Orford's Reminiscences, ed. Cunningham, ii. 410; Coxe, ii. 250–5; Macknight, p. 578).
The duchess remained the vigilant companion of George I to the last (cf. Vehse, i. 208). In June 1727 she accompanied him on the visit to his German dominions, from which he was never to return (Walpole to Mann, Letters, ed. Cunningham, viii. 168). On the journey through Holland she remained behind at Delden, whence the king, concealing his indisposition, continued his journey towards Osnabrück. The news of his illness reached her by a courier, and she hastened after him, but was met by the news of his death soon after she had crossed the Rhine. She thereupon repaired to Brunswick, where she remained for three months. According to Carlyle (ii. 142) she went to Berlin, where she was sure of a sympathising welcome; for in 1723 she had rendered a signal service to Queen Sophie Dorothea of Prussia, when on a visit to George I at Hanover, by revealing certain insidious machinations designed to frustrate the project of marriage between the Princess Wilhelmina and the Duke of Gloucester (Mémoires de la Margravine de Bareith, i. 72–4; cf. Coxe, ii. 256–7).
The rumour that George I left to his mistress the sum of 40,000l. was never verified, as the contents of his will were never known (Lord Orford, Reminiscences). Possibly it might have furnished a clue to the truth or falsehood of another persistent rumour that she had been for a longer or shorter period his wife by a left-handed marriage. At one time (in 1721) it had even been bruited about that, in order to diminish the influence of the Prince of Wales, Sunderland had intended to bring about a lawful marriage between the king and his favourite (Coxe, ii. 22, from the Townshend Papers), After his death she lived in retirement at Kendal House, Isleworth, on the Thames, opposite Richmond (cf. Aungier, Isleworth, 1840, p. 229). Here, according to Horace Walpole's ‘reminiscence,’ she cherished the belief that ‘a large raven, or some black fowl,’ flying into one of her windows, was the soul of the deceased king, who had promised, if possible, to visit her after death. The duchess died in odour of sanctity on 10 May 1743. She had two daughters by George I: Petronilla Melusina, born in 1693, and created Countess of Walsingham suo jure in 1722, who married Philip Stanhope, fourth earl of Chesterfield [q. v.], and inherited most of her mother's savings; and Margaret Gertrude, born in 1703, who married the Count von Lippe, and died in 1773.
[Doyle's Official Baronage, vol. ii.; Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. xxxii., containing the lives of other members of the Schulenburg family, and referring to Danneil, Das Geschlecht der v. d. S., Salzwedel, 1847; Coxe's Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, 4 vols. ed. 1816; Diary of Mary, Countess Cowper (1714–1720), 1864; the Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. Cunningham, 8 vols. (vol. i. containing Reminiscences of the Courts of George I and George II); Thackeray's Four Georges; Lord Stanhope's History of England from the Peace of Utrecht, 5th ed. 1858, vols. i. and ii.; Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great, ed. 1873, vols. i. and ii.; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. i. 152; Vehse's Geschichte der Höfe des Hauses Braunschweig, Hamburg, 1853, vol. i.]
SCHWANFELDER, CHARLES HENRY (1773–1837), painter, was born in 1773 at Leeds, where his father was a house decorator and a noted painter of clock faces, tea-trays, and snuff-boxes. He was trained to the same business, but early gained a reputation as an animal painter, and was for some years much employed by noblemen and gentlemen in portraying their favourite horses, hounds, and domestic pets; his groups of grouse, and ptarmigan, and other game, were also much esteemed by sportsmen. Schwanfelder practised landscape-painting extensively, and his views of Yorkshire, Scotland, Wales, and the lake district were an important feature of the exhibitions of the Northern Society, held annually at Leeds, to which he was a large contributor. He exhibited occasionally at the Royal Academy from 1809 to 1826. He painted a few subjects from bible history, in which animals could be introduced, such as ‘Balaam and the Ass,’ ‘The dead Prophet with the Lion and the Ass,’ and ‘Daniel in the Lions' Den;’ he also had some success as a portrait-painter, and his portraits of Sir John Beckett, bart., M.P., Dr. R. W. Hamilton, and Thomas Smith of Wakefield were well engraved. Schwanfelder held the appointment of animal painter to George III and George IV, but his works are seldom met with outside his native county. He resided throughout his life at Leeds, paying frequent visits to the metropolis. He died in London on 9 July 1837, after undergoing an operation for disease of the throat, and was buried at Leeds. A portrait of Schwanfelder, painted by himself, belongs to the corporation of Leeds.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1893; Hailstone's Cat. of Portraits of Yorkshire Worthies, 1868; information kindly supplied by Mr. Councillor Howgate of Leeds.]
SCHWARTZ or SWARTZ, CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH (1726–1798), Indian missionary, was born on 22 Oct. 1726 at
