PRINCE JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD STUART (THE CHEVALIER DE ST. GEORGE). From the picture in the National Portrait Gallery 218 LORD NITHISDALE’S ESCAPE FROM THE TOWER. From an old print 242 PAVILIONS BELONGING TO THE BOWLING GREEN, HAMPTON COURT, TEMP. GEORGE I. 258 LEIBNIZHAUS, HANOVER (where Leibniz died) 270 CAROLINE, PRINCESS OF WALES, AND HER INFANT SON, PRINCE GEORGE WILLIAM. From an old print 284 LEICESTER HOUSE, LEICESTER SQUARE, TEMP. GEORGE I. 302 MARY, COUNTESS COWPER. From the original portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller 324 THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. From an old cartoon 346 HENRY ST. JOHN, VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE 358 BOOK I. ELECTORAL PRINCESS OF HANOVER. CHAPTER I. ANSBACH AND ITS MARGRAVES. 1683–1696. Wilhelmina Caroline, Princess of Brandenburg-Ansbach, known to history as “Caroline of Ansbach,” Queen-Consort of King George the Second of Great Britain and Ireland, and sometime Queen-Regent, was born in the palace of Ansbach, a little town in South Germany, on March 1st, 1683. It was a year memorable in the annals of English history as the one in which Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney were brought to the block, who by their blood strengthened the long struggle against the Stuarts which culminated in the accession of the House of Hanover. The same year, seven months later, on October 30th, the ill-fated Sophie Dorothea of Celle, consort of George the First, gave birth to a son at Hanover, George Augustus, who twenty-two years later was destined to take Caroline of Ansbach to wife, and in fulness of time to ascend the throne of England.