THE FLIGHT OF YEARS.
(1698-1714.)
The moving Finger writes, and having writ
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
OMAR KHAYYAM.
The next few years brought no further relief to the prisoner of Ahlden,
though the Duchess of Celle was regular in her visits and did everything
to carry consolation to the captive. Sophie Dorothea had frequent news
of her children, for they were often at Celle and their grandmother
Eléonore did not fail to impress them with a sense of their mother’s
wrongs. It seems their secret sympathies were with their imprisoned
mother, whom they were never permitted to see, nor at Hanover even to
mention her name. Duke George William was extravagantly fond of his
grandson, George Augustus, and often took him with him on his hunting
expeditions. The old Duke gave the boy much good advice, which young
George sometimes forgot to follow; but he always remembered his
grandfather with affection and respect.
Many years later, when he was George II. of England, babbling
reminiscences by the bedside of his dying consort Caroline, Lord Hervey
relates that “he said that the Duke of Zelle was fond of him, but had
often told him, as well as he loved him, if he ever found him guilty of
a base action, and that he should prove a liar or a coward, he would
shoot him through the head with his own hand”.[241]
-----
Footnote 241:
_Lord Hervey’s Memoirs_, vol. ii.
-----
George Augustus must have been a lovable youth, and his early portraits
show him to have been very like his mother, especially in his large,
almond-shaped eyes. About this time he made a determined effort to see
his mother. The story goes that one day when he was hunting in the woods
near Luisburg, he stole away from the rest of the party, and, laying
spurs to his horse, rode at full speed in the direction of Ahlden. His
suite, missing the Prince and guessing his intention, gave pursuit, and
eventually caught him up in a wood near Reitlagen, some four miles from
the castle. Another version says that the Prince managed to get as far
as Ahlden, and actually beheld his mother, who waved to him from the
window. The Governor of the castle refused him admission, and he then
sought to gain an entrance by swimming across the Aller. In either case
his suite followed him, and, on his refusing to return, conducted the
Prince back to Hanover under compulsion.
His escapade was visited by the Elector’s heavy displeasure, and the
young George’s partisanship of his mother was probably the beginning of
bad blood between father and son, for they were frequently quarrelling,
and came to hate one another with an intense hatred. “_Il est fougueux,
mais il a du cœur_,” said the Elector George once of his son, and
certainly his effort to see his mother would seem to bear out his
father’s estimate of his character.
In April, 1700, events took a turn, which, under favourable
circumstances, might have resulted in the Princess’s liberty, and
actually gained her the one respite in her thirty-two years’ captivity.
The invasion of the Principality of Celle by French and Polish troops
under the command of the Danish Count Ahlefield and their nearness to
Ahlden, gave the Duchess of Celle the opportunity she was longing for,
and she implored her husband to bring the Princess to Celle, where she
would be out of danger. It was a pretext merely, for there was no real
danger, and even if there had been, Sophie Dorothea would doubtless have
been glad if the invaders had broken into her prison house and taken her
a captive of war. It would at least have varied the monotony of her
existence, and the change might have been for the better; it could
hardly have been for the worse.
Despite difficulties raised by Bernstorff and the Elector George, George
William was prevailed upon to grant his wife’s prayer; but he had to
stipulate that his daughter should be confined to one wing of the castle
of Celle, and he refused to see her. So one April day the gates of
Ahlden were thrown open, and the Princess was escorted over the moorland
to Celle. Every care was taken to prevent a popular demonstration. She
arrived in the dead of the night, and was conducted at once to her
apartments in the old part of the schloss, which she had occupied as a
child and during her unhappy married life on her visits to her parents.
Here the Princess remained for nearly a year, a prisoner in her father’s
house, studiously avoiding any breach of the rules laid down, and
seeking by good behaviour to soften the hearts of her jailers. The
possibility of any danger from the French soon passed away. Still the
Princess lingered at Celle, and though orders came from Hanover that she
was to be sent back to Ahlden they were not obeyed. The Duchess
intervened, and sometimes on the plea of ill-health and sometimes on
other pretexts she kept her daughter with her.
