THE CATASTROPHE.
The scheming mother foiled--Count Königsmark too garrulous
in his cups--An eaves-dropper--A forged note--A mistress’s
revenge--Murder of the count--The Countess Aurora Königsmark’s
account of her brother’s intimacy with the princess--Horror of
the princess on hearing of the count’s death--Seizure and escape
of Mademoiselle von Knesebeck--A divorce mooted--The princess’s
declaration of her innocence--Decision of the consistorial
court--The sages of the law foiled by the princess--Condemned
to captivity in the castle of Ahlden--Decision procured by
bribery--Bribery universal in England--The Countess Aurora
Königsmark becomes the mistress of Augustus, King of Poland--Her
unsuccessful mission to Charles XII.--Exemplary conduct in her
latter years--Becomes prioress of the nunnery of Quedlinburg.
With the return of Sophia Dorothea to Hanover, her enemies appear to
have commenced more actively their operations against her. George Louis
was languidly amusing himself with Ermengarda von der Schulenburg and
their little daughter Petronilla Melusina. The Countess von Platen
was in a state of irritability at the presence of Sophia Dorothea
and the absence of Königsmark. The last-mentioned person had, in his
wide-spread adoration, offered a portion of his homage to both the
countess and her daughter. The elder lady, while accepting as much of
the incense for herself as was safe to inhale, endeavoured to secure
the count as a husband for her daughter. Her failure only increased her
bitterness against the count, and by no means lent less asperity to the
sentiment with which she viewed Sophia Dorothea. She was, no doubt,
the chief cause, primarily and approximate, of the ruin which fell upon
both.
It was not merely the absence of Königsmark, who was on a visit to
the riotous court of Augustus of Saxony, which had scared her spirit;
the reports which were made to her of his conversation there gave
fierceness to her resentment, and called into existence that desire
of vengeance which she accomplished, but without profiting by the
wickedness.
There was no more welcome guest at Dresden than Königsmark. An
individual, so gallant of bearing, handsome of feature, easy of
principle, and lively of speech, was sure to be warmly welcomed at that
dissolute court. He played deeply, and whatever sums he might lose, he
never lost his temper. He drank as deeply as he played, and he then
became as loquacious as Cassio, but more given to slander. He spoke ill
of others out of mere thoughtlessness, or at times out of mere vanity.
He possessed not what Swift calls the ‘lower prudence’ of discretion.
His vanity, and the stories to which it prompted him, seemed to amuse
and interest the idle and scandalous court where he was so welcome a
guest.
He kept the illustriously wicked company there in an uninterrupted
ecstacy by the tales he told, and the point he gave to them, of the
chief personages of the Court of Hanover. He retailed anecdotes of the
Elector and his son, George Louis, and warmly-tinted stories of the
shameless mistresses of that exemplary parent, and no less exemplary
child. He did not spare even the Electress Sophia; but she was, after
all, too respectable for Königsmark to be able to make of her a subject
of ridicule. This subject he found in ladies of smaller virtue and less
merit generally. But every word he uttered, in sarcastic description of
the life, character, and behaviour of the favourites of the Elector of
Hanover and his son, found its way, with no loss of pungency on the
road, to the ears of those persons whom the report was most likely to
offend. His warm advocacy of Sophia Dorothea, expressed at the table of
Augustus of Saxony, was only an additional offence; and George Louis
was taught to think that Count Königsmark had no right to ask, with
Pierre, ‘May not a man wish his friend’s wife well, and no harm done?’
The count returned to Hanover soon after Sophia Dorothea had arrived
there, subsequent to her painful visit to the little court of her
ducal parents at Zell. Königsmark, who had entered the Saxon service,
returned to Hanover to complete the form of withdrawal from service
in the Hanoverian army. It is alleged that Sophia Dorothea, otherwise
friendless, entreated him to procure her an asylum, or to protect
her in her flight to the court of her kinsman, Duke Anton Ulrich, at
Wolfenbüttel. The duke is reported to have been willing to receive
her. Other reports state that the princess was more than willing to
fly with Königsmark to Paris! Out of all such rumours there is this
certainty, that on Sunday, the 1st of July 1694 (George Louis being
then in Berlin), Königsmark found a letter in pencil on a table in the
sitting-room of his house in Hanover. It was to this effect: ‘To-night,
after ten o’clock, the Princess Sophia Dorothea will expect Count
Königsmark.’ He recognised the hand of the princess. All that afternoon
he was busy writing. His secretary and servants thought his manner
strange. He went out soon after ten, unattended. He was in a light,
simple, summer-dress. He went on his way to the palace, crossed the
threshold, and never was seen outside it again.
