Use Sophie von Platen

Ilse Sophie von Platen (born September 11, 1731 , † February 16, 1795 in Gantikow ) was a lady-in-waiting of the mother of Frederick the Great, Sophie Dorothea of ​​Prussia . Theodor Fontane made reflections on her character in the description of the life of the herb's daughter in his book Five Castles . The Krautentdaughter, Luise Charlotte Henriette von Kraut , came from the marriage of Sophie von Platen with the Court Marshal Carl Friedrich von Kraut .

Life

In December 1748 Sophie von Platen was appointed lady-in-waiting to the queen mother Sophie Dorothea of ​​Prussia . She was the successor of Ilsabe Sophie Dorothea von Bredow , who married Count Gneomar Conrad Bogislav von Schwerin on December 25, 1748 . Count Lehndorff reported in his diary that Princes August Wilhelm , Heinrich and Ferdinand of Prussia had spoken out in favor of them.

Sophie von Platen, called Platine , was a beauty and therefore received a lot of attention. When King Friedrich II. Of Prussia in honor of his sister, the Countess Wilhelmina of Bayreuth one in Berlin on 25 and 27 August 1750 Carrousel held, was entitled to Sophie von Platen, together with the maid Sophie von Pannwitz next to the Princess Amalie of Prussia on take a seat on a special podium and participate in the awarding of the prizes after the drama.

The attractive lady-in-waiting was painted twice by the painter Antoine Pesne . The picture with the bird cage was created in 1751 . In 1753 Pesne painted Sophie von Platen as a shepherdess. Both portraits are hanging in Rheinsberg Castle today . At least two copies were made of the picture with the bird cage. One was initially in Molsdorf Castle near Erfurt, which belonged to Count Gotter , and can now be seen in Friedenstein Castle in Gotha. The second copy is in the UK.

On the occasion of Prince Ferdinand's wedding with Anna Elisabeth Luise von Brandenburg-Schwedt in June 1755, Sophie and the ladies-in-waiting von Bredow, von Hofstädt and von Witzleben were allowed to wear the bride's train.

After a better husband could not be found for Sophie von Platen, who would not get a dowry worth mentioning, she married the court marshal of Prince Heinrich , Carl Friedrich von Kraut, on September 8, 1756 in Berlin . The wedding celebrations took place in Monbijou Castle in the presence of Queen Mother Sophie Dorothea of ​​Prussia and Queen Elisabeth Christine . According to Count Lehndorff's diary entries , in the winter of 1757, when the king and his brothers were returning to Berlin for a few days from the Seven Years' War , a violent love affair occurred between the wife of Kraut and Prince August Wilhelm . Everyone should have known about it except the betrayed husband. In doing so, Lehndorff suspected that it might even have flattered Court Marshal von Kraut to have a prince as a rival.

During the Seven Years' War Sophie had to flee several times with the Prussian queen, the princesses and their courts from the advancing Austrians and Russians, the first time because of the surprise attack by the Austrian general Hadik at the beginning of October 1757 in the Spandau fortress . A few days later she traveled with the large court society to Magdeburg, where the strong fortress there was supposed to guarantee the safety of the royal family.

The following year - they had since returned to Berlin - Sophie gave birth to their first child on May 9, 1758. The son Christian Wilhelm Heinrich Ferdinand Aemilius was baptized on May 24, 1758 in the Nikolaikirche in Berlin, the names of his godparents, Queen Elisabeth Christine, Prince August Wilhelm , the princesses Heinrich , Amalie and Ferdinand . In December 1758 Sophie began an affair with the newly arrived Dutch envoy in Berlin, Dirk Hubert von Verelst , which caused a general sensation and caused the enraged consort to return to the Netherlands.

Because of the dangers of war, Friedrich II ordered his family and their courts to take refuge again in Magdeburg Fortress in the summer of 1759. In November permission was received to return to Berlin, where Sophie gave birth to her second child, Carl Heinrich Friedrich, on December 4, 1759. Five days later, on December 9, 1759, her firstborn died. The second son also lived only briefly, until March 7, 1760. In March 1760 the farms had to flee again to Magdeburg, but this time Sophie stayed in Berlin until she met her husband in July 1760, with whom she did not have a good relationship called to Magdeburg. Despite the arguments with her husband, Sophie did not dare to divorce him, but returned to Berlin alone in early 1761. On January 24, 1762 she gave birth to her daughter Charlotte there .

After the end of the Seven Years' War, the inheritance of her father, who died in 1760, was divided between Sophie and her siblings who were still alive. This was particularly difficult because on the one hand the evaluation of the purchase price of the sold Platen'sche family estate Stolpe against the background of the examination arranged by the king in war debasement declaratory judgment had. In addition, it was about the settlement of numerous expenses from her courtship.

