was captured and court-martialed. For her part in the escape attempt, the king almost beat his eldest daughter Princess Wilhelmine (1709–1758) to death. Amalia was 7 years old at the time. In May 1740, Frederick William II died and Amalia's eldest brother succeeded him as Frederick II. Suggested marriage (1743–1744) After Prince Adolf Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp (1710–1771) was elected heir of the childless king of Sweden, Frederick I in 1743, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden pursued an alliance. A marriage was suggested between the new Swedish crown prince and either Amalia or her elder sister Louisa Ulrika (1720–1782). Their brother King Frederick thought that Louisa Ulrika was too ambitious to be a good queen in a relatively powerless monarchy as Sweden was then in the Age of Liberty (1720–1772), a period of parliamentary governance. He described Amalia as mild and good-hearted and thus more suitable for the role. It has been suggested that he believed that Amalia would be easier to control as a Prussian agent in the Swedish court. However, the Swedish envoy preferred Louisa Ulrika, and she was married by proxy in July 1744. Abbess, composer, and music curator (1755–1787) In 1755, after the death of the previous abbess, Duchess Marie Elisabeth of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (1678–1755), Amalia was elected princess-abbess of the Free Secular Imperial Abbey of Quedlinburg (German: Kasierlich Freie Weltliche Reichsstift Quedlinburg), which made her a wealthy and influential woman with the right to sit and speak in the Imperial Diet. She spent most of her time in Berlin and devoted herself to music, becoming known as a patron and composer. In 1758, she started studying music theory and composition from Johann Kirnberger(1721–1783), a student of Johann Sebastian Bach. She achieved modest fame and is most known for her chamber music, including trios, marches, cantatas, songs, and fugues. Her favourite among her own compositions was the passion cantata Der Tod Jesu ("The Death of Jesus"), based on a poem by Karl Wilhelm Ramler. Only a few of her works have survived and she may have destroyed many of her own compositions, as she described herself as very timid and self-critical. More compositions by her may surface as a result of the 2000 discovery of the archives of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin in Kyiv which had been lost since World War II. Amalia also collected music, preserving over 600 volumes by Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp