Chapter 12

Frederick Henry left an account of his campaigns in hisMémoires de Frédéric Henri(Amsterdam, 1743). SeeCambridge Mod. Hist.vol. iv. chap. 24, and the bibliography on p. 931.

FREDERICK LOUIS(1707-1751), prince of Wales, eldest son of George II., was born at Hanover on the 20th of January 1707. After his grandfather, George I., became king of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714, Frederick was known as duke of Gloucester1and made a knight of the Garter, having previously been betrothed to Wilhelmina Sophia Dorothea (1709-1758), daughter of Frederick William I., king of Prussia, and sister of Frederick the Great. Although he was anxious to marry this lady, the match was rendered impossible by the dislike of George II. and Frederick William for each other. Soon after his father became king in 1727 Frederick took up his residence in England and in 1729 was created prince of Wales; but the relations between George II. and his son were very unfriendly, and there existed between them the jealousy which Stubbs calls the “incurable bane of royalty.” The faults were not all on one side. The prince’s character was not attractive, and the king refused to make him an adequate allowance. In 1735 Frederick wrote, or inspired the writing of, theHistoire du prince Titi, a book containing offensive caricatures of both king and queen; and losing no opportunity of irritating his father, “he made,” says Lecky, “his court the special centre of opposition to the government, and he exerted all his influence for the ruin of Walpole.” After a marriage between the prince and Lady Diana Spencer, afterwards the wife of John, 4th duke of Bedford, had been frustrated by Walpole, Frederick was married in April 1736 toAugusta (1719-1772), daughter of Frederick II., duke of Saxe-Gotha, a union which was welcomed by his parents, but which led to further trouble between father and son. George proposed to allow the prince £50,000 a year; but this sum was regarded as insufficient by the latter, whose appeal to parliament was unsuccessful. After the birth of his first child, Augusta, in 1737, Frederick was ordered by the king to quit St James’ Palace, and the foreign ambassadors were requested to refrain from visiting him. The relations between the two were now worse than before. In 1745 George II. refused to allow his son to command the British army against the Jacobites. On the 20th of March 1751 the prince died in London, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He left five sons and two daughters. The sons were George (afterwards King George III.), Edward Augustus, duke of York and Albany (1739-1767), William Henry, duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1743-1805), Henry Frederick, duke of Cumberland (1745-1790), and Frederick William (1750-1765); the daughters were Augusta (1737-1813), wife of Charles William Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick, and Caroline Matilda (1751-1775), wife of Christian VII., king of Denmark.

See Lord Hervey of Ickworth,Memoirs of the Reign of George II., edited by J. W. Croker (London, 1884); Horace Walpole,Memoirs of the Reign of George II.(London, 1847); and Sir N. W. Wraxall,Memoirs, edited by H. B. Wheatley, vol. i. (London, 1884).

1Frederick was never actually created duke of Gloucester, and when he was raised to the peerage in 1736 it was as duke of Edinburgh only. See G. E. C(okayne),Complete Peerage, sub “Gloucester.”

FREDERICK WILLIAM I.(1688-1740), king of Prussia, son of Frederick I. by his second marriage was born on the 15th of August 1688. He spent a considerable time in early youth at the court of his grandfather, the elector Ernest Augustus of Hanover. On his return to Berlin he was placed under General von Dohna and Count Finkenstein, who trained him to the energetic and regular habits which ever afterwards characterized him. He was soon imbued with a passion for military life, and this was deepened by acquaintance with the duke of Marlborough (1709), Prince Eugene, whom he visited during the siege of Tournai, and Prince Leopold of Anhalt (the “Old Dessauer”). In nearly every respect he was the opposite of his father, having frugal, simple tastes, a passionate temper and a determined will. Throughout his life he was always the protector of the church and of religion. But he detested religious quarrels and was very tolerant towards his Catholic subjects, except the Jesuits. His life was simple and puritanical, being founded on the teaching of the Bible. He was, however, fond of hunting and somewhat given to drinking. He intensely disliked the French, and highly disapproved of the imitation of their manners by his father and his court. When he came to the throne (February 25, 1713) his first act was to dismiss from the palace every unnecessary official and to regulate the royal household on principles of the strictest parsimony. The greater part of the beautiful furniture was sold. His importance for Prussia is twofold: in internal politics he laid down principles which continued to be followed long after his death. This was a province peculiarly suited to his genius; he was one of the greatest administrators who have ever worn the Prussian crown. His foreign policy was less successful, though under his rule the kingdom acquired some extension of territory.

