HISTORY AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE LETTERS.[55]
I, for my part, value letters as the most vital part of biography.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
-----
Footnote 55:
This chapter is an interpolation dealing with the history and
authenticity of the correspondence and does not affect the narrative.
-----
The original manuscripts of the remarkable correspondence between Sophie
Dorothea and Königsmarck, a correspondence unparalleled in the annals of
passion, except, perhaps, by the love-letters of Mirabeau to the
Marquise de Monnier, are still preserved in the University Library of
Lund, in Sweden.
The history of the letters previous to their finding a resting-place at
Lund can be traced back through many generations.
It will be noted that the correspondence begins in July, 1691, and ends
in December, 1693, thus covering a period of two and a half years. The
first few letters of Königsmarck show that he was not quite sure of his
footing with the Princess, and the _liaison_ between them was yet in the
bud. Within a few months we find his passion not only avowed without
disguise, but reciprocated by the Princess with equal ardour. Except for
a break in the first part of 1693, the letters follow the period of
their love story until the last six months, January to June, 1694.
During the greater part of this latter time Königsmarck was at Dresden,
and a few days after he returned to Hanover he was assassinated (July 1,
1694). It is known that many letters passed between the Princess and
Königsmarck during this last six months, and a bundle of letters were
seized by the Hanoverian Government in Königsmarck’s lodgings a few days
after his murder. These last letters and probably many others are
therefore missing from this correspondence, which otherwise forms a
fairly complete record of the Princess’s love story. The pertinent
question is, how came the many hereafter published to be preserved?[56]
-----
Footnote 56:
Those published in this book are all from the collection at Lund. But
many more (doubtless those seized by the Hanoverian Government) are
stated to exist, unpublished, at Berlin and Gmünden.
-----
Königsmarck, as we have seen, had two sisters, Amalie Wilhelmina, who
married Count Carl Gustav Lewenhaupt, a Swedish nobleman, who held for a
time a commission as colonel in the army of the Duke of Celle, and
served with the troops of Brunswick-Lüneburg in Flanders, and the
beautiful Aurora, who was never married. Aurora was in the confidence of
the lovers and on terms of friendship with the Princess. Countess
Lewenhaupt must also have been cognisant of the _affaire_, though in a
lesser degree. During Königsmarck’s connection with the court of Hanover
Aurora resided sometimes at Hamburg, often with him at Hanover, and was
occasionally at Celle, Brunswick, and other places, but always circling
around the courts of the Brunswick princes. The Countess Lewenhaupt was
for the most part with her husband, whose military duties kept him much
at Celle; but she frequently met her brother or sister. Both sisters
often saw their brother, and between him and them there existed a strong
affection.
Aurora sympathised with the love affair between her brother and the
Princess, and at quite an early stage we find her aware of it. Letters
were often sent through her hands; and so active a part did she play
that when suspicion was aroused in the autumn of 1692, Ernest Augustus
sent her a message to the effect that she would do well to give Hanover
a wide berth in future. For the lovers to keep each other’s letters in
their several possession was dangerous, and they were unwilling to burn
them. For their safe keeping, therefore, it would seem that both
Königsmarck and the Princess deposited at stated periods their letters
with Aurora: the Princess giving up those she had received from him, and
Königsmarck those he had received from her.[57]
-----
Footnote 57:
In the Protocol of the trial of Fräulein Knesebeck, she states that
she was commanded by the Princess always to return his own letters to
Königsmarck, because she herself did not dare to keep them, nor did
she think them safe even in the hands of Knesebeck.
-----
This continued until the end of 1693. In the six months that followed
(January to June, 1694) Königsmarck did not see his sisters; he was in
Saxony, and they were at Hamburg. The letters he had received from the
Princess during that period were still in his possession when he was
murdered, and, as we have seen, many were seized by the Government. The
letters the Princess had received from him were in _her_ possession, and
she probably burned as many as she could on the first hint that
everything was discovered. On the other hand, the Hanoverian Government
must have seized some, which (with her own) were used against her at the
divorce. But the rest—those published here—were in Aurora’s keeping at
Hamburg, outside the jurisdiction of the Elector of Hanover.
Of the efforts which both sisters, especially Aurora, made to discover
their missing brother, and to bring his assassins to justice, we shall
have occasion to speak later. They mourned their brother long and
sincerely, and treasured everything connected with his memory. Doubtless
these letters were among their most cherished possessions. Aurora, it is
well known, led for some years a wandering and adventurous life, and for
better security she must have transferred this momentous and bulky
correspondence to her sister’s, Countess Lewenhaupt’s, keeping. Count
Lewenhaupt, soon after the murder of his brother-in-law, quitted the
service of the Duke of Celle, and returned with his wife to Sweden,
where he henceforth lived on his estates.
