His original selection by the Emperor had much reference to his military services. The efforts of Louis XIV. to get possession of the Palatinate, after the death of the Palatine Louis, had caused the formation of the German Confederacy to resist the aggression of France --an aggression not checked till the day when Marlborough defeated Tallard, at Blenheim. Louis was hurried into the war by his minister, Louvois, who was annoyed by his interference at home in matters connected with Louvois’s department. It was to make the confederation more firm and united that Ernest Augustus was created, rather than elected, a ninth Elector. The three Protestant Electors were those of Saxony, Brandenburg, and Hanover; the three Roman Catholic, Bohemia, Bavaria, and the Palatinate; and the three spiritual Electors, the Prince-Archbishops of Metz, Trèves, and Cologne. The history of the creation of the ninth Electorate would not be complete without citing what is said in respect thereof by the author of a pamphlet suppressed by the Hanoverian government, and entitled ‘Impeachment of the Ministry of Count Munster.’ It is to this effect: ‘During the war between Leopold I. and France, at the close of the 17th century, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, and administrator of Osnabrück, father of George I., had been paid a considerable sum of money on condition of aiding the French monarch with ten thousand troops. The Emperor, aware of the engagement, and anxious to prevent the junction of these forces with the enemy, proposed to create a ninth electorate, in favour of the Duke, provided he brought his levies to the imperial banner. The degrading offer was accepted, and the envoys of Brunswick-Luneberg received the electoral cap, the symbol of their master’s dishonour, at Vienna, on the 19th of December 1692. From the opposition of the college and princes, Ernest was never more than nominally an Elector, and even his son’s nomination was with difficulty accomplished in 1710. It was in connection with this new dignity that Hanover, a name till then applied only to a principal and almost independent city of the Dukedom of Brunswick, became known in the list of European sovereignties.’ But while the Court of Hanover was engaged in the important or trivial circumstances which have been already narrated, a notable individual had been pursuing fortune in various countries of Europe, and had made his appearance on the scene at Hanover, to play a part in a drama which had a tragical catastrophe--namely, Count Königsmark. CHAPTER VI. THE KÖNIGSMARKS. Count Charles John Königsmark’s roving and adventurous life--The great heiress--An intriguing countess--‘Tom of Ten Thousand’--The murder of Lord John Thynne--The fate of the count’s accomplices--Court influence shelters the guilty count.