Thus at the peace of Utrecht (April 11, 1713), after the War of the Spanish Succession, he acquired the greater part of the duchy of Gelderland. By the treaty of Schwedt, concluded with Russia on the 6th of October, he was assured of an important influence in the solution of the Baltic question, which during the long absence of Charles XII. had become burning; and Swedish Pomerania, as far as the Peene, was occupied by Prussia. But Charles XII. on his return turned against the king, though without success, for the Pomeranian campaign of 1715 ended in favour of Prussia (fall of Stralsund, December 22). This enabled Frederick William I. to maintain a more independent attitude towards the tsar; he refused, for example, to provide him with troops for a campaign (in Schonen) against the Swedes. When on the 28th of May 1718, in view of the disturbances in Mecklenburg, he signed at Havelberg the alliance with Russia, he confined himself to taking up a defensive attitude, and, on the other hand, on the 14th of August 1719 he also entered into relations with his former enemies, England and Hanover. And so, by the treaty of Stockholm (February 1, 1720), Frederick William succeeded in obtaining the consent of Sweden to the cession of that part of Pomerania which he had occupied (Usedom, Wollin, Stettin, Hither Pomerania, east of the Peene) in return for a payment of 2,000,000 thalers.

While Frederick William I. succeeded in carrying his wishes into effect in this direction, he was unable to realize another project which he had much at heart, namely, the Prussian succession to the Lower Rhine duchies of Jülich and Berg. The treaty concluded in 1725 at Vienna between the emperor and Spain brought the whole of this question up again, for both sides had pledged themselves to support the Palatinate-Sulzbach succession (in the event of the Palatinate-Neuberg line becoming extinct). Frederick William turned for help to the western powers, England and France, and secured it by the treaty of alliance signed at Herrenhausen on the 3rd of September 1725 (League of Hanover). But since the western powers soon sought to use the military strength of Prussia for their own ends, Frederick again turned towards the east, strengthened above all his relations with Russia, which had continued to be good, and finally, by the treaty of Wüsterhausen (October 12, 1726; ratified at Berlin, December 23, 1728), even allied himself with his former adversary, the court of Vienna; though this treaty only imperfectly safeguarded Prussian interests, inasmuch as Frederick William consented to renounce his claims to Jülich. But as in the following years the European situation became more and more favourable to the house of Habsburg, the latter began to try to withdraw part of the concessions which it had made to Frederick William. As early as 1728 Düsseldorf, the capital, was excluded from the guarantee of Berg. Nevertheless, in the War of the Polish Succession against France (1734-1735), Frederick William remained faithful to the emperor’s cause, and sent an auxiliary force of 10,000 men. The peace of Vienna, which terminated the war, led to a reconciliation between France and Austria, and so to a further estrangement between Frederick William and the emperor. Moreover, in 1738 the western powers, together with the emperor, insisted in identical notes on the recognition of the emperor’s right to decide the question of the succession in the Lower Rhine duchies. A breach with the emperor was now inevitable, and this explains why in a last treaty (April 5, 1739) Frederick William obtained from France a guarantee of a part, at least, of Berg (excluding Düsseldorf).

But Frederick William’s failures in foreign policy were more than compensated for by his splendid services in the internal administration of Prussia. He saw the necessity of rigid economy not only in his private life but in the whole administration of the state. During his reign Prussia obtained for the first time a centralized and uniform financial administration. It was the king himself who composed and wrote in the year 1722 the famous instruction for the general directory (Generaldirektorium) of war, finance and domains. When he died the income of the state was about seven million thalers (£1,050,000). The consequence was that he paid off the debts incurred by his father, and left to his successor a well filled treasury. In the administration of the domains he made three innovations: (1) the private estates of the king were turned into domains of the crown (August 13, 1713); (2) the freeing of the serfs on the royal domains (March 22, 1719); (3) the conversion of the hereditary lease into a short-term lease on the basis of productiveness. His industrial policy was inspired by the mercantile spirit. On this account he forbade the importation of foreign manufactures and the export of raw materials from home, a policy which had a very good effect on the growth of Prussian industries.