From this time the history of the letters is categorical, and may be
traced step by step. Amalie, Countess Lewenhaupt, kept the letters, and
on her deathbed gave them to her son, Count Charles Emil Lewenhaupt,
telling him to cherish them with great care, as they had cost “her
brother his life, and a king’s mother her freedom”. Count Charles Emil
Lewenhaupt duly fulfilled his mother’s injunction, and the letters
remained among his most carefully guarded possessions all his life. He
left two sons, the younger of whom, Adam, inherited Ǒfvedskloster where
the letters were then kept. Count Adam Lewenhaupt sold Ǒfvedskloster to
his brother-in-law Baron Hans Ramel, who married his sister Amalie
Beata. In this way the letters passed into possession of the Ramel
family, and they reposed in a chest in the library of Ǒfvedskloster for
many years. Amalie Beata, Baroness Ramel (_née_ Lewenhaupt), died in
1810, and at her death bequeathed the letters to her daughter, Elisabeth
Sophia Amalie Beata, who was married to Count Gustaf Adolph Sparre. The
offspring of this marriage was also a daughter, Christina Amalie Hedvig
Adelaide, who married Count Jacob de la Gardie, of Löberöd, the founder
of the famous De la Gardie Archives. Count de la Gardie, who was a
wealthy nobleman, a bibliophile, and an antiquarian, was greatly
interested in these letters, which came into his possession in 1817
through his marriage with the lady aforesaid. Quite apart from their
historical value, the way in which they had been handed down through
generations of his wife’s family (she was the great-great-granddaughter
of Countess Lewenhaupt, _née_ Königsmarck) gave them a personal interest
in his eyes. The letters were removed from Ǒfvedskloster to Löberöd,
where they formed part of his celebrated collection of books and
manuscripts.
It was after the letters came into Count de la Gardie’s possession that
their existence became known to the outside world; hitherto they had
been treated as family papers of a private nature. The famous collection
of archives at Löberöd attracted scholars from far and wide. In 1831
Probster Wiselgein, in his work _De la Gardieska Archivet_ (the De la
Gardie Archives), vol. ix., mentions that this correspondence forms part
of the archives, and quotes a single letter from the Princess in the
original French as a specimen. Two years after this same letter was
republished in the _Magazin für Literatur des Auslandes_ (Journal of
Foreign Literature), 1833. But the correspondence did not receive much
attention until 1847, when Professor Palmblad, of the University of
Upsala, in the _Blätter für Literarische Unterhaltung_, published a few
short extracts in the original French, together with a brief
introduction. This he afterwards republished as an appendix in his
historical romance, _Aurora Königsmarck_. To Palmblad’s labours we shall
have occasion to refer again.
When Count de la Gardie died he bequeathed his almost priceless
collection to different libraries in Sweden. To the University of Lund
he left many valuable books and manuscripts, including the
correspondence of Sophie Dorothea and Königsmarck. In accordance with
the Count’s bequest the letters were deposited in the University
Library of Lund in 1848, and they remain there until this day. It is
not easy to see how the history of these documents could be better
authenticated.[58]
-----
Footnote 58:
Table showing the descent and ownership of the letters from the time
Aurora Königsmarck gave them to her sister until the present day.
Amalie, Countess Lewenhaupt (_née_ Königsmarck),
|
Count Charles Emil Lewenhaupt (her son),
|
Count Adam Lewenhaupt (his son),
|
Amalie Beata Baroness Ramel (his sister),
|
Countess Sparre (her daughter),
|
Countess de la Gardie (her daughter),
|
Count de la Gardie (her husband),
|
The University Library of Lund, 1848.
-----
Shortly after the letters were deposited at Lund, J. H. Gadd, who from
1848 to 1850 held the post of assistant-librarian to the university,
made a copy of the correspondence. This copy he afterwards sold, or
gave, to the late Mrs. Evelyn Everett Green, a lady well known for her
historical researches, and who was for many years employed in the State
Paper Office. Mrs. Everett Green, who was in correspondence with Count
Schulenburg-Klosterrode, author of _Die Herzogin von Ahlden_, apparently
thought of publishing these letters, for she began the fragment of a
preface. But for some reason she desisted from her task, and in 1870
sold Gadd’s manuscript copy to the British Museum. This copy, in French,
bears nothing to show where the original letters are preserved. I
discovered by accident that they were at Lund, when at Leipsig in 1898.
On communicating with the university authorities at Lund I found that
none of them had any knowledge of the manuscript copy in the British
Museum, and they seemed doubtful of its genuineness. I therefore made a
journey to Lund for the purpose of consulting the original manuscripts,
and found that the copy in the British Museum was on the whole a
faithful one. At Lund, too, I was able to trace the history of the
letters and to examine in detail the documents.
It would be hard to find a more fitting resting-place for these letters
than the university library of Lund. Nestling under the shadow of the
great cathedral, surrounded by the elms and limes of the beautiful
Lundagård, the old library seems to breathe the very spirit of the past.
