The twelfth[2] child and fifth daughter of Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart, also known as the "Winter King and Queen of Bohemia" for their short rule in that country, Sophia was born in The Wassenaer Hof, The Hague, Dutch Republic, where her parents had fled into exile after the Battle of White Mountain.

Sophia was courted by her first cousin, Charles II of England, but she rebuffed his advances as she thought he was using her in order to get money from her mother's supporter, Lord William Craven.

[5] Ernest Augustus was a second cousin of Sophia's mother Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, as they were both great-grandchildren of Christian III of Denmark.

This friendship resulted in a substantial correspondence, first published in the 19th century (Klopp 1973), that reveals Sophia to have been a woman of exceptional intellectual ability and curiosity.

[9] In September 1700, Sophia met her cousin King William III of England at Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands.

Her candidature was aided by the fact that she had grown up in the Netherlands close to William III and was able to converse fluently with him in Dutch, his native tongue.

The key excerpt from the Act, naming Sophia as heir presumptive, reads: Therefore for a further Provision of the Succession of the Crown in the Protestant Line We Your Majesties most dutifull and Loyall Subjects the Lords Spirituall and Lords Temporall and Commons in this present Parliament assembled do beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted and declared and be it enacted and declared by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same That the most Excellent Princess Sophia Electress and Dutchess Dowager of Hannover Daughter of the most Excellent Princess Elizabeth late Queen of Bohemia Daughter of our late Sovereign Lord King James the First of happy Memory be and is hereby declared to be the next in Succession in the Protestant Line to the Imperiall Crown and Dignity of the forsaid Realms of England France and Ireland with the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging after His Majesty and the Princess Anne of Denmark and in Default of Issue of the said Princess Anne and of His Majesty respectively.Sophia was made next in line to cut off a claim by the Roman Catholic James Francis Edward Stuart, who would have become James III and VIII and to deny the throne to the many other Roman Catholics and spouses of Roman Catholics who held a claim.

In 1711, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland recommended that its congregations pray regularly "for the Princess Sophia, Electoress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the Protestant line in that family, upon whom the succession to the crown of these dominions is by law established".

[11] Some British politicians attempted several times to bring Sophia to England in order to enable her to assume government immediately in the event of Anne's death.

The Electress was eager to move to London,[12] but the proposal was denied, as such action would mortally offend Anne, who was strongly opposed to a rival court in her kingdom.

Three days later, on 8 June, she was walking in the gardens of Herrenhausen when she ran to shelter from a sudden downpour of rain and collapsed and died in the arms of her granddaughter-in-law Caroline of Ansbach, Electoral Princess of Hanover.

After the destruction of the palace and its chapel during World War II by Allied aerial raids, their remains were moved into the mausoleum of King Ernest Augustus I in the Berggarten of Herrenhausen Gardens in 1957.