"I did not know that she was such as that," said Mrs. Clavering. "Nor did I. She has never spoken in that way before."

"Poor soul! Hermione, you see there are those in the world whose sufferings are worse than yours."

"I don't know," said Lady Clavering. "She never lost what I have lost,-never."

"She has lost what I am sure you never will lose, her own self-esteem. But, Hermy, you should be good to her. We must all be good to her. Will it not be better that you should stay with us for a while,--both of you?"

"What, here at the park?"

"We will make room for you at the rectory, if you would like it." "Oh, no; I will go away. I shall be better away. I suppose she will not be like that often; will she?"

"She was much moved just now."

"And what does she mean about her income?

earnest."

"She is in earnest now."

She cannot be in

"And cannot it be prevented? Only think,-if after all she were to give up her jointure! Mrs. Clavering, you do not think she is mad; do you?"

Mrs. Clavering said what she could to comfort the elder and weaker sister on this subject, explaining to her that the Courtons would not be at all likely to take advantage of any wild generosity on the part of Lady Ongar, and then she walked home across the park, meditating on the character of the two sisters.

VOL. XV.-NO. 88.

20.

The Köningsmarks and Marshal Saxe.

EXTINCT families, like extinct kingdoms and republics, ought to find their special historians, and assuredly no departed race, not even that of the Montmorencies, styled by Henri IV. the greatest family in Europe after the Bourbons, can furnish so romantic a series of adventures as the Swedish Köningsmarks, who have left some trace in the records of almost everyState of Europe.

This race, whose sons and daughters were all noted as much either for their beauty or strength of form as for the dauntless energy and impetuous passions which seethed in their wild blood from generation to generation, were a branch of an ancient family seated originally in the Mark of Brandenburg. In the dim dawn of modern history the Köningsmarks are to be seen on the banks of the Elbe, fighting under the banner of Henry the Fowler. One of them, in the thirteenth century, finds place in the chronicles of the time as the "Rosenritter"-the Knight of the Roses. He had delivered the Queen of Hungary from the captivity of the Ban of Croatia, and when asked by the Queen to name his own reward, claimed the three red roses which she held in her hand. The Queen thereupon not only gave her deliverer the three red roses, but three kisses besides with her own royal lips.

The Köningsmarks had their family seat at Kitzlar, in Brandenburg, but during the Thirty Years' War the family split up into two branches, one of which remained on the ancestral soil, while the other attached itself to the fortunes of Gustavus Adolphus, and subsequently passed over into Sweden. The founder of the Swedish line was Hans Christoph von Köningsmark, who began life as a page at the court of Friedrich Ulrich of Brunswick, and became, on the Protestant side, one of the most notorious partisan chieftains of the Thirty Years' War. He was a grim-browed gigantic fighter, whose thick mane of hair bristled like a wild boar's when in wrath, and whose Teutonic fury in battle made the blood of Wallenstein's freebooters run cold in their veins. He fought by the side of Gustavus at Lützen, co-operated with Turenne in the invasion of the Palatinate, and served again under the Swedish flag in the times of Bannier and Torstenson. His chief exploit was the storming of the quarter of the Kleinseite at Prague, the last great event of thirty years of massacre and devastation, and one which determimed the Imperialists to accept the Peace of Westphalia. Of all the ruthless chieftains and bandits who had laid waste Germany, Hans Christoph practised the arts of plunder and extortion with as little remorse as any. In Lower Saxony he cut down whole forests and turned them into money. His booty in the Kleinseite was enormous.. In the house of Count Colleredo, the commander of the captured garrison, he

