RETRIBUTION.
(1727.)
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
SHAKESPEARE, _King Richard III_.
Over in England the King heard the news of his wife’s death with
ill-concealed concern, born not of remorse, but fear. In his
superstitious soul he remembered the prophecy and trembled. His
forebodings of evil were not lessened when Prince Waldeck arrived from
Hanover with secret despatches, which gave a detailed account of the
awful deathbed at Ahlden and the dying woman’s appeal to the retribution
of Heaven. Nor did the King derive much comfort from his withered
mistresses, for the Duchess of Kendal, to whom he confided all, had a
firm faith in omens, visions, and soothsayers, and was even more
troubled than he. By way of averting the curse she became more devout
than ever, and attended church as many as four times a day,
notwithstanding the fact that the Lutheran minister at the German Chapel
Royal refused her the communion on the ground that she was living in
unrepentant adultery. King George sought to shake off his depression by
every means in his power, and the very evening that he learned the
tidings his wife was no more he sought distraction by going to see a
performance of the Italian comedians at the Haymarket, accompanied by
the Duchess of Kendal and Lady Darlington. The next day he commanded a
special performance at the King’s Theatre, which was followed by others,
though up to now the play was a pastime he had very rarely indulged in.
But all his efforts were ineffectual, for the shade of his victim
haunted him, and her dying cry for vengeance rang in his ears. Sophie
Dorothea was more powerful in death than in life.
Outwardly the court of St. James ignored the event, and, beyond a line
in the _London Gazette_ to the effect that the “Duchess of Ahlden” had
died at Ahlden on a date specified, the death of the wife of the King of
England and the mother of the King to be received no official notice
whatever. But the court of Hanover on receipt of the news from Ahlden
had very properly assumed mourning, as on the occasion of the decease of
the Duchess of Celle. When King George heard this he waxed exceeding
wroth, and sent peremptory orders to the Hanoverian officials to return
to their ordinary wear. His anger was increased when he learned that the
court of Berlin had decreed the deepest mourning, as for a Queen of
England who was also mother of the Queen of Prussia. It was a natural
mark of respect for the daughter to pay, and it showed to all the world
that she believed her mother to be an injured woman. George I. resented
the court mourning at Berlin as a personal affront, and protested; but
his protest was in vain. Thus did his mean malice pursue his victim even
in death.
Meanwhile the body of Sophie Dorothea lay in a plain leaden coffin in
the vaults of the castle of Ahlden, awaiting the King’s orders. None
dared pay the remains any honour, nor even give them a decent and
Christian burial, for fear of offending the tyrant in England. With the
new year (1727) Prince Waldeck came back from London with the royal
command that the “Duchess of Ahlden” should be buried with as little
ceremony as possible in a grave dug in the garden of the castle. But the
season was rainy and the Aller overflowed its banks, and though the
grave-diggers dug again and again in the swampy ground the waters always
rushed into the grave and rendered their labours vain. It was impossible
to communicate quickly with the King across the sea, so the coffin was
ignominiously carried back again to the cellar, covered over with a heap
of sand, and left until further orders. It would have been left there
until now, for all the King cared, had he not been a prey to
superstitious fears. He could not sleep, he could not rest, and life was
becoming a burden to him. This may have been due to advancing years and
an impaired digestion, for he was a coarse and heavy eater; but the
Duchess of Kendal declared that she was warned in a dream that it was
all the work of the unquiet spirit of Sophie Dorothea, and her ghost
would never rest, nor let the King rest, until her body was laid by the
side of her ancestors at Celle.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH AT CELLE, WHERE SOPHIE DOROTHEA IS BURIED.]
One May morning, therefore, a King’s messenger arrived at Ahlden from
England with orders, under the royal sign manual, that the remains of
the “Duchess of Ahlden” should be interred in the ducal burial-vaults in
the old church of Celle as quietly and expeditiously as possible. That
same night the body was taken from the cellar, hoisted on to a vehicle,
and conveyed across the moorland to Celle, where it arrived while the
little town was still sleeping. Three or four workmen from the castle
were waiting in the church and everything was in readiness. Without any
ceremony or religious service the coffin was hurried down to the vaults
under the chancel, where it lies until this day.
