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? Cnxr. vI. ] DttMlNENCy OP WAR OR DUEL. 163
172U.
sending "a lieutenant and twelve men" for that object,
-- he produced his Protection Paper, and the lieutenant
and twelve men had to hasten home again. * Count
von Bar had to be tried at law, -- never ask with what
results; -- and this itself was a long story. Then as
to the other properties of the poor Duchess, question
arises, Are theyjillodja, oij&&_jhsgJ'euda+. -- jthat-is
to say, shall the Son have them, or the Daughter? In
short, there was no end to questions. Friedrich Wil-
helm has an Envoy at Hanover, one Kannegiesser,
labouring at Hanover, the second of such he has been
obliged to send; who finds plenty of employment in
that matter. "My Brother the Comddiant quietly put
his Father's Will in his pocket, I have heard; and paid
no regard to it (except what he was compelled to pay,
by Chesterfield and others): will he do the like with
his poor Mother's Will? " Patience, your Majesty: he
is not a covetous man, but a self-willed and a proud, --
always conscious to himself that he is the soul of honour,
this poor Brother King!
Nay withal, before these testamentary bickerings
are settled, here has a new Joint Heritage fallen: on
which may rise discussions. Poor Uncle Ernst of Osna-
briick, -- to whom George I. , chased by Death, went
galloping for shelter that night, and who could only
weep over his poor Brother dead, -- has not survived
him many months. The youngest Brother of the lot is
now gone too. Electress Sophie's Seven are now all
* Beytr&ge zur Lebensgescltichle denkwurdiger Personen (Halle, 1783- 1789), i. 306, ? Msiler.
11*
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? 164 DODBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADEIFT. [book vt
1729.
gone. She had six sons: four became Austrian soldiers,
three of whom perished in war long since; the other
three, the Bishop, the King, the eldest of the Soldiers,
have all died within two years (1726--1728):* Sophie
Charlotte, "Republican Queen" of Prussia, Friedrich
Wilhelm's Mother, whom we knew long since, was the
one Daughter. Her also Uncle Ernst saw die, in his
youth, as we may remember. They are all dead. And
now the Heritages are to settle, at least the recent part
of them. Let Kannegiesser keep his eyes open. Kan-
negiesser is an expert high-mannered man; but said to
be subject to sharpness of temper; and not in the best
favour with the Hanover people. That is Cause first.
Cause Second: the Troubles of Mecklenburg.
Then, secondly, there is the Business of Mecklen-
burg; deplorable Business for Mecklenburg, and for
everybody within wind of it, -- my poor readers in-
cluded. Readers remember, -- what reader can ever
forget? -- that extraordinary Duke of Mecklenburg, the
"Unique of Husbands," as we had to call him, who
came with his extraordinary Duchess, to wait on her
Uncle Peter, the Russian (say rather Samoiedic) Czar,
at Magdeburg, a dozen years ago? We feared it was
in the fates we might meet that man again; and so it
turns out! The Unique of Husbands has proved also
to be the unluckiest of Misgoverning Dukes in his
* Michaclis, i. 153. Sec Fcder, Kurfurstinn Sophie; Hoppe, Geschichle
der Sladt Hannover; &c.
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? CHAP. VI. ] DTMINENCY OF WAR OE DUEL. 165
1729.
epoch; and spreads mere trouble all round him. Meck-
lenburg is in a bad way, this long while, especially
these ten years past. "Owing to the Charles-Twelfth
Wars," or whatever it was owing to, this unlucky Duke
had fallen into want of more money; and impoverished
Mecklenburg alleged that it was in no condition to pay
more. Almost on his accession, while the tar-barrels
were still blazing, years before we ever saw him, he
demanded new subvention from his Bitters (the "Squires"
of the Country); subvention new in Mecklenburg, though
common in other sovereign German States, and at one
time in Mecklenburg too. The Ritters would not pay;
the Duke would compel them: Ritters appeal to Kaiser
in Reichshofrath, who proves favourable to the Ritters.
