The Queen's lost library

New research offers fresh insight into the splendid interiors of Queen Caroline’s library, a compact building by William Kent that once overlooked London’s Green Park, reveals Rufus Bird

- Rufus Bird

QUEEN CAROLINE (1683–1737), consort of George II, combined an intellectual curiosity, characteristic of enlightened princely courts across Europe, with the duties of consort, mother and queen. One of her many brilliant achievements was the creation of a beautiful, compact library building overlooking Green Park, London SW1. It no longer survives, but it deserves to be remembered.

Caroline was raised in the sophisticated courts of Germany, then sent away, first to Berlin, to the court of Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg, and, after 1692, brought back to Dresden to live with her parents, John Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach and his second wife, Eleonore of Saxe-Eisenach. Tragically, both were dead by 1696: the 13-year-old princess and her 11-year-old brother were taken to Ansbach by their half-brother George Frederick, who had inherited the Margravate. Soon after, Elector Frederick III, their earliest protector, suggested the siblings return to live with him in Berlin. Some years later, in June 1705, Caroline met her future husband, George Augustus of Brunswick-Lüneburg, son of George Louis, Elector of Hanover. They were married in September the same year.

After Queen Anne’s death in August 1714, the new King brought his son and family to London that autumn and took up residence in St James’s Palace. For two centuries, it had been a sort of royal ‘nursery’, but, after Whitehall Palace burned in 1698, it had become the principal seat of the monarch.