Caroline of Ansbach - Princess of Wales

Princess of Wales

George Augustus sailed to England in September 1714, and Caroline and two of her daughters followed in October. Her journey across the North Sea from The Hague to Margate was the only sea voyage she took in her life. Their young son, Prince Frederick, remained in Hanover for the rest of George I's reign to be brought up by private tutors.

On the accession of George I in 1714, Caroline's husband automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay. Shortly afterwards, he was invested as Prince of Wales, whereupon she became Princess of Wales. Caroline was the first woman to receive the title at the same time as her husband received his. She was the first Princess of Wales for over two hundred years, the last one being Catherine of Aragon. As George I had repudiated his wife Sophia Dorothea of Celle in 1694 prior to his becoming King of Great Britain, there was no queen consort, and Caroline was the highest-ranking woman in the kingdom. George Augustus and Caroline made a concerted effort to "anglicise" by acquiring knowledge of England's language, people, politics and customs. Two separate courts developed with strong contrasts; the old king's had German courtiers and government ministers, while the Wales's court attracted English nobles out of favour with the King, and was considerably more popular with the British people. Political opposition to the King gradually became centered around George Augustus and Caroline.

Two years after their arrival in England, Caroline suffered a stillbirth, which her friend the Countess of Bückeburg blamed on the incompetence of English doctors, but the following year she had another son, Prince George William. At the baptism in November 1717, her husband fell out with his father over the choice of godparents, leading to the couple's placement under house arrest at St. James's Palace prior to their banishment from court. Caroline was originally allowed to stay with their children, but refused as she believed her place was with her husband. She and her husband moved into Leicester House, while their children remained in the care of the King. Caroline fell sick with worry, and fainted during a secret visit to her children made without the King's approval. By January, the King had relented and allowed Caroline unrestricted access. In February, Prince George William fell ill, and the King allowed both George Augustus and Caroline to see him at Kensington Palace without any conditions. When the baby died, a post-mortem was conducted to prove that the cause of death was disease (a polyp on the heart) rather than the separation from his mother. Further tragedy occurred in 1718, when Caroline miscarried at Richmond Lodge, her country residence. Over the next few years, Caroline had three more children: William, Mary and Louise.

Leicester House became a frequent meeting place for the ministry's political opponents. Caroline struck up a friendship with politician Sir Robert Walpole, a former minister in the Whig government who led a disgruntled faction of the party. In April 1720, Walpole's wing of the Whig party reconciled with the governing wing, and Walpole and Caroline helped to effect a reconciliation between the King and her husband for the sake of public unity. Caroline wanted to regain her three eldest daughters, who remained in the care of the King, and thought the reconciliation would lead to their return, but negotiations came to nothing. George Augustus came to believe that Walpole had tricked him into the reconciliation as part of a scheme to gain power. The prince was isolated politically when Walpole's Whigs joined the government, and Leicester House played host to literary figures and wits, such as John Arbuthnot and Jonathan Swift, rather than politicians. Arbuthnot told Swift that Caroline had enjoyed his Gulliver's Travels, particularly the tale of the crown prince who wore one high-heel and one low-heel in a country where the King and his party wore low heels, and the opposition wore high ones: a barely veiled reference to the political leanings of the Prince of Wales.

Caroline's intellect far outstripped her husband's, and she read avidly. She established an extensive library at St. James's Palace. As a young woman, she corresponded with Gottfried Leibniz, the intellectual colossus who was courtier and factotum to the House of Hanover. She later facilitated the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, arguably the most important philosophy of physics discussion of the 18th century. She helped to popularise the practice of variolation (an early type of immunisation), which had been witnessed by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Charles Maitland in Constantinople. At the direction of Caroline, six condemned prisoners were offered the chance to undergo variolation instead of execution: they all survived, as did six orphan children given the same treatment as a further test. Convinced of its medical value, Caroline had her children Amelia, Caroline and Frederick inoculated against smallpox in the same manner. In praising her support for smallpox inoculation, Voltaire wrote of her, "I must say that despite all her titles and crowns, this princess was born to encourage the arts and the well-being of mankind; even on the throne she is a benevolent philosopher; and she has never lost an opportunity to learn or to manifest her generosity."