Ill-treated and rebuffed on all sides, Sophie Dorothea’s troubles had begun to tell upon her health; the Prince neglected her more and more for Schulenburg, often not coming near her for weeks at a time. Sophie Dorothea felt this slight keenly, and one day visited her husband in his apartments and demanded an explanation of his coldness and neglect. Was it due to any fault on her part? she asked pitifully, because if so she would endeavour to regulate her conduct to his wishes. But George Louis would not give her any explanation, and ordered her out of the room. Sophie Dorothea’s temper was never much under control, and she lost it altogether at this rude rebuff. High words ensued between the unhappy pair; they had a more violent quarrel than ever before, and it was said that George Louis used personal violence to expel her from his presence. When at last the Princess returned to her apartments her agitation was so great that it brought on a nervous prostration, and some say a miscarriage. For some time she was confined to her bed, and so ill that the Duchess Sophia, who generally held aloof and ignored her, interposed on behalf of the neglected wife. The Duchess Sophia did not view the Schulenburg affair with any favour, and reprimanded her son so severely that George Louis was forced for a time to pay his wife some attention—that is to say, he would come and sit by her bedside for a few minutes, and sullenly inquire after her health. When Sophie Dorothea rallied a little, the Duchess Sophia took her off to Herrenhausen with her children, and paid her every care and attention: this at least must be noted to her credit. It was probably during this period that the Duchess gave her daughter-in-law those long lectures on English history which Poellnitz describes with such unconscious humour.[31] They lasted hours at a stretch, and poor Sophie Dorothea had to listen to the end, though often tired and bored, for she had not the same interest in English affairs as her mother-in-law. Sometimes she seems to have dropped a hint to this effect, for we find the Duchess Sophia rebuking her want of interest, and telling her it was necessary that she should know the history of a country over which she might one day be called to reign as Queen Consort, and, if so, she trusted she would do her duty. This provoked Sophie Dorothea’s retort that if ever she were Queen of England she hoped she would have more sense than to run away and leave the crown as King James had done; for the flight of King James and the accession of William and Mary had just then astonished Europe, and were events especially agitating the mind of King James’s first cousin, Sophia, whose sympathies at this period were secretly with the exiled monarch and his family, notwithstanding the ties of self-interest.[32] ----- Footnote 31: