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).
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 twenty-seven years of age, and had already become the Queen of Prussia, as also the 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.
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.
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 Finck 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. 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. 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?"