In the silent rooms, with their mellow tomes and paintings of dead and
gone worthies, there reigns a profound peace, in strong contrast to the
riotous passion, the fret and the fume, the rapture and despair, which
run through these records of an ill-fated love, and make them human
documents indeed. As we read, the hopes and the fears, the joys and the
struggles of the unlucky lovers rise before us with extraordinary
vividness. The writers live and move and breathe again; the air is
peopled with their presence; and then—we look up from the page and come
back to the old library and the great stillness, and realise something
of the littleness of human passions beside the passionless flight of
time. Two centuries have gone; the lovers are dead; the hands that
penned these burning words, the eyes that wept, the hearts that throbbed
as they were written, have crumbled into dust. But their witness is
here—here in these old and faded pages, which breathe even now, faint as
the scent of dead rose leaves, the perfume of their passion.
A word now as to the outward semblance of these letters. They are fairly
well preserved, the paper being for the most part of a tough though
flimsy nature, which in places shows the handwriting through. The ink is
dim and faded to a dull brown; here and there it is so faint as to be
almost illegible. Königsmarck’s letters differ in size, some being
written on the ordinary notepaper of the day, others on scraps torn
apparently from a pocket-book; some, too, are weather-stained, as though
they had travelled far. Envelopes in all cases are missing; nor were
they generally used in those days. The letter was folded and sealed.
Some of Königsmarck’s letters bear his seal in red or black wax, and a
device—a little heart within a large one—with the motto, _Cosi fosse il
vostro dentro il mio_. One, in addition, has the ends of a green silk
ribbon under the seal, showing how the letter was tied. The seal
represents a flaming heart on an altar, the sun shining down upon it
with the circumscription, _Rien d’impure m’allume_. One, bearing date,
Halle, August 3/13, is addressed to “Madamoiselle la Frole de
Knesbeck, à Zelle”; one is addressed “à la Gouvernante,” one merely
“Pour la Personne Connue,” one “la Frole de Kronbugler”; but there are
none directly addressed to the Princess. All Königsmarck’s letters are
written in the same great sprawling hand.
The letters of the Princess are written on paper of good quality, and
almost without exception of uniform size. Like Königsmarck’s, they bear
evidence of having been folded; but the envelopes are missing, and,
unlike his, none of them bear seal or superscription. They are written
in two distinct handwritings, possibly three, which bears out the theory
that some were written by the Princess in her own hand, some in her
handwriting disguised,[59] and the rest by Knesebeck at the Princess’s
dictation. But, disguised or undisguised, transcribed by Knesebeck or
the Princess, they are easier to read than Königsmarck’s, on account of
their better penmanship, though occasionally they, too, show traces of
haste.
-----
Footnote 59:
Fräulein Knesebeck in the Protocol of her trial expressly states that
the Princess was able to write two different hands.
-----
The letters number over two hundred, and form two bulky packets. With
the exception of a few fragments of German poetry which Königsmarck
quotes here and there, they are all in French, that being the language
then generally used at courts, and especially by the Princess, on
account of her French mother and education. To Königsmarck—a Swedish
noble by birth—French was more familiar than German, though his
knowledge of either was far from perfect. The letters are arranged in
little or no chronological order, and run in batches; thus we have first
a batch of the Princess’s letters, then a batch of Königsmarck’s, then
another of the Princess’s, and finally another batch from Königsmarck.
Quite two-thirds are written by Königsmarck and the rest by the
Princess—if we except two or three brief notes, or rather postscripts
from Knesebeck.
If the lovers’ letters differ in outward appearance, they differ even
more in style and diction. Königsmarck’s are very badly written,
ill-spelt, and often ungrammatical, which may be explained by the fact
that he was writing in a foreign language which, though he could speak
it fluently, he had not thoroughly mastered. Often, by accident or
design, he falls back on phonetic spelling of French words, which at
first renders them almost impossible to decipher, and it is only by
reading them aloud that one can grasp their meaning. For instance:—
_Saite_ = Cette
_Can_ = Quand
_Sansaire_ = Sincere
_Cas_ = Qua
_Astor_ = À cette heure
and many other renderings equally erratic. Königsmarck’s style, like his
handwriting, was rough-and-ready. Many of his letters were written in
haste when on active military service, and one does not expect literary
grace from a soldier writing often under difficulties, and always in a
foreign language. His sentences are abrupt, and frequently broken by
exclamations, interjections, and interrogations, especially when he
writes under stress of excitement. But he has a knack of occasionally
enforcing his meaning by a happy phrase or homely illustration, and
this, combined with frequent allusions to men and things, makes his
letters of more general interest than those of the Princess. Egotism is
the dominant note. His wit has at times a knack of degenerating into
coarseness—a coarseness so great that even in that coarse age we cannot
help wondering how a man in his position should be found writing such
things to a princess, to a woman he loved and reverenced. But we have to
remember that it was an age of licence and freedom of speech; and even
the letters of the estimable Electress Sophia to the Duchess of Orleans,
whose virtues were unquestioned, and whose intellectual accomplishments
were far in advance of her time, were disfigured by a coarseness
bordering at times on indecency. If a great princess could so write to
another princess we cease to wonder at Königsmarck, who was a man and a
soldier and surrounded by the licentiousness of camp and court. Most of
his worst lapses are anecdotes relating to his companions in arms; they
are not many, and I have taken the liberty of suppressing them, since
they are not germane to the narrative.