The church above is full of effigies of Sophie Dorothea’s ancestors,
whose deeds and renown are blazoned forth in brass and marble and
painted glass; but there is neither memorial nor inscription to mark the
last resting-place of the heiress of Celle, who, by virtue of her
sufferings, was the most famous of them all. In the dark vault below,
her remains could not be identified at all were it not for a small
shield on the top right-hand corner of the coffin, containing her name
and the dates of birth and death. Hard by in the “French Garden” of
Celle there stands a monument to Caroline Matilda, Princess of England
and Queen of Denmark, whose sad lot closely resembled that of her
ancestress Sophie Dorothea, and whose body was deposited in the same
vault half a century later. But of the heiress of Celle, direct
ancestress of two of the mightiest sovereigns in the modern world, there
exists no monument whatever. Now that the flight of years has
obliterated the bitterness which clung around her name it is surely time
that some memorial were raised to her memory. And where more fitting
than in the place of her birth, near the grey walls of the old castle?
She was the last princess of Celle, and in the hearts of the people the
tradition of her beauty and her woes still lingers.
The vision which appeared to the Duchess of Kendal must have been a
lying spirit, for though Sophie Dorothea slept with her forefathers, no
relief came to her oppressor. King George was overwrought, nervous, and
dispirited. His government was honeycombed with intrigues, his quarrel
with his son was intensified in bitterness; and not all his avaricious
mistresses with their ruddled cheeks could give him comfort. He was
consumed with a desire to return to Hanover. Peradventure, like certain
criminals, he felt impelled to revisit the scene of his crime.
On June 3, 1727, a month after the tardy burial of his victim, the King
set out from England for Hanover. Travelling night and day, he reached
Dalden on the far frontier of Holland at midnight on June 9th. Here he
stopped to change horses and he devoured a huge supper. Instead of
tarrying for the night, as his suite expected and his travelling
physician advised, for he had eaten heavily and was worn out with the
long journey, the King was seized with an overpowering restlessness to
reach Hanover, and started off again at three o’clock in the morning.
As the royal coach rumbled out of the courtyard a man stepped forth from
the shadow and threw a document through the window on to the King’s
knees. Neither his Majesty nor his escort thought anything of the
incident, supposing the paper to be one of those many petitions with
which George was wont to be pestered on his return to the electorate. By
the grey light of the dawn the King broke the seal and read, and as he
read his hands shook and his face grew ashen. It was a letter from his
dead wife, written when she felt the hand of death upon her. The trusty
messenger, to whom she had given the packet, had waited and waited until
the King should come from England that he might surely deliver it into
his hands. It was an awful letter for a woman to write, doubly awful for
the man to receive. It was penned evidently when Sophie Dorothea’s brain
was on fire with her wrongs—when her reason was trembling in the
balance; in it she reiterated her sufferings and his cruelty, cursed him
with her dying breath, and summoned him to meet her within a year and a
day before the judgment throne of God, there to answer for the wrong he
had done her. To the trembling tyrant it came like a voice from the
dead. He recalled again the prophecy that he would not long outlive his
wife, and now came the confirmation of his fears. He heard his victim,
like an accusing angel, calling him to his doom—a year and a day—a year
and a day,—and that was last November. The letter fell from his
nerveless hands, there was a rush of blood to his eyes, a beating in his
brain, and he fell forward in a fit.
In great alarm the equerry called a halt, and the long procession of
coaches and escort, pulled up by the wayside. But the King recovered
almost immediately, and, insisting that it was nothing, angrily
commanded them to proceed. Landen, the next stopping-place, was reached
in a few hours, and here dinner awaited the royal traveller. But the
King could not eat. His indisposition was evidently worse than he would
admit. The surgeons bled him and dosed him and advised a rest; but their
patient would hear no reason, his one desire was to push forward to his
beloved Hanover.
