Sophie Dorothea of ​​Braunschweig-Lüneburg

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Sophie Dorothea von Braunschweig-Lüneburg with her children Georg and Sophie Dorothea

Sophie Dorothea Duchess of Braunschweig and Lüneburg (born September 15, 1666 in Celle ; † November 13, 1726 at Ahlden Castle ) was electoral princess of Braunschweig-Lüneburg by marriage and from 1714 de jure queen of Great Britain. She went down in history as Princess von Ahlden .

Life

origin

Sophie Dorothea of ​​Braunschweig-Lüneburg

Sophie Dorothea was the only daughter and heiress of the Duke of Braunschweig and Lüneburg Georg Wilhelm Fürst zu Lüneburg (1624–1705), from his legitimate marriage to the Huguenot Eleonore Desmier d'Olbreuse (1639–1722), daughter of Alexander II Desmier the Elder 'Olbreuse and Jacquette Poussard de Vandré. Her paternal grandparents were Duke Georg von Braunschweig and Lüneburg, Prince zu Calenberg and Landgravine Anna Eleonore von Hessen-Darmstadt.

Sophie Dorothea grew up in carefree circumstances. Her parents were - more an exception than the rule for married couples of their class - connected to one another in sincere love and also gave warmth and affection to the bright and talented girl. Her father transferred large assets to her over time and this wealth made Sophie Dorothea an interesting candidate for marriage. The applicants for the hand of the rich heiress included Prince August Friedrich von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel , Duke Friedrich Karl von Württemberg-Winnental , Elector Maximilian II. Emanuel of Bavaria and the Swedish King Karl XI.

However, if she had taken a man who made his own claims to the Duchy of Braunschweig and Lüneburg, the agreement between her father and her uncle Ernst August von Hanover , who had ruled Hanover since the death of Duke Johann Friedrich in 1679 , would be jeopardized been. In order to ensure compliance with this contract, Prince Elector Georg Ludwig , the eldest son of the Hanoverian ducal couple, also asked for the hand of his first cousin. To the horror of Sophie-Dorothea and her mother, her father consented.

Marriage and offspring

Contrary to her wishes, Princess Sophie Dorothea married her cousin, the future British King George I (1660–1727), the eldest son of the Duke and later Elector Ernst August von Braunschweig-Lüneburg and himself in the chapel at Celle Castle on November 18, 1682 Wife of Princess Sophie of the Palatinate . Sophie Dorothea's mother-in-law - once disdained as a fiancé by her father ( certificate of renunciation ) - always regarded her as an unequal "bastard" or "mouse filth in the pepper" and welcomed her coolly. Even so, the marriage initially seemed to be a happy one. Two children emerged from her:

After the birth of the children, the spouses became estranged, however, from 1691 Prince Elector Georg Ludwig preferred his mistress Countess Melusine von der Schulenburg (1667–1743).

Count of Königsmarck

Philipp Christoph von Königsmarck

Philipp Christoph Graf von Königsmarck (1665–1694) came from an old noble family from Brandenburg. At the beginning of 1688 came from Königsmarck to Hanover. He served as a colonel in the life guard of Duke Ernst August and took part in the campaign against France . As Colonel of the Life Guard, he belonged to the closest circle of the ducal court. The contact between Count Königsmarck and Princess Sophie Dorothea was initially loose and sporadic. This probably changed in 1691, but initially went unnoticed. Due to the careless preference of the count, who had grown up as a page at her father's court , the Hanoverian court recognized in 1694 at the latest that Sophie Dorothea had entered into a love affair with von Königsmarck. Historical research could use the sources to prove that Sophie Dorothea and the Count (probably since March 1692) had a sexual relationship, which Sophie Dorothea denied all her life.

After a violent argument with her husband, Sophie Dorothea traveled to her parents in Celle in spring 1694. These did not approve the separation of the electoral prince couple; Sophie Dorothea's father had borne the brunt of the war against Denmark and Sweden and was dependent on the help of his Hanoverian brother. Therefore, the parents sent their daughter back to Hanover. In the summer of 1694, Sophie Dorothea, together with von Königsmarck and her lady-in-waiting Eleonore von dem Knesebeck, planned the escape that was to lead either to Wolfenbüttel to Duke Anton Ulrich or to Kursachsen, where the Count held an officer position as major general of the cavalry. But the escape plan was betrayed.