Duke still declines obeying Kaiser; asserts that "he is
himself in such matter the sovereign:" Kaiser fulminates
what of rusty thunder he has about him; to which the
Duke, flung on his back by it, still continues contu-
macious in mind and tongue: and so between thunder
and contumacy, as between hammer and stithy, the
poor Country writhes painfully ever since, and is an
affliction to everybody near it.
For ten years past, the unluckiest of Misgoverning
Dukes has been in utter controversy with his Ritters;
-- at law with them before the Courts of the Empire,
nay occasionally trying certain of them himself, and
cutting off their heads; getting Russian regiments, and
then obliged to renounce Russian regiments; -- in short,
a very great trouble to mankind thereabouts. * So that
* Michaelis, ii. 416-435.
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? 166 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [bookvT.
1729.
the Kaiser in Reichshofrath, about the date indicated
(Year 1719), found good to send military coercion on
him; and entrusted that function to the Hanover-Bruns-
wick people, to George I. more especially; to whom,
as Kreis-Hauptmann ("Captain of the Circle," Circle of
Lower-Saxony, where the contumacy had occurred),
such function naturally fell. The Hanover Sovereignty,
sending 13,000 men, horse, foot and artillery into
Mecklenburg, soon did their function, with only some
slight flourishes of fighting on the part of the con-
tumacious Duke, -- in which his chief Captain, one
Schwerin, distinguishes himself: Kurt von Schwerin,
whom we shall know better by and by, for he went
into the Prussian service shortly after. Colonel von
Schwerin did well what was in him; but could not
save a refractory Duke, against such odds. The con-
tumacious Duke was obliged to fly his country; --
deposed, or, to begin with, suspended, a Brother of his
being put in as interim Duke: -- and the Unique of
Husbands and paragon of Mismanaging Dukes lives
about Dantzig ever since, on a Pension allowed him
by his interim Brother; contumacious to the last; and
still stirring-up strife, though now with diminished
means, Uncle Peter being now dead, and Russian help
much cut off.
The Hanover Sovereignties did their function soon
enough: but their "expenses for it," these they have in
vain demanded ever since. No money to be got from
Mecklenburg; and Mecklenburg owes us "ten tons of
gold,"-- that is to say, 1,000,000 thalers, "ton" being
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? CHAP. vI. ] DfcCMINENCY OP WAR OK DUEL. 167
J 723.
the tenth part of a million in that coin. Hanover,
therefore, holds possession, -- and has held ever since,
with competent small military force, -- of certain
Districts in Mecklenburg: Taxes of these will subsist
our soldiery in the interim, and yield interest; the
principal once paid, we at once give them up: prin-
cipal, by these schedules, if you care to count them, is
one million thalers (ten Tonnen Goldes, as above said),
or about 150,000Z. And so it has stood for ten years
past; Mecklenburg the most anarchic of countries, owing
to the kind of Bitters and kind of Duke it has. Poor
souls, it is evident they have all lost their beaten road,
and got among the ignes fatui and peat-pools: none
knows the necessities and sorrows of this poor idle
Duke himself! In his young years, before accession,
he once tried soldiering; served one campaign with
Charles XII. , but was glad to "return to Hamburg"
again, to the peaceable scenes of fashionable life there. *
Then his Russian Unique of Wives: -- his probable
adventures, prior and subsequent, in Uncle Peter's
sphere, can these have been pleasant to him? The
angry Ritters, too, their country had got much trampled
to pieces in the Charles-Twelfth Wars, Stralsund Sieges:
money seemed necessary to the Duke, and the Ritters were very scarce of it . Add, on both sides, pride and
want of sense, with mutual anger going-on crescendo;
and we have the sad phenomenon now visible: A Duke
* See German Spy (London, 1725, by Lcdiard, Biographer of Marl-
borough) for a lively picture of the then Hamburg, -- resort of Northern
Monied-Idleness, as well as of better things.
