This “true German” being gathered to his fathers, Duke Ernest Augustus and Duchess Sophia made haste to reign in his stead. Sophia thanked Heaven for having thus placed her husband out of the reach of his enemies, “as which the whole court of Celle had now to be regarded”. It was indeed a notable accession of dignity and wealth. Both were ambitious and loved money and ostentation; they now had a chance of gratifying their tastes. In a smaller way Ernest Augustus had also imitated Louis XIV.’s court, at Osnabrück, and it seemed to that “most Christian” monarch that the new Duke of Hanover would follow his brother in matters of religion. He therefore despatched a plenipotentiary, the complaisant de Gourville, to sound him on the subject and to offer the same bait in the way of pension as he had dangled before the eyes of John Frederick. But Ernest Augustus was now not so needy, and he had other objects in view, so he replied oracularly that though no doubt a change of religion would be advantageous to his House he himself was too old to change. All religions were much the same to Sophia; but she disliked being meddled with in spiritual matters, and had her own interests, too—her English interests, then remote—which would certainly be imperilled by a change of faith. So the worthy pair, after taking counsel together, hit on a compromise by not educating their daughter Sophia Charlotte in any faith, so that she might marry the most promising prince who offered himself, whether he were Catholic or Protestant. When sounded later on the subject of her daughter’s faith, the Duchess answered, “She is of no religion as yet”. It was lucky that Sophia turned a deaf ear to the blandishments of the French King and the Pope, or the House of Hanover and the Protestant succession would never have reigned in England.