Quitting Landen at sunset, the royal _cortége_ thundered forward with
all speed. An hour later the King became much worse, but he hastened on
as though pursued by a legion of furies. His escort would fain have
halted; but still the King urged them on, leaning forward from the
window, and shouting “To Osnabrück! to Osnabrück!” as the horses
galloped through the gathering dusk. Osnabrück was reached at ten
o’clock; but by that time the King had again collapsed, falling forward
into the arms of his gentleman-in-waiting. They bore him into the
palace, now occupied by his youngest brother Ernest Augustus, bled him
again, chafed his clenched hands, applied restoratives; but all in vain.
George never recovered consciousness, and died at midnight in the very
room where he was born sixty-seven years before. He had obeyed the dread
summons, and had gone to meet his wife before the judgment throne of
God.
Thus died George I., the first of our Hanoverian kings, unloved and
unmourned—nay, not quite unmourned, for even this man had one who loved
him. His aged mistress, the Duchess of Kendal, had not been able to pack
up in time to travel with her liege, but was following him with all
speed. When the news of his death was brought her on the road she gave
way to the loudest demonstrations of grief, beating her breast, tearing
her hair, and filling the air with lamentations. She had lived with him
nigh on forty years, and though he had not been true to her—for it was
not his nature to be true to any one—in his way he had been fond of her;
she had become as indispensable to him as he had to her.
The new King, George II., did nothing so far as we know to clear his
mother’s memory, though Horace Walpole writes: “The second George loved
his mother as much as he hated his father, and purposed, it was said, if
she had survived, to have brought her over and declared her
Queen-Dowager. Lady Suffolk told me her surprise, on going to the new
Queen the morning after George I.’s death, at seeing hung up in the
Queen’s dressing-room the whole length of a lady in royal robes, and in
the bed-chamber a half-length of the same person, which Lady Suffolk had
never seen before.”[249] They were pictures of his mother, which the
Prince had till then kept concealed. This hardly tallies with Lord
Hervey’s testimony of George II.’s reticence concerning his mother,
“whom,” he writes, “on no occasion I ever heard him mention, not even
inadvertently or indirectly, any more than if such a person had ever had
a being”.[250] The Jacobites used to call George II. “the little
Königsmarck” (an unfounded libel if ever there was one!), and this may
have accounted for his silence. Another poetaster twitted “dapper
George” with being governed by his Queen, and advised him
... if you would have us fall down and adore you,
Lock up your fat spouse, as your dad did before you,
which shows that Sophie Dorothea’s imprisonment at Ahlden was fairly
familiar to the English public.
-----
Footnote 249:
Walpole’s _Reminiscences_.
Footnote 250:
Lord Hervey’s _Memoirs_.
-----
That the true story of his mother’s life became known to George II. is
certain, for on his first visit to Hanover after ascending the throne of
England he ordered the secret records of the divorce proceedings, and
some of the incriminating letters to be brought to him, and read them
through carefully. Extraordinary care was taken at Hanover to suppress
any and every compromising document or paper which contained mention of
Sophie Dorothea or Königsmarck. Despite these precautions, the most
damning evidence of all came to light. Some workmen employed in
renovating the wing formerly occupied by Sophie Dorothea in the Palace
of Hanover, came across the skeleton of a man, almost unrecognisable
from quicklime, but, from a ring and fragments of clothing, was
identified as that of the missing Count Königsmarck. Orders were given
that the place should be bricked up again, and the remains were thrust
out of sight once for all—probably pulverised and cast into the river
Leine.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF OSNABRÜCK.]
These things go to prove that the son lacked the courage to do justice
to his mother’s memory, or he believed her guilty. In death, as in life,
Sophie Dorothea continued to be the family skeleton of the House of
Hanover.
But we can afford to be more merciful in our judgment. Whatever were the
faults of her youth, she atoned for them fourfold. Her dauntless spirit,
her fortitude, her dignified resignation through long years of
captivity, invest her memory with a halo of suffering. Her love and her
sorrows plead for her—her sorrows most of all, for it may be doubted if
either history or romance can offer a parallel to the long-drawn agony
of the life of this uncrowned queen.
APPENDIX.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED, AND BOOKS
TO WHICH REFERENCE HAS BEEN MADE.
UNPUBLISHED MSS.