The letters of the Princess are very different in style and diction from
those of her lover. They are absolutely free from coarseness (in this
respect offering a favourable contrast, for instance, to the letters of
the Electress Sophia and the Duchess of Orleans), and give evidence of a
refined and gentle nature. They are in admirable French, and if here and
there a word is misspelt it is evidently the result of haste. Many of
the Princess’s letters are written with grace of style and felicity of
diction, to which no translation can do justice. The burden of her theme
is ever “I love thee,” or “Thou art not true to me”. The whole of the
correspondence, indeed, both her letters and Königsmarck’s, are
alternated with passionate avowals of love or equally passionate
reproaches. Theirs was not a love that ran smoothly, but was broken from
first to last by fears from without and jealousies from within. Yet it
is impossible not to see that, after their manner, each loved the other
fondly.
The Princess was a ready writer, the chief blemish of her letters being
a tendency to repetition and an extraordinary diffuseness; she would
take pages to say what might have been compressed into a few sentences.
But this is a fault common to love-letters—which are not written for the
edification of the world, but only for the one to whom they are
addressed; and we must not judge them by the ordinary canons of literary
criticism. In the Princess’s case, too, there was often a necessity for
her to wrap her meaning in a cloud of words, lest it should be too
readily discovered, if her epistles fell into other hands. Though her
letters are in two (or three) handwritings, they are all identical in
style and expression—another proof that those the Princess did not write
with her own hand, disguised or undisguised, she dictated word for word
to Knesebeck.
An elaborate cypher, or rather series of cyphers, is used throughout the
correspondence for the names of persons and places. To this cypher the
lovers alone held the key. All the personages mentioned in the letters
are disguised under different names; as, for instance:—
_L’Aventurière_ Countess Aurora Königsmarck.
_Le Réformeur_ (_Le Réformateur_) Prince George Louis.
_Don Diégo_ The Elector Ernest Augustus.
_La Romaine_ The Electress Sophia.
_Le Grondeur_ The Duke of Celle.
_La Pedagogue_ The Duchess of Celle.
_La Perspective_ The Countess Platen.
_La Boule_ The Electress of Brandenburg.
_Le bon Homme_ Marshal Podevils.
_L’Innocent_ Prince Ernest Augustus.
_Colin_ Prince Maximilian.
_La Marionette_ Princess of Hesse.
_Le Satyre_ } Hanoverian Ministers.
_Le Barbouilleur_ }
_La Douairière_ The Princess of East Friesland.
_La Gazelle_ Countess von Lewenhaupt.
_La Grosse Dondon_ Madame von Ilten.
_La Confidente_ }
_La Sentinelle_ } Fräulein von Knesebeck.
_La Gouvernante_ }
_Léonisse_ }
_La Cœur Gauche_ } Princess Sophie Dorothea.
_La Petite Louche_ }
_Le Chevalier_ }
_Tercis_ } Königsmarck.