found, it is said, twelve tubs full of gold. One of his articles of plunder was the Maso-Gothic Gospel of Ulphilas, which is fortunately preserved in the library of Upsala at the present day; but no lover of art can ever forgive him for carrying off four pictures of Correggio, which perished at the hands of his Vandal mistress Queen Christiana, who cut the heads of the figures out of the canvas to insert in her own vile tapestry. After the Peace of Westphalia he became a count of Sweden, and governor of the provinces of Bremen and Verden, of which the Swedes had taken possession. Near their capital, Stade, he built himself a castle-residence, and named it Agathenburg. He died at Stockholm, as a field-marshal, in the year 1663, leaving large possessions, into which he had converted his immense heaps of "loot" got together in thirty years' campaigning. This terrible old brigand had two sons, of whom the younger, Otto Wilhelm, played the more prominent part in history. He was educated at Jena, went the tour of Europe, and, on return, was sent as ambassador of Sweden to the court of Louis XIV. At his reception he had to deliver a Swedish speech; in the middle of it his memory failed him, and he substituted for the remainder of his oration the Lord's Prayer in the same language. As no one at the court of Louis XIV. knew Swedish, he ran no danger of discovery, although his attendants had much difficulty in keeping a grave face. He subsequently entered the French service, and formed the regiment called the Royal Allemand. He assisted later in raising the siege of Vienna by the Turks; from Vienna he passed into the service of the Venetians, with whom he fought again against the Turks; in conjunction with Morosini he took the command of their expedition, and reconquered the Morea with great rapidity. From the Morea he went to Athens, and set siege to the city. He, too, like his father, became an art-ravager of the most deplorable atrocity, for the Turks having fortified themselves in the Acropolis and stored their powder in the Parthenon, he planted a battery upon the hill on which stands the monument of Philopappus, and directed his guns upon those marvellous edifices which man, and not time, has brought to ruin. It was, alas, from the battery of a Köningsmark that the fatal bomb was launched which blew the roof from off the Parthenon and splintered its marble columns. After having by this achievement done the world an injury, of whose magnitude he could have no possible conception, he died of the plague, before Negropont, in the year 1688. The Venetians thought much of his services, and erected a statue to him in the arsenal, which is still to be seen there, with the inscription, "Semper victori." His body was brought to Venice, and taken from thence by his nephew, Philip,-he who was destined to be a victim to his fatal amour with Sophia Dorothea, -to the family vault at Stade. The elder brother of the ravager of the Parthenon, Conrad, was killed in 1673, at the siege of Bonn, leaving four children, two sons and two daughters,-and three of these had destinies more romantic than any of their ancestors. Their mother was a Wrangel, daughter of the Herman Wrangel against whom the great Elector of Bran

denburg won the battle of Fehrbellin-a victory from which Frederick the Great dated the greatness of the house of Hohenzollern. From the Wrangels the Köningsmarks derived that beauty of person for which the Swedish family was celebrated, while the wild blood of the race showed itself as wild as ever in the extraordinary romance of their lives. One, however—and but one-of the children of this marriage, the youngest daughter, who married Count Löwenhaupt, a Saxon general, lived a quiet and a decent life. Carl Johann, the eldest son, was a notorious personage in all parts of Europe, and styled le parfait chevalier errant. He united all the graces of the Wrangels with the Herculean strength of his grandfather and the wandering spirit of his uncle. At the age of fifteen he commenced his wild career by rushing from court to court and from camp to camp. At eighteen he went to Malta to join the expedition of the Knights of St. John against the pirates of Barbary. In a sea-fight with the Moors he displayed much extravagant valour, and a cat-like tenacity of life. The galley in which Köningsmark was, made an attempt to board one of the pirates, and the young count leapt on to the enemy's bulwarks without a follower, when his vessel was beaten off, and he had to defend his life singly against the whole Moorish crew. In the struggle he fell into the water, but he astonished the Moors by appearing again on the opposite side of the vessel and leaping on to the deck. He maintained his ground as the Maltese knights were surrounding the corsair on all sides, when the pirates in despair blew themselves up. Köningsmark went up with the rest, but fell into the water, and was picked up safe. For these exploits the Grand Master gave the youth, in spite of his being a Protestant, the Maltese Cross. On his way home he made a romantic journey through Italy, accompanied by the young Countess of Southampton dressed as a page. He visited Paris a second time, where his uncle, the colonel of the Royal Allemand, made him acquainted with all the chief people of the court of Louis XIV.; from thence he crossed over to England, to offer his services to Charles II., being eager again to meet the Moors in conflict. He sought for permission to join the expedition to Tangiers, and to fight side by side with Kirke's Lambs. Köningsmark was accepted as a volunteer, but the squadron in which he was to start was delayed by adverse winds for six months, which so exasperated his hot impatience that he started off for Tangiers by land, travelling day and night through France and Spain to reach the fortress then besieged by the Moghrebin Moslems. He crossed the straits and landed close to the fortress just as the governor was attempting a last desperate sally. He joined the English troopers, put himself at their head with his little suite, and in the impetuosity of his charge got a hundred yards in front of the English line. The Moors, confused by the smoke of the conflict, and imagining the new-comers had brought large reinforcements, gave way before him, and Tangiers was relieved. From Tangiers he went back to England, where this handsome, brilliant, daredevil young fellow found himself in his true

element, among the loose gallants and looser ladies of the court. He was constrained, however, soon to leave the country under circumstances of a very ugly complexion, which excited immense sensation; for one of the wealthiest young men about town of the day was assassinated in Pall Mall, and young Köningsmark was tried as an accomplice in the crime. The whole of the facts may be found in a pamphlet published in 1682, called the "Tryal and Condemnation of George Borosky, alias Boratzi, Christopher Fraats, and John Stern, for the barbarous Murder of Thomas Tynn, Esq., in Pall Mall, together with the Tryal of Charles John Count Coningsmark as Accessory before the Fact of the same Murder."

The motives of this extraordinary affair were the following:-Thomas Tynn, Esq., was engaged to be married to Elizabeth Percy, the only daughter and heiress of the Duke of Northumberland, who died in 1670. Being the richest and noblest heiress in England, she had had many candidates for her hand, and Köningsmark among them. Old Fraats, a war-worn veteran, had been body-guard to Köningsmark's uncle in the Thirty Years' War, and served the nephew like a savage mastiff, content at any time to be cut to pieces for a Köningsmark. Whether Fraats, with his Thirty Years' War notions, entertained the scheme alone, or whether his young count gave him a hint, cannot be known; what we do know is, that old Fraats, with sundry scenes of the sacking of the Palatinate probably running in his head, determined to put Mr. Thomas Tynn out of the way, to give Köningsmark another chance for the heiress. He accordingly got two foreign friends, Boratzski and Stern, to accompany him with their blunderbusses to Pall Mall, on the evening of Sunday, February 12, 1682. These three worthies stationed themselves at the spot where now stands the arcade of Her Majesty's Theatre, on the lookout for Mr. Thomas Tynn in his carriage. When he arrived all three poured the contents of their weapons into his bosom. All three were tried and sentenced to death. Nothing could be proved against Köningsmark; the other two knew nothing but what Fraats told them, and old Fraats took care to tell them nothing. He was offered a free pardon if he would give evidence against Köningsmark. He stubbornly refused, and took his hanging without a murmur. Carl Johann, the parfait chevalier errant, was heard of no more in England after this; he carried his sword over to the service of the Venetians, and fell in the Morea, fighting under his uncle in 1686.

Philip Köningsmark, his brother, was also one of the handsomest and most libertine gallants of all Europe, and the story of his intrigue with Sophia Dorothea, Princess of Zell and wife of our George I., is one of the most tragical romances of the kind. Additional revelations of this affair were made of late years by the publication of the correspondence of Sophia Dorothea and her lover, which has been preserved in the library at Upsala; and all the incidents of this dark business are now as well known as they probably ever will be.

Philip was brought up at the court of the parents of Sophia Dorothea