Sophia Dorothea of Hanover ( – 28 June 1757; ) was Queen in Prussia and Electress of Brandenburg during the reign of her husband, King Frederick William I, from 1713 to 1740. She was the mother of Frederick the Great (King Frederick II of Prussia); subsequent Prussian and then German monarchs were descended from her other son Prince Augustus William of Prussia.
At the time of Sophia's birth, her father was merely the son of a German prince, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. It was not until 1701 that the Act of Settlement placed him, through his mother, in line to inherit the throne of Great Britain. Sophia was 27 years of age, and had already become the Queen in Prussia and a mother of many children by the time her father became King George I of Great Britain in 1714.
Life
Sophia Dorothea was born on 16 March 1687 (O.S.), in Hanover. She was the only daughter of George Louis of Hanover, later King George I of Great Britain, and his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Celle. She was detested by her elder brother, King George II of Great Britain.John David Griffith Davies: A King in Toils, L. Drummond, Ltd., 1938
After the divorce and imprisonment of her mother, she was raised in Hanover under the supervision of her paternal grandmother, Sophia of Hanover, and educated by her Huguenot teacher Madame de Sacetot.Atkinson, Emma Willsher: Memoirs of the Queens of Prussia, London : W. Kent, 1858.
Marriage
Sophia Dorothea married her cousin (her father's sister's son), Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia, heir apparent to the Prussian throne, on 28 November 1706. They had met as children when Frederick William had spent some time in Hanover under the care of their grandmother, Sophia of Hanover, and though Sophia Dorothea disliked him, Frederick William had reportedly felt an attraction to her early on.
When a marriage was to be arranged for Frederick William, he was given two alternatives: Princess Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden or Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. The Swedish match was preferred by his father, who wished to form a matrimonial alliance with Sweden, and thus the official Albrecht Konrad Finck von Finckenstein was sent to Stockholm under the pretext of an adjustment of the disputes regarding Pomerania, but in reality to observe the princess before issuing formal negotiations: Frederick William, however, preferred Sophia Dorothea and successfully tasked Finck with making such a deterring report of Ulrika Eleonora to his father that he would encounter less opposition when he informed his father of his choice. A marriage alliance between Prussia and Hanover was regarded as a noncontroversial choice by both courts and the negotiations were swiftly conducted. In order for Sophia Dorothea to make as good an impression as possible in Berlin, her grandmother, Electress Sophia, commissioned her niece Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess of the Palatinate to procure her trousseau in Paris. Her bridal paraphernalia attracted great attention and was referred to as the greatest of any German princess yet.
The wedding by proxy took place in Hanover on 28 November 1706, and she arrived in Berlin on 27 November, where she was welcomed by her groom and his family outside of the city gates and before making her entrance into the capital. Thereafter followed a second wedding, the stately torch-dance, and six weeks of banquets and balls.
Crown Princess in Prussia
Sophia Dorothea was described as tall, with a beautiful slender figure, graceful and dignified with big blue eyes. Though not regarded as strictly beautiful, she was seen as quite attractive at the time of her marriage and described as charming in her manners, making a good impression in Berlin. Frederick William often called her "Fiekchen".
Sophia Dorothea and Frederick William differed from each other in every aspect and the marriage suffered as a result. Sophia Dorothea was interested in art, science, literature and fashion, while Frederick William was described as an unpolished, uneducated and spartan military man with rough manners. Though he was never unfaithful to her, he was unable to win her affection. One of the most important differences between them was that Sophia Dorothea, unlike her husband, loved entertainment, something he regarded to be frivolous.The Education of the Enlightened Despots Frederick William contemplated divorcing her the same year they married and, judging by her letters, accused her of not wanting to be married to him.Reiners, Ludwig (Swedish): Fredrik den store (Fredrick the Great). Bokindustri Aktiebolag (1956) Stockholm According to Morgenstern, "He had none of that astonishing complaisance by which lovers, whether husbands or friends, seek to win the favor of the beloved object. As far as can be gathered from the words he occasionally let drop, the crossing of his first love might have been the innocent cause of this; and as the object of this passion, by the directions of her mother and grandmother, treated him with harshness, where, then, could he learn to make love?"
The birth of her firstborn son, Frederick Louis, in 1707 was celebrated greatly in Prussia, and Sophia Dorothea successfully asked the king to liberate the imprisoned minister Eberhard von Danckelmann. In 1708, after the death of her firstborn son, the physicians declared that Sophia Dorothea was not likely to conceive again, which prompted the remarriage of her father-in-law. However, she gave birth to several children in the following years, and finally to a son who survived in 1712.
Queen in Prussia In 1713, her father-in-law Frederick I died and was succeeded by her spouse Frederick William I, making her queen in Prussia.