Some of these nicknames are not very complimentary to the persons for
whom they are intended, but they are comparatively easy to decipher. The
task is much more difficult when we come to the other cypher, in
figures. Speaking roughly, numbers of one hundred and upwards signify
names of men; two hundred and upwards, names of women; three hundred and
upwards, names of places. As for example:—
100 Elector Ernest Augustus.
101 Duke of Celle.
102 Prince George Louis.
103 Marshal Podevils.
112 Prince Maximilian.
120 Königsmarck.
128 Bülow.
129 Bernstorff.
200 The Electress Sophia.
201 Princess Sophie Dorothea.
202 Countess Platen.
207 Fräulein von Schulenburg.
214 Fräulein von Knesebeck.
226 Countess Aurora Königsmarck.
227 The Duchess of Celle.
300 Hanover.
301 Luisburg.
302 Herrenhausen.
305 Celle.
306 Brockhausen.
In the letters which follow, translated from the French of the original
manuscripts into English, I have endeavoured to render this intricate
cypher legible, and have substituted everywhere the real names of
persons and places. The task of translation and unravelling the cypher
has not been easy,[60] and if an error should be discovered it must not
be ascribed to any inaccuracy in the original letters, but to my
rendering, since in spite of every care it is impossible to guard
against the possibility of a chance error. I have further endeavoured to
reduce the letters to something like chronological order—also a
difficult task, for only four have the year inscribed, many are without
date, some have the day of the week, and a few the time of day; and in
such cases it is only from the text that one can guess the dates with
accuracy. To do this it has been necessary to sort the letters from the
batches into which they are divided in the original manuscripts, and to
allow them to answer one another in due order. In the correspondence
during the campaign of 1692, for instance, it will be seen that
Königsmarck’s letters and those of the Princess answer one another
freely. I have also, to better elucidate the text and preserve the flow
of the narrative, interspersed the letters with a record of current
events gleaned from Colt’s despatches and other documents, and have
annotated them where necessary. The letters hereafter given represent
two-thirds of the whole; the remainder has been omitted simply because
it is made up mainly of repetition and unimportant details, and to quote
it in full would be to weary and not to edify. For the first time these
letters are published in any language—if we except the few fragments
(which would not make more than six pages of this book) given by
Palmblad in a Swedish book long since out of print—and for the first
time they are now translated into English from the original manuscripts,
edited, and compared and tested with contemporary records.
-----
Footnote 60:
In this task I was aided by the fragment of a key to the cypher found
with the letters at Lund.
-----
[Illustration:
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, LUND, SWEDEN.
(_Where the letters are preserved._)
]
Palmblad, as we have mentioned, prefaced his extracts with a brief
introduction, which it is well to examine in detail, since this is
practically the only medium through which the existence of the
correspondence has hitherto been known.
W. F. Palmblad was a man of considerable literary repute, a professor of
the University of Upsala, and a zealous antiquarian. But he lacked one
quality indispensable to the historian—accuracy; he was too ready to
jump to conclusions without first verifying his facts from contemporary
records. He examined the manuscript letters when they were at Löberöd in
the possession of the Count de la Gardie, and learned their history from
their owner, which was amply verified from the family records. He then
made an examination of the correspondence which can only be regarded as
cursory, took out a few extracts here and there, and prefaced them with
an introduction, in which he declares his firm belief in the genuineness
of the letters, but by his inaccuracies unconsciously does damage to the
very point he labours to prove—inaccuracies which one or two subsequent
writers have seized upon as proofs of the spuriousness of a
correspondence they have never seen. Later, it is true, another
authority, Count Schulenburg-Klosterrode, who also believed in the
genuineness of the letters, in _Die Herzogin von Ahlden_, endeavoured to
set Palmblad right on certain points of chronology and cypher, but a
false impression had been given of the correspondence which it was not
easy to eradicate.
Even in his description of the appearance of the letters Palmblad is
inaccurate. He speaks of postmarks, but there are none visible; he
describes the Princess’s letters as written “in an elegant hand, on very
fine, gilt-edged paper”. It is a mere detail; but the paper is not
gilt-edged, and is the ordinary letter-paper of the day; while as for
the “elegant hand,” which would convey the idea of a sloping Italian
penmanship, the Princess’s letters are in two distinct handwritings, and
in each case written in rather a bold hand for a woman, certainly the
reverse of “elegant”.
The professor has also made mistakes about the cypher, especially the
cypher in numbers; and in the extracts he publishes he has muddled men,
women, and places in a hopeless manner, and this makes nonsense. His
extracts, which are taken mainly from Königsmarck’s letters, are chiefly
made up of the racy anecdotes, which for reasons already given I do not
quote. The professor has collected every one of these anecdotes (not
many in all), and gives them as a fair specimen of the whole. Doubtless
this course avoided chronological and other difficulties; but to quote
them to the exclusion of other and more important matter is to give a
false impression of the correspondence and the man.
Again, Palmblad makes the assertion, “Of Königsmarck’s _liaison_ with
the Countess Platen the letters do not say a word”. Here again it is
evident he has made a mistake in the cypher, and confused the Countess
with some one else, for, as will be seen, the letters teem with
allusions to Countess Platen (either as _La Perspective_ or as 202), and
there are frequent references to an understanding or flirtation between
her and Königsmarck. The Princess is again and again inflamed with
jealousy on this account, and reproaches her lover bitterly, while he is
equally fluent with his excuses.
But the gravest inaccuracy is yet to come. In his survey of the letters
Palmblad made no attempt to classify them or arrange them in order of
date—a task which he declares to be “impossible”. As he had little
knowledge of Hanoverian history at the time the letters were written, or
of contemporary events, the task was doubtless impossible to him; he
would therefore have done wisely to have left it alone altogether, and
not have tried to cover his ignorance by the wildest guesswork. Yet this
is what he has done. He says: “In one letter mention is made of Bussche,
who was the trusty friend and confidant of Prince George, and who died
in the beginning of the year 1688, and four other letters have the year
1693 given, so we know with certainty that the correspondence was spread
over a period of six years”. And again: “In the letter in which Bussche
is mentioned, therefore, written before or during the year 1687,
Königsmarck is on the most trusted footing with the Princess; and in the
year 1685 Königsmarck was evidently in Hanover; and soon after that it
appears that the very close intimacy between them began. The Princess,
her daughter, who afterwards married the King of Prussia, was born March
16, 1686;[61] and it is a matter of surmise and strong doubt whether the
family of Prussian kings spring from the Guelph or Königsmarck blood.”
