But apart from this it must have been a dreary life for a young girl, a life of looking on at much over-eating, and over-drinking perhaps, too. A life of low sordid immorality going on under her very nose in which her husband and his father played leading parts; a life in which the higher side of her nature was never called upon, except for the almost habitual display of charity and forbearance to others. [Illustration: LEINE PALACE, HANOVER. Birthplace of Frederick, Prince of Wales.] Yet the higher nature was there despite her faults which were many; she possessed the pure gold of a good heart, which saw her through many trials and temptations, and left her, but for her conduct to her eldest son--and some of her correspondence--a clean name in history. But other more stirring thoughts soon filled the young mother’s head than the frailties of her husband’s family, for when the sum of her nursery reached four and the little Prince Frederick was in his eighth year, the fruit of her hopes ripened, Queen Anne of England died, and a lucky turn of politics in favour of the Whigs, laid open to her the road to a throne. FOOTNOTES: [1] Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. XX., p. 235. This remark is attributed to both his father and mother. [2] The Electoral Prince was the eldest son of the elector. [3] Howe’s Despatch. Hanover, 5th Feb., 1707. From this it must be seen clearly that the Prince was born on February 4th, not on February 5th, as it has been stated. [4] Queen Anne. [5] The Electress Sophia, her husband’s grandmother. CHAPTER II. THE FALLING IN OF A GREAT LEGACY. On the 18th of June, 1714, the Heiress of England, the Electress Sophia of Hanover, the aged mother of that Prince Elector, who afterwards became George the First of England, and granddaughter of James the First having dined in public with her son, that is to say having taken her big German mid-day meal in the presence of the Court, went forth on the arm of her granddaughter-in-law, the Electoral Princess Caroline, to take the summer air in the beautiful gardens of the Palace of Herrenhausen. Much had occurred during the previous twenty-four hours to upset the “Heiress of Britain” as she was proud to be called, far too much worry for an old lady in her eighty-fourth year. Even at that advanced age the glamour of the English crown fascinated her. Perhaps it was the long drawn out hope of many years, the hope that possibly had been ever before her eyes since the flight of James the Second. She had received a letter on the previous day written by the hand of Queen Anne herself in which that royal lady had distinctly told her in the most peremptory manner in answer to a supplication to that effect, that she objected to have any member of the Electoral family in her dominions during her lifetime.