The court came to a decision on the 28th of December, 1694. Their judgment was, that as she refused to live with her husband, she was guilty of desertion, and on that ground alone a decree of separation, or divorce, was recorded. When told that she had a right to appeal, she contemptuously refused to avail herself of it. The terms of the sentence were extraordinary, for they amounted to a decree of divorce without expressly mentioning the fact. The judgment, wherein nothing was judged, conferred on the prince, George Louis, the right of marrying again, if he should be so minded and could find a lady willing to be won. It, however, explicitly debarred his wife from entering into a second union. Not a word was written down against her, alleging that she was criminal. The name of Königsmark was not even alluded to. Notwithstanding these facts, and that the husband was the really guilty party, while the utmost which can be said against the princess was that she may have been indiscreet--notwithstanding this, not only was he declared to be an exceedingly injured individual, but the poor lady, whom he held in his heart’s hottest hate, was deprived of her property, possession of which was transferred to George Louis, in trust for the children; and the princess, endowed with an annual pension of some eight or ten thousand thalers, was condemned to close captivity in the castle of Ahlden, near Zell, with a retinue of domestics, whose office was to watch her actions, and a body of armed gaolers, whose only duty was to keep the captive secure in her bonds. Sophia Dorothea entered on her imprisonment with a calm, if not with a cheerful heart: certainly with more placidity and true joy than George Louis felt, surrounded by his mistresses and all the pomp of the Electoral State. All Germany is said to have been scandalised by the judgment delivered by the court. The illegality and the incompetency of the court from which it emanated, were so manifest, that the sentence was looked upon as a mere wanton cruelty, carrying with it neither conviction nor lawful consequence. So satisfied was the princess’s advocate on this point that he requested her to give him a letter declaring him non-responsible for having so far recognised the authority of the court as to have pleaded her cause before it! What is perhaps more singular still is the doubt which long existed whether this court ever sat at all; and whether decree of separation or divorce was ever pronounced in the cause of Sophia Dorothea of Zell and George Louis, Electoral Prince of Hanover.