THE KÖNIGSMARKS.
Count Charles John Königsmark’s roving and adventurous life--The
great heiress--An intriguing countess--‘Tom of Ten Thousand’--The
murder of Lord John Thynne--The fate of the count’s
accomplices--Court influence shelters the guilty count.
The circumstance of the sojourn of a Count Königsmark at Zell, during
the childhood of Sophia Dorothea, has been before noticed. Originally
the family of the Königsmarks was of the Mark of Brandenburgh, but a
chief of the family settled in Sweden, and the name carried lustre
with it into more than one country. In the army, the cabinet, and the
church, the Königsmarks had representatives of whom they might be
proud; and generals, statesmen, and prince-bishops, all labouring with
glory in their respective departments, sustained the high reputation of
this once celebrated name. From the period, early in the seventeenth
century, that the first Königsmark (Count John Christopher) withdrew
from the imperial service and joined that of Sweden, the men of that
house devoted themselves, almost exclusively, to the profession of
arms. This Count John is famous as the subduer of Prague, in 1648, at
the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Of all the costly booty which he
carried with him from that city, none has continued to be so well cared
for by the Swedes as the silver book containing the Mœso-Gothic Gospels
of Bishop Ulphilas, still preserved with pride at learned Upsal.
John Christopher was the father of two sons. Otho William, a marshal
of France, a valued friend of Charles XII., and a gallant servant
of the state of Venice, whose government honoured his tomb with an
inscription, _Semper Victori_, was the younger. He was pious as well
as brave, and he enriched German literature with a collection of
very fervid and spiritual hymns. The elder son, Conrad Christopher,
was killed in the year 1673, when fighting on the Dutch and imperial
side, at the siege of Bonn. He left four children, three of whom
became famous. His sons were Charles John, and Philip Christopher. His
daughters were Maria Aurora (mother of the famous Maurice of Saxony)
and Amelia Wilhelmina. The latter was fortunate enough to achieve
happiness without being celebrated. If she has not been talked of
beyond her own Swedish fireside, she passed there a life of as calm
felicity as she and her husband, Charles von Loewenhaupt, could enjoy
when they had relations so celebrated, and so troublesome, as Counts
Charles John and Philip Christopher, and the Countess Maria Aurora,
the ‘favourite’ of Augustus of Poland, and the only royal concubine,
perhaps, who almost deserved as much respect as though she had won
greatness by a legitimate process.
It was this Philip Christopher who was for a brief season the
playfellow or companion of Sophia Dorothea, in the young days of both,
in the quiet gardens and galleries of Zell. It is only told of him
that, after his departure from Zell, he sojourned with various members
of his family, travelled with them, and returned at intervals to reside
with his mother, Maria Christina, of the German family of Wrangel, who
unhappily survived long enough to be acquainted with the crimes as well
as misfortunes of three of her children.
In the year 1682, Philip Christopher was in England. The elder
brother, who had more than once been a visitor to this country, and a
welcome, because a witty, one at the Court of Charles II., had brought
his younger brother hither, in order (so it was said) to have him
instructed more completely in the tenets of the Protestant religion,
and ultimately to place him at Oxford. In the meantime Charles John
lodged Philip with a ‘governor,’ at the riding academy, near the
Haymarket, of that Major Foubert, whose second establishment (where he
taught ‘noble horsemanship’) is still commemorated by the passage out
of Regent Street, which bears the name of the French Protestant refugee
and professor of equestrianism.
The elder brother of these two Königsmarks was a superb scoundrel. He
had led a roving and adventurous life, and was in England when not more
that fifteen years of age, in the year 1674. During the next half-dozen
years he had rendered the ladies of the Court of France ecstatic at
his impudence, and had won golden opinions from the ‘marine knights’
of Malta, whom he had accompanied on a ‘caravane,’ or cruise, against
the Turks, wherein he took hard blows cheerfully, and had well-nigh
been drowned by his impetuous gallantry. At some of the courts of
southern Europe he appeared with an éclat which made the men hate and
envy him; but nowhere did he produce more effect than at Madrid, where
he appeared at the period of the festivities held to celebrate the
marriage of Charles II. with Maria Louisa of Orleans. The marriage of
the last-named august pair was followed by the fiercest and the finest
bull-fights which had ever been witnessed in Spain. At one of these
Charles John made himself the champion of a lady, fought in her honour
in the arena, with the wildest bull of the company, and got dreadfully
mauled for his pains. His horse was slain, and he himself, staggering
and faint, and blind with loss of blood, and with deep wounds, had
finally only strength enough left to pass his sword into the neck of
the other brute, his antagonist, and to be carried half-dead and quite
senseless out of the arena, amid the approbation of the gentle ladies,
who purred applause upon the unconscious hero, like satisfied tigresses.
