Maria of Orange-Nassau (1642–1688)
Countess Maria of Orange-Nassau von Oranien-Nassau (5 September 1642, The Hague - 20 March 1688, Kreuznach) was a Dutch princess of the house of Orange and by marriage pfalzgräfin or countess of Simmern.
Life
Maria was the youngest daughter of Amalia of Solms-Braunfels and her husband Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. Her father was already in his late fifties when she was born and died when she was only four. She was also the aunt of the future William III. In 1660 negotiations to marry her to Charles II of Great Britain. However, in the end he opted to marry Catharine of Braganza of Portugal, which was then at war with Spain. A year later her family opened negotiations to marry her to John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen, but these also proved abortive.
On 23 September 1666 in Kleve she married Louis Henry, Count Palatine of Simmern-Kaiserslautern (1640-1674), son of Louis Philip and uncle to Maria's aunt Countess Louise Juliana of Nassau. Like her sisters, Maria's marriage was intended to draw the network of Calvinist princes closer together. To mark the marriage, Jan Mitjens was commissioned to paint a group portrait of Maria and her sisters. Maria and Louis Henry were married eight years but the marriage proved childless and on her husband's death the Simmern-Kaiserslautern line died out.
Maria kept up a correspondence with her two surviving sisters after her marriage. Like her sister Louise Henriette with the Oranienburg, Albertine Agnes with the Oranienstein and Henriette Catherine with the Oranienbaum, Maria set up a monastery for abandoned women - she founded hers in 1669 was at Bad Kreuznach and named it Schloss Oranienhof, though it closed in 1689. Maria died in 1688 after six days of pneumonia.
External links
- Template:Nl De kinderen van Prins Willem „de Zwijger“ (1533–1584) van Oranje-Nassau Prins van Oranje in 1544.
- Template:Nl Wil Tiemes: Maria prinses van Oranje (1642–1688). In: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. 2013.