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? 168 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [BOOK VI.
1729.
fled to Dantzig, anarchic Ritters none the better for
his going; Duke perhaps threatening to return, and
much flurrying his poor interim Brother, and stirring
up the Anarchies: -- in brief, Mecklenburg become a
house on fire, for behoof of neighbours and self.
In these miserable brabbles Friedrich Wilhelm did
not hitherto officially interfere; though not uninterested
in them; being a next neighbour, and even, by known
treaties, "eventual heir," should the Mecklenburg Line
die out.
But we know he was not in favour with the
Kaiser, in those old years; so the military coercion had
been done by other hands, and he had not shared in
the management at all. He merely watched the course
of things; always advised the Duke to submit to Law,
and be peaceable; was sometimes rather sorry for him,
too, as would appear.
Last year, however (1728), -- doubtless it was one
of Seckendorf's minor measures, done in Tobacco-Par-
liament, -- Friedrich Wilhelm, now a pet of the Kai-
ser's^ is discovered to be fairly concerned in that matter;
and is conjoined with the Hanover-Brunswick Commis-
sioners for Mecklenburg; Kaiser specially requiring that
his Prussian Majesty shall "help in executing Imperial
Orders" in the neighbouring Anarchic Country. Which
rather huffed little George, -- hitherto, since his Father's
death, the principal, or as good as sole Commissioner,
-- if so big a Britannic Majesty could be huffed by
paltry slights of that kind! Friedrich Wilhelm, who
has much meditated Mecklenburg, strains his intellect,
sometimes to an intense degree, to find out ways of
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? CHAP. vI. ] DliONENCT OF WAR OB DUEL. 169
1729.
settling it: George, who has never cared to meditate it,
nor been able if he had, is capable of sniffing scorn-
fully at Friedrich Wilhelm's projects on the matter, and
dismissing them as moonshine. * To a wise much-me-
ditative House-Mastiff, can that be pleasant, from an
unthinking dizened creature of the Ape species? The
troubles of Mecklenburg, and discrepancies thereupon,
are capable of becoming a second source of quarrel.
Causes Third and Fourth; -- and Cause Fifth, worth all
the others.
Cause third is the old story of recruiting; a standing
cause between Prussia and all its neighbours. And the
fourth cause is the tiniest of all: the "Meadow of Cla-
mei. " Meadow of Clamei, some square yards of boggy
ground; which, after long study, one does find to exist
in the obscurest manner, discoverable in the best Maps
of Germany, -- some twenty miles south of the Elbe
river, on the boundary between Hanover-Luneburg and
Prussia-Magdeburg, dubious on which side of the boun-
dary. Lonesome unknown Patch of Meadow, lying far
amid peaty wildernesses in those Salzwedel regions:
unknown to all writing mortals as yet; but which
threatens, in this summer of 1729, to become famous
as Runnymead among the Meadows of History! And
the fifth cause -- In short, there was no real "cause"
of the least magnitude; the effect was produced by the
combination of many small and imaginary ones. For
* Dubonrgay Despatches and the Answers to them (more than once).
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? 170 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT. [BOOK VI.
1729.
if there is a will to quarrel, we know there is a way.
And perhaps the fifth nameable cause, in efficiency
worth all the others together, might be found in the
Debates of the Smoking Parliament that season, were
the Journal of its Proceedings extant! We gather
symptoms, indisputable enough, of very diligent elabo-
rations and insinuations there; and conclude that to
have been the really effective cause. Clouds had risen
between the two Courts; but except for the Tobacco-
Parliament there never could have thunder come from
them.