The note was a forged document, confessedly by the Countess von Platen,
when confession came too late for the repair of evil which could not be
undone. Nevertheless, the count, on presenting himself to Mademoiselle
Knesebeck, the lady of honour to the princess, was admitted to the
presence of the latter. This indiscreet step was productive of
terrible consequences to all the three who were present. The count,
on being asked to explain the reason of his seeking an interview
with the princess at an advanced hour of the evening, produced the
note of invitation, which Sophia Dorothea at once pronounced to be a
forgery. Had they then separated little of ill consequence might have
followed. The most discreet of the three, and the most perplexed at the
‘situation,’ was the lady of honour. The ‘Memoirs’ which bear her name,
and which describe this scene, present to us a woman of some weakness,
yet one not wanting in discernment.
Sophia Dorothea, it would seem, could dwell upon no subject but that of
her domestic troubles, the cruel neglect of her husband, and her desire
to find somewhere the refuge from persecution which had been denied
to her in her old home at Zell. More dangerous topics could not have
been treated by two such persons. The count, it is affirmed, was the
first to suggest that Paris would afford her such a refuge, and that
he should be but too happy to be permitted to give her such protection
as she could derive from his escort thither. This was probably rather
hinted than suggested; but however that may be, only one course should
have followed even a distant hint leading to so unwarrantable an
end. The interview should have been brought to a close. It was still
continued, nevertheless, to the annoyance, if not scandal, of the
faithful Knesebeck, whose fears may have received some little solace on
hearing her mistress reiterate her desire to find at least a temporary
home at the court of her cousin, Duke Anton Ulrich of Wolfenbüttel.
While this discussion was proceeding, the Countess von Platen was
by no means idle. She had watched the count to the bower into which
she had sent him by the employment of a false lure, and she thereupon
hastened to the Elector to communicate what she termed her discovery.
Ernest Augustus, albeit waxing old, was by no means infirm of judgment.
If Königsmark was then in the chamber of his daughter-in-law, he
refused to see in the fact anything more serious than its own
impropriety. _That_, however, was crime enough to warrant the arrest
which the countess solicited. The old Elector yielded to all she asked,
except credence of her assurance that Sophia Dorothea must be as guilty
as Königsmark was presuming. He would consent to nothing further than
the arrest of him who was guilty of the presumption; and the method
of this arrest he left to the conduct of the countess, who urgently
solicited it as a favour, and with solicitation of such earnestness
that the old Elector affected to be jealous of the interest she took in
such a case, and added playfully the expression of his opinion, that,
angry as she seemed to be with the count, he was too handsome a man to
be likely to meet with ill-treatment at her hands.
Armed with this permission, she proceeded to the body of soldiers
or watch for the night, and exhibiting her written warrant for what
she demanded, requested that a guard might be given to her, for a
purpose which she would explain to them. Some four or five men of this
household body were told off, and these were conducted by her to a
large apartment, called the Hall of Knights, through which Königsmark
must pass, as he had not yet quitted the princess’s chamber.
They were then informed that their office was to arrest a criminal,
whose person was described to them, of whose safe custody the Elector
was so desirous that he would rather that such criminal should be
slain than that he should escape. They were accordingly instructed
to use their weapons if he should resist; and as their courage had
been heightened by the double bribe of much wine and a shower of gold
pieces, they expressed their willingness to execute her bidding, and
only too well showed by their subsequent act the sincerity of their
expression.
At length Königsmark appeared, coming from the princess’s apartment.
It was now midnight. He entered the Ritter Hall, unsuspecting the fate
before him. In this hall was a huge, square, ponderous stove, looking
like a mausoleum, silent and cold. It reached from floor to roof, and,
hidden by one of its sides, the guard awaited the coming of the count.
He approached the spot, passed it, was seized from behind, and he
immediately drew his sword to defend himself from attack. His enemies
gave him but scant opportunity to assail them in his own defence, and
after a few wild passes with his weapon, he was struck down by the
spear, or old-fashioned battle-axe, of one of the guards, and when he
fell there were three wounds in him, out of any one of which life might
find passage.
On feeling himself grow faint, he--and in this case, like a true and
gallant man--thought of the lady and her reputation. The last words
he uttered were, ‘Spare the innocent princess!’ soon after which he
expired; but not before, as is reported by those who love to dwell
minutely on subjects of horror, not before the Countess von Platen had
set her foot triumphantly upon his bloody face.
Such is the German detail of this assassination. It is added, that
it gave extreme annoyance to the Elector, to whom it was immediately
communicated; that the body was forthwith consigned to a secure
resting-place, and covered with lime; and that the whole bloody drama
was enacted without any one being aware of what was going on, save the
actors themselves.
In Cramer’s ‘Memoirs of the Countess of Königsmark,’ the fate of the
count is told upon the alleged evidence of a so-called eye-witness.
It differs in several respects from other accounts, but is clear and
simple in its details. It is to the following effect:--
‘Bernhard Zayer, a native of Heidelberg, in the Palatinate, a wax-image
maker and artist in lacquer-work, was engaged by the Electoral Princess
to teach her his art. Being, on this account, continually in the
princess’s apartment, he had frequently seen Count Königsmark there,
who looked on while the princess worked. He once learned in confidence,
from the Electoral Princess’s groom of the chambers, that the Electoral
Prince was displeased about the count, and had sworn to break his
neck, which Bernhard revealed to the princess, who answered:--“Let
them attack Königsmark: he knows how to defend himself.” Some time
afterwards there was an opera, but the princess was unwell and kept
her bed. The opera began, and as the count was absent as well as the
princess, first a page and then the hoff-fourier were sent out for
intelligence. The hoff-fourier came back running, and whispered to
the Electoral Prince, and then to his highness the Elector. But the
Electoral Prince went away from the opera with the hoff-fourier. Now
Bernhard saw all this and knew what it meant, and as he knew the count
was with the princess, he left the opera secretly, to warn her; and
as he went in at the door, the other door was opened, and two masked
persons rushed in, one exclaiming, “So! then I find you!” The count,
who was sitting on the bed, with his back to the door by which the two
entered, started up, and whipped out his sword, saying, “Who can say
anything unbecoming of me?” The princess, clasping her hands, said “I,
a princess, am I not allowed to converse with a gentleman?” But the
masks, without listening to reason, slashed and stabbed away at the
count. But he pressed so upon both, that the Electoral Prince unmasked,
and begged for his life, while the hoff-fourier came behind the count,
and run him through between the ribs with his sword, so that he fell,
saying, “You are murderers, before God and man, who do me wrong!”
But they both of them gave him more wounds, so that he lay as dead.
Bernhard, seeing all this, hid himself behind the door of the other
room.’
Bernhard was subsequently sent by the princess to spy out what they
would do with Königsmark.
‘When the count was in the vault, he came a little to himself, and
spoke:--“You take a guiltless man’s life. On that I’ll die, but do not
let me perish like a dog, in my blood and my sins. Grant me a priest,
for my soul’s sake.” Then the _Electoral Prince went out_, and the
fourier remained alone with him. Then was a strange parson fetched,
and a strange executioner, and the fourier fetched a great chair. And
when the count had confessed, he was so weak that three or four of them
lifted him into the chair; and there _in the prince’s presence_ was
his head laid at his feet. And they had tools with them, and they dug
a hole in the right corner of the vault, and there they laid him, and
there he must be to be found. When all was over, this Bernhard slipped
away from the castle; and indeed Counsellor Lucius, who was a friend
of the princess’s, sent him some of his livery to save him; for they
sought him in all corners, because they had seen him in the room during
the affray.... And what Bernhard Zayer saw in the vault, he saw through
a crack.’
Clear as this narrative is in its details, it is contradictory and
rests on small basis of truth. The Electoral Prince was undoubtedly
absent on the night Königsmark was murdered.
The Countess Aurora of Königsmark has left a statement of her brother’s
intimacy with the princess, in which the innocence of the latter is
maintained, but _his_ imprudence acknowledged. The statement referred
to explains the guilty nature of the intercourse kept up between
Königsmark and the Countess von Platen. It is written in terms of
extreme indelicacy. We may add that the faithful von Knesebeck, on
whose character no one ever cast an imputation, in her examination
before the judges, argued the innocence of her accused mistress upon
grounds the nature of which cannot even be alluded to. The princess, it
is clear, had urged Königsmark to renew his interrupted intrigue with
von Platen, out of dread that the latter, taking the princess as the
cause of the intercourse having been broken off, should work a revenge,
which she did not hesitate to menace, upon the princess herself.
