Sophie Angelika of Württemberg-Oels

Sophie Angelika of Württemberg-Oels (30 May 1677 - 11 November 1700), was a Duchess of Württemberg-Oels by birth and by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Zeitz-Pegau-Neustadt.

Born in Bernstadt (now called Bierutów), 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.

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 (by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Merseburg-Lauchstädt) 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 (both sons of Sibylle Maria) and Auguste Louise (daughter of Sophie Wilhelmine; by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Weissenfels-Barby).

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 (Herzog von Sachsen-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.^[1][2] She was buried in the Hallenkrypta of the Dom St.Peter und Paul, Zeitz.^[3]

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