She lived with her husband and family in the Berlin Palace and also had to take part in the summer stays at the City Palace, Potsdam, and the frequent hunting stays in her husband's hunting lodge in Königs Wusterhausen, but she took refuge as often as she could in the Monbijou Palace, a small pleasure palace on the banks of the Spree in Berlin, which her father-in-law gave her in 1712. Gradually she moved her court entirely there and lived there until the end of her life.
At the time of the accession, Prussia was at war with Sweden, and Sophia Dorothea accompanied Frederick William during the campaign of 1715, though she soon returned to Berlin to give birth to her daughter. During the war, the king left directions to his ministers to consult her and take no action without her approval in the case of emergency. In 1717, she hosted Peter the Great on his visit to Berlin at her own palace Monbijou, as per the king's request, which was vandalized as a result. Sophia Dorothea's first favorite was her maid of honor, von Wagnitz, who was dismissed after an intrigue in which Kreutz and her mother tried to make her the king's mistress, as well as being a spy of the French ambassador Rothenburg.
Queen Sophia Dorothea was admired for her gracious manners and nicknamed "Olympia" for her regal bearing, but scarred by smallpox and overweight with time, she was not called a beauty. She was known as extremely haughty, proud, and ambitious, but Frederick William greatly disliked her interference in politics, as it was his belief that women should be kept only for breeding, and kept submissive as they would otherwise dominate their husbands.Thea Leitner: Skandal bei Hof. Ueberreuter, Wien 1993, The king was known for his parsimony and dislike of idleness to such a degree that he would beat people in the street as well as in the palace if he viewed them as lazy. The queen complained about the "horrible avarice" he pressed upon the household and as a result, according to Pollnitz, the queen's table was often so sparingly supplied that he had often given her money so that she could be able to have an omelette for supper.
Frederick William viewed her interests in theater, dancing, jewelry and music as frivolous and resented any sign of her living a life independently from his authority: he particularly disliked her interest in gambling, and it is reported that she and her partners would have coffee beans ready on the table during gambling, so that if the king appeared, they could pretend to be playing with them rather than money. On one occasion, the queen took the opportunity of the king being ill to host a ball at Monbijou with dancing and music, and where she herself gambled while wearing her diamond set. When the king suddenly arrived, the dancing and music stopped immediately, and the queen unclasped her jewels and hid them in her pocket. His manner toward her was described as rough and so noted that when he displayed the opposite, it was seen as a surprise. Upon the death of her mother in 1726, Sophia Dorothea inherited a sum of three million, whereupon it attracted attention that Frederick William suddenly treated her very well: the Imperial ambassador reported that this was merely because he wanted her money, and when she never received it (as her brother refused to release the sum), Frederick William resumed his usual manner toward her. For her part, Sophia Dorothea did not have a high opinion of the king's military interest or skill, and at one occasion, when he spoke disparagingly of the English commanders retorted: "No doubt they must wish to give you the command of their army."
Upon the illness of the king in Brandenburg during the campaign of 1719, he sent for Sophia Dorothea and entrusted her with his will, cautioning secrecy. Within the document, she was named regent during the minority of their son, with Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, and King George I of Great Britain as guardians to the crown prince. The king's favorites, military general Friedrich von Grumbkow and Leopold I of Anhalt-Dessau, offered the queen's favorite Madame de Blaspiel a bribe if she procured information for them and influenced the queen in their favor; she in turn informed the queen, who informed the king, who summoned von Grumbkow and the prince and told them to return to Berlin. They then tasked Madame de Blaspiel's lover, Count de Manteufel, the Saxon ambassador, to acquire the document or at least find out its meaning: the queen did give de Blaspiel the document, and its contents were revealed to Grumbkow and Anhalt. Grumbkow and Anhalt, now wishing to lessen the queen's influence after learning of the will appointing her regent, unsuccessfully tried to accuse her before the king of having borrowed money and pawning a pair of earrings given to her by the king to pay her gambling debts. The queen countered by accusing Grumbkow of plotting against her.
Concurrently, the Clement Affair took place, in which the alleged Hungarian nobleman Clement gained access to the king by use of false letters and convinced him that the courts of Vienna and Dresden were orchestrating a plot to depose him in favor of the crown prince who, under the guardianship of the emperor, the queen, Grumbkow, and Arnhalt, was to then be raised a Catholic. All were accused of having been implicated in the plot before Clement was exposed as a con artist and summarily executed; another implicated was M. de Troschke, a gentleman of the chamber in service to the king, in whose possession was found a letter from Madame de Blaspiel expressing anger at the king's imprisonment of a suspected accomplice, Monsieur de Kamecke. Grumbkow, suspecting the queen's favorite to have exposed his plot against the queen, delivered the letter to the king, who had de Blaspiel arrested, imprisoned for a year at Spandau, and then banished. Her arrest forced the queen to remove the will of 1719 from the possession of Blaspiel before it was discovered there, to which end her chaplain procured it from the officer commissioned to seal up de Blaspiel's room. After this the queen replaced her as confidant with her daughter, Princess Wilhelmine.