The details of all the stories are marked by great improbability, and
they have not been substantiated by the alleged death-bed confessions
of the Countess von Platen, and Baumain, one of the guards--the two
criminals having, without so intending it, confessed to the same
clergyman, a minister named Kramer! Though these confessions are spoken
of, and are even cited by German authors, their authenticity cannot be
warranted. At all events, there is an English version of the details of
this murder given by Horace Walpole; and as that lively writer founded
his lugubrious details upon authority which he deemed could not be
gainsaid, they may fairly find a place, by way of supplement to the
foreign version.
‘Königsmark’s vanity,’ says Walpole, ‘the beauty of the Electoral
Princess, and the neglect under which he found her, encouraged his
presumptions to make his addresses to her, not covertly, and she,
though believed not to have transgressed her duty, did receive them too
indiscreetly. The old Elector flamed at the insolence of so stigmatised
a pretender, and ordered him to quit his dominions the next day. This
princess, surrounded by women too closely connected with her husband
and consequently enemies of the lady they injured, was persuaded by
them to suffer the count to kiss her hand, before his abrupt departure;
and he was actually introduced by them into her bedchamber the next
morning before she rose. From that moment he disappeared, nor was it
known what became of him, till on the death of George I., on his son,
the new King’s first journey to Hanover, some alterations in the palace
being ordered by him, the body of Königsmark was discovered under the
floor of the Electoral Princess’s dressing-room--the count having
probably been strangled there, the instant he left her, and his body
secreted. The discovery was hushed up. George II. (the son of Sophia
Dorothea) entrusted the secret to his wife, Queen Caroline, who told it
to my father; but the King was too tender of the honour of his mother
to utter it to his mistress; nor did Lady Suffolk ever hear of it, till
I informed her of it several years afterwards. The disappearance of the
count made his murder suspected, and various reports of the discovery
of his body have of late years been spread, but not with the authentic
circumstances.’
To turn to the German sources of information: we are told by these,
that after the departure of Königsmark from the chamber of the
princess, she was engaged in arranging her papers, and in securing her
jewels, preparatory, as she hoped, to her anticipated removal to the
Court of Wolfenbüttel. Königsmark must have been murdered and the body
made away with silently and swiftly, for not a dweller in the palace
was disturbed by the doing of this bloody deed. All signs of its having
been done had been so effaced that no trace of it was left to attract
notice in the early morning. On that next morning the count’s servants
were not troubled at his absence; such an occurrence was not unusual.
When it was prolonged and enquiry became necessary, nothing could be
learnt of him. Every soul in the palace was silent, designedly or
through ignorance. Rumour, of course, was busy and full of confidence
in what it put forth. George Louis himself said that the gay count
would reappear, perhaps, when least expected. The tremendous secret was
faithfully kept by the few who knew the truth; and when speculation was
busiest as to the count’s whereabout, there was probably no atom of his
body left, if it be true that it had been cast into a drain and had
been consumed in slack-lime.
The princess was, for a time, kept in ignorance of the count’s
assassination; but she was perplexed by his disappearance, and alarmed
when she heard that all his papers had been seized and conveyed to
the Elector for his examination. Some notes had passed between them:
and, innocent as they were, she felt annoyed at the thought that their
existence should be known, still more that they should be perused. To
their most innocent expressions the Countess von Platen, who examined
them with the Elector, gave a most guilty interpretation; and she so
wrought upon Ernest Augustus, that he commissioned no less a person
than the Count von Platen to interrogate the princess on the subject.
She did not lack spirit; and when the coarse-minded count began to put
coarse questions to her, as to the degree of intercourse which had
existed between herself and the count, she spiritedly remarked that he
appeared to imagine that he was examining into the conduct of his own
wife; a thrust which he repaid by bluntly informing her that whatever
intercourse may have existed, it would never be renewed, seeing that
sure intelligence had been received of Königsmark’s death.
Sophia Dorothea, shocked at this information, and at the manner
in which it was conveyed, had no friend in whom she could repose
confidence but her faithful lady-in-waiting, Fräulein von Knesebeck.
The princess could have had no more ardent defender than this worthy
attendant. But the assertions made by the latter, in favour of the
mistress whom she loved, were not at all to the taste of the enemies of
that mistress, and the speedy result was, that Fräulein von Knesebeck
was arrested and carried away to the castle of Schartzfeld in the
Hartz. She was there kept in confinement many years; but she ultimately
escaped so cleverly through the roof, by the help of a tiler, or a
friend in the likeness of a tiler, that the credit of the success of
the attempt was given by the governor of the gaol to the demons of the
adjacent mountains. She subsequently became lady-in-waiting to Sophia
Dorothea’s daughter.