_The Correspondence of Princess Sophie Dorothea and Philip Christopher,
Count Königsmarck, 1691-1693_ (in French). Preserved in the University
Library of Lund, Sweden.
_The Despatches and Correspondence of Sir William Dutton Colt,
Envoy-Extraordinary to the Princes of Brunswick and Lüneburg,
1689-1693._ In the State Paper Office, London.
_The Despatches and Correspondence of Mr. Cresset (who succeeded Sir W.
D. Colt at Hanover) and his Secretaries, 1693-1702._ In the State Paper
Office, London.
_The Despatches of Mr. Poley (who succeeded Mr. Cresset at Hanover),
1705._ In the State Paper Office, London.
_Sundry Letters of Mr. Stepney, sometime British Envoy to the Court of
Dresden, 1694-1695._ In the State Paper Office, London.
_Sundry Letters and Papers_ (in French and German), specified elsewhere.
Preserved in the Royal Archives and Library, Hanover, and at Brunswick
and Dresden.
SOME PUBLISHED WORKS.
_Die Herzogin von Ahlden, Stammutter der Königlichen Häuser Hannover und
Preussen._ Leipzig, 1852. Now out of print. Written anonymously by Count
Schulenburg-Klosterrode.
_Die Prinzessin von Ahlden._ By Dr. Adolph Köcher. Two articles in
_Sybel’s Historische Zeitschrift_, 1882, vol. xlviii.
_Römischen Octavia_, 1707, vol. vi. By Duke Antony Ulrich of
Wolfenbüttel.
_The Magazine of the Historical Association of Lower Saxony_, 1879.
_Sophie Dorothea, Prinzessin von Ahlden und Kurfürstin Sophie von
Hannover._ By A. F. H. Schaumann. Hanover, 1879.
_Briefe der Herzogin von Orleans, Elizabeth Charlotte, an die Kurfürstin
Sophie von Hannover._
_Briefe der Prinzessin Elizabeth Charlotte von Orleans, 1676-1722._
_Memoiren der Herzogin Sophie, nachmals Kurfürstin von Hannover._ Dr.
Adolph Köcher. Leipzig, 1879.
_Memoires du règne de George I._ “Anon.” The Hague, 1729.
_Letters with Varied Contents._ Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1772.
_Geschichte der Herzogin von Ahlden._ Copenhagen, 1786.
_Short Narrative of My Fate and Imprisonment._ Hamburg, 1840. Edited by
“W. L. Mollor” (Major Müller).
This purports to be an autobiography written by the Princess Sophie
Dorothea, but it is spurious. Yet the deeds and letters quoted show
that the author had access to genuine documents, and show the writer
to be Major Müller, librarian to the late Duke of Cambridge, Regent of
Hanover.
_Memoirs of Sophie Dorothea._ Two vols. London, 1845. Out of print.
Translated into the German also. Written anonymously. [By Major Müller,
sometime librarian to the late Duke of Cambridge.]
This covers much the same ground as the _Short Narrative_, and also
contains some authentic documents and papers. Like the _Short
Narrative_ it is evidently based on Duke Antony Ulrich’s _Octavia_.
But the “Diary of Conversations,” in vol. ii., purporting to be
written by Sophie Dorothea, is undoubtedly spurious.
_Aurora Königsmarck._ By Professor W. F. Palmbald. Six vols. Translated
from the Swedish into the German. Leipzig, 1853. Out of print.
_Memoirs of Aurora von Königsmarck._ By Cramer.
An article on _Fresh Contributions to the History of the Hanoverian
Princess Sophie Dorothea_. By Edward Bodemann.
_Histoire Secrette de la Duchesse d’Hanover, Épouse de Georges Premier._
London, 1732. Ascribed to Baron von Poëllnitz (some say erroneously).
_The Electress Sophia._ Article in _The Quarterly Review_, vol. 161.
_Eléonore d’Olbreuse._ By the Baroness von Amstel. Article in
_Nineteenth Century_, 1898.
INDEX.
