While I was reflecting on the miserable state in which I found myself they brought me your letter, which I had little expected. My joy was so great that I forgot my sufferings, throwing myself on the letter as if nothing were wanting to me. You have done everything that I wished to see you do; it therefore only remains for me to thank you for your kindness, and to give you every assurance of my fidelity:
If you do not believe me, I am ready to abandon Mother, Kinsfolk, Friends, Possessions and Country, the better to convince you of it; and it will only depend on you whether I shall take the journey of which you are well aware. My unhappy condition furnishes me with a good excuse; I shall be able to pretend illness for a long time. If you agree with me, I beg you to let me know; for I will take my measures accordingly; it is the greatest proof [of my affection] which I can offer you at present; so pray accept it, and thus make me happy; for the satisfaction of seeing you far surpasses the ambition which I have of making my fortune. I could not find any greater [good fortune], and that of possessing you is so dear to me that I do not any longer meditate on any of the others. By your letter you have so purified my heart that there no longer remains in it the slightest suspicion of jealousy; the eagerness which you show to know the state of my health sufficiently convinces me that you love me. To meet your wish, I will tell you that I suffer extremely; yet the pain of not seeing you greatly exceeds that of my fall. I expect to be better in four days; but if you accept my proposition, I shall keep my room for ten days longer. This will not prevent me, so soon as I shall be able to walk, from being able to embrace you in the well-known locality; to have news of you, I believe that the safest way is for one of my people (in whom I am able to place confidence)....
Anyone but myself would put you to the proof, to see whether your love will carry you so far as to come to me; but, as for me, I love you too much to be able to expose you to this risk, and your offer is sufficient for me. However, in order not to lose the occasion of seeing you (since I have so little time for remaining with you) I will come to you this evening, if you consent; and I shall wait to hear from you the hour of the rendez-vous. If you think it well that I should appear at court, I will do so, but not otherwise. The joy of seeing you again makes me forget all the trouble that my illness has brought upon me; for the rest, I am well enough pleased with you; I cannot, however, forget how little opposition you have to offer on the subject of my journey, having a good excuse for dissuading me from it; I do not know at what judgment to arrive on the subject.[251] Only, may God grant that this absence may not prove of deadly import to me! You accuse me of not loving you enough; how can you be so unjust, but I will pass over this point without reply, knowing well that you are too fully convinced of my love, which is the purest that ever existed, and which will last so long as I live. I have often protested this to you in prose; permit me on the present occasion to do it in verse:
While breath within my heart remains, Beloved is votre nom by me; So long as blood runs in my veins, It shall retain the mark of thee; And with the current of my days, Love shall remain with me always.
At 6 o’clock my man shall be in front of the room of the bonne, bonne amie.[252]
I perceive the pleasure that I had taken in embracing you vanishes entirely since the Troublesome One has appeared so suddenly. I confess to you that this countenance displeased me very much so soon as I perceived it; a thunderclap could not have surprised me more. But it is fated that there should always be disagreeable faces to prevent a tender meeting like that which all appearances allowed us to think ours was to be. Yes, my idea of it was so full of joy that I could not sleep all the night; but alas! all is vanished, and I have to pass a second night without sleeping, and with grief instead of the joy with which the first filled me; it is certain that, unless you are so kind as to console me, I shall bathe in my tears. Console me then, divine beauty, and comfort a man who is dying for you, and who is so set upon your charms that his head turns:
Such is my maxim, and you shall see me carry it out exactly; my greatest satisfaction shall be to prove to you that only death is alone capable of extinguishing my love. But, for the love of God, think of the motto, ‘Nothing impure inflames me’;[254] adieu!
I cannot go away from here without thanking you for having rescued me from such a difficulty. Surely I was a lost man without yesterday evening’s conversation. I go away as happy as a man can do who leaves behind what he adores; but what consoles me is that I am well assured of your friendship, and that my absence does me no harm; my soul is so at ease that I am quite a different man from what I was before. I beg of you, no tête-à-têtes—not with anybody, in particular with M. R.[255] I shall know everything, for I have good friends here whom you do not in the least suspect. Adieu, Bella dea, think of me as much as I think of you. I kiss your knees a thousand times, and am eternally your slave.
