The Dishevelled Duke by Catherine Curzon

Today she rests peacefully in Celle’s ducal burial vault and those who wrote the pages of scandal alongside her are all long dead, though not all have graves to call their own. Sophia Dorothea remains a shadowy figure in the history of the Georgian era. He locked her away hoping that the world would forget her and to some extent, he succeeded. Yet she is a footnote in the biography of her husband, a forgotten supporting player in the life of King George I. No more would she look out on the world that had forgotten her and wonder, what if?įrom a privileged childhood to a tumultuous marriage and a love affair that blazed so bright it threatened an electorate, Sophia Dorothea of Celle barely stopped to draw breath.

No more would she be the spectre who peered over the shoulder of her husband, George I, nor the lost mother whose memory haunted her son, the future George II. No more would she be glimpsed galloping around her estate on her steed, dressed in her finest gowns, diamonds glittering in her hair.

On 13 November 1726, the Duchess of Ahlden died. She terminated her miserable existence, after a long captivity of thirty-two years on the 13th of November 1726, in the sixty-first year of her age, only seven months before the death of George the First and she was announced in the Gazette, under the title of the Electress Dowager of Hanover.ĭuring her whole confinement, she behaved with no less mildness than dignity and on receiving the sacrament once every week, never omitted on that awful occasion, making the most solemn asseverations, that she was not guilty of the crime laid to her charge.’ ¹ ‘The Unfortunate Sophia was confined in the castle of Alden, situated on the small river Aller, in the duchy of Zell. In the end, Sophia Dorothea was divorced, disgraced, and locked away in a gilded cage for 30 years-whilst her lover faced an even darker fate. Watched by a scheming countess who had ambitions of her own, it was only a matter of time before scandal gripped the House of Hanover. When he and Sophia Dorothea fell in love, they were dicing with death. Then Sophia Dorothea plunged into a dangerous affair with the dashing soldier Count Phillip Christoph von Königsmarck, a man as celebrated for his looks as his bravery. When she arrived in the austere court of Hanover, the vibrant young princess found herself ignored and unwanted-while her husband openly gallivanted with his mistress. Filled with dreams of romance and privilege, she hated the groom she called “pig snout” and wept at news of her engagement. When Sophia Dorothea of Celle married her first cousin, the future King George I, she was an unhappy bride. This royal biography of the 17th century princess and mother of King George II recounts an epic tale of privilege, passion, scandal, and disgrace.

The Dishevelled Duke by Catherine Curzon