The love of an uncrowned queen

Sophie Dorothea of Celle, the uncrowned queen of the first of our Hanoverian kings, came of the ancient and illustrious family of Brunswick, which was descended from Henry the L...

Sophie Dorothea was born in the castle of Celle on September 15, 1666. On the anniversary of her birth two hundred and thirty-two years later it chanced that the writer visited...

The sun of Eléonore’s triumph had no sooner reached its meridian than its radiance began to be overcast. The first cloud was the death of the young Prince Augustus Frederick of...

From her watch-tower at Hanover the Duchess Sophia followed with keen interest the course of events in England, an interest which increased every day of her life until at last i...

The mists of a raw September morning hung about Celle as the Duchess Sophia drove in from the Hanover road, stiff and cold from her long journey. One wonders what thoughts crowd...

There were great rejoicings at Hanover in honour of the home-coming of the youthful pair. The marriage was exceedingly popular among all classes, and the people vied with the co...

Trust not the treason of those smiling looks Until ye have their guileful brains well tried, For they are like unto the golden hooks That from the foolish fish their baits do hi...

Count Philip Christopher Königsmarck had led an adventurous life since the day when, a handsome youth, he parted from the Princess at Celle, ten years before. He had grown to ma...

Yet this joy, waited on by fear and doubt, Plucked casually as by a flower of accident, On the rough lip and edge of danger’s breach, How sweeter is it than the rose to smell We...

They two alone one summer day: “Ah Love,” she said, “is hard to lose”. “And harder still,” he said, “to say The bitter words that you must choose Between the lover of to-day And...

The original manuscripts of the remarkable correspondence between Sophie Dorothea and Königsmarck, a correspondence unparalleled in the annals of passion, except, perhaps, by th...

What can we fear, we two? O God, Thou seest us Thy creatures bound Together by that law which holds the stars In palpitating cosmic passion bright; By which the very sun enthral...

While the Princess was still at Celle an event happened at Hanover which created much excitement. Colt writes: “The gates have been shut for two days at Hanover, accompanied wit...

I can but do as wills the spirit in me, Which is your spirit’s servant. Ah! my lord, My one love every way, my poor heart’s blood, Breath of my lips, and eyesight of mine eyes,...

The floods having abated, the court of Celle left Brockhausen and returned to Celle. The Princess accompanied her parents and continued to stay with them. She feared at one time...

“I offer endless prayers for you,” writes the Princess to her lover. He had need of them, for even while the ink was wet Königsmarck was fighting in one of the fiercest battles...

The Electress of Brandenburg did not go to Luisburg after all. Elaborate preparations had been made for her reception, for Duke Ernest Augustus was anxious to gain his powerful...

Come back! from love of thee my soul is glowing, Come back! without thee my sad heart is grieving, Come back! for by thy absence, my beloved one, Bewildered, bitter tears in flo...

O friend of all true lovers—tender Night! O solace of the dark! O comforter! Cover us in from the too garish light With curtains that no curious breathings stir. Hem us about, a...

The Princess spent the month of July at Celle and Wienhausen with her parents. She did not once meet her lover, who remained at Hanover daily expecting orders to start on the ca...

There is not in the fierce world anything, Scorn, agony, stripes, bonds, fears, woes, deep shame, Kingdomless ruin, but with open hands, With joyous bosom open as to love, Yea,...

Königsmarck went to Hamburg in January to see if he could raise money, but he failed, and returned to Hanover more embarrassed than before. At Hanover he had long outworn his we...

A day or two after the Princess returned to Hanover Königsmarck came back from Dresden. He had been kept informed of her movements, and, as her affairs grew more desperate, the...

After Königsmarck had left, the Princess passed most of the night in packing up her jewels, sorting and burning papers, and completing arrangements for her flight. It was arrang...

We now return to the Princess at Ahlden, where she was still kept in rigorous imprisonment. The fiction of the Princess’s so-called desertion was maintained even in the instruct...

For two months after the divorce the Princess was detained at Lauenau, in the Principality of Hanover, despite the stipulation Duke George William had made that, when the trial...

The moving Finger writes, and having writ Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. OMAR KHAYYAM.

A few hours after Queen Anne breathed her last the Elector of Hanover was proclaimed in London as George I. King of Great Britain and Ireland as quietly as if he had been undisp...

Over in England the King heard the news of his wife’s death with ill-concealed concern, born not of remorse, but fear. In his superstitious soul he remembered the prophecy and t...