On December 23, 1767, Sophie's husband, Court Marshal von Kraut, died of pleurisy at the age of 64. In his will he had appointed his widow as a universal heir , as his daughter Charlotte would one day inherit enough through herbal inheritance. Nevertheless, there were discussions between the pupil college responsible for the underage daughter's assets and Sophie.

As a widow, Sophie continued to take part in court life. She maintained a friendly relationship with Prince Heinrich , who was especially courteous in looking after the well-being of the wife and daughter of his late court marshal. They were guests at Rheinsberg Castle for weeks . Prince Heinrich accepted Sophie in March 1767 into the order of Amathunt, which he had founded . On October 10, 1773, Sophie married the Dutch envoy Dirk Hubert von Verelst , who had been widowed for a long time, in Berlin , whom Friedrich II. For his services in the Seven Years War and for the marriage foundation between Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia and Wilhelm V of Orange in 1767 in the Prussian Had risen count. But the new husband died on January 26th, 1764. Sophie, deeply saddened, withdrew to her friend Wilhelmine von der Lütke's castle in Groß-Ziethen. After the king had finally secured her contested right to live in Bredow's house on Jägerbrücke in Berlin, Sophie now introduced her daughter Charlotte into society. Both took part in Prince Heinrich's exclusive parties in his palace on Unter den Linden.

Sophie supported the efforts of the newly arrived British envoy Hugh Elliot, who had quickly fallen out of favor with the Prussian king, for her teenage daughter Charlotte . She feared that otherwise the beautiful girl might go astray. Because of the expected rejection of the marriage between a future Prussian heiress and the unpopular Scotsman, Hugh Elliot and Charlotte initially married secretly in June 1780. When a child was announced, Sophie obtained royal consent so that the couple could be married on November 5, 1780, this time officially, in Sophie's apartment. Sophie's granddaughter Louise Isabella was born on April 2, 1781 . When Hugh Elliot was transferred to Copenhagen in the winter of 1782, Sophie stayed behind in Berlin with her daughter Charlotte and granddaughter Isabella. She continued the regular exchange with her son-in-law all the more intensely. She told him how well his wife, her daughter, behaved, that contrary to his assumptions, in his absence she would not do anything with other men, especially Chamberlain Georg Anton Wilhelm von Knyphausen , the beautiful Knyphausen . Instead, she ceaselessly implored him to come to terms with Charlotte , not to vent his anger on her, so that the young woman would finally be ready to follow her husband to Copenhagen. The jealous Elliot, enraged by reports from the king's spying Scottish personal physician, William Baylies , continued to rage in his letters and immediately threatened to divorce. Sophie was appalled by this development, which would bring shame to her daughter, and repeatedly pushed for an understanding between the quarreling spouses. When Elliot secretly came to Berlin in a spontaneous action, kidnapped his daughter there and stole his letters and Knyphausen's letters from his absent wife's desk, Sophie no longer had any sympathy for her impulsive and unpredictable son-in-law. She traveled to Hoppenrade with the shocked Charlotte and from there commented on Elliot's further action in her letters. Because she was still exchanging ideas with her son-in-law, she broke up with her daughter, who was eventually divorced from Elliot and then married Herr von Knyphausen.

Over the grief over her daughter and the loss of her beloved granddaughter Isabella, Sophie fell seriously ill in early 1784. Because of the damaged lungs, Prince Heinrich even allowed her to move into an apartment in his Palais Unter den Linden with garden access in July 1784 . She didn't stay there long because of the bad weather. In the years that followed, correspondence with her former son-in-law, Elliot, fell asleep. Sophie was not interested in the newborn grandchildren from her daughter Charlotte's marriage to Knyphausen. Her granddaughter Isabella, who after a while had been sent away from Copenhagen to England by her father, would never see Sophie again.

Countess Sophie von Verelst died on February 16, 1795 in Gantikow , on her brother's estate, of consumption and exhaustion and was buried in the church there. Her daughter Charlotte had made her her universal heiress.

family

Ilse Sophie von Platen came from the Gantikow family of the von Platen family . Her parents were Heinrich Carl von Platen, Danish lieutenant colonel , and Johanna Helene, née Larisch von Groß-Nimsdorff.

Sophie von Platen married twice:

1. ⚭ September 8, 1756 in Berlin Carl Friedrich von Kraut (1703–1767)
2. ⚭ October 10, 1773 in Berlin, Count Dirk Hubert von Verelst (1717–1774)

Children from the first marriage were:

1. Christian Wilhelm Heinrich Ferdinand Aemilius (1758–1759)
2. Carl Heinrich Friedrich (1759–1760)
3. Luise Charlotte Henriette (1762-1819)

literature

• Sabina Freifrau von Thuemmler: The herb mother. The life of Sophie von Platen. BoD, 2018, ISBN 978-3-7481-3128-1