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towards his brother and said: ‘It’s too late, John Frederick. Everything is settled now. I am going to marry Sophia.’
    ‘I’ll not agree.’
    ‘You will have to. The three of us agree and you would be one against the rest.’
    ‘I agree to changing the bridegrooms, but I consider that my place in the family entitles me to be the marrying one.’
    ‘Too late, too late,’ said George William. ‘I have come to an agreement with Ernest Augustus.’
    John Frederick seized his young brother’s arm. ‘You will stand aside for me.’
    George William took John Frederick by the shoulder and wrenching him away from his brother threw him across the room.
    ‘Enough of this nonsense,’ he said. ‘I have the document here and I shall sign – and that is the end of the matter.’
    John Frederick glowered; Ernest Augustus held his breath; he could scarcely wait for the signature to be put to the paper. Those few strokes of the pen would make him in a sense the head of the house. For the first time in his life he despised his handsome, amusing elder brother. George William was a fool. He was throwing away his birthright for a mess of potage. Pray God he did not realize this until his name was at the foot of that important paper.
    George William laid the paper on a table and took up his pen.
    ‘George William,’ he wrote, ‘Duke of Brunswick and Lüneberg, April 11th, 1658.’
    He stood up. ‘There!’ he cried. ‘The deed is done. Here, brother, is your assurance.’
    As Ernest Augustus took the paper, John Frederick tried to snatch it from him. The paper fluttered to the floor to be picked up by George William while the two younger brothers, caught in an angry embrace, rolled on the floor.
    George William stood laughing at them for a few seconds. Then he cried: ‘I’ll not have this solemn occasion changed into a brawl.’
    He put the paper on the table and went to the aid of Ernest Augustus, and together they succeeded in thrusting John Frederick from the room.
    George William locked the door and stood leaning against it.
    ‘Well, brother,’ he said, ‘there’s your security. Now go to.’
    Christian Lewis looked grave.
    ‘Come, cheer up,’ admonished George William. ‘This is for me a gay occasion. I want to celebrate my freedom.’
    ‘I like it not,’ murmured Christian Lewis, ‘when brothers quarrel.’
    The Elector Palatine sent for his sister.
    ‘I have news for you,’ he said. ‘News from Celle.’
    Sophia sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap, but her heart beat uncomfortably. Was he going to attempt to wriggle out of his agreement? He had been lukewarm. She had recognized that. This couldn’t be yet another disappointment. How could she endure to go on living, single, at her brother’s court with no hope of ever improving her position!
    ‘Duke George William has decided that he is not fitted for matrimony.’
    Thank God she had always been able to cloak her feelings! So he found her repulsive. He had taken a look at her, had reluctantly agreed to marry her, and then gone away – presumably to one of his mistresses – and changed his mind, and so determinedly that he had had the effrontery to jilt her. It was unforgivable.
    Still she sat calmly, hands in her lap.
    ‘But,’ went on her brother, perhaps enjoying keeping her in suspense, ‘they have a bridegroom for you.’
    She lifted her head sharply then and said in a cold voice: ‘What is the meaning of this?’
    ‘Duke George William declines to marry you, oh, not you personally. It has nothing to do with that. It is marriage itself to which he objects. Ernest Augustus, however, has no such objections.’
    ‘He has no such prospects either.’
    ‘That is not so. George William resigns more than you to him, sister. He has given him a promise not to marry, to pass over certain estates to his brother and the heirs of your body shall become the heirs to the entire estate.’
    ‘So then, nothing is changed but the man.’
    The Elector