Sophia, Princess of the United Kingdom

PRINCE (ENGLAND)
BORN 3 Nov 1777, London: Buckingham Palace - DIED 27 May 1848, London: Vicarage Place, Kensington Palace
BIRTH NAME Sophia Mathilda
GRAVE LOCATION London: Kensal Green Cemetery, Harrow Road, Kensal Green (114/PS (8028))

Daughter of King George III and Queen Charlotte. She wasn't allowed to marry and had to live as a companion to her mother. There were rumours that she had an incestous relationship with her brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. In 1800 she possibly gave birth to an illegitimate child, fathered by the royal horseman Thomas Garth or by her brother.

To her oldest brother she once said 'Poor old wretches as we are, four old cats, four old wretches a dead weight upon you, old lumber to the country, like old clothes. I wonder you do not vote for putting us in a sack and drowning us in the Thames'.

In later years she lived at Kensington Palace, where she often aw the young Princess Victoria. The last ten years of her life she was blind. After her death in 1848 she was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery and not at Windsor Castle because she wanted to be near her brother Prince Augustus Frederick who was buried at Kensal Green as well.

After her death it became clear that most of her money had vanished. It had been managed by Sir John Colroy.

Related persons
• is brother/sister of Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex

Images

The grave of princess Sophia at Kensal Green Cemetery, London.
Picture by Androom (26 Jun 2009)

 

Sources
• Longford, Elizabeth, The Oxford Book Of Royal Anecdotes, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991
Princess Sophia of the United Kingdom - Wikipedia


Sophie von Bayern

Published: 03 Oct 2010
Last update: 20 Feb 2022