Amalie von Wallmoden, Countess of Yarmouth

Amalie Sophie Marianne von Wallmoden-Gimborn, Countess of Yarmouth, born Amalie von Wendt (1 April 1704 – 19 or 20 October 1765) was the principal mistress of King George II from the mid-1730s until his death in 1760.

Born into a prominent family in the Electorate of Hanover, and married into another, in 1740 she became a naturalised subject of Great Britain and was granted a peerage for life, with the title of "Countess of Yarmouth", becoming the last royal mistress to be so honoured. She remained in England until the death in 1760 of King George II, who is believed to have fathered her second son, Johann Ludwig, Reichsgraf von Wallmoden-Gimborn. She returned to Hanover for the rest of her life, surviving the king for nearly five years.

Biography She was born Amalie Sophie Marianne von Wendt on 1 April 1704, the daughter of Hanoverian General Johann Franz Dietrich von Wendt (1675-1748) and his wife, Friderike Charlotte von dem Bussche-Ippenburg (1684-1762). Her aunt was Melusine von der Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal. where she lived with her husband. On 22 April 1736, she bore a son, called Johann Ludwig Graf von Wallmoden-Gimborn, said to be the unacknowledged illegitimate child of the king. George II's visits to his mistress in Hanover occasioned a reference by Samuel Johnson in his satiric poem London, published in May 1738.

The king ended the necessity of those visits after the death of his wife Caroline of Ansbach in November 1737, sending for the Countess Wallmoden to join him in England, but it did not put an end to Johnson's disapproval. In 1739, Johnson wrote scathingly of the king's relationship with Wallmoden, "his tortured sons shall die before his face / While he lies melting in a lewd embrace".

In 1739, Amalie von Wallmoden divorced her husband. In 1740 she was naturalised in Great Britain and granted the non-heritable title of Countess of Yarmouth, the last royal mistress to be so honoured. She died on 19 or 20 October 1765 from breast cancer, aged 61.