The Love of an Uncrowned Queen

112. Field-Marshal Heinrich von Podevils is spoken of in this correspondence as le bon ami, the good friend of Königsmarck and Sophie Dorothea; and indeed he was so. Marshal Podevils was born in 1615 in Pomerania, and took service in the Thirty Years War. His military talent was first discovered by the famous Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. At the death of the Duke, Podevils entered the French Army, and advanced rapidly in honour, and, because of his good services, he was naturalised in France. But Podevils was a Huguenot, and, in consequence of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he left the French Army, and took service under Duke John Frederick of Hanover as Colonel-in-Chief of the Hanoverian Army. When Duke Ernest Augustus succeeded to the Duchy of Hanover he appointed Podevils successively General, Field-Marshal, President of the Council of War, and Governor of the Royal Palaces of Hanover. Podevils died at Hamburg in 1696, full of years and of honour. The fact that such a man was the true friend of Königsmarck, and thought highly of him, speaks much in Königsmarck’s favour.

113. Some lines are missing here.

114. The letter is torn off here. Doubtless the Princess is beginning to allude to Aurora’s intrigue with Count Bielke, mentioned in Königsmarck’s letter.

115. King William III. of England, commanding the allied armies.

116. This Bussche must not be confounded with Bussche who married Catherine Meisenbug (sister of Countess Platen), sometime the mistress of Prince George Louis. That Bussche died in 1688, and, as we have seen, his widow subsequently married General Weyhe. The Bussche above mentioned was a kinsman. He was subsequently president of the court which divorced the Princess Sophie Dorothea from the Electoral Prince.

A little later we find Colt also writing: “They have sent Monsieur Bussche, one of their privy councillors, to the Elector of Brandenburg, to press him to a speedy compliance with his former promise.”—Colt’s Despatches, Hanover, June 26, 1692.

117. For Brockhausen.

118. The Duke of Celle’s hunting-box at Brockhausen was very small, and, as the accommodation was insufficient, the Princess and her suite were lodged in a house hard by.

119. Prince Max was staying with the Duke of Celle for a time, who was trying to talk him to reason (vide Colt’s despatches). The Princess’s estimate of Prince Max’s character agreed in the main with that of Colt, who, speaking of his share in the Moltke plot, says: “Nor indeed was his [Prince Max’s own capacity very fit for it, though he is a very worthy gentleman, and much improved since he hath been at home these two years, having before lost his time by being too much delighted with the pleasures of Venice, where he had been in service five years.”

120. Marshal Jeremiah Chauvet was one of the Frenchmen whom the Duchess Eléonore brought in her train to the court of Celle. He was not of noble birth, but the son of a blacksmith in Lorraine. In 1670 the Duke of Celle advanced him to the rank of colonel, and he became successively major-general, general, and field-marshal.

121. Probably some court lady at Hanover.

122. They were probably special envoys, who had come to Hanover on business connected with the campaign against the Turks in the Morea, the intrigues concerning the Electorate, and other matters. Colt mentions that a Baron Eck came to the court of Hanover in June from the Elector of Saxony, and also a Baron Hasfelt “on his way to France”.

123. Prince George Louis, who had now joined the troops.

124. Here follow pages of reproaches and upbraidings.

125. Colt’s fête was given on Sunday, June 18.

126. “The extraordinary floods have kept the Duke from Celle.”—Colt’s Despatches, July 4, 1692.

127. “The Duke, since his return hither ...”—Colt’s Despatches, Celle, July 11, 1692.

128. Aurora von Königsmarck.

129. Countess von Lewenhaupt.

130. Some Hanoverian courtier.

131. (?) The Countess Platen.

132. Prince George Louis, commanding the Hanoverian troops.

133. Ermengarda Melusina von Schulenburg, afterwards Duchess of Kendal, mistress of the Prince of Hanover.

134. This must refer to something in a missing letter.

135. I.e., to Brockhausen after the review, which was held on June 6, and, as we have seen, he did not return to Hanover for some days.

136. “The little man”—the Prince, who set forth for Flanders on the 15th (25th).

137. Colt’s party and the public rejoicings to celebrate the victory of La Hogue.

138. A nickname for one of the “foreigners”.

139. Perhaps to Herrenhausen.

140. I.e., went to her parents at Brockhausen. It is noteworthy that Hanover is not “home” to her.

141. Namur was besieged throughout the first weeks of June. The citadel fell about June 21.

142. “Moltke was executed on Monday, and the court has gone to Luisburg to be out of the way.”—Colt’s Despatches, Hanover, July 18, 1692. The Electress changed her mind.

143. La Sentinelle—one of the pseudonyms of the Fräulein von Knesebeck.

144. Probably the Elector of Bavaria.

145. Hans William Bentinck, first Earl of Portland and ancestor of the present Duke, accompanied William of Orange to England as confidential adviser, who created him Earl of Portland in 1689. He was in command of a regiment of Dutch Guards at the battle of the Boyne, and probably held the same commission in Flanders. Colt mentions in his despatches that Lord Portland was with King William at Brussels and during the campaign.

146. Colt’s Despatches, Celle, August, 1692.

147. “This Duke here is really very much troubled for the loss of his troops in the late action.”—Colt’s Despatch, Celle, August 5, 1692.

148. Le Barbouilleur, the scribbler, the spoiler of paper. He must have been some one holding high office at the court of Hanover.

149. Charles Lennox, illegitimate son of King Charles II. by Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, was created Duke of Richmond in 1675, and is ancestor of the present Duke. He was born in 1672, and would therefore be in his twenty-first year at this time.

150. In view of subsequent events this is almost prophetic.

151. Bull-baiting was a popular pastime in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, patronised by royalty and persons of rank. Queen Elizabeth gave one in honour of the French ambassadors in 1559, and the Queen and the ambassadors greatly enjoyed “the sport”. This barbarous pastime was also practised as late as the reign of Queen Anne, and was very popular, too, in market towns and rural villages. But these bull-baitings drew such a mob of low and dissipated persons together that they were at last abolished in the interests of the public peace.

152. Two beauties of Brussels.

153. This anecdote is unfit for publication.

154. Ferdi, i.e., Ferdinand, the favourite musician of the Electress of Brandenburg, a violinist.

155. “This court will the next week remove from hence: the Duke to follow his hunting, and the Duchess goes to Wiesbaden, near Mayence, for her health.”—Colt’s Despatch, Celle, August 5, 1692.

156. The Countess Aurora, who was then at Hanover. Many of the letters passed through her hands, though they were sometimes sent direct.

157. “The Electress of Brandenburg is passing by here on her way to Luisburg, where the Hanoverian court is at a country house.”—Colt’s Despatch, Celle, August 12, 1692.

158. Eimbeck, a little town on the road, in Grubenhagen.

159. La Marionette was a German princess, probably a princess of Hesse. The mention of her brother being “with the army” refers not to the campaign in Flanders, but to the fact that on the Upper Rhine, and along the frontier which separates France from Piedmont, there was a desultory war being carried on in connection with the Palatinate. The letters mentioned are two, one from La Marionette, commending her brother to the Princess and expressing a hope of meeting at the Frankfort fair, and the letter enclosed from her brother, containing extravagant expressions of his admiration of Sophie Dorothea.

160. “Just now we have the news that the Electress of Brandenburg doth not come so soon as she intended, all things having been provided for her.”—Colt’s Despatch, Celle, August 12, 1692.

161. This may have some reference to Moltke’s plot, in connection with which Duchess Sophia was examined by the Cabinet. Vide Colt’s Despatch, August 29, 1692: “The Duchess of Hanover hath been examined in several articles before the Duke and his Council”.

162. Ferdinand was the Electress of Brandenburg’s violinist. She took him with her wherever she went and treated him with marked favour. But she was passionately fond of music, and we need not therefore accept Königsmarck’s construction of the intimacy, which, however, agrees with the common scandal of the court of Berlin at that time.

163. The beginning of this letter is missing.

164. Colt mentions that the Duke of Celle was at Epsdorff (vide Despatch, September 15, 1692); and he was also there on October 7. On the 10th he went to Göhre.

165. Evidently in answer to the Princess’s letter of August 24/September 3.

166. Another reference to their early friendship at Celle.

167. Most probably Prince Henry Casimir of Nassau-Dietz, Hereditary Governor of Friesland, and nephew of William of Orange.

168. This marriage has been alluded to before—in 1691.

169. The mission to Sweden; he went no farther than Hamburg.

170. A Swedish noble of high rank, sometime envoy at Hanover. This letter is very characteristic, and undoubtedly shows that Königsmarck had made sacrifices of his worldly prospects to be near the object of his devotion. But it was hardly generous of him to remind the Princess of it, even indirectly, for she had made a much greater sacrifice for him.

171. Königsmarck to the Princess, Ghent, September 11
21;

172. Colt’s Despatch, Hanover, September 27, 1692.

173. At the Duke of Celle’s hunting-seats of Epsdorff and Göhre. In his Despatch, September 30, 1692, Colt mentions that the “Elector of Brandenburg has gone home and that the Duke of Hanover is with his brother, hunting”.

174. The end of this letter is not to be found.

175. The Prince of Hanover had returned from the campaign to Luisburg.

176. The Duke evidently thought the Countess Aurora was coming to Hanover for the carnival in the winter.

177. Countess Platen.

178. Contemporary evidence of the quarrel between Countess Platen and Aurora is given in a letter of the Electress Sophia, published in Cramer’s Memorials of the Countess Königsmarck.

179. Colt’s Despatch, Göhre, October 17: “We have just heard the welcome news that the French have failed in their design on Charleroy; they were for the most part sure here that Charleroy must be taken”.

180. The King of Sweden was threatening to confiscate his estates.

182. This is not quite fair, for the Electress of Brandenburg never attached herself to one man in particular and her numerous friendships were most of them intellectual.

181. Another visit to Lützenburg, near Berlin; this was deferred for a time (Colt’s Despatch).

183. Colt’s Despatch, Celle, November 1, 1692.

184. The visit to the Elector of Brandenburg at Berlin and the Electoral investiture at Vienna by the Emperor.

185. The journey to Berlin was postponed (vide Colt’s Despatch, November 18).

186. La Dondon, the plump woman, a lady-in-waiting.

187. “Pauvre enfant! Que ne souffrez-vous point! Suer, se faire frotter, sans avoir de mal c’en est trop.” Apparently a seventeenth-century form of massage.

188. La Rose was the court physician.

189. Colt’s Despatch, December 20, 1692.

191. The Duchess Sophia, henceforth known as the Electress, and Duke Ernest Augustus as the Elector.

192. This refers to the second cypher—in numbers.

193. The French envoy.

194. The key to this cypher is lost.

195. For the campaign in Flanders, June, 1692.

196. But meantime the Princess had gone again to her parents at Brockhausen.

197. This letter of the Princess is missing; it must have referred to some accident after their meeting.

198. The letters must have crossed.

199. 110, probably some courtier at Hanover, but the key is missing. (? Sitardie.)

200. I cannot find the key to these numbers in the cypher.

201. Buccow (Le Bâtard), the illegitimate son of the Duke of Celle.

202. This number cannot be traced; it must be some court lady at Hanover.

203. The little Princess Sophie Dorothea and Prince George Augustus. This and the following letter contain the only mention of the Princess’s children throughout the correspondence.

204. “Monsieur Pless, who formerly belonged to the Prince of Denmark.”—Vide Colt’s Despatches.

205. Count Steinburg (or Steinbock) was an Imperial envoy, who was probably at Hanover trying to arrange matters about the Danes on the part of the Emperor. Colt mentions him a little later as being in the Palatinate on a similar mission.

206. Lady Colt, who lived at Celle, was Sir William Dutton Colt’s second wife. The only child of this second marriage, Leonora Sophia, was born at Celle, and the Electress Sophia and the Duchess of Celle stood as her godmothers. One of her descendants is Mr. N. Bond, to whom I am indebted for this information.

207. Countess Platen’s daughter, Charlotte Sophia, who afterwards became Madame Kilmansegge and accompanied George I. to England, where she was created Countess of Darlington.

208. A fragment of this letter relating to the Princess’s marriage settlement is quoted (in the original French) by Palmblad in his Aurora Königsmarck, and Dr. Köcher has seized on it as an inaccuracy which goes to prove that the letters are not genuine. Yet it is substantially correct. The Duke of Celle was undoubtedly beguiled into a marriage contract most unfavourable to his daughter. He gave her a marriage portion of one hundred thousand thalers and the estates already settled on her. The hundred thousand thalers promptly went into the Hanoverian coffers (there was no Married Woman’s Property Act in those days). The estates were not disposed of so easily. If no son were born, these estates, particularly the lordship of Wilhelmsburg, were to remain the Princess’s; and should the Prince die before his consort, this property and all its revenues were to revert to his widow, and her children could only inherit them after her death, and, as a widow, the Princess was to be entitled to a dower of twelve thousand thalers. But the Princess had a son, Prince George Augustus, and so these estates were locked up; she could not realise them or raise money on them in any way. She was not likely to become a widow (however devoutly she might hope for that consummation), and so she was penniless, with nothing of her own save the allowance the Elector of Hanover thought fit to dole out to her for her dress and petty expenses. Her father, of course, might subsidise her occasionally, but that was merely a matter of his good-will. Hence her efforts to obtain a sufficient sum to enable her to set up a separate establishment and be independent. In this, as in other things, the evidence is all in favour of the absolute genuineness of these letters.

209. The seventh in our liturgy.

210. Here we have another proof of the authenticity of the letters. Königsmarck’s account of the sending of the Danish Commissioner Bülow is in complete agreement with that given by the Electress Sophia in her letters now preserved in the Prussian National Archives. The sending of Bülow is mentioned nowhere else.

