Princess Dorothea Sophie of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (28 September 1636 – 6 August 1689), was Duchess consort of Brunswick-Lüneburg by marriage to Christian Louis, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and Electress of Brandenburg by marriage to Frederick William, the Great Elector.
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Biography
Dorothea was born in Glücksburg and raised in Glücksburg Castle. She could claim royal blood through her descent from her great-grandfather King Christian III of Denmark, but her parents were of lower rank: Philip, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and Sophia Hedwig of Saxe-Lauenburg. She was the sister of Auguste of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, the duchess of Augustenborg (named after her) by marriage.
Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg
In 1653, Dorothea married Christian Louis, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, brother-in-law of King Frederick III of Denmark. They lived at Celle Castle. Her husband was considered hot-tempered and a drunkard. The marriage was childless. In 1665, her first spouse died, and she moved to Herzberg Castle as a widow's seat while her brother-in-law George William followed him as the reigning Duke of Luneburg in Celle.
Electress of Brandenburg
On 14 June 1668, she married again, at age 31, this time Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, a widower himself, with whom she had seven children. Out of love for her second husband, she switched from the Lutheran to the Calvinist denomination. Asked by the (lutheran) Prussian Estates about her religious convictions, she gave them a detailed "Confession of Faith" in early 1669, which began with the sentence: "I do not believe what the Pope orders, not even in all the parts that Luther, Zwingli, Beza and Calvin write (...)." She courageously advocated religious tolerance: "(I) leave (...) everyone the freedom of conscience (...)."
Dorothea was a self-confident, brave and enterprising woman. She accompanied her husband on all his campaigns, slept on the battlefields and, as an equal, had a great influence on his politics. He discussed all his plans for the state with her. In that respect she resembled his first wife Luise Henriette of Nassau. In order to ensure the financial support of her four sons, while his son by his first marriage, Frederick I of Prussia, was to inherit the throne, she purchased the fief of Brandenburg-Schwedt in 1670 and enlarged it by the fief of Wildenbruch in 1680. She also had both castles, Schwedt and Wildenbruch, rebuilt after she made efforts to revitalize these large estates economically.
In 1670, she also received an area outside the gates of the then cities of Berlin and Cölln as a gift from her husband. From 1674, a new suburb was planned there, later named after her: Dorotheenstadt. She had the site parceled out, leased and made substantial profits from the building plots. Dorothea is said to have planted the first tree for the new avenue called Unter den Linden in 1680, an avenue lined with linden trees within her settlement, which had become a kind of artificial island by digging a small canal that complemented the baroque city fortifications (the Berlin Fortress). The tree-lined promenade would later become the magnificent boulevard of Berlin. After the Edict of Potsdam, Huguenots, among others, settled in Dorotheenstadt. She founded a shipyard and a paper mill.
In 1673, the Elector acquired the small Caputh Palace near Potsdam for her, where she had a rural manor house expanded and furnished into her pleasure palace. Today it is a museum of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg, whose exhibition provides information about the life and work of Dorothea. While she herself liked to reside in this small palace, she built a very representative palace complex in Schwedt for her sons.
Issue
From her second marriage, Dorothea had the following children:
Philip William (1669–1711),
Marie Amalie (1670–1739) married:
Charles of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, son of Gustav Adolph, Duke of Mecklenburg-Güstrow
Maurice William, Duke of Saxe-Zeitz, son of Maurice, Duke of Saxe-Zeitz
Albert Frederick (1672–1731),
Charles Philip (1673–1695),
Elisabeth Sofie (1674–1748), who married Christian Ernst of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (6 August 1644 – 20 May 1712) on 30 March 1703.
Dorothea (1675–1676),
Christian Ludwig (1677–1734), recipient of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.