Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)

Christoph Bernhard Francke
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who was born on this day in 1646, was an important philosopher and mathematician of the 17th century. Together with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, he is often regarded as one of the three great advocates of rationalism. A largely self-taught polymath, his discoveries and contributions to many fields of human scientific enquiry would, in time, have important implications right up to the computer age.

Leibniz was born in Leipzig, Saxony just as the Thirty Years War was drawing to a close. His early studies were helped, in no small part, by access to his father's very large library, his father having been Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Leipzig.

From 1676 until his death in 1716, Leibniz was attached to the House of Hanover, following an invitation by Duke John Frederick of Brunswick, leading to his appointment as Privy Counselor of Justice. However, it was a position that he accepted with reluctance, having previously been unsuccessful in gaining employment in Paris or, with the Habsburg imperial court – appointments that would have offered him the kind of prospects more in line with what he relished.

"Among the few people in north Germany to accept Leibniz were the Electress Sophia of Hanover (1630–1714), her daughter Sophia Charlotte of Hanover (1668–1705), the Queen of Prussia and his avowed disciple, and Caroline of Ansbach, the consort of her grandson, the future George II. To each of these women, he was correspondent, adviser, and friend. In turn, they all approved of Leibniz more than did their spouses and the future king, George I of Great Britain." – Wikipedia

Author, J.N. Duggan, in her biography, Sophia of Hanover: Winter Princess, remarks that Leibniz's appointment as court librarian "would, in many ways, fill the gap left in her life by Karl Ludwig's (her husband) death."

Some time in 1686, Sophia and Leibniz embarked upon a project to reconcile the Christian churches. "The times, however, were particularly unsuited to such an enterprise," according to J.N. Duggan but, it provides an example of the depth and scope of the collaboration between two who can rightly be regarded as visionaries of their time.

While in Hanover, he was commissioned, by the Elector Ernest Augustus, to write a history of the House of Brunswick, going back to the time of Charlemagne. It is a project that he never finished, mainly because he insisted upon writing "a meticulously researched and erudite book based on archival sources" whereas, "his patrons would have been quite happy with a short popular book, one perhaps little more than a genealogy with commentary, to be completed in three years or less." (Wikipedia)

Nevertheless, the project "furnished its author an excellent excuse to embark on extensive travels throughout the Empire and Italy in search of ancient documents" (Sophia of Hanover: Winter Princess by J.N. Duggan). When the fruits of his labour were eventually published, in the 19th century, it filled three volumes.

Leibniz died, on 14 November 1716 at the age of 70, largely out of favour with the House of Brunswick, who were not represented at his funeral. His death also went unremarked upon by the academies of which he was a member. His grave went unmarked for more 50 years.

Google Doodle honouring Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz on the occasion of the 372nd anniversary of his birth

Source Material

• Sophia of Hanover: Winter Princess by J.N. Duggan (published by Peter Owen Publishers, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-7206-1342-1)
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz on Wikipedia

Sophie, Princess Palatine of the Rhine. Born on This Day, 1630.

Sophie of the Palatinate, electress of Hanover,
in her younger days.
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

On this day in 1630, a daughter was born to Frederick V of the Palatinate by Elizabeth Stuart (also known as the "Winter King and Queen of Bohemia" for their short rule in that country). She was named Sophia, her name apparently, being "pulled out of a hat, her parents having run out of relations who needed to be flattered by having a child named after them."

Fifty years later, when she sat down to write her memoirs, she recorded the impression that "as I was the twelfth fruit of the King, my father and the Queen, my mother, I believe that my birth did not cause them any great joy, other than that I no longer occupied the post that I had held."

At birth, she was granted an annuity of 40 thalers by the Estates of Friesland, while three high-born ladies named Sophia (the Princess Palatine of Birkenfield, the Countess of Coulenberg and Madame de Brederode, Countess of Nassau-Dietz) were found to act as godmothers.

Until her marriage, in 1658 to Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg, she would be known as Sophie, Princess Palatine of the Rhine, or as Sophia of the Palatinate. In 1692 her husband became the first Elector of Hanover and she herself went by the title of Sophia, Electress of Hanover between 1692 and 1698.

Under the terms of the Act of Settlement, passed by the Parliament of England in 1701, she became heiress presumptive to the crowns of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Ireland (subsequently, the unified throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain following the Acts of Union 1707).

Sophia, dressed as an Indian.
Painted by her sister (circa 1644), Louise Hollandine
of the Palatinate
(www.zum.de/.../rhein/pfalz/sophie.htm)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The key excerpt from the Act of Settlement, naming Sophia as heir presumptive reads:

Therefore for a further Provision of the Succession of the Crown in the Protestant Line We Your Majesties most dutifull and Loyall Subjects the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons in this present Parliament assembled do beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted and declared and be it enacted and declared by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same That the most Excellent Princess Sophia Electress and Dutchess Dowager of Hannover Daughter of the most Excellent Princess Elizabeth late Queen of Bohemia Daughter of our late Sovereign Lord King James the First of happy Memory be and is hereby declared to be the next in Succession in the Protestant Line to the Imperiall Crown and Dignity of the forsaid Realms of England France and Ireland with the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging after His Majesty and the Princess Anne of Denmark and in Default of Issue of the said Princess Anne and of His Majesty respectively.

She died less than two months before she would have become queen. Her claim to the throne thus passed to her eldest son, George Louis, Elector of Hanover, who ascended as George I on 1 August 1714 (Old Style).

Source Material:

• Sophia of Hanover: Winter Princess by J.N. Duggan. Published by Peter Owen Publishers, 2010. ISBN 978 0 7206 1342 1. Available to buy online.
• Wikipedia – Sophia of Hanover