Very soon after George's accession there began
clouds to rise; the perfectly accomplished little George
assuming a severe and high air towards his rustic
Brother-in-law. "We cannot stand these Prussian en-
listments and encroachments; rectify these, in a high
and severe manner! " says George to his Hanover
Officials. George is not warm on his throne till there
comes in, accordingly, from the Hanover Officials a
Complaint to that effect, and even a List of Hanoverian
subjects who are, owing to various injustices, now
serving in the Prussian ranks: "Your Prussian Majesty
is requested to return us these men! "
This List is dated 22d Jannary 1728; George only
a few months old in his new authority as yet . The
Prussian Majesty grumbles painfully responsive: "Will,
with eagerness, do whatever is just; most surely! But
is his Britannic Majesty aware? Hanover Officials are
quite misinformed as to the circumstances;" -- and
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? CHAP. vI. ] IMMINENCT OP WAR OE DUEL. 171
]729.
does not return any of the men. Merely a pacific
grumble, and nothing done in regard to the complaints.
Then there is the Meadow of Clamei which we spoke
of: "That belongs to Brandenburg, you say? Never-
theless the contiguous parts of Hanover have rights
upon it. Some 'eight cart-loads of hay,' worth say
almost 5/. or 10Z. sterling: who is to mow that grass,
I wonder? " --
Friedrich Wilhelm feels that all this is a pettifogging
vexatious course of procedure; and that his little Cousin
the Comodiant is not treating him very like a gentleman.
"Is he, your Majesty! " suggests the Smoking Parlia-
ment. -- About the middle of March, Dubourgay hears
Borck, an Official not of the Grumkow party, sulkily
commenting on "the constant hostility of the Hanover
Ministry to us" in all manner of points; -- inquires
withal, Could not Mecklenburg be somehow settled, his
Prussian Majesty being somewhat anxious upon it? *
Anxious, yes: his poor Majesty, intensely meditative
of such a matter in the night-watches, is capable of
springing out of bed, with an "Eureka! I have found
what will do! " and demanding writing materials. He
writes or dictates in his shirt, the good anxious Ma-
jesty; despatches his Eureka by estafette on the wings
of the wind: and your Townshend, your un-meditative
George, receives it with curt official negative, and a
polite sneer. **
A few weeks farther on, this is what the News-
* Despatch, 17th March 1729.
** Dubourgay, 12th-14th April 1729; and the Answer from St. James's.
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? 172 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT. [BOOKvI.
1729.
papers report of Mecklenburg, in spite of his Prussian
Majesty's desire to have some mercy shown the poor
infatuated Duke: "The Elector of Hanover and the
Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel," his Britannic Majesty
and Squire in that sad Business, "refuse to withdraw
"their forces out of Mecklenburg, or part with the
"Chest of the Revenues thereof, until an entire satis-
"faction be given them for the arrears of the Charges
"they have been at in putting the Sentence of the
"Aulic Council" (Kaiser's Reichshofrath and rusty
thunder) "against the said Duke. "*
Matters grew greatly worse when George paid his
first Visit to Hanover in character of King, early in the
Summer of 1729. Part of his road lies through Prus-
sian territory: "Shall he have free post-horses, as his
late Majesty was wont? " asks the Prussian Official
person. "If he write to request them, yes," answers
Friedrich Wilhelm; "if he don't write, no. " George does
not write; pays for his post-horses; -- flourishes along
to Hanover, in absolute silence towards his clownish
Brother-in-law. You would say he looks over the
head of him, as if there were no such clown in exis-
tence; -- he has never yet so much as notified his ar-
rival. "What is this? There exists no Prussia, then,
for little George? " Friedrich Wilhelm's inarticulate,
interjectionary utterances, in clangorous metallic tone,
we can fancy them, now and then; and the Tobacco-
* Salmon's Chronological Historian (London, 1748, -- a Book never to
be quoted without caution^ il. 216; -- date (translated into new style),
10th July 1729.
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? CHAP. vI. ] IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL. 173
1729.
