Royal Romances: Titillating Tales of Passion and Power in the Palaces of Europe

by Leslie Carroll

  As a brief overview, insofar as historians have been able to piece together, their epistolary romance began with a note from Königsmark to Sophia Dorothea dated July 1, 1690, and ended at the close of 1693. Not all of the letters that have survived are dated. The correspondence began with a respectful tone, but after the affair was consummated, the tenor became much more florid. Both count and princess wrote as if they were characters from an epic romance of the era. Their early letters were sealed with the image of a heart on an altar lit by a ray of sunlight, emblazoned with the motto “Nothing impure can set me on fire.” But the later letters threw purity to the four winds, with a new, highly suggestive motto on the seal that read, “Cosi fosse il vostro dentro il mio”—“Thus might yours be inside mine”—accompanied by the image of two hearts, one enclosed inside the other.

  Rarely was there a more neurotic pair of lovers. Sophia Dorothea’s passion became all-consuming, barely sparing a thought for anyone else, even for her two children, the only other people in the world for whom she may have had any affection.

  Much of the time, the count was at war, posted to a front, whether near or distant. From her silken boudoir Sophia Dorothea fretted over the firing of every cannonball and fusillade. “Can it be that you think that I love someone other than you?” Königsmark wrote from Berlin on April 23, 1691. “No, I swear to you that after you I will never love again. It will not be very difficult to keep my word, for after having adored you, how could one find another pretty woman?…And how could it be that after having loved a Goddess, one could wish to look upon Mortals? No, in truth I have too good taste, and I am not one of those who would like to become a scoundrel. I adore you charming brunette, and I will die with these feelings, if you do not forget me, I swear to you that I will love you all my life. I expect no letters from you because I hope to be soon near you, and my only occupation will then be to show you that I love you madly, and that nothing is dearer to me than your favors….”

  Two weeks earlier, the count had told Sophia Dorothea that he had a new roommate: a bear he had trained to tear his heart out if she should prove faithless. No pressure there. Needless to say, the intensity of Königsmark’s ardor for Sophia Dorothea was overwhelming. In April or May of 1691, he composed a poem to her, in which he confessed his “own perdition, [b]ecause I have dared to love what I should only have worshiped.”

  There were two themes that the princess reiterated as she constantly reassured Königsmark of his place in her heart, averring, “I was born to love you.” More than once she penned some version of “…I have a passion which creates all the pleasure and all the misfortune of my life. It is the only one I can say I have ever felt and it will die with me.” One day she wrote, “Without you life would be intolerable and four high walls would give me more pleasure than to remain in the world.”

  In this, she would eventually get her wish.

  Each of the paramours was consumed by jealousy and fear. Königsmark blamed Sophia Dorothea for his suffering, because he doubted her attachment to him, working himself into a lather at the idea of another man in her box at the theater, or the French ambassador gallantly offering his arm as she descended a staircase. Of course, he had no right to demand or expect her fidelity to him: She was a married woman. Nevertheless, envious even of her husband, Königsmark wrote Sophia Dorothea from his camp during the summer of 1692, “[W]henever I think that you might ever caress anyone but me, my blood curdles in my veins…. Oh God, if ever I saw you kiss anyone with as much passion as you have kissed me, and ride astride with the same desire, I never want to see God if it would not drive me mad.”

  He had no reason to reproach Sophia Dorothea, but saw threats everywhere, asking her to send him a detailed account of her routine every day. She complied, foolishly ignoring the enormous risk posed by revealing such information.

  Their romance was conducted against a backdrop of war, including Louis XIV’s expansionist incursions into Flanders and Germany. Königsmark fought for members of the allied forces intent on stopping him. The stakes were as high as they could be: life and death, if the lovers were to be discovered. Sophia Dorothea’s indiscretion would not be overlooked by either her husband or her in-laws, despite George Ludwig’s own infidelity. And the penalty for Königsmark could be dire. Additionally, posted at the front, the count faced the threat of death at the end of each salvo of artillery fire, in the curve of every saber. In one letter, Sophia Dorothea pleaded with her lover, “I beseech you not to expose me in the future to worries like this. Never leave me again, I beg of you, and if it is true that you love me, do yourself a favor and spend the rest of your life with me. How I hate King William [William III of England], who is the cause of all this. He gives me mortal pain by endangering all that I adore.”

