Lovers At Hanover

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 29, 4 February 1939, Page 10 (Supplement)

Lovers At Hanover

AMONG the historical personalities of the latter part of the seventeenth century who have been made the subject of romance and speculation, one of the most notable is Philip Christopher Konigsmark, a Swedish noble. It was his elder brother who, though he was acquitted of the crime by the favourable summing up of the Chief Justice, was. and still is, believed to have instigated the death of Thomas Thymic, the friend of the Duke of Monmouth. It is, however, his love intrigue with ♦Sophia Dorothea, the wife of George Louis, the Elector of Hanover, who later became King George I. of Eng- r land, and its tragic ending, for which lie is remembered. Her marriage was an unhappy one from the first, and the Rtory goes that Philip, who had entered the service of George's father, fell in love with the unhappy wife, and that his love was returned and requited. That, at iinv rate, was the. belief at the time, with the result that Philip met his death at the hands of assas-

sins, and Sophia was divorced and driven into seclusion. "Though "she was never Queen of England, her son succeeded his father as George JI. It is the romantic and. tragic story of the two lovers that Mr. A. E. W. Mason makes the theme of his latest novel, "KonigsniArk" (Hodder and Stougliton). He evidently believes that the love between them was illicit, and he makes it begin innocently when Sophia was a girl, and Philip, as he pictures him, was ft page in the court of her father, the Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg-Celle. He goes.oll to tell how they were discovered meeting by stealth in the chapel of the castle, how Philip was punished and sent home, how he became '.a student in England, where he makes him take an unwilling part in connection with the murder of Tliynne, and, bv and -by, appeared in Hanover, where their love was revived. Mr. Mafcon has succeeded in making the many characters vividly real. It is a thrilling story that he tells us, full of hatred, jealousy and intrigue j it will be especially ! interesting to those who have a liking j for historical novels.