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Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow
b.4 Sep 1557 Wismar, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany
d.14 Oct 1631 Nyköpings, Södermanland, Sweden
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Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow (Sophia; 4 September 1557 – 14 October 1631) was Queen of Denmark and Norway by marriage to Frederick II of Denmark. She was the mother of King Christian IV of Denmark and Anne of Denmark. She was Regent of Schleswig-Holstein from 1590 to 1594. In 1572, she married her cousin, Frederick II of Denmark, and their marriage was remarkably happy. She had little political influence during their marriage, although she maintained her own court and exercised a degree of autonomy over patronages. Sophie developed an interest in astrology, chemistry, alchemy and iatrochemistry, supporting and visiting Tycho Brahe on Ven in 1586 and later. She has later been described as a woman "of great intellectual capacity, noted especially as a patroness of scientists". She became widowed at the age of 31. Through the skilful management of her vast widowed estate, she amassed an enormous fortune, becoming the richest woman in Northern Europe and the second wealthiest individual in Europe after Maximillian I of Bavaria. Through her "inexhaustible coffers", she financially supported her son, and thereby effectively the entire Danish-Norwegian state. She maintained a large lending business, earning interest, and extending loans to, among others: her son Christian IV, the Danish Council of the Realm, her son-in-law King James VI & I, her grandson Duke Frederick Ulrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg and other German princes. When she died in 1631, James Howell, a 17th-century Anglo-Welsh historian and writer, remarked that she was the "richest Queen in Christendom".
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