Charles Lennox, illegitimate son of King Charles II. by Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, was created Duke of Richmond in 1675, and is ancestor of the present Duke. He was born in 1672, and would therefore be in his twenty-first year at this time. ----- _The Princess to Königsmarck._ “[CELLE,] _August_ 4/14. “What joy to know that you are out of danger! One must love as I love to feel as I feel. I passed two days and nights in mortal anguish; no one ever suffered so much. And now two of your letters come at the same time. I am overjoyed with them, for you assure me that you are pleased with me and I need fear nothing on the score of your constancy. But I love you so dearly that I needs must scold you for having exposed yourself to unnecessary danger. What have I done that you should treat me so lightly? Ought you not guard yourself for me? I should be grieved were you to risk your honour, but I cannot forgive you for doing rash things like a foolish boy; I entreat and implore you do not commit any more of such follies. What would become of me were I to lose you? Do you never think that my life is bound up with yours, and I would not live a moment if you were to be killed? I hope the campaign will soon end, for if they are going to attempt anything fresh I shall die of terror lest some hurt befall you. I don’t know what the Elector [of Bavaria] could have been about with his eyes to have thought you ‘as ugly as sin’. Had he seen you with mine he would have found you the most charming and the handsomest of men. No one can dispute the palm with you, and however many wonderful things you may tell me about the Duke of Richmond, I am sure he must pale in comparison with you. You would have no reason to fear him were he to ‘become your rival,’ for he would only pave the way for your triumph. Neither he nor any man in the world could please me after you. I could pay you any number of compliments of this sort, but I fear to offend your modesty, so I will stop. “The Electress of Brandenburg will not come for some time, and I shall be gone before she arrives. Our escort on the journey are not dangerous. You may rest easy: they are only my mother’s two pages and Verfuy. When we meet you will find me more faithful and loving than ever; be the same, I implore you. Let me thank you for taking such precautions concerning my letters and portrait; but they were unnecessary, for had you fallen, my grief would have discovered everything. I should not have had the strength to restrain myself; and, indeed, it would have been immaterial to me whether I was lost or not, for without you life would be intolerable, and imprisonment within four walls pleasanter than to go on living in the world.[150] Thank God, I am now free from such sad thoughts, and I make many prayers not to come again to such straits.