When the Imperial party, after the year 1620, persecuted the daughter of the King of England, Elizabeth, wife of the Palatine, with satirical pictures, they painted the proud princess, as going along the high road with three children hanging on by her apron, or, as on the bare ground eating pap from an earthenware platter. The second of these children obtained, through the Westphalian peace, the eighth Electorate of the German Empire. After many vicissitudes of fortune, after drinking the bitter cup of banishment, and seeking in vain to recover his territory, the new Elector, Karl Ludwig, looked down from the royal castle at Heidelberg on the beautiful country, of which only a portion returned into the possession of his line. His was not a nature which bore in itself the guarantee of peace and happiness: it is true that in his family he was considered jovial and good-humoured, but he was also irritable, hasty, and passionate, covetous and full of pretension, easily influenced, and without energy, inclined to venture rashly on deeds of violence, and yet not firm enough to effect anything great. It appears that he had derived from the blood of the Stuarts, besides a high feeling of his own rank, much of the obstinacy of his ill-fated uncle Charles. In the year 1650, he had married Charlotte, Princess of Hesse, the daughter of that strong-minded woman, who, as Regent of her country, had shown more energy than most men, and whose powerful matronly countenance we still contemplate with pleasure, in the portrait by Engelhard Schäffler. The mother described her own daughter to the Elector as difficult to rule; the Electress was indeed passionate and without moderation, and must often have disturbed domestic peace by her frowardness and jealousy. A young lady of her court, Marie Susanne Loysa von Degenfeld, daughter of one of the partisans of the Thirty years' war, a person according to all accounts of great loveliness and much gentleness, mixed with firmness, excited a passion in the Elector which made him regardless of all considerations. After many angry quarrels he divorced his wife and at once married his love, on whom the title of "Raugräfin" was bestowed by the Imperial Court. The castoff Electress turned in vain to the Emperor Leopold, to effect a reconciliation with her husband. This petition is here given according to Lünig, from the rolls of the German Empire, 1714.[[43]]
"We, by the grace of God, Charlotte, Electress, Countess Palatine of the Rhine, born Landgravine of Hesse, offer to the most august Prince and Sovereign of Sovereigns, Leopold, by the grace of God, father of the fatherland, our most dutiful, obedient, and submissive greeting and service.
"Although the manifold and weighty business of the Empire with which your Imperial Majesty is troubled at this time, might well frighten us from disquieting you with our private affairs, yet we presume with profound humility to set before your Imperial Majesty our most pressing distress, and the mighty injuries inflicted upon us at this time without any fault on our part, because it is well known to us that your Imperial Majesty is at all times assiduous in helping most graciously the injured to their rights.
"It is not, I hope, unknown to your Imperial Majesty that we have, for nearly eleven years, been united in matrimony with his Most Serene Highness Prince Karl Ludwig, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Elector of the Holy Empire. At that time his Princely Highness, in frequent discourse, both before and after marriage, promised us by the highest oaths, an ever-enduring faith and conjugal love; and we on our part did the like. Being then animated by such reciprocal love, we have served his Highness in all conjugal obedience to the best of our power, so far as our womanly weakness permitted. We have also, by the grace of God, reared two young princes and a daughter in all love, so that his Princely Highness ought in justice to have abstained from divorcing himself from us.
"We submissively beg your Imperial Majesty to understand that, after three very severe confinements, we clearly traced by many tokens, no slight alienation in the feelings of our lord and husband, which would justly have given rise to suspicion in our minds, if our confiding spirit had not attributed what was good and laudable to his Princely Highness. For when we once, according to princely custom, presented his Princely Highness with a beautiful Neapolitan dapple-gray colt with all its appurtenances, he said to us: 'My treasure, we henceforth desire no such presents, which diminish our treasury;' and the very same day he presented the horse to one of the lowest of his nobles. This insult did so grieve us that, with weeping eyes, we lamented it to our gentlewoman, Maria Susanna von Degenfeld, of whose secret doings we had not at that time the slightest idea. She thereupon made answer, 'That if at any time she should meet with the like behaviour from her future consort, she would refuse all cohabitation with him.' By these words she intended nothing else than to incense us against our lord and master. Not long after, a ring was purloined from us by the said von Degenfeld out of our drawers. This must without doubt have been a concerted plan, for our lord and husband had required this ring of us, and when we could not find it, his Princely Highness was greatly irritated against us, and thus broke out: 'You make me think strange things of you as concerns this ring; I had thought you would have taken better care of it.' Whereupon we answered, 'Ah! my treasure, foster no evil suspicions against me; it has been purloined by some faithless person.' But his Princely Highness continued: 'Who may this faithless person be? Perhaps some young cavalier, on whose finger you may yourself have placed it.' This caused us so much pain, that we were led to speak somewhat severely to his Princely Highness, and said, 'No honest Prince would thus calumniate me.' Whereupon he replied, 'Who gave you the right to upbraid me as a dishonest Prince? If I hear aught further of this kind from you, you shall be rewarded with a box on the ear!' Thereupon we did not answer a word, but wept bitterly. But this von Degenfeld comforted us deceitfully, and spoke thus: 'Make yourself happy, Electoral Highness, and be not so much afflicted, it will soon be found again.' By these words she then tranquillized us. But not long afterwards a very noteworthy Latin epistle was put into our hand by a trusty servant, which he had found accidentally in the chamber of our lord and husband, the contents of which I cannot forbear enclosing. It is to this effect--
"'To the Most Serene Highness the Elector Palatine Karl Ludwig, Duke of Bavaria, dilecto meo.
"'I can no longer oppose your Electoral Highness, nor any longer deceive you as to my inclinations. Vicisti jamque tua sum, I unhappy one,
"'Maria Susanna, Baronissa a Degenfeld.'
"When, by God's Providence, we got this letter, we forthwith perused the same with great consternation; but as we are not much versed in the Latin tongue, we despatched the aforesaid trusty servant to the Most Noble Lord, Johann Jacob Graf von Eberstein, our dear lord and cousin, who was accidentally stopping at Heidelberg, bidding him come to us, and beseeching him as a friend and cousin to lend us his aid in the interpretation of the said note. This he honestly rendered us. It cannot be told what great sorrow took possession of our hearts, when it became evident in how unjustifiable and unprincely a way we had been dealt with. So distracted, therefore, were we in mind, that we ventured so far as to break open the coffer of the afore-mentioned Degenfeld, who was not then present, and after earnest search found three abominable letters of his Electoral Highness, likewise written in Latin, in which he equally assures the Degenfeld of his love.
"Then we could sufficiently see that our lord and husband was minded to renounce all truth and love towards us. This we wished at a fitting opportunity to forestal, and give his Princely Highness to understand it in a covert way.