211. He was ill, but there is no need to quote his detailed description of his illness.

212. This must refer to a visit Sophie Dorothea was going to make to the Electress of Brandenburg at Lützenburg. The Electress was probably staying at Hanover and Sophie Dorothea was returning with her to Lützenburg.

213. Probably Ferdinand, the favourite violinist of the Electress of Brandenburg.

214. Cresset’s Despatches, Celle, March 20, 1694. Prince Max subsequently became a Roman Catholic and Jacobite, and died in open rebellion against his elder brother (George I.) in 1726.

215. Schaumann is my authority for this statement. The Elector’s illness is not mentioned in the English envoy’s despatches.

216. This lady, Charlotte Sophia, the young Countess Platen referred to once or twice in the correspondence, was said to be the daughter of Countess Platen by the Elector Ernest Augustus. She married, later, Baron Kielmansegge, Master of the Horse, and accompanied George I. to England. On the death of her husband George I. raised her to the rank of Countess of Darlington. There is evidence to show that George I. recognised the kinship between him and Lady Darlington, but she was generally supposed to be his mistress. The precise relationship must always remain a mystery.

217. Stepney’s Despatches, Dresden, May 18
28, 1694, State Paper Office, “Foreign Papers,” Germany.

218. Stepney’s Despatches, Dresden, May 29/June 8, 1694.

219. Many chroniclers have puzzled their heads to reconcile these two facts, but the question is absolutely set at rest by the despatches of Stepney, which are now published for the first time in this book. They will be quoted later, and show quite clearly that Königsmarck was major-general in the Saxon army at the same time that he was a colonel in the Hanoverian service.

220. Cresset’s Despatches, Celle.

221. The Princess asserted later that this note was not hers at all; it was a forgery written by the Countess Platen as a snare, and she was greatly surprised when Königsmarck appeared and showed her the note. She gave it back to him saying that she had not written it. Knesebeck, on the other hand, in her statement asserts that the Princess had appointed to meet Königsmarck. It is therefore impossible to credit the poor Princess’s denial, which was natural enough under the circumstances, but cannot be believed. If she had not expected Königsmarck, how came he to be admitted to her chamber at that hour of the night?

222. From this point to the end of the chapter a curtain of impenetrable darkness descends and no gleam of light can be gathered from historical documents. All the English envoy’s despatches which might contain reference to the tragedy are destroyed. The account which follows is built upon the Roman Octavia by Duke Antony Ulrich of Wolfenbüttel; Cramer’s Memoirs of Aurora von Königsmarck, a work which contains many genuine documents and some spurious ones; Schulenburg’s Herzogin von Ahlden, a critical, honest and painstaking book, and Müller’s Sophia Dorothea, a work which, though not trustworthy, compels consideration from the fact that the author was private secretary to the late Duke of Cambridge when Regent of Hanover, and had access to the Guelph domestic papers. Moreover this account of the catastrophe is the one that gained acceptance at European courts and is supported by tradition.

223. I visited the scene of the murder in 1898. This chimneypiece still remains, elaborately carved and wrought, a splendid monument of masonry. The rittersaal, too, has little changed, except that it was redecorated in the early part of this century. The long corridor has been laid down with parquet, but the attendants show the spot where the murder was committed.

224. Of these halberdiers little is known. One was named Bushmann, and is said to have made a confession on his deathbed to a priest named Cramer of his part in the murder. He is said to have been so badly wounded in the struggle by Königsmarck that he could do nothing for six weeks, but the authority for this statement is doubtful. Local tradition gives the name of another of these men as Luders, who, from the date of the crime, became the owner of an estate given him by the Hanoverian government. His descendants until recently lived at Hanover, and may be living there still for aught I know, and are well-to-do people. Some information of both these men is given in Cramer’s book on Aurora Königsmarck.

225. Cresset’s Despatch, Celle, July 3, 1694.

226. We have the following evidence of how a portion of them were rescued, even at the eleventh hour. In the Memoirs of Countess [Aurora] Königsmarck, Auditeur Rüdiger, a confidant of Königsmarck’s, states that Metsch, one of the intermediaries employed by the lovers in their secret correspondence, was with Secretary Hildebrand after Königsmarck’s disappearance on July 1. Hildebrand asked him if he knew of any letters that might incriminate the Count. “As I answered in the affirmative,” proceeds Rüdiger’s statement, “and added I had seen a packet of letters in the small box on the Dresden journey, tied together with a yellow ribbon, of which the Count took especial care, the secretary requested me to take the box with me to my room and when the packing up was done to send it unopened by the lackey Mickel to Celle.” Aurora and her sister we know were at Celle soon after, and we are justified in surmising that these letters reached them by the hand of some trustworthy person, and thus ultimately came to hand with the other letters.