Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Jacobite relics of Scotland > [First series]

264 NOTES.
found her, encouraged his presumption to make his addresses
to her, not covertly ; and she, though believed not to have trans-
gressed her duty, did receive them too indiscreetly. The old
elector flamed at the insolence of so stigmatised a pretender, and
ordered him to quit his dominions at a day's warning. The
princess, surrounded by women too closely connected with her
husband, and consequently enemies of the lady they injured, was
persuaded by them to suffer the count to kiss her hand before his
abrupt departure ; and he was actually introduced by them into
her bedchamber the next morning before she rose. From that
moment he disappeared ; nor was it known what became of him,
till, on the death of George I. on his son the new king's first
journey to Hanover, some alterations in the palace being ordered
by him, the body of Koningsmark was discovered under the floor
of the electoral princess's dressing-room ; the count having pro-
bably been strangled there the instant he left her, and his body
secreted there.
This is the short and distinct account of the matter given by
Lord Orford ; and he further adds, with regard to the conse-
quences : " Of the circumstances that ensued on Koningsmark's
disappearance I am ignorant; nor am I acquainted with the laws
of Germany relative to divorce or separation ; nor do I know, or
suppose, that despotism and pride allow the law to insist on much
formality, when a sovereign has reason or a mind to get rid of his
wife. Perhaps too much difiiculty of untying the Gordian knot
of matrimony, thrown in the way of an absolute prince, would be
no kindness to the ladies, but might prompt him to use a sharper
weapon, like that butchering husband our Henry VIII. Sove-
reigns who narrow or let out the rules according to their pre-
judices and passions, mould their own laws, no doubt, to the
standard of their convenience. Genealogic purity of blood is the
predominant folly of Germany ; and the code of Malta seems to
have more force in the empire than the ten commandments.
Thence was introduced that most absurd evasion of the indissolu-
bility of marriage, espousals with the left hand; as if the Almighty
had restrained his ordinances to one half of a man's person, and
allowed a greater latitude to his left side than to his right, or