The whole of this theory is built upon the surmise that the Bussche
mentioned (not in one letter only, but at least a dozen) was the same
Bussche who married Countess Platen’s sister, and who died early in
1688.
-----
Footnote 61:
This is an error, she was born in 1687.
-----
Now the Bussche family was a numerous one, and held a high position in
Hanover. If Palmblad had read the letters carefully, and had possessed
any knowledge of Hanoverian affairs, he would have seen from the context
that the Bussche mentioned was _not_ the man who died in 1688, but
Philip Albert Bussche, a privy councillor and prominent minister, who
later was president of the divorce court which pronounced judgment on
the Princess. Thus the statement that the letters began in, or before,
1687 and extended over a period of six years is absolutely incorrect,
and the endeavour to cast a slur upon the legitimacy of the Princess’s
daughter, afterwards Queen of Prussia, is consequently abortive. There
exists no shred of evidence to show that Königsmarck was in Hanover in
1685 (he was in England), nor, indeed, until 1688, a year after the
birth of the Princess’s daughter. And it will be seen from the letters
themselves that the _affaire_ between Königsmarck and the Princess did
not assume an intimate footing until the end of 1691 or the beginning of
1692; until then the borderland had not been crossed. Whatever were his
later relations with the Princess, he was neither at Hanover nor Celle
when her children were born, and there is no doubt as to their
legitimacy. Palmblad’s slur on the birth of the Queen of Prussia is as
gross a fabrication as the Jacobite lie of calling George II. “the
little Königsmarck”. The whole theory, which can only have been invented
to gratify Palmblad’s hatred of the House of Prussia, therefore falls to
the ground; and it is no wonder that, starting from so false a
chronological point, he finds it “impossible” to arrange the letters in
any order of date.
I have dwelt fully on Palmblad’s introduction and extracts not because
of its merit, which is little, nor its size, which is infinitesimal, but
because it has hitherto been practically the only publication which
deals with these letters, and students and historians have had no other
criterion whereby they might test their genuineness. There were the
original letters at Lund, it is true; but the few authorities such as
Schaumann and Köcher,[62] who have passed adverse judgment on this
correspondence, never took the trouble to go there and examine the
manuscripts personally, but founded their theories on Palmblad’s
version. Yet it is obviously impossible to pronounce a fair judgment on
a correspondence of this kind without seeing the original manuscripts,
and with no knowledge of it save a few fragmentary extracts and an
introduction full of chronological and other errors. It is only by
examining the whole correspondence in the original manuscripts, and
comparing it with contemporary documents, that a just idea of its value
can be gained.
-----
Footnote 62:
Against the adverse opinion of these authorities may fairly be set
Thackeray and Carlyle, who accept the letters as genuine. But, like
Schaumann and Köcher, they never saw the originals.
-----
Judged by this test, these letters will reveal themselves as absolutely
genuine, and further examination will show that they contain internal
evidence of their authenticity. Let us briefly glance at this also.
For our present purpose the correspondence may be divided into:—
1. Königsmarck’s letters to the Princess prior to the campaign in
Flanders of 1692 (July, 1691, to June, 1692).
2. The Princess and Königsmarck’s letters to one another during the
campaign in Flanders and until the granting of the Hanoverian
Electorate (June to December, 1692).
3. The Princess and Königsmarck’s letters to one another, when she was
at Brockhausen and Celle with her parents, and he at Hanover (June
to July, 1693).
4. Königsmarck’s letters to the Princess when he was campaigning
against the Danes and after his return to Hanover (August to
December, 1693).
This is merely a rough classification, but it will serve.
The times were stirring in the courts of Hanover and Celle, and indeed
in all Europe, because of the war of the great Alliance against Louis
XIV. Königsmarck served with the allied armies in the campaign in
Flanders of 1692, as colonel of a Hanoverian regiment, and the following
year he served as colonel of a regiment of the troops of Hanover and
Celle in the abortive campaign of the Brunswick-Lüneburg princes against
the Danes on the banks of the Elbe. Many of his letters to the Princess
were written when on active military service; and though one does not
look to love-letters for news, it is only to be expected there should be
some allusion to current events. We find in Königsmarck’s letters from
Flanders mention of William of Orange, Prince George Louis, the Elector
of Bavaria, Duke Frederick Augustus of Saxony (afterwards the Elector
Augustus the Strong), and other exalted personages who were with the
allied armies at that time; also of certain events in the campaign, such
as the battle of Steinkirk, the attempted siege of Charleroy, and so
forth. In the same way, the following year, during the campaign against
the Danes, allusion is made to the burning of Ratzeburg and the
negotiations between the Danes and the Brunswick-Lüneburg princes. The
same may be said of the Hanoverian intrigues for obtaining the
electorate. If these mentions of well-known persons and events were in
any way incorrect, it would afford, of course, strong presumption
against the genuineness of the letters; but they are quite accurate.