Sophia Dorothea had now but one immediate earnest wish, namely, to
retire from Hanover. Already the subject of a divorce had been mooted,
but the Elector being somewhat fearful that a divorce might affect
his son’s succession to his wife’s inheritance, and even obstruct the
union of Zell with Hanover, an endeavour was made to reconcile the
antagonistic spouses, and to bury past dissensions in oblivion.
It was previous to this attempt being entered upon, and perhaps because
it was contemplated, that the princess voluntarily underwent a very
solemn ordeal. The ceremony was as public as it could be rendered by
the presence of part of the Electoral family and the great official
dignitaries of the church and government. Before them Sophia Dorothea
partook of the sacrament, and then made solemn protestation of her
innocence, and of her unspotted faith towards the Electoral Prince,
her husband. At the termination of this ceremony she was insulted by
an incredulous smile which she saw upon the face of Count von Platen;
whereat the natural woman was moved within her to ask him if his own
excellent wife could take the same oath, in attestation of her unbroken
faithfulness to _him_!
The strange essay at reconciliation was marred by an attempt made to
induce the Electoral Princess to confess that she had been guilty of
sins of disobedience towards the expressed will of her consort. All
endeavour in this direction was fruitless; and though grave men made
it, it shows how very little they comprehended their delicate mission.
The princess remained fixed in her desire to withdraw from Hanover; but
when she was informed of the wound this would be to the feelings of
the Elector and Electress, and that George Louis himself was heartily
averse to it, she began to waver, and applied to her friends at Zell,
among others to Bernstorf, the Hanoverian minister there, asking for
counsel in this her great need.
Bernstorf, an ally of the von Platens, secretly advised her to insist
upon leaving Hanover. He assured her, pledging his word for what he
said, that she would find a happy asylum at Zell; that even her father,
so long estranged from her, would receive her with open arms; and that
in the adoption of such a step alone could she hope for happiness and
peace during the remainder of her life.
She was as untruthfully served by some of the ladies of her circle,
who, while professing friendship and fidelity, were really the spies
of her husband and her husband’s mistress. They were of that class
of women who were especially bred for courts and court intrigues,
and whose hopes of fortune rested upon their doing credit to their
education.
As the princess not merely insisted upon quitting Hanover, but firmly
refused to acknowledge that she had been guilty of any wrong to her
most guilty husband, a course was adopted by her enemies which, they
considered, would not merely punish her, but would transfer her
possessions to her consort, without affecting the long projected union
of Zell, after the duke’s death, with the territory of Hanover. An
accusation of adultery, even if it could be sustained, of which there
was not the shadow of a chance, might, if carried out and followed by
a divorce, in some way affect the transfer of a dominion to Hanover,
which transfer rested partly on the rights of the wife of the Electoral
Prince. A divorce might destroy the ex-husband’s claims; but he was
well-provided with lawyers to watch and guard the case to an ultimate
conclusion in his favour.
A Consistorial Court was formed, of a strangely mixed character,
for it consisted of four ecclesiastical lawyers and four civil
authorities of Hanover and Zell. It had no other authority to warrant
its proceedings than the command or sanction of the Elector, and the
consent of the Duke of Zell, whose ill-feeling towards his child seemed
to increase daily. The only charge laid against the princess before
this anomalous court was one of incompatibility of temper, added to
some little failings of character; not the most distant allusion to
serious guilt with Königsmark, or any one else, was made. His name was
never once mentioned. Her consent to live again in Hanover and let
by-gones be by-gones was indignantly refused by her. She would never,
she protested, live again among people who had murdered the only man
in the world who loved her well enough to be a friend to her who was
otherwise friendless. Her passionate tears flowed abundantly; Fräulein
von Knesebeck states that whenever the mysterious fate of Königsmark
was referred to, the princess’s grief was so violent that it might
almost lead those who witnessed it to suspect that she took too great
an interest in the man made away with almost at her chamber-door.
The court affected to attempt an adjustment of the matter; but as
the attempt was always based on another to drag from the princess a
confession of her having, wittingly or unwittingly, given cause of
offence to her husband, she continued firmly to refuse to place her
consort in the right by doing herself and her cause extremest wrong.
In the meantime, during an adjournment of the court, she withdrew
to Lauenau. She was prohibited from repairing to Zell, but there
was no longer any opposition made to her leaving the capital of the
Electorate. She was, however, strictly prohibited from taking her
children with her. Her parting from these was as painful a scene as can
well be imagined, for she is said to have felt that she would never
again be united with them. Her son, George Augustus, was then ten years
of age; her daughter, Sophia, was still younger. The homage of these
children was rendered to their mother long after their hearts had
ceased to pay any to their father beyond a mere conventional respect.
