Caroline of Ansbach - Legacy

Legacy

Caroline was widely mourned. The Protestants lauded her moral example, and even the Jacobites acknowledged her compassion, and her intervention on the side of mercy for their compatriots. During her lifetime her refusal to convert when offered the hand of Archduke Charles was used to portray her as a strong adherent to Protestantism. For example, John Gay wrote of Caroline in A Letter to A Lady (1714):

The pomp of titles easy faith might shake,

She scorn'd an empire for religion's sake:

For this, on earth, the British crown is giv'n,

And an immortal crown decreed in heav'n.

She was widely seen by both the public and the court as having great influence over her husband. A satirical verse of the period went:

You may strut, dapper George, but 'twill all be in vain,

We all know 'tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign –

You govern no more than Don Philip of Spain.

Then if you would have us fall down and adore you,

Lock up your fat spouse, as your dad did before you.

The memoirs of the eighteenth century, particularly those of John, Lord Hervey, fed perceptions that Caroline and Walpole governed her husband. Peter Quennell wrote that Hervey was the "chronicler of this remarkable coalition" and that she was Hervey's "heroine". Using such sources, biographers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries credit her with aiding the establishment of the House of Hanover in Britain, in the face of Jacobite opposition. R. L. Arkell wrote "by her acumen and geniality, ensured the dynasty's rooting itself in England", and W. H. Wilkins said her "gracious and dignified personality, her lofty ideals and pure life did much to counteract the unpopularity of her husband and father-in-law, and redeem the early Georgian era from utter grossness." Although modern historians tend to believe that Hervey, Wilkins and Arkell have overestimated her importance, it is nevertheless probable that Caroline of Ansbach was one of the most influential consorts in British history.