At last, however, the pressure from Hanover was so strong that the
Princess was forced to leave Celle without having spoken to her father,
though she had been nearly a year under his roof. She returned to
Ahlden, and her one golden chance of liberty was gone for ever. The good
folk of Celle were loud in favour of their beloved Princess, and got up
noisy demonstrations; but all to no purpose. Nothing availed against the
pitiless hatred of the Elector George and the Electress Sophia.
The following extracts from letters written by the Duchess of Orleans to
the Electress Sophia bear upon this incident:—
_July_ 29, 1700.—“The Duchess of Celle has lost no time in having her
daughter brought to Celle. I should think that her father must be very
much embarrassed about the matter, for it will grieve him to send his
daughter away again without seeing her, and yet the honour of the
House does not permit him to let her remain at Celle, and there is the
fear that the Elector would take it ill.”
_August_ 8, 1700.—“I should like to know if the Elector will allow the
Duchess of Ahlden to remain at Celle or if he will send her back to
Ahlden again. I hear that the Princess leads a very solitary life, but
all the same she is splendidly dressed, and when she takes a walk on
the ramparts at Celle she always covers her face with a veil. I fancy
she hopes to touch the heart of her husband by her decorous life, so
that he may take her as his wife again.”
_August 26_, 1700.—“I hear that the Duchess of Celle has received
orders to send her daughter back to Ahlden, but they have not been
carried out. The people of Celle are not to be blamed for lamenting on
account of their Princess, but her father deserves praise for
exhibiting such firmness.”
While the Princess was at Celle an event occurred in England pregnant
with consequences to the future of the House of Hanover, and it might
perhaps have contributed indirectly to the Elector’s determination to
send his wife back to Ahlden. The heir-presumptive to the throne of
England, Anne’s sickly little son, the Duke of Gloucester, died in July,
1700. Henceforth, for practical politics, the succession lay between the
direct line of the exiled and Roman Catholic House of Stuart, and the
remote line of the Protestant House of Hanover.[242] The Hanoverian
succession was viewed with little favour in England, at best it was a
last resort; but the failing health of King William, the impossibility
of Anne having any more children, and the determination not to restore a
Roman Catholic to the throne, made it imperative that, the nation should
do something to settle the succession. In the autumn of 1700 the
Electress Sophia, accompanied by her daughter the Electress of
Brandenburg, paid a visit to King William at Loo. The ostensible reason
of the Electress’s visit was to gain his aid in elevating the electorate
of Brandenburg to the kingdom of Prussia (which took place a little
later); but of course English people saw in it a move in the direction
of Sophia’s succession to the throne of England. The Electress seems to
have felt, as every one felt then, that events were working in favour of
the royal exiles at St. Germains; but King William, who hated Anne more
than all the exiled House of Stuart put together, urged the Electress
Sophia to assert herself in some way in opposition to the Princess Anne.
The wily old lady discreetly declined, and even suggested that the King
should come to terms with the expatriated Prince of Wales. She would not
stand in her own light, but short of that she was a Jacobite. Her
suggestion had the effect of enraging William. He turned his back on her
and left for England the next day. So the Electress had to return
crestfallen to Hanover.
-----
Footnote 242:
The next in blood, after the children of James II., was the Duchess of
Savoy, daughter of Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans (a daughter of
Charles I.), and then the family of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia
(daughter of James I.); but all these, save the Electress Sophia, were
Roman Catholics. It is interesting to note that the lineal descendant
of Charles I., through the Duchess of Savoy, is Mary, Consort of
Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, eldest son of the Prince Regent and
heir-presumptive to the throne of Bavaria.
-----
Nevertheless William, on thinking the matter over, acted upon Sophia’s
hint, and, inspired by his hatred of Anne, made a formal offer to King
James to adopt the young Prince of Wales, bring him over to England, and
make him his successor. This policy was only possible if the Prince
would change his religion; but even if he had been willing to do so,
which he was not, it had no chance. The offer was rejected with scorn by
King James. He would make no terms with the usurper. Stung by this
contemptuous rejection, William once more took up the wild idea of
making the Electress Sophia his successor to the exclusion of his
detested sister-in-law Anne; but the old Electress knew that she had no
chance against Anne, and was far too astute to listen to any such
proposal. If it were only a question of Anne’s life, Sophia, or her son,
would not have long to wait, for Anne’s health was notoriously bad, and
her life was worth little more than William’s. Foiled in this direction,
the King had no alternative but to push on the Act of Parliament which
settled the succession of the crown of England on the Electress Sophia
and the heirs of her body, _being Protestants_, after the death of
himself and of Anne without heirs. This Act, known as the Bill of
Succession, was passed by both Houses without much opposition, and
became law in the summer of 1701.
