Soon after this the Duke and Duchess of Celle paid a visit to the court of Hanover. The two brothers had much to talk about in connection with the part they were to play in the great war and the intrigues for the electorate. It is more than probable the Duke of Celle thought at this time that, as he was the elder brother, the Emperor would confer the Electoral dignity on him, and he was so foolish that the cunning Ernest Augustus, with the aid of his unscrupulous tools Bernstorff and Platen, could hoodwink him as much as he pleased. He seemed to be rapidly losing any will of his own, and he became more and more the pawn of his ambitious and scheming brother. Proportionately as the Hanoverian influence waxed, that of the Duchess Eléonore waned, and she had now no voice in affairs of state and comparatively little in matters of a purely domestic nature. The Celle-Wolfenbüttel combination had long ago fallen to pieces, and George William’s dislike of Antony Ulrich was not far short of Ernest Augustus’s hatred of the same prince. Between the courts of Brunswick and Hanover there existed the most intense jealousy. The records of the time reveal a network of intrigue, bribery, treachery, and falsehood between these petty German courts which has seldom been equalled and never surpassed; the restricted area and the pettiness of the disputes added intensity to the bitterness. The Duchess Eléonore was not a very welcome guest at Hanover; but the Duchess Sophia had by this time sufficiently masked her animosity to receive her with civility, and, indeed, on account of their grandchildren, little George Augustus and Sophie Dorothea, common sense told the older people that it would be well to dissemble their dislikes, and there was nothing to be gained by perpetual strife. It had no such lesson for the Prince and Princess of Hanover, whose dislike for each other seemed to increase as time went on; and though Duchess Eléonore had abundant love and sympathy for her unhappy daughter, we find her henceforth preaching prudence and patience to her, and urging her, for her children’s sake, to make the best of her lot.