Königsmarck affair

Sophie Dorothea of ​​Braunschweig-Lüneburg

Countess Clara Elisabeth von Platen (1648–1700), a former mistress of Elector Ernst August , had tried unsuccessfully in January 1694 to persuade Count Königsmarck to marry her illegitimate daughter Sophia Charlotte . Offended, she then revealed the love between the Count and Sophie Dorothea at court and her planned escape, and a state affair developed. On the night of July 11, 1694, Count Königsmarck disappeared in the Leineschloss without a trace. Sophie Dorothea was never to know what had happened to her lover. The assumption is that he was murdered either at the instigation of Elector Ernst August or Elector George. No trace of him was found anymore, officially he is still missing today. The real facts remained unclear and all documents that could have provided information were confiscated and destroyed by the Hanoverian government.

The disappearance of Count Königsmarck turned into a state affair when not only relatives, diplomats and the population began to puzzle over it. King Ludwig XIV asked his sister-in-law Liselotte von der Pfalz for details, but she pretended to be clueless. The French king then sent agents to Hanover. They could no more shed light on the mystery than August the Strong , who spent weeks searching for his missing general.

In return, the brothers Elector Ernst August and Duke Georg Wilhelm turned to the Kaiser with a complaint. If Leopold I did not prevent the Saxon Elector from continuing to create “unfriendly acts” against Hanover and Celle, they would withdraw their troops from the Allied forces. Although the Emperor and Elector Friedrich III. von Brandenburg exerted pressure on the Saxon elector, his ambassador continued and told the Count of Platen on the head that Königsmarck had either been captured or killed.

In 2016, construction workers found human bones in a pit while installing an elevator in the Leineschloss. Anthropological investigations on the bones showed that there is a high probability that it was not, as initially assumed, the mortal remains of Count von Königsmarck.

The love letters between Sophie Dorothea and Philipp Christoph

When his affair with the Prince's wife threatened to become public, Königsmarck gave the love letters to his brother-in-law, the Swedish Count Carl Gustav von Löwenhaupt . His heirs later offered the dangerous material to the House of Hanover for purchase. However, they charged such a high price that the court decided not to buy it and instead questioned the authenticity of the correspondence. The correspondence was published in the middle of the 19th century. The majority of the letters are now in the possession of the Swedish University of Lund , a few ended up in the hands of Sophie Dorothea's grandson, Frederick the Great . Allegedly they were stolen at the instigation of Friedrich's sister Louise Ulrike , Queen of Sweden. After Friedrich's death, the letters came into the Prussian Secret State Archives . Today the authenticity of the letters is beyond any doubt.

The Hanoverian historian Georg Schnath has calculated on the basis of the existing letters, which were rarely dated but often numbered, that there were originally 660 letters, 340 letters from his hand and 320 letters from her. The missing letters were confiscated and destroyed after the affair became known. In general, the holdings of the State Archives in Hanover hardly provide any information about the critical years. Even the correspondence between Duchess Sophie and her niece Liselotte von der Pfalz , which could have shed some light on some things, was obviously censored afterwards.

Divorce and time at Ahlden Castle

Ahlden Castle in Merian - Engraving around 1654
Lauenau Castle in Merian engraving around 1654

Count Königsmarck was eliminated, but that was not enough to restore the prince's honor. He demanded a divorce from his wife, and it was her sole fault. To this end, Sophie Dorothea was initially arrested at Ahlden Castle in 1694 . She was later taken to Lauenau Castle , where the divorce process took place. The marriage was divorced on December 28, 1694 and Sophie Dorothea was declared the sole guilty party for maliciously leaving her husband. A new marriage was just as forbidden to her as to see her children again. Her name was removed from all official documents, she was no longer mentioned in the prayers and the title of electoral princess was stripped of her. After the verdict, they were brought to the remote official residence of Schloss Ahlden in the Lüneburg Heath , which served as a prison appropriate to their status. Although the sentence says nothing about continued imprisonment, she should never regain her freedom.

At the behest of her divorced husband, Elector Georg Ludwig , Sophie Dorothea was imprisoned for life. He confiscated her assets brought into the marriage and gave her an annual maintenance. The princess initially received 8,000 thalers for herself and her court , later up to 28,000 thalers (her father and father-in-law had committed to this in equal parts). She was quartered in the north wing of the castle, a two-story half-timbered building. A guard of 40 men was deployed for the princess, five to ten of whom guarded the castle around the clock. All contact persons of the princess and her mail were strictly controlled. But there was never any attempt at liberation or escape.

Initially, the prisoner was only allowed to stay inside the castle, later also under guard in the outdoor facilities. After two years in prison, she was allowed to take escorted trips within a radius of about two kilometers. Your stay in Ahlden was interrupted several times due to war events or renovation work on the castle. During these times she was housed in Schloss Celle or in Essel . She was allowed to visit such as B. Receive musicians; her mother had unlimited visits. The court included two ladies-in-waiting, several chambermaids and other household and kitchen staff. These had all been selected for Hanover based on their loyalty.

The princess was allowed to call herself "Princess of Ahlden" after her new place of residence. In the first years she was extremely apathetic and resigned to fate, later she tried to turn her fate around. When her former father-in-law died in 1698, she sent a humble letter of condolence to her divorced husband, assuring her that she prayed for him every day and begged him on his knees to forgive her mistakes. She will be eternally grateful to him if he allows her to see her two children. She also wrote to Electress Sophie in a letter of condolence that she wanted nothing more than "to kiss Her Highness' s hands before I die". Their requests were in vain.

When Sophie Dorothea's father was on his deathbed in 1705, he wanted to see his daughter one last time in order to reconcile with her, but his Prime Minister Count Bernstorff objected and claimed that a meeting would lead to diplomatic entanglements with Hanover; the old man no longer had the strength to assert himself against him.

After the devastating local fire of Ahlden in 1715, the princess contributed considerable sums of money to the reconstruction.

When her mother also died in 1722, she was surrounded only by enemies, but still hoped to at least see her daughter again. The Queen of Prussia came to Hanover in 1725 to meet her father, who is now King of England. But the mother, who dressed even more carefully than usual, waited every day for free at the window.

In the end she only seems to have found pleasure in eating. Her defenses waned and the lack of exercise caused her to become more full. She increasingly suffered from febrile colds and indigestion. At the beginning of 1726 she suffered a stroke, in August 1726 she went to bed with severe colic, which she never left. She refused medical help and refused to eat. Within a few weeks she became loosely emaciated. She died shortly before midnight on November 13, 1726. The autopsy revealed a pathological hepatic and biliary obstruction due to 60 gallstones. Georg I expressly forbade any witnessing of mourning in Hanover and was furious when he heard of the court mourning that his daughter had ordered in Berlin.

Final resting place

The funeral turned into a farce. Because the guards had no instructions for this case, the body was placed in a lead coffin and deposited in the cellar. In January 1727 the order came from London to bury the body in the Ahlden cemetery without any ceremonies, which was impossible due to weeks of heavy rain. So the coffin came back into the cellar and was covered with sand. It was not until May 1727 that the princess was secretly buried at night in the princely crypt of the St. Marien town church in Celle.

capital

Her parents must have secretly believed to the last that the daughter would one day be released from prison. In any case, in January 1705, shortly before the Duke's death, they drew up a joint will, according to which they were to receive the estates of Ahlden, Rethem and Walsrode, extensive estates in France and Celle, the great fortune of their father and the legendary jewelry collection of their mother . Her father appointed Count Heinrich Sigismund von Bar to manage Sophie Dorothea's fortune. He was twelve years older than the princess, a handsome, highly educated and sensitive gentleman, whom Sophie Dorothea showed deep affection for, which did not go unrequited. She later gave him plenty of consideration in her will, but he died five years before her. His son followed him in the asset management, but hardly bothered about it, so that the princess had a free hand to take care of her own agendas as far as possible, which she did with great joy and sound business acumen.