As William was desirous of gaining the support of the Elector George
Louis to a grand alliance he was then meditating, he made the passing of
the Act an occasion to pay special honour to the Electoral House. He
despatched Lord Macclesfield to Hanover charged with the mission of
delivering a copy of the Act to the Electress Sophia, and of investing
her son with the Order of the Garter. The selection of Lord Macclesfield
was doubtless due to the fact that he was “some sort of a relation” of
the Electress Sophia’s mother, Elizabeth, daughter of James I., through
whom the succession came to the House of Hanover. His mission was a
curious compromise between the official and unofficial. He was not given
any appellation as plenipotentiary or envoy, yet he took with him a
numerous and splendid suite, including the Irish traveller, Toland, to
whose lively pen we are indebted for an account of this mission.
Whatever indifference the Electress Sophia and her son may have feigned
towards the splendid prospects opening out before them, it vanished when
the news came that Lord Macclesfield had actually set out from England.
He was met on the frontier of the electorate by the ministers and chief
officials of the electoral court, and escorted with great pomp to
Hanover, where a reception of unparalleled magnificence was accorded to
him. He and every member of his suite, down to the very valets, were
treated with profuse liberality, and lodged and entertained in the most
sumptuous manner. Had Macclesfield been William himself he could not
have been entertained more royally. A banquet was held over-night, and
the next day, the proudest day of the Electress Sophia’s life, Lord
Macclesfield formally presented her with the Act of Succession and
invested her son with the insignia of the Garter. The Electress Sophia
gave him her portrait, surmounted by the electoral crown in diamonds,
and the Elector George gave him a gold basin and ewer. The chaplain of
the mission, Dr. Sandys, presented many prayer-books to the Electress,
which she did not use, and she rewarded him with many books in return
and a gold snuff-box. All the suite were likewise given souvenirs, and
they returned to England with wonderful tales of the liberality of the
Hanoverian court, which they represented as a land flowing with milk and
honey.
Toland, writing later to the English minister in Holland, gave a long
description of the Electress Sophia and other personages at Hanover, but
of poor Sophie Dorothea, who had now gone back to her dreary captivity
at Ahlden, he has not a word to say, though he must have known of her
existence; nor had she, “the genuine wife,” as Horace Walpole calls her,
any share in her husband’s new and growing honours.
Soon after the delivery of the Act of Succession old King James died at
St. Germains, and his son declared himself determined to walk in his
father’s faith, which was all in favour of the Hanoverian succession and
the Electress Sophia. England and English affairs now absorbed her
wholly, and she had neither time nor inclination to think about Sophie
Dorothea. The Duchess of Celle kept up an agitation in her daughter’s
favour, but the Electoral court was inflated with its English prospects
and took no heed. Nothing was gained that affected the principle of the
agreement arranged before the divorce. We find the Duchess of Orleans
writing to her aunt:—
_December_ 24, 1702.—“As the Duchess of Ahlden often sees her mother
and other ladies, and can also go for drives, she is not so much to be
pitied.”
And this was doubtless the view of the Electress Sophia, who would have
kept her even a closer prisoner if she could.