In her temporary retirement at Lauenau, she was permitted to enjoy
very little repose. The friends of the Electoral Prince seem to have
been anxious lest she should publish more than was yet known of the
details of his private life. This fear alone can account for their
anxiety, or professed anxiety, for a reconciliation. The lawyers,
singly or in couples, and now and then a leash of them together,
went down to Lauenau to hold conference with her. They assailed her
socially, scripturally, legally; they pointed out how salubrious was
the discipline which subjected a wife to confess her faults. They
read to her whole chapters from Corinthians, on the duties of married
ladies, and asked her if she could be so obstinate and unorthodox as
to disregard the injunctions of St. Paul. Finally, they quoted codes
and pandects, to prove that a sentence might be pronounced against
her under contumacy, and concluded by recommending her to trust to
the mercy of the Crown Prince, if she would but cast herself upon his
honour.
They were grave men; sage, learned, experienced men; crafty, cunning,
far-seeing men; in all the circles of the empire men were not to be
found more skilled in surmounting difficulties than these indefatigable
men, who were all foiled by the simplicity and firmness of a mere
child. ‘If I am guilty,’ said she, ‘I am unworthy of the prince: if I
am innocent, he is unworthy of me!’
Here was a conclusion with which she utterly confounded the sages. They
could not gainsay it, nor refute the logic by which it was arrived at,
and which gave it force. They were ‘perplexed in the extreme,’ but
neither social experience, nor scriptural reading, nor legal knowledge
afforded them weapons wherewith to beat down the simple defences behind
which the princess had entrenched herself. They tried repeatedly,
but tried in vain. At the end of every trial she slowly and calmly
enunciated the same reply:--‘If I am guilty I am unworthy of him: if I
am innocent, he is unworthy of me!’
From this text she would not depart; nor could all the chicanery of
all the courts of Germany move her. ‘At least,’ said the luminaries
of the law, as they took their way homewards, _re infecta_, ‘at least
this woman may, of a surety, be convicted of obstinacy.’ We always
stigmatise as obstinate those whom we cannot convince. It is the only,
and the poor, triumph of the vanquished.
This triumph was achieved by the Consistory Court, the members of
which, unable to prove the princess guilty of crime, were angry because
she would not even confess to the commission of a fault; that is,
of such a fault as should authorise her husband, covered with guilt
triple-piled, to separate from her person, yet maintain present and
future property over her estates.
In point of fact, George Louis did not wish to be separated from his
wife. His counsel, Rath Livius, accused her, in her husband’s name,
of lack of both love and obedience towards him; of having falsely
charged him with infidelity, to his parents and her own; and of
having repeatedly refused to again live with him; for this act of
disobedience, and for no other reason, he asked the judgment of the
court. Sophia Dorothea’s own counsellors, Rudolph Thies and Joachin von
Bulow, put it to her whether she would return to her husband or abide
judgment for disobeying his repeated desire. Nothing could move her.
She despised her husband, and would never again live under the same
roof with him. Her own desire was to live, henceforward, in seclusion
--to pass the remainder of her unhappy life in peace and humiliation.
The court came to a decision on the 28th of December, 1694. Their
judgment was, that as she refused to live with her husband, she was
guilty of desertion, and on that ground alone a decree of separation,
or divorce, was recorded. When told that she had a right to appeal,
she contemptuously refused to avail herself of it. The terms of the
sentence were extraordinary, for they amounted to a decree of divorce
without expressly mentioning the fact. The judgment, wherein nothing
was judged, conferred on the prince, George Louis, the right of
marrying again, if he should be so minded and could find a lady willing
to be won. It, however, explicitly debarred his wife from entering
into a second union. Not a word was written down against her, alleging
that she was criminal. The name of Königsmark was not even alluded
to. Notwithstanding these facts, and that the husband was the really
guilty party, while the utmost which can be said against the princess
was that she may have been indiscreet--notwithstanding this, not only
was he declared to be an exceedingly injured individual, but the poor
lady, whom he held in his heart’s hottest hate, was deprived of her
property, possession of which was transferred to George Louis, in trust
for the children; and the princess, endowed with an annual pension of
some eight or ten thousand thalers, was condemned to close captivity
in the castle of Ahlden, near Zell, with a retinue of domestics, whose
office was to watch her actions, and a body of armed gaolers, whose
only duty was to keep the captive secure in her bonds.
