Soon after, George Louis was summoned home abruptly, and he returned to Hanover in the spring. Ernest Augustus, seeing there was no hope of his son marrying the Princess Anne, became impatient about the English succession, for which he did not care a fig; besides, there was a tendency in England to draw the young Prince into intrigues, and both Sophia and himself always opposed anything which might tend to embarrass the reigning House of England. In this respect the conduct of the House of Hanover forms an honourable contrast to that of William of Orange. Her son’s return empty-handed was a bitter disappointment to Sophia, who saw her English hopes shattered. She withdrew once more to the consolations of philosophy, conscious that the failure of her plan had brought with it a waning of her influence with her husband. George Louis had been sent on a wild-goose chase, and Ernest Augustus had to pay the bill, which he did with very ill grace; for, though he was lavish with money where his own pleasures were concerned, he had the German thriftiness about spending it on others. Madame Platen’s star now rose in the ascendant, and she urged with added force and plausibility the scheme of a marriage between George Louis and his cousin, Sophie Dorothea. Of course, all had to be done behind the back of the Duchess Sophia, who regarded the court of Celle with unconcealed aversion. Ernest Augustus had not the same feeling of personal bitterness against Eléonore as his wife, and he was quite willing to make terms with George William, or, for a matter of that, with her, if he could thereby add to his fortunes, and he therefore gave ready ear to the idea. The advantages of the union were many and obvious; the young lady was rich, her dower would be large, the marriage would unite the severed principalities of Celle and Hanover, and so add enormously to the power of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg; it would end an unpleasant family feud, fraught with weakness and danger to both parties, and would set up again an identity of interest between the brothers. All this would happen if Sophie Dorothea married George Louis; but if she married a rival prince, under the present strained relations, dangers would arise which it would be impossible to foresee. The breach would widen, and the principality of Hanover would be threatened with a foe at its very doors. From a political point of view nothing could be better than this marriage—for Hanover. At Celle the ground was not unprepared; Platen had communicated with Bernstorff, and that pliant tool had also sounded George William who was more than willing; the failure of other matrimonial plans for his daughter made him more complaisant. As the continual dropping of water wears away a stone, so Bernstorff, by hint and innuendo, was slowly undermining the influence of the Duchess of Celle. He traded on the fact that she was “the Frenchwoman,” he exaggerated the jealousy which arose from so many