George Louis of Hanover and his wife Sophia Dorothea have become estranged—George prefers the society of his mistress, Melusine von der Schulenburg, by whom he had two daughters in 1692 and 1693, respectively; and Sophia Dorothea, meanwhile, had her own romance with the Swedish Count Philip Christoph von Königsmarck.

Threatened with the scandal of an elopement, the Hanoverian court, including George's brothers and Sophia, urges the lovers to desist, but to no avail.

According to diplomatic sources from Hanover's enemies, in July 1694, the count is killed, possibly with the connivance of George, and his body thrown into the river Leine weighted with stones. (The murder was claimed to have been committed by four of Ernest Augustus's courtiers, one of whom—Don Nicolò Montalbano—was paid the enormous sum of one hundred and fifty thousand thalers, which was about one hundred times the annual salary of the highest-paid minister.)

Sources in Hanover itself, including Sophia, deny any knowledge of Königsmarck's whereabouts.

George's marriage to Sophia Dorothea is dissolved, not on the grounds that either of them had committed adultery, but on the grounds that Sophia Dorothea had abandoned her husband.