The Church of Scotland was, in the main, well affected to the Union and the consequences which it entailed as regards the Succession. But the friends of the House of Hanover had to guard against two distinct sources of weakness within the Establishment itself.
(I) Episcopacy in Scotland had never been more than a compromise, even in the districts where it had not been violently opposed. The best instance of this is Aberdeenshire, where protests against the government of Charles II are late in date and are confined to verbal expressions of sympathy with the persecuted Presbyterians. But the Records of the Exercise [Presbytery] of Alford (New Spalding Club, 1897), dealing with the period 1662-1688, show clearly enough that the episcopal function was ordination, and that the government and, in many respects, the public worship of the Church was Presbyterian. The effect of this was that, at the Revolution, Episcopal clergymen were permitted to remain in their parishes on condition of their taking the oath to William and Mary, although they were forbidden to take part in Presbyteries, Synods, or Assemblies. The tendency was for such men to conform to Presbytery, but they formed a distinct ‘left wing.’ They were most numerous in the north-east, and they were well represented in the Universities. Both the Universities of Aberdeen, for example, were Jacobite in sympathy. The result was that many ministers shared in, and urged their people to join, the ’15. They were deposed in 1716, and the Universities were ‘purged’ by the Commission of 1717.
(2) A section of the more robust Presbyterians in the Church sympathised with their brethren who had declined to accept the Revolution Settlement, and their feeling was accentuated by a gross breach of faith on the part of the British Parliament—the passing of the Patronage Act of 1712, which disturbed the Church for more than a century and a half. So strong was this tendency that, as late as 1745, the Provincial Synod of Moray considered it necessary to inform George II that ‘with pleasure we reflect that very few of the people who hold communion with us have joined those enemies of your Majesty’s crown and government.’ (Allardyce, Jacobite Papers.)
Episcopalian Jacobitism within the Church practically disappears in 1716, and the clergy, as represented in ecclesiastical and academic records, were devotedly loyal to George I and II, from that date.
Outside the Church we have a body who were not Dissenters in the English sense, for they approved of the constitution of the Church, but objected to the establishment of Episcopacy in England, and the toleration of Dissenters in Scotland. They were the men who had suffered most in the ‘killing time,’ and their only associations with the functions of government were connected with Grierson of Lagg and Bloody Mackenzie. They considered it possible that James Stewart might be turned from the error of his ways, and take the Covenant as Charles II had done. Their attitude, in fact, was precisely similar to that of their predecessors, who had crowned Charles II after fighting against Charles I. They declined to acknowledge the Revolution Settlement and the Union. They spoke of Queen Anne as ‘that wicked Jezabel the pretended Queen,’ and ‘the late woman.’ But even when they had little hope of the Pretender’s conversion, they protested against ‘the Prince of Hanover, who hath been bred and brought up in the Luthren religion, which is not only different from but even in many things contrar unto that purity in doctrine, reformation, and religion we in these nations had attained unto.’ (Protestation against the Union.)
The Episcopalians, the largest section of Protestant Dissenters, were, almost without exception, High Tories. They had suffered for refusing the oath to William and Mary, and had undergone some trifling inconveniences as the defeated and unpopular party. The rising of 1715 was, therefore, very largely supported by Episcopalians, who found themselves ranged along with extreme Presbyterians and Roman Catholics. The religious aspect of the ’15 and the ’45 has never been satisfactorily examined. Mr. Blaikie said, not long since, that the ‘45 was much more Presbyterian than is commonly imagined. I hope he will work out the subject.
194. In the above, which it will be observed hardly passes out of the region of conjecture, I have followed the argument of Dr. G. R. Geerds, comparing Cramer as to the basis of fact.
195. The edition of The Love of an Uncrowned Queen edited by me is the revised edition of 1903. Dr. Robert Geerds’ article, as already stated, appeared in the Beitrag zur Allgemeinen Zeitung for Friday, April 7th, 1902.
