Duchess Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia
Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia was an Electress of Saxony as the spouse of John George I, Elector of Saxony.Life
She was born in Königsberg, the daughter of Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia and Marie Eleonore of Cleves. She married John George on 19 July 1607 in Torgau.
She was a great-granddaughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor. She is also in three ways an ancestor of Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, mother of George III of the United Kingdom. In that way, she connected the ancestry of the British monarchs to the Catholic Monarchs.
She was a friend of the Swedish queen Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, her niece, and was interested in painting, poetry and gardening.
She used Swedish prisoners of war to work on the Dresdner Festungsbau.
As a widow in 1656, she retired to the Dresdner Frau Kurfürstin-Haus and died in Dresden in 1659.Children
She had ten children:
- Stillborn son
- Sophie Eleonore, married on 1 April 1627 Landgrave Georg II of Hesse-Darmstadt
- Marie Elisabeth, married on 21 February 1630 Duke Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp
- Christian Albert
- Johann Georg II, successor of his father as Elector of Saxony
- August, inherited Weissenfels as Duke.
- Christian I, inherited Merseburg as Duke
- Magdalene Sibylle, married firstly on 5 October 1634 to Crown Prince Christian, eldest son and heir of King Christian IV of Denmark; and secondly, on 11 October 1652, to Duke Frederick Wilhelm II of Saxe-Altenburg
- Maurice, inherited Zeitz as Duke
- Heinrich.
Ancestry