The death of William III. and the accession of Anne to the throne of
England brought the Electress Sophia one step nearer to her coveted
goal, and she became “the heiress of Great Britain,” as she loved to
describe herself. But Anne had no love for her “heiress” and kept her at
arm’s length. The Duchess of Celle, who had heard of Anne’s dislike of
her Hanoverian relatives and of her kindness of heart, seized the
opportunity to place the sad case of her daughter before the powerful
Queen of England. She wrote beseeching her to use her influence on
behalf of the imprisoned Princess.[243] After some time an answer
came—what it was history sayeth not. It is probable that Queen Anne did
not send an absolute refusal, but promised to give the matter her
consideration. This promise, it would seem, she kept, and she did what
she could, for we find the Duchess of Orleans writing two years
afterwards to the Electress Sophia:—
_November_ 30, 1704.—“They say in Paris Lord Marlborough intends to
travel to Hanover and do his best to bring about a reconciliation
between the Duchess of Ahlden and the Elector, and he proposes to
offer his daughter in marriage to the Prince [George Augustus].”
-----
Footnote 243:
The letter dated September 20, 1702, is said to be in the State Paper
Office, but I cannot find it, though mention is made by Cresset of a
letter from the Duchess of Celle to Queen Anne, and he writes to the
Foreign Minister at home for an answer.
-----
If Marlborough really undertook this delicate mission, it had little or
no effect. The Princess would not have bought her liberty at the price
of cohabiting again with her husband, and it may be doubted if the
Elector would have had her back on any terms. With two natures so
stubborn even the diplomacy of Marlborough could have effected nothing.
The following year, 1705, the Princess’s chances of liberty received
what must be considered their final blow by the death of her father. Of
late years the old Duke had manifested considerable interest in his
daughter, and had talked of going to see her; but Bernstorff had thrown
such obstacles in the way, and had drawn such a picture of the Electoral
displeasure and the difficulties which this meeting would surely create
with Hanover, that the ease-loving Duke gave way and postponed his
visit. But he returned to the subject ever and anon, and that his heart
had softened towards his only child is manifest from a codicil which he
added to his will dated January 26, 1705, which materially benefited the
Princess, and made her the residuary legatee of his large fortune. The
same day the Duchess of Celle also made a will, with the approval of her
husband, which provided that the “Duchess of Ahlden” should inherit at
her death a sum of sixty thousand thalers deposited in the banks of the
Hague and Amsterdam, also the estate of Olbreuse in Poitou, the mansion
of Wienhausen, and all her jewellery, furniture, and plate. She also
left her an income of three thousand thalers a year from another estate.
The combined effect of these wills was to make the prisoner of Ahlden
one of the richest heiresses in Europe. Both her father and her mother
must have had in mind her eventual liberty, as it would have been a mere
mockery to have left her this wealth and have kept her shut up in
Ahlden, where she could not spend it, and where her income was already
in excess of her needs. The old Duke at last seemed determined to do
what he could to repair the injustice done to his daughter, and when the
wills were signed he announced his determination of going to see her. He
was now in his seventieth year and his strength was fast failing; he
wished to be reconciled to his only child before he died. This natural
and laudable desire Bernstorff opposed as long as he dared, but seeing
the Duke’s mind was made up, he changed his tactics and merely advised
him to postpone his visit until after a shooting expedition on which he
was bent. The delay, as the minister hoped, proved fatal; the Duke
caught a chill, which he tried to remedy by taking the waters of
Wienhausen, and he followed this drastic cure even after he had taken to
his bed. Poley, who had now succeeded Cresset as English envoy, writes:—
“That which contributed to his distemper was the taking the waters in
bed, and, being in a sweat, he was so impatient as to rise in his
shirt and open the windows, by which he got a great cold, which threw
him into the colik and took away his stomach.... I forgot to mention
y^e worse symptoms which attended y^e Duke of Zelle’s distemper in the
beginning was a hyccop, which continues, and he vomits all he
takes.”[244]
-----
Footnote 244:
Poley’s _Despatch_, Hanover, August 18, 1705.
-----
The “hyccop” proved fatal. The Duke died ten days later, and was
universally mourned by his subjects. He was of a singularly upright and
straightforward character, always a true friend, generous and
kind-hearted; but he was irresolute and easily swayed, and possessed
that vein of obstinacy often found in weak characters. On this weakness
the wily Bernstorff played to the great benefit of Hanover and to the
detriment of the Duchess of Celle and her daughter. Bernstorff was now
rewarded for his breach of trust by being raised to the rank of Count,
and a little later he succeeded old Platen as confidential minister to
the Elector of Hanover.