196. See letter F 16 below.
197. Amalia, Duchess of Saxe-Eisenach, a born Princess of Nassau-Dietz. Cf. as to her visit to Celle in March 1692, Colt ap. Wilkins, p. 163.—Königsmarck mentions a “M. de Goritz” as a brother-officer in the Flemish campaign, ib. pp. 216, 232; he appears to be identical with Count Frederick von Schlitz-Goertz, who afterwards became Marshal of the Court and President of the Chamber, and, after accompanying George I to England, died as Prime Minister at Hanover. See Vehse, Gesch. d. Höfe d. Hauses Braunschweig, Part I. pp. 116, 187, and Part II. p. 10.
198. Voyage de Brockhausen may mean ‘during the journey from’ or ‘to Brockhausen.’ This and the following letters appear to belong to the dates here assigned to them; but it is possible that they belong to June 1693. The Princess left Hanover for Brockhausen on June 21, 1692, see Wilkins, p. 180; as to her movements to and from that place in June 1693, see ib. pp. 256-76. After a careful consideration of dates, as well as of the general contents of the letters, I have come to the conclusion that the 1692 date is the more probable. Brockhausen, or Bruchhausen, was a country-seat of the Duke of Celle, situate, like the town of Nienburg, mentioned at the end of this letter, in the division of the old countship of Hoya, which had from the middle of the sixteenth century onwards belonged to the Celle branch of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Brockhausen is about 18 miles N.W. of Celle.
199. Cipher uncertain.
200. A country-seat, not very far from Brockhausen, belonging to the Duke of Hanover, where his Court seems to have been in the earlier as well as in the later part of this summer. Cf. Colt, ap. Wilkins, p. 215, note.
201. Field-Marshal Henry von Podewils (1615-96) commanded the Hanoverian troops in the campaign of 1688, and also in the demonstration of 1693.
202. The above dating is incomprehensible; ‘the 3rd’ may possibly be a slip of the pen for ‘the 13th.’ There is nothing in the letter to give any satisfactory clue to the time of writing.
203. In July 1692 Königsmarck appears to have paid a visit from the Camp to Brussels, see the Princess’s letter ap. Wilkins, p. 197. (Of the old gates of Brussels the Porte de Hal now alone remains.)
204. This letter is dated ‘the 23rd,’ but August 3rd, O.S., was the date of the battle of Steenkirk, on the eve of which this letter seems to have been written. I have adopted a very ingenious conjecture, which I can hardly describe as warranted by the transcript, but which may nevertheless be correct.
205. See the Princess’s letter of July 13th ap. Wilkins, pp. 193-6.
206. A small town between Brussels and Enghien. Compare Wilkins, pp. 208 sqq.
207. Cf. Wilkins, pp. 233 sqq.
208. George Lewis’ favourite hunting-box near Lüneburg, in the eastern corner of the principality. There is a picture of it at Herrenhausen, with a meeting of the hunt in face of the château.
209. In camp in Flanders.
210. The significance of the word carême in this passage is obscure. Its ordinary meaning ‘lent, fasting’ gives no sense. Dr. Braunholtz informs me that the word may also mean ‘a collection of lent-sermons’; but, as he observes, this was not a very likely gift in the circumstances. And a ‘lenten gift’ of any kind seems out of season in September.
211. I cannot offer any conjecture as to the identity of Sparr. He may have been a descendant of the celebrated Brandenburg Field-Marshal von Sparr. ‘L.’ may of course be Luisburg.
212. ‘Guldenleu,’ if that be the true reading of the MS. (Wilkins, p. 229, spells the name ‘Guldenlon’), might conceivably mean Ulric Christian Gyldenlöve, the natural brother of Charles XII.
213. The Kettelers of Harkotten were Hanoverian Barons. (The famous Bishop of Mainz was a scion of this family.)
214. The Landgrave is no doubt Landgrave Charles of Hesse-Cassel, of whom the Duchess of Orleans speaks as her cousin. His mother, the Landgravine Hedwig Sophia, was a daughter of the Elector George William of Brandenburg and his wife Elizabeth Charlotte, sister of the Elector Palatine Frederick V.
