Caroline of Ansbach: The Brainiest Princess

As a teenager living in Berlin, she had met the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, the composer George Frideric Handel, and many other towering intellectual figures of Europe, and her new compatriots anticipated lively discussions would continue in London. They would not be disappointed.

Sir Isaac Newton even conducted scientific experiments, to demonstrate light refraction, to enliven court occasions.

In 1731 after the accession of her husband as George II, Caroline commissioned portrait busts to honour her scientist and philosopher heroes from the sculptor Giovanni Battista Guelphi. They were set up around the walls of her Hermitage, a folly pavilion in the royal gardens at Richmond.