3 - Hanover, 1701–7
Summary
Visiting Hanover in 1701, for ‘five or six weeks’, Toland had, as he proudly confessed, ‘all imaginable Opportunitys to make Observations on the Court, and to understand the Character of Persons’. Situated ‘upon the River Leine, which is navigable only by small Boats’ Hanover was, to Toland's eye, ‘regularly fortify'd, and divid'd into new and old Towns which is always a sign of a thriving place’. Of the palace, he thought ‘The apartments … very fine and richly furnish'd’ with a theatre and opera house located within to entertain courtiers and visitors. Of the court itself, he deemed it a model for others in its liberality and manners. Astonished, he praised it for being
Extremely polite, and even in Germany it is accounted the best, both for Civility and Decorum … Strangers of Figure and Quality are commonly invited to the Table, where they are amaz'd to find such easy Conversation, and to be allow'd a Liberty that nobody who deserves it will abuse. At Court hours all People of Fashion meet there without any manner of constraint; and provided they know what difference to make between Men and Things (which everybody that coms there is suppos'd to do) they may freely talk of any Subject even with the Elector himself.
Dominating the court were the diverse personalities of the royal family. The Elector was diligent, being ‘a perfect Man of Business, exactly regular in the Oeconomy of his Revenues, reads all the Dispatches himself at first hand, writes most of his own Letters, and spends a very considerable part of his Time about such Occupations in his Closet, and with his Ministers’. The Electress, in contrast, was distinguished by learned accomplishments. Toland gushed about how:
She has bin long admir'd by all the Learned World, as a Woman of Incomparable Knowledge in Divinity, Philosophy, History, and the Subjects of all sorts of Books, of which she has read a prodigious quantity. She speaks five Languages so well that by her Accent it might be a Dispute which of ‘em was her first.’
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- Information
- A Political Biography of John Toland , pp. 63 - 88Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014