transferred some of his society to Mrs. Howard, provided always that Mrs. Howard kept her place. To do Mrs. Howard justice, she showed no desire to vaunt herself, or take advantage of the intimacy. She must indeed have been content with very small things, for the Electoral Prince, like his father, was mean; but had he been generous, he had at this time neither money to give nor patronage to bestow, the rewards were all in the future. The Electress Sophia was pleased rather than otherwise with her grandson’s intimacy with Mrs. Howard: “It will improve his English,” she is reported to have said. Regarding such affairs as inevitable she thought he could not have chosen better than this lady, who had a complaisant husband, and whose conduct to the world was a model of propriety, verging on prudishness. Caroline, at any rate, accepted the situation with philosophy. She knew her husband’s weaknesses and made allowance for them. She had greater things to occupy her mind than his domestic irregularities, for, though outwardly indifferent to the English succession, she was in reality keenly concerned about it. She did not dare to show her interest too prominently, for the Electoral Prince had his own views on the subservience of women generally, and wives in particular, and was jealous of his wife taking any public part in politics, lest it should be said that she governed him, as in fact she did. To better qualify herself for her future position, Caroline took into her service a girl from England, but born in Hanover, named Brandshagen, who read and talked English with her daily. It is a pity that she did not engage a native-born Englishwoman while she was about it, as such a teacher might have corrected the future Queen’s English, which was impaired by a marked German accent until the end of her life. Queen Anne showed her interest in Caroline, or at least her knowledge of her existence, by frequently sending her “her compliments” through the English envoy, and, a little tardily, she sent over a present to Hanover for her godchild, the Princess Anne, and a letter full of good wishes. Within the next few years Caroline gave birth to two more daughters, Amelia and Caroline.[31] The Queen of England sent neither gifts nor letters on the occasion of their birth, nor took any notice of them. For the state of political parties had now changed in England, and with the change the need of conciliating the Hanoverian family had receded into the background.