Frederick II , Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg
Who was the spouse of Margareta Brahe from May 1661 to 1669?
Margareta Brahe Margareta Abrahamsdotter Brahe ( 28 June 1603 , Rydboholm – 15 May 1669 , Weferlingen ) was a Swedish aristocrat and court official , Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg by marriage to Frederick II , Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg . She aroused a lot of attention with her marriages , which were considered scandalous . Life . First marriage . Margareta Brahe was the daughter of riksråd Count Abraham Pedersson Brahe of Visingsborg ( 1569-1630 ) and Elsa Gyllenstierna of Lundholm , and as such the sister of Per Brahe the Younger and Nils Brahe , and the cousin of Ebba Brahe . She belonged to one of the most prestigious noble families in Sweden and was related to the royal family . Contemporaries does not describe her as intelligent , but as a moderate character with a good sense of tact and decorum and a cheerful temperament , lacking of any mind to plot and participate in intrigues at court . Physically , her health was somewhat delicate throughout her life . She belonged to a family used to court service , her paternal aunt being the lady-in-waiting Margareta Brahe ( 1559–1638 ) , and prior to her first marriage , she served as Hovfröken ( maid-of-honour ) to Queen Maria Eleonora . She was reportedly well liked by the queen , and was a part of the retinue accompanying her to the Thirty Years War in Germany after the Battle of Breitenfeld in 1631 . On 4 July 1633 , she married the riksråd and royal equerry baron Bengt Oxenstierna ( 1591–1643 ) in Stralsund , where she was at the time still serving as maid-on-honour to Maria Eleonora , after a three years engagement . The couple returned to Sweden the following year , but her spouse was soon after appointed General Governor of Swedish Livonia , where they resided in Riga and Dorpat . The marriage was childless . In June 1643 , Margareta Brahe was widowed and returned to Sweden , and after her mourning period was terminated , she returned to the royal court . Second marriage . On 26 February 1644 , Margareta Brahe was appointed to the office of Hovmastarinna ( Court Mistress or Mistress of the Robes ) to Queen Christina of Sweden . This was the highest-ranking office for a woman at the Swedish royal court , although the office was split during the reign of Christina , and she shared the office with Kerstin Bååt and Beata Oxenstierna . During her tenure in office , she was regarded as an influential figure at court , and as other ladies-in-waiting she was able to use her position to benefit supplicants : such as to recommend a priest to an office at the new General Governor of Livonia , make an application for an officer to keep his regiment , and grant scholarships to students . In 1648 , the queens cousin Countess Palatine Eleonora Catherine of Zweibrücken referred to her as her Dearest Protection , likely because Margareta Brahe had defended her when she gave birth to an illegitimate child . At this point in life , she was apparently an attractive woman , and described as the very lovely lady Brahe . In 1647 , she received a proposal from the state official count Johan Oxenstierna , eldest son and heir of the all powerful chancellor count Axel Oxenstierna . Her suitor was eight years her junior and had been in love with her since before his marriage to Anna Sture ( d . 1646 ) , and when he became a widower , he proposed . The proposal and marriage caused a scandal and political difficulty at court . During this epoch , marriage within the nobility were political contracts made to create balance between the political noble fractions at court , where the monarch had to balance between the powerful Brahe and Oxenstierna parties . Consequently , a party pamphlet accused Axel Oxenstierna for having arranged the marriage to create an alliance between himself and Margaretas brother Per Brahe and his fraction , which caused political conflicts . This accusation was fueled by the fact that Axel Oxenstierna engaged his younger son Erik Oxenstierna to Margaretas niece Elsa Elisabeth Brahe , which made it possible for the marriage to take place without disturbing the power balance among the noble fractions . In reality , however , Axel Oxenstierna was strongly against the marriage : his son had no children , and had proposed to a woman who had no children from her first marriage and was soon too likely be to old to have any . Further more , with such a swift marriage so soon after the death of his first wife , he might upset his rich former mother-in-law , the queens former foster mother Ebba Leijonhufvud , who was childless and who might change her mind to make him her heir if he married so soon after the death of her daughter . He lectured his son and wrote : Your mother and I could not but to like the person of the Lady Margareta and would with much pleasure like her as a daughter-in-law . However , we would not like to see all hope to have grandchildren by You vanish by Your marriage to her . You are our oldest son and after God our only hope and support . You are young still , hardly thirty-five , and I cannot understand why You would burden