Note 222 — Chapter XXIII · THE MURDER OF KÖNIGSMARCK.

From this point to the end of the chapter a curtain of impenetrable darkness descends and no gleam of light can be gathered from historical documents. All the English envoy’s despatches which might contain reference to the tragedy are destroyed. The account which follows is built upon the Roman Octavia by Duke Antony Ulrich of Wolfenbüttel; Cramer’s Memoirs of Aurora von Königsmarck, a work which contains many genuine documents and some spurious ones; Schulenburg’s Herzogin von Ahlden, a critical, honest and painstaking book, and Müller’s Sophia Dorothea, a work which, though not trustworthy, compels consideration from the fact that the author was private secretary to the late Duke of Cambridge when Regent of Hanover, and had access to the Guelph domestic papers. Moreover this account of the catastrophe is the one that gained acceptance at European courts and is supported by tradition.