Sophia Dorothea had now a considerable amount of funds placed to her credit in the bank of Amsterdam. Of the incidents of her captivity nothing whatever is known, save that it was most rigidly maintained. She was forgotten by the world, because unseen, and they who kept her in prison were as silent about her as the keepers of the Man in the Iron Mask were about that mysterious object of their solicitude. Where little is known there is little to be told. The captive bore her restraint with a patience which even her daughter must have admired; but she was not without hopes of escaping from a thraldom from which it was clear she could never be released by the voluntary act of those who kept her in an undeserved custody. It is believed that her funds at Amsterdam were intended by her to be disposed of in the purchase of aid to secure her escape; but it is added that her agents betrayed her, embezzled her property, and by revealing for what purpose they were her agents, brought upon her a closer arrest than any under which she had hitherto suffered. Romance has made some additions to these items of intelligence--items, great portions of which rest only on conjecture. The undoubted fact that much of the property which she inherited was to pass to her children rendered the death of a mother a consummation to be desired by (it was said) so indifferent a son and daughter as the Prince of Wales and the Queen of Prussia. The interest held by her husband was of a similar description, and the fatal consequences that might follow were not unprovided for by the friends of the prisoner. ‘It is known,’ says Walpole, ‘that in Queen Anne’s time there was much noise about French prophets. A female of that vocation (for we know from Scripture that the gift of prophecy is not limited to one gender) warned George I. to take care of his wife, as he would not survive her a year. That oracle was probably dictated to the French Deborah by the Duke and Duchess of Zell, who might be apprehensive that the Duchess of Kendal might be tempted to remove entirely the obstacle to her conscientious union with their son-in-law. Most Germans are superstitious, even such as have few other impressions of religion. George gave such credit to the denunciation, that, on the eve of his last departure, he took leave of his son and the Princess of Wales with tears, telling them he should never see them more. It was certainly his own approaching end that melted him, not the thought of quitting for ever two persons that he hated.’