  The night before his men prepared to attack the French at Enghien, Königsmark wrote, “[W]hat makes me a coward is the fear of never seeing you again.” Sophia Dorothea replied, “I am charmed by everything you tell me. Rest assured that whatever accident might befall you, you would not be loved the less. My affection is equal to any test, and even if only your head were left, I would always love you to distraction, and would count it a real pleasure to renounce the world in order to live with you wherever you please. However, I am very happy that you came back in one piece. Every bit of you is so handsome and so charming that none of it must be lost. Look after yourself, I beg you.”

  But Königsmark couldn’t restrain his jealousy even when he had no reason to doubt his lover’s affection. He seethed when George Ludwig arrived at Halle and evidently spoke of Sophia Dorothea, “[T]elling me of the state you were in, your undress, uncoifed, your hair hanging down loose on your matchless bosom. Oh God, I cannot write for anger!”

  It’s hard to imagine George Ludwig, who cared nothing for his wife, boasting of her beauty to her lover, let alone to the rest of the officers. Although there is no clear indication that he was aware of Sophia Dorothea’s affair (as his mother and his father’s mistress were), perhaps it was suggested to him that he might say alluring things about her in the count’s presence, in order to gauge his reaction.

  Back in Hanover, Sophia Dorothea’s mother-in-law was slyly angling for her to betray her affair with the count. The princess was too naive to recognize it, writing to her lover on June 14, 1692, that she “talks about you every time I go for a walk with her…I don’t know if she does it because of affection for you or to please me. In either case, she speaks of you a lot and I cannot even hear the sound of your name without a surge of emotion which I cannot control. She praises you so highly and with such pleasure that if she were younger I could not help being jealous, for really I think she is fond of you. She could not give me more evidence of it than she does. It even makes me uncomfortable.”

  While the princess’s mother-in-law was giving the young woman enough rope to hang herself, her mother was trying to protect her, but the Duchess of Celle might as well have been spitting into the wind. Worried about her daughter’s tendre for the Swedish mercenary (and vice versa), Eléanore d’Olbreuse repeatedly cautioned Sophia Dorothea that she was treading into treacherous territory and that Königsmark’s ungovernable passion for her might doom them both. But the young woman ignored every warning, listening instead to her paramour, who insisted that the duchess was “the most deceitful woman in the world. She says a thousand nice things and yet she is using her authority to try to ruin me with you.”

  The lovers had discussed their future, although the count had admitted that his prospects were limited. His huge gambling debts prohibited him from covering himself in military glory at the front in Flanders, because that was where his creditors awaited. On orders from the king of Sweden, Königsmark’s estates there were to be confiscated. And he refused to accept any advantageous job offers, because it would mean quitting Hanover, and he had vowed never to leave Sophia Dorothea. When he wrote to say that he had sacrificed everything for her, it was no exaggeration; he was indeed placing their romance
ahead of his career and financial stability. But ironically, without either of those two elements, what future could they possibly have on their own? How would he be able to support them?

  In addition to pouring his passion onto paper, Königsmark provides a rare glimpse of life at the front. His letters are full of gossip about his fellow officers, anecdotes about the practical jokes they played on one another and getting drunk with his buddies, although he was quick to assure Sophia Dorothea that his inebriation didn’t lead to infidelity.

  At some point in 1692, several of the lovers’ letters were intercepted by operatives working for Baroness von Platen and delivered to her lover, the elector Ernst Augustus, Sophia Dorothea’s father-in-law. Until that time Königsmark had been in the duke’s good graces. In 1691, for example, he entrusted the count with a diplomatic mission to Hamburg. But after he saw the letters, the duke assigned Königsmark to a Hanoverian regiment that was marching off to fight the French. Although fellow officers were liberally granted leaves of absence, the count’s requests to visit Hanover were repeatedly denied.

