History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 1 [14]
their swords drawn. [ Die Herzogin von Ahlden (Leipzig, l852), p. 22. Divorce was, 28th December, 1694; death, 13th November, 1726,--age then 60.] "Duchess of Ahlden," that was her title in the eclipsed state. Born Princess of Zelle; by marriage, Princess of Hanover ( Kurprinzessin ); would have been Queen of England, too, had matters gone otherwise than they did.-- Her name, like that of a little Daughter she had, is Sophie Dorothee: she is Cousin and Divorced Wife of Kurprinz George; divorced, and as it were abolished alive, in this manner. She is little Friedrich Wilhelm's Aunt-in-law; and her little Daughter comes to be his Wife in process of time. Of him, or of those belonging to him, she took small notice, I suppose, in her then mood, the crisis coming on so fast. In her happier innocent days she had two children, a King that is to be, and a Queen; George II. of England, Sophie Dorothee of Prussia; but must not now call them hers, or ever see them again.
This was the Konigsmark tragedy at Hanover; fast ripening towards its catastrophe while little Friedrich Wilhelm was there. It has been, ever since, a rumor and dubious frightful mystery to mankind: but within these few years, by curious accidents (thefts, discoveries of written documents, in various countries, and diligent study of them), it has at length become a certainty and clear fact, to those who are curious about it. Fact surely of a rather horrible sort;--yet better, I must say, than was suspected: not quite so bad in the state of fact as in that of rumor. Crime enough is in it, sin and folly on both sides; there is killing too, but NOT assassination (as it turns out); on the whole there is nothing of atrocity, or nothing that was not accidental, unavoidable;--and there is a certain greatness of DECORUM on the part of those Hanover Princes and official gentlemen, a depth of silence, of polite stoicism, which deserves more praise than it will get in our times. Enough now of the Konigsmark tragedy; [A considerable dreary mass of books, pamphlets, lucubrations, false all and of no worth or of less, have accumulated on this dark subject, during the last hundred and fifty years; nor has the process yet stopped,--as it now well might. For there have now two things occurred in regard to it FIRST: In the year l847, a Swedish Professor, named Palmblad, groping about for other objects in the College Library of Lund (which is in the country of the Konigsmark connections), came upon a Box of Old Letters,--Letters undated, signed only with initials, and very enigmatic till well searched into,--which have turned out to he the very Autographs of the Princess and her Konigsmark; throwing of course a henceforth indisputable light on their relation. SECOND THING: A cautious exact old gentleman, of diplomatic habits (understood to be "Count Von Schulenburg-Klosterrode of Dresden"), has, since that event, unweariedly gone into the whole matter; and has brayed it everywhere, and pounded it small; sifting, with sublime patience, not only those Swedish Autographs, but the whole mass of lying books, pamphlets, hints and notices, old and recent; and bringing out (truly in an intricate and thrice-wearisome, but for the first time in an authentic way) what real evidence there is. In which evidence the facts, or essential fact, lie at last indisputable enough. His Book, thick Pamphlet rather, is that same Herzogin von Ahlden (Leipzig, 1852) cited above. The dreary wheelbarrowful of others I had rather not mention again; but leave Count von Schulenburg to mention and describe them,-- which he does abundantly, so many as had accumulated up to that date of 1852, to the affliction more or less of sane mankind.] contemporaneous with Friedrich Wilhelm's stay at Hanover, but not otherwise much related to him or his doings there.
He got no improvement in breeding, as we intimated; none at all; fought, on the contrary, with his young Cousin (afterwards our George II.), a boy twice his age, though of weaker bone; and gave him
This was the Konigsmark tragedy at Hanover; fast ripening towards its catastrophe while little Friedrich Wilhelm was there. It has been, ever since, a rumor and dubious frightful mystery to mankind: but within these few years, by curious accidents (thefts, discoveries of written documents, in various countries, and diligent study of them), it has at length become a certainty and clear fact, to those who are curious about it. Fact surely of a rather horrible sort;--yet better, I must say, than was suspected: not quite so bad in the state of fact as in that of rumor. Crime enough is in it, sin and folly on both sides; there is killing too, but NOT assassination (as it turns out); on the whole there is nothing of atrocity, or nothing that was not accidental, unavoidable;--and there is a certain greatness of DECORUM on the part of those Hanover Princes and official gentlemen, a depth of silence, of polite stoicism, which deserves more praise than it will get in our times. Enough now of the Konigsmark tragedy; [A considerable dreary mass of books, pamphlets, lucubrations, false all and of no worth or of less, have accumulated on this dark subject, during the last hundred and fifty years; nor has the process yet stopped,--as it now well might. For there have now two things occurred in regard to it FIRST: In the year l847, a Swedish Professor, named Palmblad, groping about for other objects in the College Library of Lund (which is in the country of the Konigsmark connections), came upon a Box of Old Letters,--Letters undated, signed only with initials, and very enigmatic till well searched into,--which have turned out to he the very Autographs of the Princess and her Konigsmark; throwing of course a henceforth indisputable light on their relation. SECOND THING: A cautious exact old gentleman, of diplomatic habits (understood to be "Count Von Schulenburg-Klosterrode of Dresden"), has, since that event, unweariedly gone into the whole matter; and has brayed it everywhere, and pounded it small; sifting, with sublime patience, not only those Swedish Autographs, but the whole mass of lying books, pamphlets, hints and notices, old and recent; and bringing out (truly in an intricate and thrice-wearisome, but for the first time in an authentic way) what real evidence there is. In which evidence the facts, or essential fact, lie at last indisputable enough. His Book, thick Pamphlet rather, is that same
He got no improvement in breeding, as we intimated; none at all; fought, on the contrary, with his young Cousin (afterwards our George II.), a boy twice his age, though of weaker bone; and gave him