Free Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion by Anne Somerset

Sophia another letter on the subject of the ‘marriage in question’, telling her that ‘as for the young lady, I assure you she is intelligent and very well brought up’. By the end of the month Rupert reported that he had secured what he considered to be excellent terms, with the Duke of York offering to give Anne a dowry of £40,000 and an income of £10,000 a year. However, George Ludwig’s parents were simultaneously engaged in negotiations to marry their son to his first cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Celle. The girl’s mother was not of royal birth, but Sophia of Hanover was mindful that ‘Miss Hyde’s lineage was no better’, and the Celle match was politically and financially advantageous. 108
    The news of Prince George’s betrothal to Sophia Dorothea arrived in England early in September 1682, whereupon King Charles took ‘some exception’ at being ‘disappointed in our expectation of having the Prince of Hanover for the Lady Anne’. A British diplomat stationed in Hanover considered this unreasonable, as the negotiations for Anne’s hand had remained on an informal footing. He pointed out that ‘there never was any proposals made of either side’, but this envoy had other motives: he was about to be posted to another country, and he did not want to be forbidden from receiving the generous presents customarily given to departing envoys. 109
    It would be alleged that Anne herself never forgot the ‘supposed slight’ of being spurned by Prince George Ludwig of Hanover. One account suggested that she had been offended because he had come to England with a view to marrying her and then ‘not liking her person he left the kingdom’. In fact, it was duty not desire that had led the Prince away from Anne: his mother noted he would ‘marry a cripple if he could servethe house’, while he felt a private ‘repugnance’ at the prospect of marrying Sophia Dorothea. 110 Conceivably, however, Anne did gain some inkling that George Ludwig’s parents did not consider her birth to be sufficiently illustrious, and this would hardly have made her better disposed to the House of Hanover.
    It is possible too that the collapse of the marriage plan did cause her some pain. A letter from George to Prince Rupert’s mistress Peg Hughes suggests that she had been teasing him about Anne, telling him that he would do well to marry a girl who was so keen on him. After becoming engaged he wrote to Peg thanking her for the advice but saying that it was no longer possible for him to follow it. He continued stolidly,
I have never really been aware of the intentions of Madam the Princess Anne, and I do not know them now … It’s true that I recall you talked to me of her on several occasions, but as I took that as a joke I paid no attention. However you may be sure, Madam, that no one could be more the servitor of Madam the Princess than I, and the marriage I am about to make will not hinder that.
    In the long term, Anne had no cause to regret the failure of the Hanover match. Her own later marriage to Prince George of Denmark was a source of great happiness, and was certainly more successful than George of Hanover’s union, which ended after his wife’s lover was murdered in mysterious circumstances. Having divorced Sophia Dorothea, George imprisoned her for life; as Queen, Anne would be dragged into the affair when Sophia Dorothea’s mother vainly appealed to her to secure her daughter’s freedom. 111
     
    In autumn 1682, with her future still uncertain, Anne became involved in an embarrassing scandal. At the end of October the Earl of Mulgrave was expelled from court and deprived of his official posts and army regiment for ‘writing to the Lady Anne’. Mulgrave was a thirty-four-year-old rake whose arrogance had earned him the nickname ‘Haughty’. He prided himself on being ‘the terror of husbands’, and two years before this he had been sent to Tangier in a leaky boat for behaving too amorously towards the