In 1681, at the age of twenty-two, master of all manly vices, and ready
for any adventure, he was once more in England, where he seized the
opportunity afforded him by the times and their events, and hastened
to join the expedition against Tangier. On the conclusion of the warm
affair at Tangier, he went as an amateur against the Algerines, and
without commission inflicted on them and their ‘uncle’ (as the word
_dey_ implies) as much injury as though he had been chartered general
at the head of a destroying host. When he returned to England, he was
received with enthusiasm. His handsome face, his long flaxen hair, his
stupendous periwig for state occasions, and his ineffable impudence,
made him the delight of the impudent people of those impudent times.
Now, of all those people, the supercilious Charles John cared but for
one, and she, there is reason to believe, knew little and cared less
for this presuming scion of the House of Königsmark.
Joscelyn, eleventh Earl of Northumberland, who died in the year
1670--the last of the male line of his house--left an only daughter,
four years of age, named Elizabeth. Her father’s death made her the
possessor--awaiting her majority--of vast wealth, to which increase was
made by succession to other inheritances. Her widowed mother married
Ralph Montague, English ambassador in Paris. When the widow of Joscelyn
espoused Montague, her daughter Elizabeth went to reside with the
mother of Joscelyn, Dowager Countess of Northumberland, and co-heiress
to the Suffolk estate, destined to be added to the possessions of the
little Elizabeth. She was an intriguing, indelicate, self-willed, and
worthless old woman; and with respect to the poor little girl of whom
she was the unworthy guardian, she made her the subject of constant
intrigues with men of power who wished for wealth, and with rich men
who wished for rank and power. Before the unhappy little heiress had
attained the age of thirteen, her grandmother had bound her in marriage
with Henry Cavendish, Earl Ogle. Though the ceremony was performed, the
parties did not, of course, reside together. The dowager countess and
the earl were satisfied that the fortune of the heiress was secured,
and they were further content to wait for what might follow.
That which followed was what they least expected--death; the bridegroom
died within a year of his union with Elizabeth Percy; and this child,
wife, and widow was again at the disposal of her wretched grandmother.
The heiress of countless thousands was anything but the mistress of
herself.
At this period the proprietor of the house and domain of Longleat, in
Wiltshire, was that Thomas Thynne, whom Dryden has celebrated as the
Issachar of his ‘Absalom and Achitophel.’ He was the friend of the
Duke of Monmouth, was spoken of as ‘Tom of Ten Thousand,’ and was a
very unworthy fellow, although the member of a worthy house. Tom’s
Ten Thousand virtues were of that metal which the Dowager Countess of
Northumberland most approved; and her grand-daughter had not been many
months the widow of Lord Ogle, when her precious guardian united her
by private marriage to Thynne. The newly-married couple were at once
separated. The marriage was the result of an infamous intrigue between
infamous people, some of whom, subsequently to Thynne’s death, sued
his executors for money which he had bound himself to pay for services
rendered to further the marriage.
When Charles John Königsmark returned to England, in January 1682, all
England was talking of the match wherein a poor child had been sold,
although the purchaser had not yet possession of either his victim or
her fortune. The common talk must have had deep influence on the count,
who appears to have been impressed with the idea that if Thynne were
dead, Count Charles John Königsmark might succeed to his place and
expectations.
On the evening of Sunday, the 12th of February 1682, Thynne was in
his coach, from which the Duke of Monmouth had only just previously
alighted, and was riding along that part of Pall-Mall which abuts
upon Cockspur Street, when the carriage was stopped by three men on
horseback, one of whom discharged a carbine into it, whereby Tom of Ten
Thousand was so desperately wounded that he died in a few hours.
The persons charged with this murder were chiefly discovered by means
of individuals of ill repute with whom they associated. By such means
were arrested a German, Captain Vratz, Borosky a Pole, and a fellow,
half knave, half enthusiast, described as Lieutenant Stern. Vratz had
accompanied Königsmark to England. They lodged together, first in the
Haymarket, next in Rupert Street, and finally in St. Martin’s Lane.
Borosky had been clothed and armed at the count’s expense; and Stern
was employed as a likely tool to help them in this enterprise. It was
proved on the trial, that, after the deed was committed, these men
were at the count’s lodgings, that a sudden separation took place,
and that the count himself, upon some sudden fear, took flight to
the water-side; there he lay hid for a while, and then dodged about
the river, in various disguises, in order to elude pursuit, until he
finally landed at Gravesend, where he was pounced upon by two expert
thief-catchers.
The confession of the accomplices, save Vratz, did not affect the
count. _His_ defence took a high Protestant turn--made allusion to
his Protestant ancestors and their deeds in behalf of Protestantism,
lauded Protestant England, alluded to his younger brother, brought
expressly here to be educated in Protestant principles, and altogether
was exceedingly clever, but in no wise convincing. It was known that
the King would learn with pleasure that the count had been acquitted.
As this knowledge was possessed by judges who were removable at the
King’s pleasure, it had a strong influence; and the arch-murderer, the
most cowardly of the infamous company, was acquitted accordingly. In
his case, the verdict, as regarded him, was given in, last. The other
three persons were indicted for the actual commission of the fact,
Königsmark as accessory before the fact, hiring them, and instigating
them to the crime. Thrice he had heard the word ‘Guilty’ pronounced,
and, despite his recklessness, was somewhat moved when the jury were
asked as to their verdict respecting _him_. ‘Not Guilty,’ murmured
the foreman; and then the noble count, mindful only of himself, and
forgetful of the three unhappy men whom he had dragged to death,
exclaimed in his unmanly joy, ‘God bless the King, and this honourable
bench!’ The meaner assassins were flung to the gallows. Vratz went to
his fate, like Pierre; declared that the murder was the result of a
mistake, that he had no hand in it, and that as he was a gentleman, God
would assuredly deal with him _as_ such! This ‘gentleman’ accounted
for his presence at the murder as having arisen by his entertaining a
quarrel with Mr. Thynne, whom he was about to challenge, when the Pole,
mistaking his orders and inclinations, discharged his carbine into the
carriage, and slew the occupant. The other two confessed to the murder,
as the hired instruments of Vratz. Count Charles John repaired to the
Court of France, where he was received in that sort of gentlemanly
fashion which Vratz looked for in Paradise. His sword gleamed in many
an action fought in various battle-fields of Europe during the next
few years, at the head of a French regiment, of which he was colonel.
Finally, in 1686, he was in the service of the Venetians in the Morea.
On the 29th of August he was before Argos, when a sortie was made by
the garrison, and in the bloody struggle which ensued he was mortally
wounded. For Thynne’s monument in Westminster Abbey a Latin inscription
was prepared, which more than merely hinted that Königsmark was the
murderer of Tom of Ten Thousand. ‘Small, servile, Spratt,’ then Dean
of Westminster, would not allow the inscription to be set up; and his
apologists, who advance in his behalf that he would have done wrong had
he allowed a man, cleared by a jury from the charge of murder, to be
permanently set down in hard record of marble as an assassin, have much
reason in what they advance.
The youthful maid, wife, and widow, Lady Ogle, remained at Amsterdam
(whither she had gone, some persons said _fled_), after her marriage
with Thynne, until the three of his murderers, who had been executed,
had expiated their crime, as far as human justice was concerned, upon
the scaffold. She then returned to England; but the young lady did not
‘appear public,’ as the phrase went, for six or seven weeks, and when
she did so, it was found that she had just married Charles Seymour,
third Duke of Somerset--a match which made one of two silly persons and
a couple of colossal fortunes.
This red-haired lady died in the fifty-sixth year of her age, A.D.
1722; and the duke, then sixty-four, found speedy consolation for his
loss in a marriage with the youthful Lady Charlotte Finch, who was at
once his wife, nurse, and secretary. It is said of her, that she one
day, in the course of conversation, tapped her husband familiarly on
the shoulder with her fan; whereupon that amiable gentleman indignantly
cried out: ‘Madam, my first wife was a Percy, and she never took such a
liberty!’
Königsmark, whose fate was so bound up with that of Sophia Dorothea,
left England with his brother, and like his brother, he led an
adventurous and roving life, never betraying any symptom of the
Christian spirit of the religion of the Church of England, of which
he first tasted what little could be found in Major Foubert’s
riding-school. A portion of his time was spent at Hamburg with his
mother and two sisters. His renown was sufficient for a cavalier who
loved to live splendidly; and when he appeared at the Court of Hanover,
in search of military employment, he was welcomed as cavaliers are
who are so comfortably endowed. In 1688 we first hear of him in the
electoral capital, bearing arms under the Elector and a guest at the
table of George Louis and Sophia Dorothea. This was a year after the
birth of the second and last child of that ill-matched couple.