‘Königsmark’s vanity,’ says Walpole, ‘the beauty of the Electoral Princess, and the neglect under which he found her, encouraged his presumptions to make his addresses to her, not covertly, and she, though believed not to have transgressed her duty, did receive them too indiscreetly. The old Elector flamed at the insolence of so stigmatised a pretender, and ordered him to quit his dominions the next day. This princess, surrounded by women too closely connected with her husband and consequently enemies of the lady they injured, was persuaded by them to suffer the count to kiss her hand, before his abrupt departure; and he was actually introduced by them into her bedchamber the next morning before she rose. From that moment he disappeared, nor was it known what became of him, till on the death of George I., on his son, the new King’s first journey to Hanover, some alterations in the palace being ordered by him, the body of Königsmark was discovered under the floor of the Electoral Princess’s dressing-room--the count having probably been strangled there, the instant he left her, and his body secreted. The discovery was hushed up. George II. (the son of Sophia Dorothea) entrusted the secret to his wife, Queen Caroline, who told it to my father; but the King was too tender of the honour of his mother to utter it to his mistress; nor did Lady Suffolk ever hear of it, till I informed her of it several years afterwards. The disappearance of the count made his murder suspected, and various reports of the discovery of his body have of late years been spread, but not with the authentic circumstances.’ To turn to the German sources of information: we are told by these, that after the departure of Königsmark from the chamber of the princess, she was engaged in arranging her papers, and in securing her jewels, preparatory, as she hoped, to her anticipated removal to the Court of Wolfenbüttel. Königsmark must have been murdered and the body made away with silently and swiftly, for not a dweller in the palace was disturbed by the doing of this bloody deed. All signs of its having been done had been so effaced that no trace of it was left to attract notice in the early morning. On that next morning the count’s servants were not troubled at his absence; such an occurrence was not unusual. When it was prolonged and enquiry became necessary, nothing could be learnt of him. Every soul in the palace was silent, designedly or through ignorance. Rumour, of course, was busy and full of confidence in what it put forth. George Louis himself said that the gay count would reappear, perhaps, when least expected. The tremendous secret was faithfully kept by the few who knew the truth; and when speculation was busiest as to the count’s whereabout, there was probably no atom of his body left, if it be true that it had been cast into a drain and had been consumed in slack-lime.