  Stuck at an army camp while Sophia Dorothea glittered at court, surrounded by admirers, the count was consumed with jealousy and doubt, his anxiety exacerbated every time the arrival of a letter he had been expecting was delayed. Every late or missing piece of correspondence filled the lovers with anguish and dread—and with good reason.

  At the end of the 1692 campaign, Königsmark reiterated his request for a pass to return to Hanover. After it was denied, he feigned illness and went AWOL, riding to the Leine Palace in disguise and rushing into the arms of his beloved. “What I wouldn’t give to hear midnight strike!” he wrote. “Be sure to have smelling salts ready lest my excess of joy cause me to faint. Tonight I shall embrace the most agreeable person in the world and I shall kiss her charming lips…. I shall hear you tell me yourself that I matter to you in some way. I shall embrace your knees; my tears will be allowed to run down your incomparable cheeks; my arms will have the satisfaction of embracing the most beautiful body in the world.”

  But after the magnitude of his desertion sank in, the count presented himself to Marshal Podewils, who was also a sympathetic friend of Sophia Dorothea’s parents. However, now that the duke of Hanover had been made an elector, Ernst Augustus had begun to care more about maintaining appearances. Although he did not terminate his own extramarital affairs, nor would he compel his son George Ludwig to do so, someone would have to be scapegoated in order to demonstrate to the Holy Roman Emperor that he was a man of strong moral fiber.

  To that end, the marshal had just been assigned the unpleasant task of exiling Königsmark’s sister Aurora from Hanover, most likely at the instigation of the conniving Baroness von Platen. Being a tactful woman, Aurora departed the duchy quietly. Sophia Dorothea’s letters to Königsmark had passed through Aurora’s hands, which was undoubtedly the reason for her banishment. So the princess tapped a new conduit, her lady-in-waiting Eleonore de Knesebeck—who was eventually imprisoned for her supporting role in the royal romance.

  But by this point, aware that they were being closely watched, the paramours hardly dared to exchange glances for fear that the electress Sophia or the Baroness von Platen’s spies would report it. Consequently, Königsmark was always missing, or misinterpreting, the secret signals from Eleonore de Knesebeck, and when he didn’t find an expected letter hidden in his hat, he’d assume he’d been betrayed.

  The count knew by now that he had lost favor with his employer, the elector, and feared an assignment that would send him away from Hanover. But in 1693 current events conspired in his favor. Denmark allied herself with Sweden and together they prepared to invade the tiny duchy of Celle, on the pretext that Sophia Dorothea’s father had built fortifications on a frontier town. The Danes camped on the banks of the Elbe, and Königsmark was named commander of the troops in charge of preventing them from crossing the river. He was camped at Altenburg, where his letters were written until September of 1693.

  On May 19, writing to his “beloved brunette,” the count pined, “It is now eight weeks since I left Hanover. I am fasting and live like a Capuchin monk. I don’t miss a sermon and I no longer trim my beard…. Ah! If I could see those eyes happy to see me die before them. If I could kiss that little place which has given me so much pleasure…. At night, your portrait is before my eyes and on my lips and I am no longer a Capuchin….”

  By September, Sophia Dorothea was supporting her career soldier’s decision to abandon his profession. Königsmark wrote to her on the nineteenth of the month, “You want to know whether I still want to leave the army. I answer that that depends entirely on you, because as I have resolved to be completely yours, heart, body, and soul, you must rule on how I should conduct myself.” He was really asking her for money, having confided a couple of months earlier that his estate in Sweden was “rather poor. But I have acquired a much greater treasure and I defy this barbaric king to take it away from me. I have your very dear person and the possession of your heart.”