A
Act of Settlement, 100
Ahlden, prisoner of, 388
— Author’s notes on, 392
Alte Palais at Hanover, 60
Amalie Wilhelmina, Countess Lewenhaupt, 82
Angelica d’Olbreuse, 11
Anne, Princess of York, 38
— Queen of England, 411
— death of, 420
Antony Ulrich, Duke of Wolfenbüttel, 1
— _Roman Octavia_, 417
Appendix, 445
Arenswald, Madame von, 396
Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, 1
— Frederick of Wolfenbüttel, 21
— betrothed to Sophie Dorothea, 22
— death of, 25
— the Strong (Elector of Saxony), 89
— and Aurora Königsmarck, 369
Aurora Königsmarck, 82
— and Augustus the Strong, 369
Authorities quoted, 445
Author’s notes on Ahlden, 392
B
Bar, Count de, 425
Bergest, Count Sigismund, 396
Berlin, 250
Bernstorff, Prime Minister of Celle, 33
Bill of Succession, 41
Bohemia, Queen of, 7
Books of reference, 445
Borosky, 86
Bothmer, Charles Augustus von, 396
Boyne, battle of the, 109
Brandenburg, Elector of, 69
— Electress of, 69
— death of, 414
Breda, 7
Brockhausen, the tryst at, 256
Brunswick, 111
Buccolini, Lucas (Bucco or Buccow), 3
— Signora, 3
Bull-baiting, 83
Bülow, Minister of Celle, 374
Bussche, Councillor, 30
— marriage of, 31
— Madame, Mistress of George Louis, 32
— banished from Hanover, 59
— George von, 396
C
Cambridge and Prince George Louis, 42
Carlsbad, 109
Caroline, Consort of George IV., 1
— of Anspach, marriage of, 415
Catherine of Braganza, 38
Celle, Castle of, 13
Charleroy, 39
Charles II. of England, 4
Charles, Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 108
— death of, 108
Christian Louis, Duke of Celle, 1
Christian, Duke of Celle, 9
Coalition against Louis XIV., 98
Colt, Sir William Dutton, 101
Consarbrück, 39
Correspondence between Sophie Dorothea and
Königsmarck, 174
— history and authenticity of the, 118
Correspondence, theory of key to cypher, 126
— between Knesebeck and Königsmarck, 198
Court mistresses, 32
Cresset, envoy at Hanover, 354
Crossing the Rubicon, 156
D
Danes, campaign against, 277
Darlington, Countess of, 426
Denmark, King of, 325
De Reuss, Comte, 11
De Tarente, Princess, 7
Dist, 243
D’Olbreuse, Angelica, 11
— Eléonore, 8
— Marquis, 8
Doubts and fears, 189
E
East Friesland, Princess-Dowager of, 160
Edict of Nantes, 7
Elector Palatine of the Rhenish Provinces, 4
Electors of the German Empire, 99
Eléonore d’Olbreuse, 7
— married to George William, 10
— Madame von Harburg, 10
— progress of, 13
— Countess of Wilhelmsburg, 19
— Duchess of Celle, 23
— will of, 412
— death of, 428
Elizabeth, daughter of James I., 3
— Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans, 18
Epsdorff, 146
Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1
Ernest Augustus betrothed to Sophia, 6
— married to Sophia, 6
— attempt to murder, 157
F
Flanders, campaign in, 150
Fortière, Seigneur de la, 371
Foubert’s Academy, 84
Frankfort Fair, 233
Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1
Frederick, Prince Palatine, ex-King of Bohemia, 3
— the Great of Prussia, 75
— Augustus of Saxony, 89
— Elector of Saxony, 329
— William, Crown Prince of Prussia, 416
G
Gadd, J. H., assistant-librarian at Lund, 122
Gardie, Count de la, 121
George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1
— Augustus of Hanover (George II.), birth of, 65
— reminiscences, 405
— attempt to see Sophie Dorothea, 406
— marriage of, 415
— Frederick, Elector of Saxony, 329
— Louis (George I.), birth of, 6