Moreover, the allusions are made evidently without design, and arise
naturally and casually in the course of the correspondence as things
known, not only to the writer, but for the most part to the person to
whom he is writing.
It may be admitted that, so far, this does not prove much, for the
events and personages in connection with the great campaign in Flanders,
for instance, were so well known that only a clumsy forger would make a
mistake. But the case is far otherwise when we come to analyse the many
references which both the Princess and Königsmarck freely make
concerning the persons who figure in the life of Hanover and Celle, and
incidents which were occurring from day to day in those little courts.
We have, for instance, frequent mention of, or allusion to, the arrival
of this prince, or the departure of that princess, the coming and going
of foreign envoys, and the movements of the Hanoverian court from
Hanover to Luisburg, or Luisburg to Hanover or Herrenhausen; of the
perpetual motion of the court of Celle from Celle to Brockhausen, to
Epsdorff, to Wienhausen, to Göhre, and so on; of visits between the
ducal brothers, of journeys to Hamburg, Brunswick, or Berlin, of
carnivals and court festivities, all of which could not possibly have
been written except by some person, or persons, intimately acquainted,
or connected, with the daily life of these petty courts. Now, a forger
of spurious love-letters would certainly avoid frequent reference to
minute events, and content himself with writing mere vague avowals of
passion[63] which might be written by any one to any one; in short, he
would keep to generalities and avoid particularities, which are so many
pitfalls into which he might tumble, and by his errors betray his fraud.
-----
Footnote 63:
The letter of Lassaye, quoted on pp. 73-74, affords an excellent
illustration of this.
-----
Here, then, we have a test. If the frequent references to persons and
incidents in these letters can be proved to be incorrect or inaccurate;
if, for instance, it can be shown that when the Electress of Brandenburg
is said to have been visiting Hanover she was at Berlin, that when
Prince Max is stated to have been at Celle he was in Italy, that when
the court of Celle was at Brockhausen it was at Epsdorff, that when the
Princess writes from Celle she was at Hanover, that when certain envoys
are represented as having been at Hanover they were not there, or
certain festivities are described which did not take place,—if it can be
shown that these things (of no importance in themselves, but very
important in their bearing on the letters) are falsely and inaccurately
stated, then it follows, as a matter of logic, that the letters are
themselves false and inaccurate and could not have been written by the
persons from whom they profess to come. But if, on the other hand, it
can be proved by independent testimony and “undesigned coincidences” (as
Paley would say) that the mention of persons is accurate and the
allusions to even minute events correct in every detail, it affords the
strongest possible proof of the genuineness and authenticity of the
letters.
But how to apply such a test?
At first sight this is difficult, for the daily life of these little
German courts is not a matter of history, and the ordinary historical
records shed little light upon it. Fortunately I found in the State
Paper Office, in London, the despatches and entry book of Sir William
Dutton Colt, sometime English envoy at Hanover, which furnish exactly
what we want—independent and authoritative documents with which we may
test the accuracy of many of the minute events mentioned in these
letters. Colt was envoy to the princes of Brunswick from 1689 to 1693;
his entry book covers the period from July, 1689, to December, 1692, so
that the period of eighteen months only is coincident with the letters,
which do not begin until July, 1691. Early in January, 1693, he went to
Dresden, and afterwards was but little at Hanover or Celle, so further
evidence is lacking. But there is enough for our purpose. In Colt’s
entry book we have a record, week by week, almost day by day, of the
courts of Hanover and Celle; it is wholly made up of copies of his
despatches to the English Government. At his death the book, with other
official documents, was sent to London, and has since been preserved in
the archives. It was, of course, never seen by any one in Hanover
outside the English Legation, and it has only been open to the public in
England since the Home Office and Foreign Office papers of that period
were removed to the State Paper Office. It is scarcely necessary,
therefore, to say that between this official record and the
correspondence now at Lund there could have been no possible collusion.
By no possibility could the writers of these letters have seen Colt’s
despatches. Where coincidences arise they are absolutely undesigned, and
the points of agreement are those which necessarily occur when truthful
and independent records touch on the same incidents. Colt’s despatches
are a record of facts and events; the love-letters of Sophie Dorothea
and Königsmarck are love-letters first of all, and where mention is made
of persons and events, it is made incidentally and secondarily.
Nevertheless, many coincidences occur and afford strong corroboration of
the genuineness of the letters. I have noted them in more detail in the
correspondence itself. Here it will suffice to quote a few in
illustration of my meaning:—
_The Letters._ _Colt’s Despatches._
On and after June 20, 1692, the “The Duke of Celle is now at
Princess dates her letters from Brockhausen.”—Colt’s _Despatch_,
Brockhausen, showing that her June 17, 1692.
parents, with whom she was staying,
had moved thither from Celle.
