Sophia of Hanover

Sophia
Portrait by Gerard van Honthorst, 1650
Electress consort of Hanover
Tenure	19 December 1692 – 23 January 1698
Duchess consort of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Tenure	18 December 1679 – 23 January 1698
Born	Princess Sophie of the Palatinate (1630-10-14)14 October 1630 The Hague, Dutch Republic
Died	8 June 1714(1714-06-08) (aged 83) Herrenhausen Gardens, Hanover
Burial	9 June 1714[1] Leine Palace, Hanover; 1957 Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover
Spouse	Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover ​ ​ (m. 1658; died 1698)​
Issue more...	George I, King of Great Britain Prince Maximilian William Sophia Charlotte, Queen in Prussia Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of York and Albany
House	Palatinate-Simmern (Cadet branch of Wittelsbach)
Father	Frederick V, Elector Palatine
Mother	Elizabeth Stuart
Religion	Calvinism
Signature

Sophia (born Princess Sophia of the Palatinate; 14 October [O.S. 3 October] 1630 – 8 June [O.S. 28 May] 1714) was Electress of Hanover from 19 December 1692 until 23 January 1698 as the consort of Prince Elector Ernest Augustus. She was later the heiress presumptive to the thrones of England and Scotland (later Great Britain) and Ireland under the Act of Settlement 1701, as a granddaughter of King James VI and I. Sophia died less than two months before she would have become Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Consequently, her son George I succeeded her first cousin once removed, Queen Anne, to the British throne, and the succession to the throne has since been defined as, and composed entirely of, her legitimate and Protestant descendants.

Sophia was born a princess in 1630 to Frederick V of the Palatinate and his wife, Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of King James VI and I. She grew up in the Dutch Republic, where her family had sought refuge after the sequestration of their Electorate during the Thirty Years' War. Sophia's brother Charles Louis was restored as elector in the Palatinate as part of the Peace of Westphalia. During this time, the English Stuarts also went into exile and Sophia was courted by her cousin, Charles II of England.

Sophia instead married Prince Ernest Augustus in 1658. Despite his temper and frequent absences, Sophia loved him and bore him seven children who survived to adulthood. Born a landless cadet, Ernest Augustus succeeded in having the House of Hanover raised to electoral dignity in 1692. As a result, Princess Sophia became Electress of Hanover, the title by which she is best remembered. A patron of the arts, Sophia commissioned Herrenhausen Palace and its gardens and sponsored philosophers, such as Gottfried Leibniz and John Toland.