The death of the Duke of Celle left his widow and daughter at the mercy
of their implacable foe the Elector. The Duchess Eléonore could expect
no consideration, and her daughter no justice, from their enemies at
Hanover. With indecent haste the widow was ordered to quit the Castle of
Celle and withdraw to Wienhausen, which had been provided for her under
her husband’s will. The whole of the territory of Celle now became
merged with that of Hanover under the Elector George, whose power and
dignity were greatly enhanced thereby; but the “genuine wife,” through
whom all this wealth came, was still kept a prisoner at Ahlden, and to
her prayers and entreaties for freedom her husband turned a deaf ear.
All Sophie Dorothea now asked was that she might be allowed to go to
live somewhere quietly with her widowed mother, and permission afforded
her to see her children. Both requests were refused. It has been stated
that George greatly increased the rigours of the Princess’s imprisonment
after her father’s death; there exists no proof of this, but he may have
cut her off from attending public worship in the parish church and have
limited her drives. Her mother was still allowed to visit her and did so
until her death, but no new concessions, not even the most trifling,
were accorded. The Elector took his stand on the agreement arrived at
before the divorce between his father and his uncle, and it was rigidly
maintained. The Princess might as well have pleaded to a stone.
The same year that witnessed the death of Duke George William saw also
the decease of two of the enemies of Sophie Dorothea. Sophia Charlotte,
Queen of Prussia, better known in this book as the Electress of
Brandenburg, expired suddenly when on a visit to Hanover. Some say she
passed away with an epigram on her lips, and others that she departed in
the true faith of a Christian. With such a conflict of testimony, who
shall say? She had been brought up “of no religion as yet,” and she
probably died in the same frame of mind. Her aged mother mourned her
greatly.
A month later the Countess Platen died. Her last years had been rendered
a torment by a disease which made her hideous to behold and deprived her
of sight. But, blind though she was, she nevertheless, as Thackeray
says, “constantly saw Königsmarck’s ghost by her wicked old bed”. She
suffered torments of remorse for her share in his death, and it is said
that she made a confession on her deathbed of the part she had played in
his murder. A document purporting to come from her confessor has been
published, but there is no proof of its genuineness.
The bells at Hanover had scarcely ceased tolling for the Duke of Celle’s
death, than they rang out a merry peal for the marriage of Sophie
Dorothea’s son, George Augustus, to Caroline of Ansbach, afterwards the
illustrious Queen Caroline of England. The young Princess had been
brought up at the court of Berlin under the wing of the Electress of
Brandenburg, first Queen of Prussia. She was beautiful, witty, and
clever, and early sided with her husband against his father; but there
is nothing to show that she took the part of his persecuted mother. The
marriage of her son affected in no way the fortunes of Sophie Dorothea,
nor was the event officially communicated to her. But the English envoy
Poley writes: “During the Duke of Zell’s being here [Hanover] the
Duchess of Zell goes to stay with her daughter, and probably to acquaint
her with her son’s marriage”.[245]
-----
Footnote 245:
Poley’s _Despatch_, Hanover, July 21, 1705.
-----
About this time Poley was recalled to England, and he sent home an
interesting document,[246] in which he gives a detailed account of the
Electoral family of Hanover. It is, of course, written with a courtly
pen, with a view to possible eventualities, and the description which he
gives of the Electress Sophia and the Elector is more moderately worded
than that of Toland. Unlike Toland, he could not ignore the existence of
the prisoner of Ahlden, and this is how he mentions her:—
“The Elector was formerly married to a daughter of the Duke of Zell,
by whom he had one son and one daughter, but was afterwards separated
from her; since which time she hath lived at Ahlden, of which she
bears the title, in the country of Zell. She hath a revenue
appropriated to her, and of which is in possession, and, as some have
imagined, may perhaps goe live with her mother at the town of
Lüneburg, whither it is said that the Duchess-Dowager of Zell intends
to retire.”
-----
Footnote 246:
Still preserved in the State Paper Office. “Called Mr. Poley’s account
of the House of Brunswick, etc., upon his return from being Her
Majesty’s envoy at Hanover, November 9, 1705.”