Yourself with an old and barren woman and thereby do what You may regret . But Johan Oxenstierna was genuinely in love , wished to marry Margareta exclusively for emotional reasons and refused to consider political , economic or fertility reasons , and in July 1648 , Johan Oxenstierna and Margareta Brahe eloped to Wismar in Germany , where they were wed . As the marriage was neither political , economic or intended to produce children , it was an obvious love match , which was controversial in an epoch where marriage was normally not conducted for love : it took place but four months after the death of the grooms first wife , and it also caused a scandal because of the age difference , when the bride rather than the groom was one decade senior . The couple remained in Germany , where Johan Oxenstierna was a Swedish delegate during the Congress of Osnabrück , and Margareta Brahe reportedly played an important part during the Peace of Westphalia through her calming influence upon her hot-tempered husband , which benefited the sensitive negotiations . Johan Oxenstierna himself alluded to this in letters to his father : I may admit , that if my wife had not been here , I would surely already have been lost . The marriage was evidently happy , but childless . On 5 December 1657 , Margareta Brahe became a childless widow a second time . The death of her second husband reportedly caused her such sorrow that she was confined to her bed for a long time . Third marriage . After the death of her second spouse , Margareta Brahe was one of the richest people in Sweden . Her husband had inherited the Sture Inheritance from Ebba Leijonhufvud ( the mother of his first wife , heiress Anna Sture ) , and left all of it to Margareta Brahe in his will , and though she gave up some of it in a settlement with the relatives of Anna Sture in 1661 , she had become very rich and thus an attractive marriage partner . She continued to attend court , and accompanied the crown prince to the deathbed of Charles XI of Sweden in Gothenborg in 1660 . In 1660 she received two proposals of marriage : one from Louis Henry , Landgrave of Nassau-Dillenburg , 66 years old , thrice widowed with seventeen children and bad economy , and one from Frederick II , Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg , 27 years old , childless and never married . Louis Henry sent his ambassadors to Stockholm to negotiate and was supported by Margaretas brother Per Brahe , but Margareta Brahe herself stalled . Meanwhile , Frederick II was himself in Stockholm , and courted her personally , and Margareta Brahe chose to accept the proposal of Frederick II , thirty years younger than herself , which caused a major scandal . When Louis Henry sent his ambassador to Stockholm to negotiate further , regarding his proposal already accepted , he found that Margareta was already engaged to Frederick II . Louis Henry accused Margareta of having broken her promise of marriage and put forward diplomatic protests to Queen Dowager Regent Hedwig Eleonora and Per Brahe , but Margareta refused to be forced by Louis Henry or her brother and did not wait for the diplomatic conflict to be solved . On 12 May 1661 , she married Frederick II in a grand wedding with elaborate celebrations at the royal court in Stockholm in the presence of the king and the queen dowager regent . The couple were reported to go well with each other sexually , but the wedding caused a great scandal and was much talked about in memoirs and letters of the time . After a honeymoon in her estate Ekebyhov Margareta departed with her spouse to Germany and divided the rest of her life living at the court of Hesse-Homburg in Homburg and at estates bought around the city for her money . Though she was happy with her prestigious marriage , she missed Sweden and her relatives , but found interest in genealogical research . Louis Henry published a written libel named Die untreue Margaretha Brahe ( The Adulterous Margaretha Brahe ) in which he pointed out Margareta as an adulterer and Fredrik as a seducer , and demanded that they be punished in accordance with German law . The libel was a Monstrosity of libelous slander , dysphemism and insinuations , and Louis Henry also published his correspondence with Margareta in order to prove her broken vows of marriage to him : there was however no proof that she had accepted his proposal , only that she had avoided to answer and encouraged him without saying yes . Frederick II published the more calm reply that his wife had refused Louis Henry when she was informed of his debauched lifestyle . This conflict caused a scandal in all of Germany and affected the emotions of Margareta Brahe to a degree , that she thought herself dying , but through the mediation of her brother and several German Princes , the managed to effect a reconciliation with Louis Henry before his death in 1662 . At her death in 1669 she willed almost all of her fortune to her spouse As a token of appreciation for the honour and loyalty always showed to her by her young consort . This also caused a scandal , as she left almost nothing to her relatives , and the spouse of her niece , Adolph John I , Count Palatine of Kleeburg , opposed the will without success .