In 1690 she was appointed
Maid of Honour to
Electress Sophia, and the following year she became a mistress of the Electoral Prince,
George Louis. George Louis succeeded as
Elector of Hanover in 1698 and
King of Great Britain (as George I) in 1714. Melusine moved with him to England, and on 18 July 1716 was created for life Duchess of
Munster,
Marchioness of Dungannon,
Countess of Dungannon and
Baroness Dundalk, in the
Peerage of Ireland. On 19 March 1719 she was further created
Duchess of Kendal,
Countess of Feversham and
Baroness Glastonbury, in the
Peerage of Great Britain. In 1723
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, created her Princess of Eberstein. This last creation in particular tended to support the theory that she had married the King in secret.
Robert Walpole said of her that she was "as much the queen of England as anyone was". George's wife
Sophia had been kept in imprisonment since their divorce in 1694. The Duchess of Kendal was a very thin woman, being known in Germany as "the Scarecrow" () and in England as "the Maypole". The
Jacobites called her "the Goose", most famously in the taunting Scots ballad ''
Cam Ye O'er Frae France. When in England, she lived principally at Kendal House in Isleworth, Middlesex. She obtained large sums of money by selling public offices and titles; she also sold patent rights, including the privilege of supplying Ireland with a new copper coinage. This she sold to William Wood, a Wolverhampton merchant, who flooded the country with inferior coins, leading Jonathan Swift to write his Drapier's Letters''. In political matters, she had much influence with the king, and she received £10,000 (£ in ) for procuring the recall of
Viscount Bolingbroke from exile. Melusine bore George three illegitimate children: • Anna Luise Sophie von der Schulenburg, Countess of Dölitz (1 January 1692– 2 November 1773), who married Ernest August Philipp von dem
Bussche-Ippenburg. • Petronilla
Melusina von der Schulenburg (1 April 1693–16 September 1778), who married
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, a leading
Whig politician. • Margarethe Gertrud von Oeynhausen (10 January 1701–8 April 1726), who married
Albrecht Wolfgang, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe. Anna Luise Sophie and Petronilla Melusina were officially acknowledged as the children of Melusine's sister Gertrud (1659–1697) and her husband Friedrich Achaz von der Schulenburg (1647–1701), a kinsman of the sisters who shared their surname. Margarethe Gertrud was officially named von Oeynhausen because she was recognised as the daughter of Melusine's other sister, Sophia Juliane (1668–1755) and her husband Rabe Christoph von Oeynhausen (1655–1748). ==Later life and death==