Sophia Dorothea entered on her imprisonment with a calm, if not with
a cheerful heart: certainly with more placidity and true joy than
George Louis felt, surrounded by his mistresses and all the pomp of the
Electoral State. All Germany is said to have been scandalised by the
judgment delivered by the court. The illegality and the incompetency
of the court from which it emanated, were so manifest, that the
sentence was looked upon as a mere wanton cruelty, carrying with
it neither conviction nor lawful consequence. So satisfied was the
princess’s advocate on this point that he requested her to give him a
letter declaring him non-responsible for having so far recognised the
authority of the court as to have pleaded her cause before it! What is
perhaps more singular still is the doubt which long existed whether
this court ever sat at all; and whether decree of separation or divorce
was ever pronounced in the cause of Sophia Dorothea of Zell and George
Louis, Electoral Prince of Hanover.
Horace Walpole says, on this subject: ‘I am not acquainted with the
laws of Germany relative to divorce or separation, nor do I know or
suppose that despotism and pride allow the law to insist on much
formality when a sovereign has reason or mind to get rid of his wife.
Perhaps too much difficulty in untying the Gordian knot of matrimony,
thrown in the way of an absolute prince, would be no kindness to
the ladies, but might prompt him to use a sharper weapon, like that
butchering husband, our Henry VIII. Sovereigns who narrow or let out
the law of God according to their prejudices and passions mould their
own laws, no doubt, to the standard of their convenience. Genealogic
purity of blood is the predominant folly of Germany; and the Code of
Malta seems to have more force in the empire than the Ten Commandments.
Thence was introduced that most absurd evasion of the indissolubility
of marriage, espousals with the left hand, as if the Almighty had
restrained his ordinance to one half of a man’s person, and allowed a
greater latitude to his left side than to his right, or pronounced the
former more ignoble than the latter. The consciences both of princely
and noble persons in Germany are quieted if the more plebeian side is
married to one who would degrade the more illustrious moiety; but, as
if the laws of matrimony had no reference to the children to be thence
propagated, the children of a left-handed alliance are not entitled to
inherit. Shocking consequence of a senseless equivocation, which only
satisfies pride, not justice, and is calculated for an acquittal at the
herald’s office, not at the last tribunal.
‘Separated the Princess (Sophia) Dorothea certainly was, and never
admitted even to the nominal honours of her rank, being thenceforward
always styled the Duchess of Halle (Ahlden). Whether divorced is
problematic, at least to me; nor can I pronounce--as, though it was
generally believed, I am not certain--that George espoused the Duchess
of Kendal (Mdlle. von der Schulenburg) with his left hand. But though
German casuistry might allow a husband to take another wife with his
left hand because his legal wife had suffered her right hand to be
kissed by a gallant, even Westphalian or Aulic counsellors could not
have pronounced that such a momentary adieu constituted adultery;
and, therefore, of a formal divorce I must doubt; and there I must
leave that case of conscience undecided until future search into the
Hanoverian Chancery shall clear up a point of little real importance.’
Coxe, in his Memoirs of Walpole, says, on the other hand, very
decidedly:--‘George I., who never loved his wife, gave implicit credit
to the account of her infidelity, as related by his father; consented
to her imprisonment, and obtained from the ecclesiastical consistory a
divorce, which was passed on the 20th of December 1694.’
The researches into the Chancery of Hanover, which Walpole left to
posterity, appear to have been made, and the decree of the Consistorial
Court which condemned Sophia Dorothea has been copied and published. It
is quoted in the ‘Life of the Princess,’ published anonymously in 1845,
and it is inserted below for the benefit of those who like to read
history by the light of documents.
It has been said that such a decree could only have been purchased by
rank bribery, which is likely enough; for the courts of Germany were
so utterly corrupt that nothing could equal them in infamy--except the
corruption which prevailed in England.
‘In the matrimonial suit of the illustrious Prince George Louis, Crown
Prince of Hanover, against his consort, the illustrious Princess Sophia
Dorothea, we, constituted president and judges of the Matrimonial
Court of the Electorate and Duchy of Brunswick-Lunenberg, declare and
pronounce judgment, after attempts have been tried and have failed, _to
settle the matter amicably_, and, in accordance with the documents and
verbal declarations of the Princess, and other detailed circumstances,
we agree that her continued denial of matrimonial duty and cohabitation
is well founded, and consequently that it is to be considered as an
intentional desertion. In consequence whereof, we consider, sentence,
and declare the ties of matrimony to be entirely dissolved and
annulled. Since, in similar cases of desertion, it has been permitted
to the innocent party to re-marry, which the other is forbidden, the
same judicial power will be exercised in the present instance in favour
of his Serene Highness the Crown Prince.