Trivia

  • The French adventurer and heartbreaker Marquis Armand de Lassay (1652–1738) later claimed in his memoirs to have received no fewer than thirteen love letters from the princess; he had not shown the documents to anyone.
  • The lady-in-waiting and confidante Sophie Dorotheas, Eleonore von dem Knesebeck, was imprisoned in 1695 in the fortress of Burg Scharzfels in the Harz Mountains. After three years of solitary confinement, she managed to escape on November 5, 1697, and escaped to Duke Anton Ulrich in Wolfenbüttel. She left behind a unique document in the tower of the fortress: All walls and doors were written down to the last corner with charcoal and chalk. The texts, sacred poems in the style of contemporary church hymns, accusations against their enemies at court and memoir-like prose pieces were recorded for the Hanover files. Until her death, she denied the adulterous relationship between Sophie Dorothea and Count Königsmarck.
  • In 1698 Georg Ludwig took office in the Electorate of Hanover. In 1701 his mother, Elector's widow Sophie, was declared by the English Parliament with the Act of Settlement as the next Protestant candidate to the English throne. But only her son, Georg Ludwig, ascended the English throne as King George I in 1714 and moved to London . The personal union between Hanover and Great Britain lasted 123 years.
  • As the “uncrowned queen”, spa princess Sophie Dorothea von Hannover occupied the imagination of her contemporaries and posterity from then on. Even Friedrich von Schiller dedicated a dramatic design to her in 1804 with the title The Princess of Celle , which might have enriched world literature with a tragedy of high rank if it had been completed.
  • A fate similar to that of her great-grandmother Sophie Dorothea befell the Danish Queen Caroline Mathilde (1751–1775) in the 18th century . The divorced sister of King George III. After the Struensee affair, she spent the last three years of her life in the Celle Castle and thus regained royal splendor in the former royal seat. In the crypt of the city church, the two tragic female figures are united in death.
  • The life story of Sophie Dorothea was processed by Arno Schmidt in his novel Das steinerne Herz - A historical novel from 1954 AD, the scenes of which are Ahlden and - for one episode - Berlin. The story of the Princess of Ahlden is gradually incorporated into the narrative, the Ahldener Schloss, at that time the district court, is several times the destination of walks for the protagonists, who finally prosper by finding a treasure from Sophie Dorothea's estate.

literature

Fiction

Non-fiction

  • Christian Friedrich Hunold : The European courts love and hero story . Gottfried Liebernickel, Hamburg 1705
  • Karl Ludwig von Pöllnitz : The Duchess of Hanover's secret story ("Histoire Secrette de la Duchesse d'Hannovre Epouse de Georges Premier Roi de la grande Bretagne. (...)", 1732). Stuttgart 1734 (published without naming the author).
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von Ramdohr : Essai sur l'histoire de la princesse d 'Ahlen, épouse du prince électoral d'Hanovre (...) , Suard's Archives Littéraires 3, pp. 158–204, Paris and Tübingen 1804 (without mentioning the Author) ;. Author according to source from 1866 and C. Haase, 1968.
  • William H. Wilkins: The Love of an Uncrowned Queen. Sophie Dorothea, consort of George I. and her correspondence with Philip Christopher Count Königsmarck . Hutchinson, London 1900.
  • Luise Ahlborn : Two duchesses . Janke Verlag, Berlin 1903 (published under the pseudonym "Louise Haidheim").
  • Walther Hisserich: The Princess von Ahlden and Count Königsmarck in the narrative poetry. A contribution to comparative literary history . Roether, Darmstadt 1906, DNB 574013725 , OCLC 681273154 (Dissertation University of Rostock 1906, 50 pages online , HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010. MiAaHDL, limited search only, use with US proxy possible).
  • Alfred Edward Woodley Mason : Königsmarck . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1951 (reprint of the London 1938 edition).
  • Georg Schnath : The Königsmarck correspondence. Correspondence between Princess Sophie Dorothea of ​​Hanover and Count Philipp Christoph Konigsmarck 1690 to 1694 (sources and representations on the history of Lower Saxony; vol. 51). Lax, Hildesheim 1952 (critical complete edition in regesta form).
  • Herbert Singer: The Princess of Ahlden. Transformations of a courtly sensation in 18th century literature . In: Euphorion . Zeitschrift für Literaturgeschichte , Vol. 49 (1955), pp. 305-334, ISSN  0014-2328 .
  • Paul Morand : Sophie Dorothea von Celle. The story of a life and a love ("Ci-gît Sophie-Dorothée de Celle", 1968). 2nd edition L. Brandt, Celle 1979, ISBN 3-9800226-0-9 .
  • Doris Leslie : The Rebel Princess . Heinemann, London 1970.
  • Ruth Jordan: Sophie Dorothea . Constable Books, London 1971.
  • Guido Erol Öztanil: "All of this is very much like a novel". Love, murder and exile: The Princess of Ahlden (1666–1726) and a few sideways glances at the history of Ahlden . Walsrode 1994, OCLC 258420524
  • Adolf Köcher:  Sophie Dorothea (Electoral Princess of Hanover) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, pp. 671-674.
  • Dieter-Jürgen Leister: Portraits of the Princess of Ahlden , in: Low German Contributions to Art History, Volume 9, 1970, pp. 169–178.
  • Carsten Scholz and Anja Seelke: A love in times of despotism. Sophie Dorothea von Hannover and Philipp Christoph von Königsmarck in old and two new portraits. In: Celler Chronik 23. Celle 2016.

