s letter
into George's hands while the King was in England, but an arrangement
was made by means of which it was put into his coach when he crossed
the frontier of Germany on his way towards his capital. George, it is
said, opened the letter at once, and was so surprised and
horror-stricken by its stern summons that he fell that moment into the
apoplectic fit from which he never recovered. Sophia, therefore, had
herself accomplished her own revenge; her reproach had killed the King;
her summons brought him at once within the ban of that judgment to
which she had called him. It would be well if one could believe the
story; there would seem a dramatic justice--a tragic retribution--about
it. Its very terror would dignify the story of a life that, on the
whole, was commonplace and vulgar. But, for ourselves, we confess that
we cannot believe in the mysterious letter, the fatal summons, the
sudden fulfilment. There are too many stories of the kind floating
about history to allow us to attach any special significance to this
particular tale. We doubt even whether, if the letter had been
written, it would have greatly impressed the mind of George. Remorse
for the treatment of his wife he could not have felt--he was incapable
of any such emotion; and we question whether any appeal to the
sentiment of the supernatural, any summons to another and an impalpable
world, would have made much impression on that stolid, prosaic
intelligence and that heart of lead. Besides, according to some
versions of the tale, it was not, after all, a letter from his wife
which impressed him, but only the warning of a fortune-teller--a woman
who admonished the King to be careful of the life of his imprisoned
consort, because it was fated for him that he should not survive her a
year. This story, too, is told of many kings and other persons less
illustrious.

{269}

[Sidenote: 1727--Character of the first George]

Much more probable is the rumor that Sophia made a will bequeathing all
her personal property to her son, that the will was given to George the
First in England, and that he composedly destroyed it. If George
committed this act, he seems to have been repaid in kind. His own will
left large legacies to the Duchess of Kendal and to other ladies. The
Archbishop of Canterbury gave the will to the new King, who read it,
put it in his pocket, walked away with it, and never produced it again.
Both these stories are doubted by some