-----
The case could hardly be more diplomatically worded; the facts are
correct, yet the inference they convey is wholly false. One would gather
from this effusion that Sophie Dorothea was living in dignified and
voluntary retirement instead of being a prisoner in two small rooms,
closely guarded, and watched over by jailers and spies. The following
account of her children from the same despatch is also of interest:—
“The Prince Electoral was born in the year 1683, and is of middle
stature, but seems of constitution less vigorous than his father. He
hath much witt and good humour in his conversation, and hath all the
inclinations suitable to his quality. He was lately married to a
Princess of the House of Brandenburg-Anspach of the same age with
himself, and of so many good qualities and endowments as may promise
much happiness to the Family.
“The Princess of Hanover, daughter of the Elector, is of about
eighteen years of age, and something about middle stature and well
shaped. She hath much beauty and is of agreeable conversation. Her
marriage hath been talked of with the King of Sweden, but I doe not
know that it was ever proposed. The Prince Royall of Prussia, her
couzen germane, is thought to have more inclination for her than for
anybody else, but it hath been doubted if the King of Prussia would be
willing to consent to that marriage.”
Poley’s surmise that the Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia was
in love with his cousin, the young Sophie Dorothea, proved to be
correct, for though he had a “choice of three” he loved her above all
others, and overcame his father’s dislike to the match. They were
married in November, 1706, with much ceremony, at Hanover, and soon
after set out for Berlin. The lonely mother at Ahlden heard of her
daughter’s brilliant marriage in the same way as she had heard of her
son’s, through her mother; but she was not allowed to communicate with
her, nor was the Duchess-Dowager of Celle present at either of the
weddings. To the Electoral family Eléonore had once more become “the
d’Olbreuse,” and was treated accordingly. Her age, her grey hairs, her
bereavements, her powerlessness to do harm, made no difference to the
contempt and hatred with which the Electress Sophia and her son pursued
her. Her grandchildren, however, took her part, and, though they were
powerless to help their mother, they protected their grand-mother from
open insult. The young Crown Princess of Prussia was now far away from
her mother and the centre of a brilliant court, yet the lonely captive
at Ahlden contrived to enter into some sort of correspondence with her.
There was now a strong disposition on the part of the Hanoverian court
to hush up all mention of Sophie Dorothea. The time was certainly
favourable: her father was dead, her mother powerless, her children
married; she was without a friend on earth. Why should she not be
quietly buried in her living tomb? But family skeletons are notoriously
hard things to hide; they have a habit of popping out at inconvenient
seasons, and Sophie Dorothea was not a woman to be easily suppressed.
She had come to see that there was nothing to be gained by submission,
and henceforth she assumed more aggressive tactics, filling the air with
her cries, and beating her wings against the bars of her cage in vain
endeavour for freedom. Poor woman! it was vain to cry, and she only
bruised her bosom with her struggles; but one thing she achieved,—she
saved herself from being forgotten by the outside world. Her mother’s
old friend, Duke Antony Ulrich, was especially indignant at the way she
was treated after her father’s death and at the Elector’s refusal to
allow her to go and live quietly with her mother. Animated by hatred of
the House of Hanover, quite as much as by sympathy for Sophie Dorothea,
he resolved to give the world the story of her wrongs. He was powerless
to help her in any other way, but for this task he was peculiarly
fitted. Unlike most princes of his age, he dabbled in literature and was
a voluminous and ready writer, the author of prose romances, poems, and
plays. He determined to turn his gifts to account by elaborating the
story of his much-wronged cousin, which, indeed, would furnish material
for any romance. He had been working for some time at the _Roman
Octavia_, a series of episodes nominally taken from the Roman emperors,
into which he had incorporated many scenes and events of his own life
and times disguised by ancient names. He now devoted the sixth, or
supplementary, volume to the history of Sophie Dorothea. No doubt he was
aided in this by Eléonore von Knesebeck, who was then living at
Wolfenbüttel.
The narrative so closely resembled what had actually happened, that
every one could penetrate through the thinly veiled disguise of
fictitious names and learn the story of the injured Princess. It was
told in the form of dramatic dialogue, with due regard to stage effect.
Duke George William appears as King Polemon of Cappadocia; his Duchess
is Dinames, a Spanish Princess; Ernest Augustus is Mythridates, King of
Pontus. The Electress Sophia, whom Antony Ulrich especially hated, is
satirised under the name of Adonacris, “who, as the sister of the great
Indian king, gave herself the airs of one of the mightiest princesses in
the world”. George Louis figures as Prince Cotys, a dull and brutal
youth; while Sophie Dorothea appears as the Princess Solane, who for
beauty and riches had no rival in Asia. Königsmarck figures as Æquilius,
one of the Roman lords at the court of the incomparable Queen Adonacris.
The Princess’s story is then told from the beginning: her early marriage
to the man she loathed, the cruelty with which she was treated at the
court of Hanover, the appearance of Königsmarck, who had known her as a
child, and his passion for her. But the Princess in the play is
represented to be as virtuous as she was beautiful, and she resisted her
lover’s advances by every means in her power. The account of the
catastrophe is consequently modified to suit the theory of the innocence
of the Princess. It is stated that one of Her Highness’s ladies hid the
cavalier in her chamber, and then sent a message to the Princess saying
that she was ill. The Princess, in compassion, came to see her, and as
soon as she entered the room the lover threw himself at her feet. At
this juncture the Prince, her husband, appeared on the scene with a
drawn sword; the Princess swooned, and the lover was hurried away, never
again to see the light. The Princess’s protestations of innocence were
without avail, and as appearances were against her a divorce was
effected, and she was consigned to prison, where she bore her fate with
dignity.
Such, in rough outline, is the story of this work, which had a great
success. It was eagerly read in every court of Europe and continued to
have a large circulation far into the eighteenth century, and even in
the present century has formed the unacknowledged source of many
so-called “lives” of Sophie Dorothea. The lonely Prisoner of Ahlden was
one of the most talked-about women of her generation. The secrecy and
mystery surrounding her only served to whet the public curiosity.
The Electress Sophia early obtained a copy of the _Octavia_, and so did
her niece, the Duchess of Orleans. We find her writing to her aunt:—
_July_ 25, 1708.—“I am going to read the _Octavia_ over again, as
George Louis has been kind enough to send me the key to it. Duke
Antony Ulrich makes Solane appear innocent, but that is only done to
save the honour of the House. In all matters his truth is mixed with a
modicum of lies. Cotys I consider cold, but not brutal. There is no
doubt that Solane was a coquette; Lassaye has told me plenty about
that, so much that I have not the slightest doubt about it. I was
obliged to laugh, when Duke Christian looks on it as an improvement
that she had at least stuck to _one_ in particular.... I, however,
find safety in numbers: one is dangerous, as events have proved. I
should like to know if her husband has still any wish to see her,
particularly as they say she is still beautiful. It would be only
right for her mother to keep her company, for her bad upbringing is
the cause of all the daughter’s misfortunes.”
On this string, the bad upbringing, the Duchess is always harping.
Still, as the years went on, even she could not forbear some pity for
the imprisoned woman. We find the following allusions in her letters to
her aunt, and they are about the only authentic record we have of Sophie
Dorothea during these years:—
_October_ 27, 1709.—“It must grieve the Princess deeply to know that
her children are so near and not to be able to see them; I really feel
sorry for her. I should like to know if her children have any desire
to see her.”
But apparently she repents of this pity, for the next year we find
this:—
_May_ 8, 1710.—“That the Princess always sits before her looking-glass
may be excused her, and proves that her nature is to coquette.”
Two years later the correspondence between these two remarkable women
ceased for ever—the Electress Sophia was dead. She died within sight of
her promised land.
Sophia expired suddenly in the gardens of Herrenhausen on June 10, 1714,
Queen Anne on the following September 1, so the Electress missed being
Queen of England by a little more than two months, and died with the
desire of her heart ungratified. “I care not when I die,” said this
dauntless old woman, “if on my tomb it be recorded that I was Queen of
Great Britain.” But on her coffin in the vault at Herrenhausen it is
only written that she was “Heiress of Britain”. Perhaps this was a
retribution on her for her harshness to her unhappy daughter-in-law,
Sophie Dorothea.