Born into the House of Oldenburg, the royal family of Denmark-Norway, Sophia Magdalena was the first daughter of King Frederick V of Denmark and Norway and his first consort, Princess Louise of Great Britain.

Already at the age of five, she was betrothed to Gustav, the heir apparent to the throne of Sweden, as part of an attempt to improve the traditionally tense relationship between the two Scandinavian realms.

Princess Sophie Magdalene was born on 3 July 1746 at her parents' residence Charlottenborg Palace, located at the large square, Kongens Nytorv, in central Copenhagen.

[1] She was the second child and first daughter of Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark and his first consort, the former Princess Louise of Great Britain, and was named for her grandmother, Queen Sophie Magdalene.

[citation needed] The marriage was arranged as a way of creating peace between Sweden and Denmark, which had a long history of war and which had strained relations following the election of an heir to the Swedish throne in 1743, where the Danish candidate had lost.

[2] After the death of her mother early in her life, Sophia Magdalena was given a very strict and religious upbringing by her grandmother and her stepmother, who considered her father and brother to be morally degenerate.

[2] Louisa Ulrika favored a match between Gustav and her niece Philippine of Brandenburg-Schwedt instead, and claimed that she regarded the engagement to be void and forced upon her by Carl Gustaf Tessin.

[2] However, the Swedish public was very favorable to the match due to expectations Sophia Magdalena would be like the last Danish-born Queen of Sweden, Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark, who was very loved for her kindness and charity.

[2] This view was supported by the Caps political party, which expected Sophia Magdalena to be an example of a virtuous and religious representative of the monarchy in contrast to the haughty Louisa Ulrika.

"[2] On 1 October 1766, Sophia Magdalena was married to Gustav by proxy at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen with her brother Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Denmark, as representative of her groom.

[citation needed] She traveled in the royal golden sloop from Kronborg in Denmark over Öresund to Hälsingborg in Sweden; when she was halfway, the Danish cannon salute ended, and the Swedish started to fire.

[citation needed] In the famous diary of her sister-in-law, Princess Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte, Sophia Magdalena is described as beautiful, cold, silent and haughty, very polite and formal, reserved and unsociable.

She had two very intimate friends, Maria Aurora Uggla and Baroness Virginia Charlotta Manderström, but otherwise rarely participated in any social life outside of what was absolutely necessary to perform her representational duties.

As a result of this, she was somewhat criticized for being too vain: even when she had no representational duties to dress up for and spend her days alone in her rooms, she is said to have changed costumes several times daily, and according her chamberlain Adolf Ludvig Hamilton, she never passed a mirror without studying herself in it.

Sophia Magdalena called upon the Danish ambassador, held a speech to him followed by a long conversation and then handed him a letter written as a "warm appeal" to her brother.

This act led to a social boycott of the monarch by the female members of the aristocracy, who followed the example of Jeanna von Lantingshausen as well as the King's sister and sister-in-law, Sophie Albertine of Sweden and Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte.

[citation needed] As a teenager, Gustav had a crush on Axel von Fersen's mother, Hedvig Catharina De la Gardie, though this affection was never physical.

His sister-in-law, Princess Charlotte, claims that the King did participate in homosexual activity after his trip to Italy in 1784 and that there were several rumors about this: she claims that she herself had witnessed that the park at Drottningholm Palace had become a place where male courtiers searched for homosexual partners, and in a letter to Sophie von Fersen, she writes in code: "It is said that the King recently attacked a young man in the park at night and offered him the post of chamberlain to the Queen if he agreed to his lusts, but the young man preferred to leave.

Von Fersen, however, convinced him not to by saying that she should not be regarded to participate in pro-Danish plots just for her love of her Danish chamber-maids, and that as a neglected wife, she should not be blamed for enjoying the compliments of Count Ribbing, which were not grounds for suspicions of adultery.

During this period, it had been noted that Count Ribbing was often seen in the company of the Queen and had paid her compliments and made her laugh, among other things by caricaturing her Mistress of the Robes Countess Anna Maria Hjärne.

"[10] The King had given Countess Ulrica Catharina Stromberg the task to investigate this, and she was told by the chamber madame of Sophia Magdalena, Charlotta Hellman, that: "information, which were dubious, especially since the clearest evidence could be gathered from the linen of the Queen".

In 1774, the King arranged the marriage between his brother, the future Charles XIII of Sweden, and Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp, to solve, for the time being, the immediate question of an heir to the throne.

[16]: 143 This was also caricatured by Carl August Ehrensvärd in private letters discovered later – his drawing was published in 1987 —, where he passed on a number of rumors and jokes about Gustav III, Sophia Magdalena and Munck without inferring that he believed they were true.

Erik Lönnroth has suggested that the anatomical problems mentioned in Munck's account,[18] known only to a few initiated persons, were the primary factor in their delay in producing an heir.

Sven Anders Hedin, a medical doctor at the royal court, and married to one of the Queen's chambermaids, Charlotta Hellman, contributed two statements which have been quoted in connection with the scandal.

A brief reconciliation in 1787 was deemed by Duchess Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte in her diaries as temporary, with no hope of being complete and lasting,[24]: 191  as the King was not "receptive to female charm": another insinuation that he was homosexual.

At the death of Gustav III 29 March 1792, she attempted to visit him, but she was blocked by her brother-in-law Duke Charles, who fell on his knees before her to stop her from entering the bed room.

In September 1812, Germaine de Staël was presented to her, and gave her the impression of her: "Her Majesty analyzed my books as an educated woman, whose judgement showed as much thoroughness as well as delicate feeling.

"[28] When the Crown Prince banned any contact between Swedes and the former royal family, Germaine de Staël asked that an exception was to be made for Sophia Magdalena, and it was: her letters were however read by foreign minister Lars von Engeström.

It was also used to inspire the novel Drottningens juvelsmycke, famous in Sweden, where the character of Tintomara is portrayed as a half sibling of Gustav IV Adolf through Count Munck.