215. Princess Emily of Hesse-Cassel, sister of Landgrave William VI, married Henry Charles, Prince of Tarente, and died in 1693. As to the ‘Marionette’, see the Introduction to this Appendix.
216. Ebsdorf, a hunting-box of the Duke of Hanover, about fifteen miles from Lüneburg.
217. Cf. Wilkins, p. 233.
218. The Imperial campaigns in Hungary were still in progress, and, by the Kurtractat of 1692, Ernest Augustus and his brother were under the obligation of keeping up a military force there till the end of the war.
219. The ‘Baroness’—unidentifiable—not the ‘Countess’; though Countess Platen was famed as an expert in the art of painting, and was even said to have invented a mysterious pigment called ‘white rouge.’
220. The letters ‘Bil’ in the original no doubt stand for ‘Bielke.’ See note to F 10, below. ‘M. le Duc’ is clearly the Duke of Celle.
221. Of Hanover (on the point of becoming such).
222. I cannot be sure about the ‘falconry.’ The list of the Elector’s household in 1696, ap. Malortie, Der Hannoversche Hof unter d. Kürfürsten Ernst August, &c., p. 40, includes one ‘bird-catcher,’ and one ‘ortolan-catcher.’
223. What is here printed as two letters (F 33 and F 34) runs on without break in the Berlin manuscript. It is, however, difficult to believe that the earlier portion is not distinct from the latter, and that the former was not written by ‘la Confidante,’ and the latter by Königsmarck; and I have therefore, though with diffidence, ventured on the arrangement in the text. It must not be supposed that these two letters refer to the assignation which led to the catastrophe of the amour between Sophia Dorothea and Königsmarck. The day of Königsmarck’s disappearance was, no doubt, a Sunday, and the place in which, according to tradition, he was struck down dead was by the door of the Rittersaal, in the Leineschloss at Hanover. But apart from the fact that, according to Rüdiger’s statement (Cramer, vol. i. p. 69), Königsmarck did not leave his lodgings till between 9 and 10 p.m., the body of the letters in the Lund and in the Berlin collection appear to belong to an earlier date than that at which Königsmarck quitted the Hanoverian service (probably about the spring of 1694): and it can hardly be supposed that these two specially incriminating letters were left by the Secretary Hildebrandt to be seized, and that they found their way to Berlin with a series of which they formed no integral part. The Princess, it may be added, was in the habit of playing cards in the Grand Hall as early as 1691 (cf. Wilkins, p. 145).
224. Near Celle.
225. Ma petite. For Königsmarck’s use of the same term of endearment, cf. Wilkins, p. 162.
226. See note to F 4 below.
227. Count Magnus Stenbock, afterwards renowned as a Swedish general under Charles XII, and sympathetically remembered for his tragic death, entered the Dutch service as a volunteer in 1690. The Count de La Gardie mentioned here may be Pontus Frederick who died in 1693. Stenbock was connected by descent with the de La Gardies; a Countess Stenbock, born de La Gardie, was with Aurora von Königsmarck immediately after her brother’s death. The two Counts are mentioned as likely to come to Celle in July 1693, ap. Wilkins, p. 288.
228. ‘The good Plesse’ must have been the lady of General Pless, formerly in the Danish service, like many other members of his family, which was of ancient Brunswick descent.
229. Prince Maximilian, who excited Königsmarck’s jealousy so strongly, was staying at Brockhausen in June 1692 after his catastrophe at Hanover (cf. Wilkins, p. 136), Königsmarck being at Hanover. In June 1693 Maximilian was lodged at Luisburg, in rooms next to the Princess (cf. Wilkins, p. 259). In July 1693 he was at Herrenhausen (ib. p. 286). The letter, with its references to the contiguity of Prince Maximilian’s rooms, and to the Duchess of Celle’s encouragement of him, seems to belong to the later date.
