In 1672 her family moved to the new episcopal residence in Osnabrück and finally in 1679 to Hanover, when Ernest Augustus succeeded his brother Duke John Frederick of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Principality of Calenberg.

During her childhood, Sophia Charlotte visited the Kingdom of France with her mother in hopes of marrying Louis, Grand Dauphin, heir to the French throne.

Initially, Sophia Charlotte interfered in political affairs, pushing the downfall of the Prussian prime minister Eberhard von Danckelman in 1697, but soon retired to private life.

Here she had a Baroque summer residence erected by the architects Johann Arnold Nering and Martin Grünberg, in order to live independently from her husband and have her own court.

She was renowned for her intelligence and strong character, and her uncensored and liberal court attracted a great many scholars, including philosopher Gottfried Leibniz.

Sophia Charlotte is mainly remembered for her friendship and correspondence with her mother's good friend and tutor Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, whose avowed disciple she became.

Following the example set by her mother, she surrounded herself with philosophers and theologians like Isaac de Beausobre, Daniel Ernst Jablonski and John Toland and inspired the foundation of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

She was interested in music, sang and played the harpsichord, had an Italian opera theater constructed, and employed the musicians Attilio Ariosti and Giovanni Bononcini.

[7] Sophia Charlotte was such a formidable personage that when Tsar Peter the Great first met her and her mother on his Grand Embassy in 1697, he was so overwhelmed and intimidated that he could not speak.