Maria Feodorovna (Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg)
Born Duchess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg, she was a daughter of Friedrich II Eugen, Duke of Württemberg and his wife, Friederike Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt. She belonged to a junior branch of the House of Württemberg and grew up in Montbéliard receiving an excellent education for her time and station. In 1776, when Grand Duke Paul (the future Paul I of Russia), became a widower, Sophie Dorothea was chosen by Frederick II of Prussia, her maternal great uncle, and by Empress Catherine II of Russia, as the ideal candidate to be Paul’s second wife. They met in a state dinner in Berlin and their engagement was quickly arranged.
Duke Constantine Petrovich of Oldenburg
Tsar Peter III of Russia married on 21 August 1745 to his second cousin, the Prussian princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, better known as Catherine II or Catherine the Great. The couple had one son, Paul, who, after the death of Empress Catherine in 1796, ruled as Emperor Paul I of Russia until his assassination in 1801. Paul and his wife, Maria Feodorovna, Duchess of Württemberg, had 10 children. Their eldest son ruled as Emperor Alexander I of Russia between 1801 and 1825, the period of the Napoleonic Wars.