— goes a-wooing, 38
— disposition of, 39
— at the Court of Louis XIV., 39
— visit to England, 40
— betrothed to Sophie Dorothea, 49
— married to Sophie Dorothea, 58
— illness of, 150
— Elector of Hanover, 399
— Knight of the Garter, 409
— King of England, 421
— entry into London, 422
— death of, 441
— William, Duke of Hanover, 1
— betrothed to Sophia, 5
— wooing of Eléonore, 8
— Duke of Celle, 9
— married to Eléonore, 10
— fondness for George II., 405
— death of, 412
German Empire, Electors of, 99
Germany, Emperor of, 14
Ghent, 316
Gloucester, Duke of, 400
Glove, the embroidered, 107
Göhre, 146
Green, Mrs. Everett, 122
H
Hague, Congress at the, 112
Hamelin, Castle of, 158
Hanover, Court of, 59
— Alte Palais, 60
Harburg, Madame von, 10
Heidelberg, 5
Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, 1
Herrenhausen, 61
Hildebrand, Königsmarck’s secretary, 353
Hungary, campaign in, 326
I
Ilse, Abigail, 75
Ilten, General von, 72
— Madame von, 72
J
James I. of England, 3
— II. of England, 71
John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1
K
Kendal, Duchess of, 426
— Countess of Darlington, 426
Knesebeck, Eléonore von, 63
— arrest of, 358
— prisoner at Springe, 374
— examination of, 374
— removal to Schartzfels, 374
— escape of, 403
Köcher, Dr., 373
Königsmarck, Amalie Wilhelmina, 82
— Aurora, 82
— Count Carl John, 83
— trial of, 87
— death of, 88
— Count Philip Christopher, boyhood at Celle, 20
— in England, 26
— at Hanover, 82
— Colonel of Hanoverian Guards, 95
— and Countess Platen, 104
— in the Morea, 106
— return to Hanover, 115
— entertainment by, 115
— correspondence with Sophie Dorothea, 139
— sent to Sweden as envoy, 141
— returns from the war, 233
— at Dresden, 332
— murder of, 340
— burial of, 350
— discovery of body of, 443
L
Lambeque, camp at, 173
Lambeth manuscripts, 38
Lassaye, Marquis de, 72
Leibniz, Professor, 35
Leine Schloss at Hanover, 60
Leopold, Emperor, 98
Lewenhaupt, Countess of, 82
— Count, 82
Linden, battle of, 316
Lockier, Dean, 34
Loo, 408
Louis XIV., 28
— Defender of the Faith, 28
— European coalition against, 98
Ludemann, Bailiff of Ahlden, 425
Luisburg, 217
Lund, University of, 121
Luxemburg, French General, 172
M
Macclesfield, Lord, 409
Maestricht, 39
Malortie, Marshal von, 89
Mannheim, 98
Marlortie, Herr and Madame, 396
Marriage settlement and contract of Sophie Dorothea
and George Louis, 55
Mary, Princess of York, 38
Matilda, daughter of Henry II., 1
Maximilian, Prince of Hanover, 77
— intrigues of, 78
Meissenburg, Count Carl Philip von, 30
— Catherine Marie von, 30
— married to Bussche, 31
— Clara Elizabeth von, 30
— married to Platen, 31
Milan, 3
Moltke conspiracy, 156
— execution of, 174
Monplaisir, 67
Mons, siege and fall of, 113
Morea, the campaign in, 106
N
Namur, siege and fall of, 172
Naples, 72
Neerwinden, battle of, 316
Northumberland, Dowager-Countess of, 84
O
Ogle, Countess of, 84
Osnabrück, 30
— Court of, 30
Otho William, Count, 20
— death of, 92
P
Palmblad, Professor, 121
Passion, the dawn of, 139
Phillipsburg, siege of, 25
Platen, Countess, 31
— marriage of, 31
— opposed to Eléonore, 33
— mistress of Ernest Augustus, 32
— jealousy of, 68
— the power of, 70
— and Königsmarck, 90
— illness of, 391
— retirement to Monplaisir, 400
— death of, 414
Playing with fire, 94
Podevils, Marshal, 249
Poëllnitz (historian), 91
Poley, envoy to Celle, 413
Portsmouth, Duchess of, 30
