She was the attractive daughter of Johann Albrecht I, Count zu Solms-Braunfels, who had been a courtier for both Friedrich IV, Elector Palatine, and his son, Friedrich V "the Winter King". After a penniless childhood, Amalia became a lady-in-waiting to the Electress Palatine, Elizabeth Stuart. When the Elector and Electress became King and Queen of Bohemia, she moved with them to Prague, then fled Prague with them.

She accompanied the "Winter Queen" to The Hague and there Amalia became acquainted with her cousins, the bachelors Maurits, Prince of Orange, and his younger half-brother, Frederik Hendrik. Concerned with the continuation of his family, the ailing Maurits threatened to legitimise his two bastard sons if Frederik Hendrik did not marry. As a result, Frederik Hendrik proposed to Amalia and theirs was a happy marriage producing nine children. 

Amalia never seemed to have forgotten the poverty in her childhood; after her marriage she became quite mercenary, accepting presents from other princes and demanding renumeration for intervening with her husband. 

Being German by birth, she resented her husband's pro-French policy, yet she relentlessly assisted him when pursuing a lasting peace with Spain. She worked hard for the aggrandisement of her family and it was quite a catch when their son, Willem II, married the English Princess Royal, Mary Stuart. Amalia also tried, though in vain, to arrange a marriage between the future Charles II and her eldest daughter, Louise Henriette. However, Louise Henriette preferred her French cousin, the Prince de Talmond; but sadly Amalia then preferred a German cousin, "the Great Elector" of Brandenburg. With her manipulations Amalia achieved her aim and forced her daughter into the German marriage. 

Soon after this marriage, Amalia lost her husband, 14 March 1647; three years later their son died, 6 November 1650; his wife, the English Mary Stuart, gave birth eight days later to a future king of England, William III. In 1660 after the restoration of King Charles II, Mary went to England and died there, 24 December 1660, just twenty-nine years old. 

Amalia then became fully in charge of her grandson. In 1672, due to the French invasion, the twenty-two-year old William III was restored as Stadhouder of The Netherlands. Three years later, at seventy-three years of age, Amalia died. 

Source: Leo van de Pas