- SD's mother - G1's wife - Grandmother of Fritz - Locked up for life after the discovery of her adultery with her lover. - Lover Philipp von Königsmarck, "disappeared," probably killed and thrown into the river. - Their letters were coded. - Some of which were stolen by Ulrike and sent to Fritz!
The Debate Historians: Philipp von Königsmarck and SDC were totally about to run away when they were caught!
Hatton: They definitely wanted to and wrote about it in their letters, but we now know they had no concrete plans.
Mildred: How do we "know" this?
Hatton: One, Königsmarck had to join his regiment.
Mildred: But the whole point of running away is not fulfilling your responsibilities?
Hatton: But he had given orders for everything to be ready for his arrival!
Mildred: Yes? If you don't behave like everything is normal, then you get caught even sooner? *cough* Fritz.
Hatton: But they didn't have the money to support SDC in a style that she would accept. *adduces evidence for this*
Mildred: Okay, maybe, but this isn't the strongest case I've ever seen. Moving on!
Historians: G1 was totally at fault for the events of the night of K's disappearance!
Hatton: He was in Berlin at the time!
Author of the G2 bio in the English Monarchs Series that comes right after Hatton's G1 bio: How convenient! He probably planned to be away at the time in order to have an alibi.
Hatton: No, his parents, Ernst August and Sophia, may have arranged for him to be away while they plotted the murder, but G1 himself only found out several weeks later.
Mildred: Evidence?
Hatton: Innocent until proven guilty. Moving on! But the legend that he caught SDC in flagrante and ran her lover through with a sword is right out.
Mildred: With you there.
Historians: G1 wanted to divorce SDC.
Hatton: Not so! She pushed for divorce. He tried really hard to reconcile with her, with the help of the jurists on the divorce court. Everyone was invested in a reconciliation except SDC, who thought that divorce was the key to her freedom.
Historians: G1 kept her locked up forever!
Hatton: Her daughter, SD of Prussia, tried to negotiate for an amnesty in 1725, but SDC refused! She would only agree to leave her house arrest if her name was cleared, it was stated that she had never done anything wrong, and she received compensation for wrongs suffered. Forgiveness would mean acknowledging that she had done anything wrong.
Mildred: Well, she kind of didn't, or at least not the kind that gets men like her husband locked up when they do it.
Hatton: Besides, she didn't think she needed her daughter's help with getting free, because she was counting on the Jacobites to save her. The Jacobites were the main reason she was kept locked up so long, btw.
SD: Well, that's fine, Mom, since I can't afford to negotiate on your behalf anyway until after my raison d'etre is settled, i.e. the double marriage of my two oldest kids to their cousins. But I'm sure that'll happen any day now! (1725)
Mildred: :'-(
Conclusion I'm not convinced G1 is much less at fault than I was before (I guess the well-documented lengthy and apparently sincere attempts to reconcile were new), but it *was* interesting to see all of SDC's agency in this.
Misc 1. The divorce suit papers were destroyed, historians suspect by G2, and reconstructed in the 19th century based on the detailed notes of one of the judges.
2. When G1 read SDC's letters, he got to read about such things as
his wife's intense desire for his death in battle, and her poor opinion of him as a lover when compared to Philipp Christoph.
I mean, I believe he was a better lover! And this is why society needs no-fault divorces, then you don't have to wish for your spouse's death!
3. The details we have on what happened to Königsmarck are from Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick (cousin of our Anton Ulrich), who apparently had remarkably good sources. Hatton says she would be inclined to disbelieve what he wrote, if not for
Professor Schnath's discovery that Don Nicolò Montalbano (usually called Montalban), the Italian who had endeared himself to the family during the work on the new Osnabrück palace, had settled on him shortly after 1/11 July the sum of 150,000 Taler from Ernst August's coffers. A princely reward, indeed, if it is taken into account that Montalban's salary was 200 Taler a year and that of the highest-paid electoral minister 1,500. Reward for what? It seems inescapable that this was payment for his services on 1/11 July and, at the same time, silence-money: the sum was to be paid by regular quarterly instalments. The other courtiers mentioned in Mencken's despatch were also devoted to the house: von Stubenvol was a Palatinate-born Kammerjunker who had married a natural daughter of Ernst August's; von Klencke was Oberkammerjunker to Ernst August; and Freiherr von Eltz was Hofmeister to young Georg August. All were men who could be expected to take firm action lest the newly-won dignity be besmirched by the scandal of an elopement. The identification of Nicolò Montalban (for there were several of that family name at the Hanoverian court) made by Schnath lends strong credence to the correctness of the rest of Anton Ulrich's information: the names of the other courtiers involved and the method of disposing of Königsmarck's body, sunk in the Leine river in a sack weighted with stones.
Professor Schnath, remember, is this guy, whom selenak has told us about before.
4. The official story was that Königsmarck Never Happened, and the divorce was officially because of SDC's refusal to cohabit with her husband, apropos of nothing at all and certainly no better alternatives that she did want to live with.
5. Sister Aurora von Königsmarck, mistress of August the Strong, was "indefatigable" in her quest to try to find out what happened to her brother. :(
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Sophia Dorothea of Celle, the Hatton take
Date: 2021-11-17 04:14 pm (UTC)- SD's mother
- G1's wife
- Grandmother of Fritz
- Locked up for life after the discovery of her adultery with her lover.
