Note 103 — IV THE ELECTORAL HOUSE OF HANOVER (HANOVER AND HERRENHAUSEN, 1688-1701)

He served with distinction under Marlborough in Flanders. The marriage took place in 1696, two years after the Königsmarck catastrophe. Yet the late Mr. Wilkins makes Countess Platen, ‘with a refinement of cruelty,’ try to induce Sophia Dorothea to be present at the wedding. This significant blunder, repeated in the second edition of The Love of an Uncrowned Queen, is exposed by Mr. Lewis Melville, The First George, Vol. i. pp. 52-6. A Fräulein von Weyhe was in Sophia Dorothea’s service. The court of Hanover, after all, has much of the aspect of a large family party. In 1701, Sophia mentions a tour to the Harz made by the Elector in a company which included three ladies, ‘the Schoulenburg, Madame Wey, and Ernhausen, the Schoulenburg’s sister.’