  Unfortunately, Sophia’s dowry was in the possession of her in-laws, who begrudgingly parceled out just enough for her to live on, and she dared not ask her father for funds. Not only was the duke of Celle entirely unsupportive of their romance, but he needed every thaler he owned to fight the Danes.

  Baroness von Platen was also becoming an increasing source of anxiety. Sophia Dorothea urged Königsmark to attend the woman’s soirees, as he had done in the past, and to humor the baroness, because if he irritated her too much, she would avenge herself. Her words proved prophetic. At eleven p.m. on the thirtieth of July, the princess wrote Königsmark to confide that she’d had a three-hour conversation with Baroness von Platen, in which the older woman informed her that everyone at court was gossiping because “the life I lead is so retiring” that “they do not think it natural for a woman of my age to renounce everything so completely, and they are seeking the reason for it. I replied that if I had singled out someone and had not treated everyone the same way, people would have a right to complain, but that as I talk to no one everyone should be satisfied and that they were wrong to complain since I treated everyone alike.” And yet, after all this time Sophia Dorothea still had no clue that the fox had gotten in among the pigeons, adding, “She spoke several times about you; she is only too pleased to do so. At the end we parted as close friends and never was friendship confirmed by as many pledges as she made.”

  What elevates this royal affair to the heights of grand opera is that it is a wartime romance, where issues of life and death are at stake. In many cases each letter Count von Königsmark wrote to his beloved princess could have been his last. What plunges the liaison to the depths of melodrama is the scheming presence of Baroness von Platen, overdressed, overweight, and overrouged, so wildly jealous of Sophia Dorothea and so desperately covetous of the Swedish count that one can almost hear her maniacal cackle with every twist of the plot to destroy their love and their lives.

  In April 1694, Baroness von Platen convinced Ernst Augustus to exile his daughter-in-law’s paramour from Hanover. The elector summoned Königsmark and politely informed him that his services were no longer required.

  The Swede left the Hanoverian court and promptly secured a new post as a general in the army of the elector of Saxony. However, one night in Dresden he drank a bit too much punch at an officers’ mess party and embarked on a booze-fueled rant about the pathetic antics of the weak Hanoverian elector Ernst Augustus, his pushy lover Baroness von Platen, his podgy, pig-snouted son, the Hereditary Prince George Ludwig, and the prince’s skeletal giant of a mistress, Ehrengard Melusine von der Schulenberg. As Ernst Augustus had spies everywhere, word of Königsmark’s trash-talking got back to Hanover.

  George Ludwig confronted his wife with this story of her lover’s indiscretion. Sophia Dorothea immediately countered that it was his romance with Melusine that was the real scandal. When she proposed a divorce, it was probably the first time the couple had ever agree
d on something. But then George Ludwig began to throttle his wife and yank out her hair. Sophia Dorothea’s screams brought the servants running. They saw the Hereditary Prince shove his wife to the floor and swear never to see her again. Unlike his marriage vow, this was a promise George Ludwig would keep. However, he was afraid of doing her too much injury, because of a strange prediction made by a Gypsy fortune-teller years earlier: that if he were in any way responsible for his wife’s demise, he would meet his own doom within a year of it.

  The parents of the sparring pair had predictable reactions to the news of a possible divorce. Ernst Augustus and his wife, the shrewish duchess Sophia, fearful of losing the annual installments of Sophia Dorothea’s dowry, sent their son out of town to clear his head. Sophia Dorothea’s father was wholly convinced that his daughter made a better whore than a wife. The Duchess of Celle was the only one who sympathized with the princess’s situation, but she was unable to champion her daughter alone.

  At the end of June 1694, Königsmark feigned illness and deserted his military post in Dresden, riding hell-for-leather to Hanover, in disguise, to see his beloved Sophia Dorothea. The lovers had conceived the idea of running away together, although the count’s spendthrift behavior presented a hitch; he was already deeply in debt. What would they live off of after they fled? Pragmatism was never Sophia Dorothea’s strong suit, so they decided to throw caution to the winds, intending to flee to the duchy of Wolfenbüttel on the second of July.