Sophia von Kielmansegg, Countess of Darlington

Sophia Charlotte von Kielmansegg, Countess of Darlington and Countess of Leinster (1675–1725) was a German-born courtier. A half-sister of George I of Great Britain, to whom she was close, she moved to England in 1714 shortly after the Hanoverian succession, where she became an influential figure of his court.^[1]

Sophia Charlotte von Kielmansegg, Countess of Darlington

Background

She was the daughter of Clara Elisabeth von Meysenburg, married to Franz Ernst, Count von Platen-Hallermund, a court official, but mistress of Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg, married to Sophia of the Palatine who was in the line of succession of the kingdoms of England and Scotland. At the court of Ernest Augustus, her status was as an illegitimate daughter of the Elector, who was the father of George Louis, Elector of Hanover from 1698 and the future British king, with whom she shared a close loyalty and abiding friendship.^[1][2] In 1701 she married Baron Johann Adolph von Kielmansegg (1668–1717), with who she had two children: Georg Ludwig (1705–1785) and Maria Sophia Charlotte (1703–1782), who married Emanuel Howe, 2nd Viscount Howe and had issue.

In England

At the London court of George I, Sophia von Kielmansegg vied with Melusine von der Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal, George's mistress. Her title Countess of Darlington in the Peerage of Great Britain, with the subsidiary title of Baroness of Brentford, was given by the king in 1722, following a title of Countess of Leinster in the Peerage of Ireland in 1721. Her blood relationship to George I was not well known in Britain, and it was widely assumed that she, like the Duchess of Kendal, was the King's mistress.^[3][4][5][6] On one occasion, a confectioner in the royal household was dismissed after being caught using "indecent expressions concerning the King & Madam Kielmansegg".^[7] Her access to the king meant her favour was sought with many gifts, particularly around the South Sea Bubble. She died at home in London on 20 April 1725.^[1]

Description

Gaining the nickname "the Elephant and Castle” after her arrival in England in 1714, she is said to have been a very large woman.^[8]

Horace Walpole says of her:^[8]

I remember, as a boy, being terrified at her enormous figure. The fierce black eyes, large and rolling, beneath two lofty arched eyebrows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of neck that overflowed and was not distinguished from the lower part of her body, and no part restrained by stays

— Horace Walpole

Notes

1. Kilburn, Matthew. "Kielmansegg, Sophia Charlotte von, suo jure countess of Darlington and suo jure countess of Leinster". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/76310. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. Kings of Georgian Britain. Grub Street Publishers. 30 March 2017. ISBN 9781473871243.
3. Loyal Subversion?: Caricatures from the Personal Union Between England and Hanover (1714–1837). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 14 May 2014. ISBN 9783525301678.
4. Die Personalunionen von Sachsen-Polen 1697-1763 und Hannover-England 1714-1837: Ein Vergleich. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. 2005. ISBN 9783447051682.
5. There had been rumours of an affair between George and Sophia for years previous in Hanover, where their blood-relationship was known. George's mother Sophia of Hanover was eventually forced to deny the relationship went any further than 'intimate friendship'.
6. A misconception which persists in some modern popular histories of the period.
7. Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court. Faber & Faber. 6 May 2010. ISBN 9780571258260.
8. Cokayne, George E. (George Edward) (1910). The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. Vol. 7. Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. London : The St. Catherine press, ltd. p. 111.