‘Published in the Consistorial Court at Hanover, December 28th, 1694.
(Signed) ‘PHILLIP VON BUSCHE.
FRANCIS EICHFELD (Pastor).
ANTHONY GEORGE HILDBERG.
GERHARDT ART.
GUSTAVUS MOLAN.
BERNHARD SPILKEN.
ERYTHROPAL.
DAVID RUPERTUS.
H. L. HATTORF.’
The work from which the above document is extracted furnishes also
the following, as a copy of the letter written by the princess at
the request of the legal conductor of her case, as ‘security from
proceedings in relation to his connexion with her affairs:’--
‘As we have now, after being made acquainted with the sentence, given
it proper consideration, and resolved not to offer any opposition to
it, our solicitor must act accordingly, and is not to act or proceed
any further in this matter. For the rest, we hereby declare that we
are gratefully content with the conduct of our aforesaid solicitor of
the Court, Thies, and that by this we free him from all responsibility
regarding these transactions.
(Signed) ‘SOPHIA DOROTHEA.
‘Lauenau, December 31, 1694.’
By this last document it would seem that the Hof-Rath Thies would have
denied the competency of the court had he been permitted to do so; and
that he was so convinced of its illegality as to require a written
prohibition from asserting the same, and acknowledgment of exemption
from all responsibility, before he would feel satisfied that he had
accomplished his duty towards his illustrious client.
Long before the case was heard, and four months previous to the
publication of the sentence of the Consistorial Court, the two
brothers, the Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Zell, had actually
agreed by an enactment that the unhappy marriage between the cousins
should be dissolved. The enactment provided for the means whereby this
end was to be achieved, and for the disposal of the princess during
the progress of the case. The anonymous author of the biography of
1845 then proceeds to state that ‘It was therein specified that her
domestics should take a particular oath, and that the princess should
enjoy an annual income of eight thousand thalers (exclusive of the
wages of her household), to be increased one-half on the death of
her father, with a further increase of six thousand thalers on her
attaining the age of forty years. It was provided that the castle of
Ahlden should be her permanent residence, where she was to remain well
guarded. The domain of Wilhelmsburg, near Hamburg, was, at the death of
the Duke of Zell, to descend to the prince, son of the Princess Sophia
Dorothea--the Crown Prince, however, during his own life retaining
the revenues; but should the grandson die before his father, the
property would then, on payment of a stipulated sum, be inherited by
the successor in the government of the son of the Elector. By a further
arrangement, the mother of the princess was to possess Wienhausen, with
an annual income of twelve thousand thalers, secured on the estates
of Schernebeck, Garze, and Bluettingen; the castle at Lunenburg to be
allowed as her residence from the commencement of her widowhood.’
Never was so much care taken to secure property on one side, and the
person on the other. The contracting parties appear to have been afraid
lest the prisoner should ever have an opportunity of appealing against
the wrong of which she was made the victim; and her strait imprisonment
was but the effect of that fear. That nothing might be neglected to
make assurance doubly sure, and to deprive her of any help she might
hope hereafter to receive at the hands of a father, whose heart might
possibly be made to feel his own injustice and his daughter’s sorrows,
the Duke of Zell was induced to promise that he would neither see nor
hold communication with the daughter he had repudiated.
During the so-called trial, at Lauenau, the princess resided in the
chief official residence in that place. At the close of the inquiry she
took a really final leave of her children--George Augustus and Sophia
Dorothea--with bitter tears, which would have been more bitter still
if she had thought that she was never again to look upon them. She had
concluded that she would have liberty to live with her mother in Zell.
She had no idea that her father had already agreed to his brother the
Elector’s desire that she should be shut up in the castle of Ahlden.
She found herself a state prisoner.
The oath to be taken by her appointed household, or rather by the
personal attendants--counts and countesses in waiting and persons of
similar rank--was stringent and illustrative of the importance attached
to the safe-keeping of the prisoner. It was to the effect ‘that
nothing should be wanting to prevent anticipated intrigues; or for the
perfect security of the place fixed as a residence for the Princess
Sophia Dorothea, in order to maintain tranquility, and to prevent any
opportunity occurring to an enemy for undertaking or imagining anything
which might cause a division in the illustrious family.’