Sophie Angelika of Württemberg-Oels


Sophie Angelika of Württemberg-Oels, was a Duchess of Württemberg-Oels by birth and by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Zeitz-Pegau-Neustadt.
Born in Bernstadt, the capital of the Duchy of Bernstadt in Silesia, she was the fifth of the seven children of Duke Christian Ulrich I of Württemberg-Oels and his first wife, Anna Elisabeth, a daughter of Prince Christian II of Anhalt-Bernburg and Eleonore Sophie of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg.
Her mother died after complications in her last childbirth on 3 September 1680 and her father remarried three more times: in Doberlug on 27 October 1683 to Sibylle Maria, a daughter of Duke Christian I of Saxe-Merseburg; in Hamburg on 4 February 1695 to Sophie Wilhelmine, a daughter of Prince Enno Louis Cirksena of East Frisia and in Güstrow on 6 December 1700 with Sophia, a daughter of Duke Gustav Adolph of Mecklenburg-Güstrow. Sophie Angelika and her older sister Louise Elisabeth are the only surviving children from her parents' marriage. From her father's later marriages she had eight half-siblings, of whom only three survive adulthood: Charles Frederick II, Duke of Württemberg-Oels, Christian Ulrich II, Duke of Württemberg-Wilhelminenort and Auguste Louise.

Life

In Öls on 23 April 1699, Sophie Angelika married Prince Frederick Henry of Saxe-Zeitz. Shortly after, he received from his older brother Maurice Wilhelm, Duke of Saxe-Zeitz, the towns of Pegau and Neustadt as appanage. From then on, Frederick Henry assumed the title Duke of Saxe-Zeitz-Pegau-Neustadt.
Sophie Angelika and her husband settled their residence in Pegau, where she died aged 23 after only nineteen months of childless union. She was buried in the Hallenkrypta of the Dom St.Peter und Paul, Zeitz.