Movie

The director Basil Dearden filmed Sophie Dorothea's life in 1948 under the title Saraband for Dead Lovers (Eng. King's Love ). Helen Simpson's novel of the same name served as a template. The main actors in this film were Stewart Granger as Königsmarck and Joan Greenwood in the role of Sophie Dorothea.

theatre

The author and dramaturge Peter Schanz wrote “The Princess of Cell. A courtly folk play ”, which premiered in 2012 at the Schlosstheater Celle .

Web links

Commons : Sophia Dorothea of ​​Celle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c Thea Leitner : Scandal at court ; Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1993; ISBN 3-8000-3492-1
  2. ^ Ragnhild Hatton: Georg I. A German elector on England's throne. 2nd edition Frankfurt a. M. 1985, p. 55ff.
  3. ^ A b c Mijndert Bertram: The Kingdom of Hanover - A Brief History of a Past German State ; Hanover: Hahn, 2003; ISBN 3-7752-6121-4
  4. ↑ From the reports of the English ambassador, Lord George Stepney
  5. ↑ Bertil Starke: After 322 years: murder victims discovered under the state parliament? at ndr.de on August 26, 2016
  6. ↑ Frederick the Great: Thoughts and Memories. Works, letters, conversations, poems, edicts, reports and anecdotes ; Essen: Phaidon, 1996; ISBN 3-88851-167-4
  7. ↑ NN : The princely crypt and the grave slabs of the dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg in the city church of St. Marien Celle , with photos by Dietrich Klatt, Friedrich Kremzow and Ralf Pfeiffer illustrated leaflet , in DIN A5 format (4 pages, above, above) . D.) designed by Heide Kremzow, based on: Dietrich Klatt: Kleiner Kunstführer Schnell & Steiner No. 1986 , 2008
  8. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of the Princess of Ahlden
  9. ^ Thea Leitner: Scandal at court ; Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1993; Pp. 66-68
  10. ^ Thea Leitner: Scandal at court ; Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1993; P. 22
  11. ↑ General German Biography , Leipzig 1892; Henrike Leonhardt: Flucht der Eleonore von dem Knesebeck ( Memento from April 14, 2005 in the Internet Archive ), The calendar sheet in Bayern2Radio from November 5, 2004; Chronicle of Women , p. 281
  12. ^ Georg Ruppelt: Schiller in Hanover
  13. ↑ Chronicle of Women , p. 412
  14. ^ Digitized Essai sur l'histoire de la princesse d 'Ahlen, accessed December 11, 2013.
  15. ^ Historical Association for Lower Saxony: Catalog of the library of the Historical Association for Lower Saxony , Historical Association for Lower Saxony. P. 15, entry no. 1289. Ph.C. Göhmann, Hanover 1866
  16. ^ Carl Haase: News about Basilius von Ramdohr . In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte vol. 40 (1968), p. 172 PDF .
personal data
SURNAME Sophie Dorothea of ​​Braunschweig-Lüneburg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Princess of Ahlden
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Elector Princess of Hanover and (from 1714) de jure Queen of England
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1666
PLACE OF BIRTH Celle Castle , Celle
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 1726
Place of death Ahlden Castle