Horace Walpole says, on this subject: ‘I am not acquainted with the laws of Germany relative to divorce or separation, nor do I know or suppose that despotism and pride allow the law to insist on much formality when a sovereign has reason or mind to get rid of his wife. Perhaps too much difficulty in untying the Gordian knot of matrimony, thrown in the way of an absolute prince, would be no kindness to the ladies, but might prompt him to use a sharper weapon, like that butchering husband, our Henry VIII. Sovereigns who narrow or let out the law of God according to their prejudices and passions mould their own laws, no doubt, to the standard of their convenience. Genealogic purity of blood is the predominant folly of Germany; and the Code of Malta seems to have more force in the empire than the Ten Commandments. Thence was introduced that most absurd evasion of the indissolubility of marriage, espousals with the left hand, as if the Almighty had restrained his ordinance to one half of a man’s person, and allowed a greater latitude to his left side than to his right, or pronounced the former more ignoble than the latter. The consciences both of princely and noble persons in Germany are quieted if the more plebeian side is married to one who would degrade the more illustrious moiety; but, as if the laws of matrimony had no reference to the children to be thence propagated, the children of a left-handed alliance are not entitled to inherit. Shocking consequence of a senseless equivocation, which only satisfies pride, not justice, and is calculated for an acquittal at the herald’s office, not at the last tribunal. ‘Separated the Princess (Sophia) Dorothea certainly was, and never admitted even to the nominal honours of her rank, being thenceforward always styled the Duchess of Halle (Ahlden). Whether divorced is problematic, at least to me; nor can I pronounce--as, though it was generally believed, I am not certain--that George espoused the Duchess of Kendal (Mdlle. von der Schulenburg) with his left hand. But though German casuistry might allow a husband to take another wife with his left hand because his legal wife had suffered her right hand to be kissed by a gallant, even Westphalian or Aulic counsellors could not have pronounced that such a momentary adieu constituted adultery; and, therefore, of a formal divorce I must doubt; and there I must leave that case of conscience undecided until future search into the Hanoverian Chancery shall clear up a point of little real importance.’ Coxe, in his Memoirs of Walpole, says, on the other hand, very decidedly:--‘George I., who never loved his wife, gave implicit credit to the account of her infidelity, as related by his father; consented to her imprisonment, and obtained from the ecclesiastical consistory a divorce, which was passed on the 20th of December 1694.’