230. Sophia Charlotte.
231. Probably Christian William von dem Bussche, who became Adjutant-General of the Elector George Lewis, and died as a general in 1711. George Christopher von Hammerstein was Adjutant-General to the Hereditary (Electoral) Prince.
232. The war, begun in 1688 by the French invasion of the Palatinate, lasted till the conclusion of the Peace of Ryswyk in 1697.
233. Count Niels Bielke, the well-known Swedish politician (afterwards governor of Swedish Pomerania), seems already at this time as Swedish envoy to have furthered the French interest, with which he remained identified. See Colt ap. Wilkins, p. 176.
234. Can this have been Melusina von der Schulenburg?
235. Cf. Wilkins, pp. 313 sqq.
236. The familiar second person singular is employed in this and the next two lines.
237. Atlenburg (mis-spelt ‘Altenburg’ ap. Wilkins, p. 314) must be Artlenburg, in the part of the duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg on the left bank of the Elbe.
238. This old-fashioned toilet-water has hardly gone quite out of use. Its name is said to have been derived from the fact that the original formula of the compound (of which the chief ingredient is rosemary) was presented by a hermit to a queen of Hungary. In his rapturous letter ap. Wilkins, p. 155, Königsmarck begs Sophia Dorothea to have de l’eau de la reine d’Hongrie in readiness.
239. A member of the ancient family von Spörcken, which possessed numerous estates in Lüneburg, and from which sprang Field-Marshal von Spörcken. He was born in 1698, and his mother was a sister of Field-Marshal von der Schulenburg.
240. The siege of Charleroi by Vauban began on September 15, 1693, and ended with the capture of the place on October 11.
241. Sic in text (‘la Dujais d’Hanovre’ and, lower down, ‘la Dujaiÿse,’ Königsmarck’s spelling), though the date of the letter admits of no doubt.
242. The remainder of this letter was misplaced in the Berlin copy.
243. Probably the wife of Court-Marshal von Koppenstein.
244. Gosses de princesses in the original. I owe the following reference to Dr. Braunholtz: Dans le jargon des voyous, une gosse, une gosseline, c’est une fillette de quinze à seize ans.... (L. Rigaud, Dictionnaire d’argot moderne, n.e., 1888).
245. I am unable to identify this nobleman. The spelling Espinosa seems the more common.
246. Linde or Linden, an estate in the immediate vicinityvicinity of Hanover, purchased in 1688 by Count Platen, who built in its fine gardens a château, frequently mentioned as ‘la cour de Linden.’
247. The Obergs were an ancient noble family, whose estates lay in the bishopric of Hildesheim and elsewhere. A Privy-Councillor von Oberg is mentioned ap. Malortie, u. s. pp. 193, 194. Christian Lewis von Oberg, a general of much distinction in the Hanoverian service, was not born till 1689. The Obergs were afterwards raised to the rank of Counts.—The von der Weyhe mentioned in the text was probably the same who afterwards became a General, and married the widowed Frau von dem Bussche, Countess Platen’s sister.
248. The meaning of this passage is hopelessly obscured in the original by the wild use of brackets, and by a reckless interchange between oratio obliqua and directa, and the second and third persons.
249. Von Reden was Chamberlain to the Electress Sophia. ‘Hortense’ is the Abbé Hortensio Mauro, mentioned in Chapter III. In her letters, the Electress often refers to him as ‘Ortence.’
250. This and the following two letters might belong to the spring of 1692; but I think that they may with more probability be assigned to the latter part of 1693.
251. The reference seems to be to his intention to quit the Hanoverian service.
252. Fräulein von dem Knesebeck.
253. This and the following letter ought possibly to be dated in the spring of 1692; but I think the date assigned the more probable one.
254. The seal on some of Königsmarck’s letters in the Lund Correspondence represents a flaming heart on an altar, the sun shining down upon it, with the circumscription, Rien d’impure m’allume. Wilkins, p. 123.
255. I cannot guess at ‘M. R.’ Prince Maximilian’s second name was William.