- Lover Philipp von Königsmarck, "disappeared," probably killed and thrown into the river.
- Their letters were coded.
- Some of which were stolen by Ulrike and sent to Fritz!
The Debate
Historians: Philipp von Königsmarck and SDC were totally about to run away when they were caught!
Hatton: They definitely wanted to and wrote about it in their letters, but we now know they had no concrete plans.
Mildred: How do we "know" this?
Hatton: One, Königsmarck had to join his regiment.
Mildred: But the whole point of running away is not fulfilling your responsibilities?
Hatton: But he had given orders for everything to be ready for his arrival!
Mildred: Yes? If you don't behave like everything is normal, then you get caught even sooner? *cough* Fritz.
Hatton: But they didn't have the money to support SDC in a style that she would accept. *adduces evidence for this*
Mildred: Okay, maybe, but this isn't the strongest case I've ever seen. Moving on!
Historians: G1 was totally at fault for the events of the night of K's disappearance!
Hatton: He was in Berlin at the time!
Author of the G2 bio in the English Monarchs Series that comes right after Hatton's G1 bio: How convenient! He probably planned to be away at the time in order to have an alibi.
Hatton: No, his parents, Ernst August and Sophia, may have arranged for him to be away while they plotted the murder, but G1 himself only found out several weeks later.
Mildred: Evidence?
Hatton: Innocent until proven guilty. Moving on! But the legend that he caught SDC in flagrante and ran her lover through with a sword is right out.
Mildred: With you there.
Historians: G1 wanted to divorce SDC.
Hatton: Not so! She pushed for divorce. He tried really hard to reconcile with her, with the help of the jurists on the divorce court. Everyone was invested in a reconciliation except SDC, who thought that divorce was the key to her freedom.
Historians: G1 kept her locked up forever!
Hatton: Her daughter, SD of Prussia, tried to negotiate for an amnesty in 1725, but SDC refused! She would only agree to leave her house arrest if her name was cleared, it was stated that she had never done anything wrong, and she received compensation for wrongs suffered. Forgiveness would mean acknowledging that she had done anything wrong.
Mildred: Well, she kind of didn't, or at least not the kind that gets men like her husband locked up when they do it.
Hatton: Besides, she didn't think she needed her daughter's help with getting free, because she was counting on the Jacobites to save her. The Jacobites were the main reason she was kept locked up so long, btw.
SD: Well, that's fine, Mom, since I can't afford to negotiate on your behalf anyway until after my raison d'etre is settled, i.e. the double marriage of my two oldest kids to their cousins. But I'm sure that'll happen any day now! (1725)
Mildred: :'-(
Conclusion
I'm not convinced G1 is much less at fault than I was before (I guess the well-documented lengthy and apparently sincere attempts to reconcile were new), but it *was* interesting to see all of SDC's agency in this.
Misc
1. The divorce suit papers were destroyed, historians suspect by G2, and reconstructed in the 19th century based on the detailed notes of one of the judges.
2. When G1 read SDC's letters, he got to read about such things as
his wife's intense desire for his death in battle, and her poor opinion of him as a lover when compared to Philipp Christoph.
I mean, I believe he was a better lover! And this is why society needs no-fault divorces, then you don't have to wish for your spouse's death!
3. The details we have on what happened to Königsmarck are from Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick (cousin of our Anton Ulrich), who apparently had remarkably good sources. Hatton says she would be inclined to disbelieve what he wrote, if not for
Professor Schnath's discovery that Don Nicolò Montalbano (usually called Montalban), the Italian who had endeared himself to the family during the work on the new Osnabrück palace, had settled on him shortly after 1/11 July the sum of 150,000 Taler from Ernst August's coffers. A princely reward, indeed, if it is taken into account that Montalban's salary was 200 Taler a year and that of the highest-paid electoral minister 1,500. Reward for what? It seems inescapable that this was payment for his services on 1/11 July and, at the same time, silence-money: the sum was to be paid by regular quarterly instalments. The other courtiers mentioned in Mencken's despatch were also devoted to the house: von Stubenvol was a Palatinate-born Kammerjunker who had married a natural daughter of Ernst August's; von Klencke was Oberkammerjunker to Ernst August; and Freiherr von Eltz was Hofmeister to young Georg August. All were men who could be expected to take firm action lest the newly-won dignity be besmirched by the scandal of an elopement. The identification of Nicolò Montalban (for there were several of that family name at the Hanoverian court) made by Schnath lends strong credence to the correctness of the rest of Anton Ulrich's information: the names of the other courtiers involved and the method of disposing of Königsmarck's body, sunk in the Leine river in a sack weighted with stones.
Professor Schnath, remember, is this guy, whom
4. The official story was that Königsmarck Never Happened, and the divorce was officially because of SDC's refusal to cohabit with her husband, apropos of nothing at all and certainly no better alternatives that she did want to live with.
5. Sister Aurora von Königsmarck, mistress of August the Strong, was "indefatigable" in her quest to try to find out what happened to her brother. :(