Parliament is busy! British Minister Dubourgay, steady
old military gentleman, who spells imperfectly, but is
intent to keep down mischief, writes at last to Hanover,
submissively suggesting, "Could not, as was the old
wont, some notification of the King's arrival be sent
hither, which would console his Prussian Majesty? "
To which my Lord Townshend answers, "Has not
been the custom, I am informed" {wrong informed,
your Lordship); "not necessary in the circumstances. "
Which is a high course between neighbours, and royal
gentlemen and kinsfolk. The Prussian Court hereupon
likewise shuts its lips; no mention of the Hanoverian
Court, not even by her Majesty and to Englishmen,
for several weeks past. * Some inarticulate metallic
growl, in private, at dinner or in the Tabaks-Collegium:
the rest is truculent silence. Nor are our poor Hanover
Recruits (according to our List of Pressed Hanoverians)
in the least sent back; nor the Clamei Meadows
settled; "Big Meadow" or "Little one," both of
which the Brandenburgers have mown in the mean
time.
Hanover Pressed men not coming home, -- I think,
not one of them, -- the Hanover Officials decide to
seize such Prussian Soldiers as happen to be seizable,
in Hanover Territory. The highway in that border
country, runs now on this side of the march, now on
that; -- watch well, and you will get Prussian soldiers
from time to time! Which the Hanover people do;
and seize several, common men and even officers. Here
* Dubourgay.
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? 174 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [book vI.
28th Juno 1729.
is once more a high course of proceeding. Here is
coal to raise smoke enough, if well blown upon, --
which, with Seckendorf and Grumkow working the
bellows, we may well fancy it was! But listen to what
follows, independently of bellows.
On the 28th June 1729, hay lying now quite dry
upon the Meadow of Clamei, lo, the Bailiff of Hano-
verian Buhlitz, -- Unpicturesque Traveller will find
the peat-smoky little Village of Buhlitz near by a dusty
little Town called Liichow, midway from Hamburg to
Magdeburg; altogether peaty, mossy country, in the
Salzwedel district, where used to be Wendic popula-
tions, and a Mark or Border Fortress of Salzwedel set
up against them: -- Bailiff of Buhlitz, I say, sallies
forth with several carts, with all the population of the
Village, with a troop of horse to escort, and probably
flags flying and some kind of drums beating; -- pub-
licly rakes together the hay, defiant of the Prussian
Majesty and all men; loads it on his carts, and rolls
home with it; leaving to the Brandenburgers nothing
but stubble, and the memory of having mown for
Hanover to eat. This is the 28th June 1729; King
of Prussia is now at Magdeburg, reviewing his troops;
within a hundred miles of these contested quag-coun-
tries: who can blame him that he flames-up now into
clear blaze of royal indignation? The correspondence
henceforth becomes altogether lively: but in the Bri-
tannic Archives there is nothing of it, -- Dubourgay
having received warning from my Lord Townshend to
be altogether ignorant of the matter henceforth, and
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? CHAP. vI. ] LMMINENCY OP WAR OR DUEL. 175
July 1729.
let the Hanover Officials manage it. His Prussian
Majesty returns home in the most tempestuous con-
dition.
We may judge what a time Queen Sophie had of
it; what scenes there were with Crown-Prince Friedrich
and Wilhelmina, in her Majesty's Apartment and else-
where! Friedrich Wilhelm is fast mounting to the
redhot pitch. The bullyings, the beatings even, of
these poor Children, love-sick one of them, are lament-
able to hear of, as all the world has heard: -- "Dis-
obedient unnatural whelps, biting the heels of your
poor old parent mastiff in his extreme need, what is to
be done with you? " Fritz he often enough beats,
gives a slap to with his rattan; has hurled a plate at
him, on occasion, when bad topics rose at table; nay
at Wilhelmina too, she says: but the poor children
always ducked, and nothing but a little noise, and loss
of crockery ensued. Fritz he deliberately detests, as
a servant of the Devil, incorrigibly rebelling against
the paternal will, and going on those dissolute courses:
a silly French cockatoo, suspected of disbelief in
Scripture; given to nothing but fifing and playbooks;
who will bring Prussia and himself to a bad end.
