It was previous to this attempt being entered upon, and perhaps because it was contemplated, that the princess voluntarily underwent a very solemn ordeal. The ceremony was as public as it could be rendered by the presence of part of the Electoral family and the great official dignitaries of the church and government. Before them Sophia Dorothea partook of the sacrament, and then made solemn protestation of her innocence, and of her unspotted faith towards the Electoral Prince, her husband. At the termination of this ceremony she was insulted by an incredulous smile which she saw upon the face of Count von Platen; whereat the natural woman was moved within her to ask him if his own excellent wife could take the same oath, in attestation of her unbroken faithfulness to him!
The strange essay at reconciliation was marred by an attempt made to induce the Electoral Princess to confess that she had been guilty of sins of disobedience towards the expressed will of her consort. All endeavour in this direction was fruitless; and though grave men made it, it shows how very little they comprehended their delicate mission. The princess remained fixed in her desire to withdraw from Hanover; but when she was informed of the wound this would be to the feelings of the Elector and Electress, and that George Louis himself was heartily averse to it, she began to waver, and applied to her friends at Zell, among others to Bernstorf, the Hanoverian minister there, asking for counsel in this her great need.
Bernstorf, an ally of the von Platens, secretly advised her to insist upon leaving Hanover. He assured her, pledging his word for what he said, that she would find a happy asylum at Zell; that even her father, so long estranged from her, would receive her with open arms; and that in the adoption of such a step alone could she hope for happiness and peace during the remainder of her life.
She was as untruthfully served by some of the ladies of her circle, who, while professing friendship and fidelity, were really the spies of her husband and her husband’s mistress. They were of that class of women who were especially bred for courts and court intrigues, and whose hopes of fortune rested upon their doing credit to their education.
As the princess not merely insisted upon quitting Hanover, but firmly refused to acknowledge that she had been guilty of any wrong to her most guilty husband, a course was adopted by her enemies which, they considered, would not merely punish her, but would transfer her possessions to her consort, without affecting the long projected union of Zell, after the duke’s death, with the territory of Hanover. An accusation of adultery, even if it could be sustained, of which there was not the shadow of a chance, might, if carried out and followed by a divorce, in some way affect the transfer of a dominion to Hanover, which transfer rested partly on the rights of the wife of the Electoral Prince. A divorce might destroy the ex-husband’s claims; but he was well-provided with lawyers to watch and guard the case to an ultimate conclusion in his favour.
A Consistorial Court was formed, of a strangely mixed character, for it consisted of four ecclesiastical lawyers and four civil authorities of Hanover and Zell. It had no other authority to warrant its proceedings than the command or sanction of the Elector, and the consent of the Duke of Zell, whose ill-feeling towards his child seemed to increase daily. The only charge laid against the princess before this anomalous court was one of incompatibility of temper, added to some little failings of character; not the most distant allusion to serious guilt with Königsmark, or any one else, was made. His name was never once mentioned. Her consent to live again in Hanover and let by-gones be by-gones was indignantly refused by her. She would never, she protested, live again among people who had murdered the only man in the world who loved her well enough to be a friend to her who was otherwise friendless. Her passionate tears flowed abundantly; Fräulein von Knesebeck states that whenever the mysterious fate of Königsmark was referred to, the princess’s grief was so violent that it might almost lead those who witnessed it to suspect that she took too great an interest in the man made away with almost at her chamber-door.
The court affected to attempt an adjustment of the matter; but as the attempt was always based on another to drag from the princess a confession of her having, wittingly or unwittingly, given cause of offence to her husband, she continued firmly to refuse to place her consort in the right by doing herself and her cause extremest wrong.
In the meantime, during an adjournment of the court, she withdrew to Lauenau. She was prohibited from repairing to Zell, but there was no longer any opposition made to her leaving the capital of the Electorate. She was, however, strictly prohibited from taking her children with her. Her parting from these was as painful a scene as can well be imagined, for she is said to have felt that she would never again be united with them. Her son, George Augustus, was then ten years of age; her daughter, Sophia, was still younger. The homage of these children was rendered to their mother long after their hearts had ceased to pay any to their father beyond a mere conventional respect.
In her temporary retirement at Lauenau, she was permitted to enjoy very little repose. The friends of the Electoral Prince seem to have been anxious lest she should publish more than was yet known of the details of his private life. This fear alone can account for their anxiety, or professed anxiety, for a reconciliation. The lawyers, singly or in couples, and now and then a leash of them together, went down to Lauenau to hold conference with her. They assailed her socially, scripturally, legally; they pointed out how salubrious was the discipline which subjected a wife to confess her faults. They read to her whole chapters from Corinthians, on the duties of married ladies, and asked her if she could be so obstinate and unorthodox as to disregard the injunctions of St. Paul. Finally, they quoted codes and pandects, to prove that a sentence might be pronounced against her under contumacy, and concluded by recommending her to trust to the mercy of the Crown Prince, if she would but cast herself upon his honour.
They were grave men; sage, learned, experienced men; crafty, cunning, far-seeing men; in all the circles of the empire men were not to be found more skilled in surmounting difficulties than these indefatigable men, who were all foiled by the simplicity and firmness of a mere child. ‘If I am guilty,’ said she, ‘I am unworthy of the prince: if I am innocent, he is unworthy of me!’