Countess Albertine Agnes of Nassau

Countess Albertine Agnes of Nassau
Albertine Agnes of Nassau
Born	(1634-04-09)April 9, 1634 The Hague
Died	May 26, 1696(1696-05-26) (aged 62) Oranjewoud Palace
Noble family	House of Nassau
Spouse(s)	William Frederick, Prince of Nassau-Dietz
Father	Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange
Mother	Amalia of Solms-Braunfels

Albertine Agnes and her sisters

Albertine Agnes (April 9, 1634 – May 26, 1696), was a regent of Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe. She was the sixth child and fifth daughter of stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels.

Family

Frederick Henry, Amalia and their youngest three daughters, Albertine Agnes is second on the right, holding hands with her younger sister Henriette Catherine

Albertine Agnes was born in The Hague and was the sixth of nine children born to her parents. Some of her siblings died in childhood. Albertine and four other siblings lived to adulthood. Her surviving siblings were: William II, Prince of Orange, Luise Henriette of Nassau, Henriette Catherine of Nassau and Mary of Nassau.

Albertine's paternal grandparents were William the Silent and his fourth wife Louise de Coligny. Her grandfather, William, was murdered on the orders of Philip II of Spain, who believed that William had betrayed the Spanish king and the Catholic religion.

Her maternal grandparents were Johan Albrecht I of Solms-Braunfels and his wife Agnes of Sayn-Wittgenstein.

In 1652 she married her second-cousin, William Frederick, Prince of Nassau-Dietz. They had three children:

• Amalia of Nassau-Dietz, married to John William III, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach
• Henry Casimir II, Count of Nassau-Dietz, married to Henriëtte Amalia of Anhalt-Dessau
• Wilhelmina Sophia Hedwig (1664–1667)

Regency

After the death of her husband in 1664, she became regent for her son in Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe. In 1665, both England and the bishopric of Münster declared war on the Netherlands. Because most of the money for defence had been used for the fleet, the army had been neglected. When Groningen was under siege, Albertine Agnes hastened to the city to give moral support. Pressure by King Louis XIV of France, then an ally, forced the forces of her enemies retreated, but six years later the Netherlands were attacked from the south, by the French under Louis XIV and from the north by the bishop of Münster and archbishop of Cologne. She organised defence and kept moral high.

In 1676 Albertine Agnes bought a country seat in Oranjewoud and called it Oranjewoud Palace. It was here that she died in 1696.

Ancestors

Sources

• "Women in power 1640–1670" last accessed August 4, 2007

External links

• The Correspondence of Albertine Agnes van Oranje-Nassau in EMLO