In her letter of June 23, 1692, In his despatches of this time
the Princess mentions that Prince Colt also mentions that Prince Max
Max is staying with the court of was staying with the Duke of Celle
Celle at Brockhausen. at Brockhausen, he being in
disgrace with his father because of
the Moltke affair.
“You have been dancing at Colt’s From Colt’s _Despatch_, Hanover,
_fête_.”—_Königsmarck to the June 20, 1692, we learn that on
Princess_, Venlo, July 5/15. Sunday, the 18th, he gave a great
“diversion,” which the Duke and
Duchess and all the court attended.
“I am grieved you are displeased
because I went to Monsieur Colt’s
_fête_, but I could not avoid
going; they pressed me so
much.”—_The Princess to
Königsmarck_, Brockhausen, (?) July
2, 1692.
“What was the day of the
_fête_?”—_Königsmarck to the
Princess_, Dist, July 5/15.
“Sunday was the _fête_ I spoke to
you about.”—_The Princess to
Königsmarck_, Celle, July 13/23,
1692.
“They say the Electress of “Moltke was executed on Monday,
Brandenburg is at Luisburg on a and the court of Hanover has gone
visit to her parents.”—_The to Luisburg to be out of the
Princess to Königsmarck_, Celle, way.”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Hanover,
July 18/28, 1692. July 18, 1692.
“The floods still detain us here “The extraordinary floods have kept
unfortunately.”—_The Princess to the Duke from Celle.”—Colt’s
Königsmarck_, July 2, 1692. _Despatch_, July 4, 1692.
“We start to-morrow for “The Duke since his return
Celle.”—_The Princess to hither....”—Colt’s _Despatch_,
Königsmarck_, Brockhausen, July 7, Celle, July 11, 1692.
1692.
Her next letter, July 9, is dated
from Celle.
“My Lord Portland showed me much Colt mentions in his despatches
favour, and assured me the King that Lord Portland was with the
held me in his King in Flanders during the
esteem.”—_Königsmarck to the campaign of 1692.
Princess_, Wavern, August 14/24,
1692.
“The Duke of Celle has lost a “The Duke here is really very much
great many men [in the Battle of troubled for the loss of his troops
Steinkirk].”—_Königsmarck to the in the late action.”—Colt’s
Princess_, from the camp near _Despatch_, Celle, August 5, 1692.
Wavern, about August 5, 1692.
The Princess, to Königsmarck, in a “This court [Celle] will the next
letter from Celle, August 6/16, week remove from hence, the Duke to
1692, notifies the movements of the follow his hunting, and the Duchess
court, and says in two days she goes to Wiesbaden, near Mayence,
will accompany her mother to for her health.”—Colt’s _Despatch_,
Wiesbaden (which she does). Celle, August 5, 1692.
“Max is going the day after “The Electress of Brandenburg is
to-morrow to meet the Electress of passing by here on her way to
Brandenburg, and will accompany her Luisburg, where the Hanoverian
to Luisburg.”—_The Princess to court is at a country
Königsmarck_, Celle, August 6/16, house.”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Celle,
1692. August 12, 1692.
“They tell me the Electress of “Just now we have the news that
Brandenburg has postponed her the Electress of Brandenburg doth
visit. She was to have arrived two not come so soon as she intended,
days after I left. All the horses all things having been provided for
were ordered for her equipage. The her.”—Colt’s _Despatch_, Celle,
Duke had given up to her his August 12/22, 1692.
apartments at Luisburg, and they
also brought a band. All that for
nothing!”—_The Princess to
Königsmarck_, Wiesbaden, August
21/31, 1692.
“My news from your part of the In his despatch, September 15,
world [Hanover] tells me the Duke 1692, Colt mentions that the Duke
is going to hunt at Epsdorff, where of Celle is at Epsdorff.
your father already is.”
—_Königsmarck to the Princess_,
Denise, September 10/20, 1692.
“I was hindered the day before “We have just heard the welcome
yesterday from finishing my letter news that the French have failed in
by the alarm that the French were their design on Charleroy.”—Colt’s
going to attack Charleroy, but it _Despatch_, Göhre, October 7/17,
came to nothing.”—_Königsmarck to 1692.
the Princess_, Afflegen, October
6/16, 1692.
“The journey to Berlin will not “The journey to Berlin is
take place.”—_Königsmarck to the postponed.”—Colt’s _Despatch_,
Princess_, Hanover, November, 1692. Hanover, November 18, 1692.
These few coincidences, examples of many more, afford proofs of the
genuineness of the correspondence, which a perusal of it as a whole
cannot fail to strengthen. The very faults of the letters go to prove
their authorship. But the strongest evidence of all, in my opinion, is
to be found in the frequent, and unconscious, self-revelations of the
personality of the writers. These revelations do not always show the
lovers in the most favourable light, but at least they are very human.
Love has been defined as _l’égoïsme à deux_. If that be true, it would
be hard to find a stronger illustration of it than these letters afford.