Primogeniture, establishment of, 77
— opposition to, 78
Prisoner of Ahlden, 388
Prussia, Queen of, correspondence with Sophie
Dorothea, 425
— marriage scheme of, 429
Pyrmont, 19
Q
Querouaille, Louise de, 30
R
Ramel, Baron Hans, 120
Ratze, Marie, 398
Ratzeburg, 258
Reference, books of, 445
Retribution, 437
Reuss, Comte de, 11
— Countess de, 11
Rhine, campaign on the, 39
_Roman Octavia_, 417
Röohlitz, Countess von, 329
Royal mistresses, 331
Rudolph Augustus of Wolfenbüttel, 21
Rupert, Prince, 36
Ryswick, Peace of, 100
S
Sacrifice of Sophie Dorothea, 47
Sandys, Dr., 410
Saxe, Marshal de, 369
Saxony, Augustus, Elector of, 329
Schaumann, 373
Schulenburg, Ermengarda Melusina von, 78
— nickname of, 79
— Duchess of Kendal, 426
Schulenburg-Klosterrode, Count, 122
Sophia, Princess of Bohemia, 3
— betrothed to George William, 5
— betrothed to Ernest Augustus, 6
— married to Ernest Augustus, 6
— Electress of Hanover, genealogy of, 17
— moral character, 34
— and Madame Platen, 34
— and the throne of England, 36
— at Celle, 46
— death of, 420
— Charlotte, Princess of Hanover, 69
— Electress of Brandenburg, 69
Sophie Dorothea of Celle, genealogy of, 1
— birth of, 13
— legitimised, 19
— betrothed to Augustus Frederick of Wolfenbüttel,
22
— betrothed to George Louis of Hanover, 49
— disposition of, 54
— married to George Louis (George I.), 58
— entry into Hanover, 59
— birth of George Augustus, 65
— and Madame Platen, 66
— and Marquis de Lassaye, 72
— birth of Sophie Dorothea (Queen of Prussia), 74
— correspondence with Königsmarck, 174
Sophie Dorothea’s arrival at Ahlden, 362
— divorce of, 371
— prisoner at Ahlden, 392
— petitions of, 401
— return to Celle, 407
— return to Ahlden, 407
— literary labours, 424
— correspondence with Queen of Prussia, 425
— death of, 436
— burial of, 439
— curse of, 440
St. Denis, 39
Steinkirk, battle of, 204
Stepney, envoy at Dresden, 329
Stern, Lieutenant, 86
T
Thynne, Thomas, 85
— murder of, 86
Toland (historian), 410
Treves, siege of, 39
V
Venice, 70
Verona, siege of, 88
Victoria, Queen, 37
Vratz, Captain, 86
W
Westphalia, Treaty of, 1
Weyhe, General, 79
Wienhausen, 152
Wiesbaden, 217
Wilhelmsburg, 19
— Countess of, 19
William of Orange, 40
— and the throne of England, 100
— and the Prince of Wales, 409
Wisdom of serpents, 25
Witgenstein, Count, 366
Y
York, Princess Mary of, 40
— Princess Anne of, 38
— Duke of, 38
THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED.
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Transcriber’s Note
Königsmarck’s name is printed several times without
the umlaut, and has been corrected.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have
been corrected, and are noted here. The references
are to the page and line in the original.
2.36 But, Mons[e]igneur Inserted.
11.42 Geo[gr/rg]e William was glad Transposed.
79.18 To do E[r]mengarda Melusina justice Inserted.
124.5 K[o/ö]nigsmarck’s Replaced.
124.40 Fr[aü/äu]lein Knesebeck Replaced.
146.36 Epsdorff and Göhre[.] Added.
162.8 K[o/ö]nigsmarck Replaced.
162.17 to have sounded K[o/ö]nigsmarck Replaced.
162.40 K[o/ö]nigsmarck Replaced.
225.20 you wrote from Eimbeck[.] Added.
269.20 the end of the week for Brockhausen.[’/”] Replaced.
315.18 Let us taste its delights.[”/’] Replaced.
448.8 Crossing the [r/R]ubicon Replaced.
448.39 Duke of Brunswick[-]Lüneburg Added.
449.42 Meissenbu[r]g, Count Carl Philip von, 30 Inserted.