Regent
In 1702, Hedvig Sofia became a widow and formal Regent for her minor son, the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. However, she spent most of her time in Sweden and rarely visited the home of her spouse: she left the daily affairs of the duchy to Christian August of Holstein-Gottorp, the uncle of her late spouse, but matters of major importance were always to be confirmed by her. In Sweden, she worked to have her son accepted as an heir to the Swedish throne, and the "Holstein party", as it was called, was also the most successful contestant under her leadership until her death in 1708. As a widow, she was the object of plans to arrange a new political marriage. Among the candidates were the Crown Prince of Hanover, that is the future King George II of Great Britain, but she refused a new arranged marriage; she was then involved with the young noble Olof Gyllenborg. That relationship was open public knowledge at court and seems to have been accepted, though much disliked by her grandmother, Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp.
During her time as princess at the Swedish court, Hedvig Sophia was described as a beautiful woman with an interest in fashion, and the relationship between her and her brother, King Carl, was very deep. In July 1709, her brother, who recently had become a refugee of his military catastrophe at Poltava and was far away in Bendery (today in Moldavia) finally received the news of Hedvig Sophia's death in Stockholm the previous December. Carl at first refused to believe it, and this was the only time he was ever known to have wept. It was "an event which I had trusted never to be so unhappy to survive" and he suffered from "that grief which can never altogether leave me until those who have been parted shall meet again". Hedvig Sophia's proper funeral and interment in Riddarholm Church did not take place until 1718, after the death of Carl.
She is perhaps most well known for the extensive correspondence between her and her brother King Carl XII, who lived most of his life in war campaigns abroad. When he died in 1718 and left no male heirs to the throne, the late Hedvig Sophia's only child, Duke Karl Friedrich was in line to succeed him, but the late king's younger sister Ulrica Eleanor quickly moved herself onto the throne instead.
Hedvig Sophia was the paternal grandmother of Emperor Peter III of Russia.
Read more about this topic: Hedvig Sophia Of Sweden