"God grant he do not finish on the gallows! " sighed
the sad Father once to Grumkow. The records of
these things lie written far and wide, in the archives
of many countries as well as in Wilhelmina's Book.
To me there was one undiplomatic reflection con-
tinually present: Heavens, could nobody have got a
bit of rope, and hanged those two Diplomatic swindlers;
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? 176 DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT GOING ADRIFT, [book vI.
July 1729.
clearly of the scoundrel genus, more than common
pickpockets are? Thereby had certain young hearts,
and honest old ones too, escaped being broken; and
many a thing might have gone better than it did.
Jarni-Bleu, Herr Feldzeugmeister, though you are an
orthodox Protestant, this thousandfold perpetual habit
of distilled-lying seems to me a bad one. I do not
blame an old military gentleman, with a brow so
puckered as yours, for having little of the milk of
human kindness so-called: but this of breaking, by
force of lies merely, and for your own uses, the hearts
of poor innocent creatures, nay of grinding them slowly
in the mortar, and employing their Father's hand to
do it withal; this -- Herr General, forgive me, but
there are moments when I feel as if the extinction of
probably the intensest scoundrel of that epoch might
have been a satisfactory event! -- Alas, it could not
be. Seckendorf is lying abroad for his Kaiser; "the
only really able man we have," says Eugene some-
times. Snuffles and lisps; and travels in all, as they
count, about 25,000 miles, keeping his Majesty in com-
pany. Here are some glimpses into the interior, dull
but at first-hand, which are worth clipping and conden-
sing from Dubourgay, with their dates:
30th July 1729. To the respectable old Brigadier, this day
or yesterday, "her Majesty, all in tears, complained of her
"situation: King is nigh losing his senses on account of the
"differences withHanover; goes from bed to bed in the night-
"time, and from chamber to chamber, 'like one whose brains
are turned. ' Took a fit, at two in the morning, lately, to be
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? CHAP. VI. ] IMMINENCY OF WAK OB DUEL. 177
July 1729.
"offto Wusterhausen:" -- about a year ago Seckendorf and
Grumkow had built a Lodge out there, where his Majesty,
when he liked, could be snug and private with them: thither
his Majesty now rushed, at two in the morning; but seemingly
found little assuagement. "Since his return, he gives him-
"self up entirely to drink: -- Seckendorf," the snuffling
Belial, "is busy, above ground and below; has been heard
"saying, He alone could settle these businesses, Double-Mar-
riage and all, would her Majesty but trust him! " --
"The King will not suffer the Prince-Royal to sit next
"his Majesty at table, but obliges him to go to the lower
"end; where things are so ordered," says the sympathetic
Dubourgay, "that the poor Prince often rises without getting
"one bit," -- woe's me! "Insomuch that the Queen was
"obliged two days ago" (28th July 1729, let us date such an
occurrence) "to send, by one of the servants who could be
"trusted, a Box of cold fowls and other eatables for his Royal
"Highness's subsistence! " *
In the first blaze of the outrage at Clamei, Fried-
rich Wilhelm's ardent mind suggested to him the
method of single combat: defiance of George, by cartel,
To give the satisfaction of a gentleman. There have
been such instances on the part of Sovereigns; though
they are rare: Karl Ludwig of the Pfalz, Winter-king's
Son, for example, did, as is understood, challenge
Turenne for burning the Pfalz (first burning that poor
country got); but nothing came of it, owing to Turenne's
prudence. Friedrich Wilhelm sees well that it all
comes from George's private humour: Why should
human blood be shed except George's and mine?
* Dubonrgay, 30th July 1729.
Carlyle, Frederic the Great. UU 12
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