The work of internal colonization he carried on with especial zeal. Most notable of all was hisrétablissementof East Prussia, to which he devoted six million thalers (c.£900,000). His policy in respect of the towns was motived largely by fiscal considerations, but at the same time he tried also to improve their municipal administration; for example, in the matter of buildings, of the letting of domain lands and of the collection of the excise in towns. Frederick William had many opponents among the nobles because he pressed on the abolition of the old feudal rights, introduced in East Prussia and Lithuania a general land tax (theGeneralhufenschoss),and finally in 1739 attacked in a special edict theLegen,i.e.the expropriation of the peasant proprietors. He did nothing for the higher learning, and even banished the philosopher Christian Wolff at forty-eight hours’ notice “on pain of the halter,” for teaching, as he believed, fatalist doctrines. Afterwards he modified his judgment in favour of Wolff, and even, in 1739, recommended the study of his works. He established many village schools, which he often visited in person; and after the year 1717 (October 23) all Prussian parents were obliged to send their children to school (Schulzwang). He was the especial friend of theFranckische Stiftungenat Halle on the Saale. Under him the people flourished; and although it stood in awe of his vehement spirit it respected him for his firmness, his honesty of purpose and his love of justice. He was devoted also to his army, the number of which he raised from 38,000 to 83,500, so that under him Prussia became the third military power in the world, coming next after Russia and France. There was not a more thoroughly drilled or better appointed force. The Potsdam guard, made up of giants collected from all parts of Europe, sometimes kidnapped, was a sort of toy with which he amused himself. The reviewing of his troops was his chief pleasure. But he was also fond of meeting his friends in the evening in what he called his Tobacco-College, where amid clouds of tobacco smoke he not only discussed affairs of state but heard the newest “guard-room jokes.” He died on the 31st of May 1740, leaving behind him his widow, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, whom he had married on the 26th of November 1706. His son was Frederick the Great, who was the opposite of Frederick William. This opposition became so strong in 1730 that the crown prince fled from the court, and was later arrested and brought before a court-martial. A reconciliation was brought about, at first gradually. In later years the relations between father and son came to be of the best (seeFrederick II., king of Prussia).

Bibliography.—D. Fassmann,Leben und Thaten Friedrich Wilhelms(2 vols., Hamburg and Breslau, 1735, 1741); F. Förster,Friedrich Wilhelm I.(3 vols., Potsdam, 1834 and 1835); C. v. Noorden,Historische Vorträge(Leipzig, 1884); O. Krauske, “Vom Hofe Friedrich Wilhelms I.,”Hohenzollernjahrbuch, v. (1902); R. Koser,Friedrich der Grosse als Kronprinz(2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1901); W. Oncken, “Sir Charles Hotham und Friedrich Wilhelm I. im Jahre 1730,”Forschungen zur brandenburgischen Geschichte, vol. vii. et seq.; J. G. Droysen in theAllgemeine deutsche Biographie, vii. (1878), and inGeschichte der preussischen Politik, section iv., vols. ii.-iv. (2nd ed., 1868 et seq.); L. v. Ranke,Zwölf Bücher preussischer Geschichte(1874 et seq.); Stenzel,Geschichte des preussischen Staates, iii. (1841); F. Holke, “Strafrechtspflege unter Friedrich Wilhelm I.,”Beiträge zur brandenburgischen Rechtsgeschichte, iii. (1894); V. Loewe, “Allodifikation der Leben unter Friedrich Wilhelm I.,”Forschungen zur brandenburgischen Geschichte, xi.; G. Schmoller, “Epochen der preuss. Finanzpolitik,”Umrisse und Untersuchungen(Leipzig, 1898), “Innere Verwaltung unter Friedrich Wilhelm I.,”Preuss. Jahrbücher, xxvi., “Städtewesen unter Friedrich Wilhelm I.,”Zeitschrift für preussische Geschichte, x. et seq.; B. Reuter, “König Friedrich Wilhelm I. und das General-Direktorium,”ibid.xii.; V. Loewe, “Zur Grundungsgeschichte des General-Direktoriums,”Forschungen, &c., xiii.; R. Stadelmann,Preussens Könige in ihrer Tätigkeit für die Landeskultur, vol. i. “Friedrich Wilhelm I.” (1878); M. Beheim-Schwarzbach,Hohenzollern’sche Kolonizationen(Leipzig, 1874); W. Naude, “Die merkantilistische Wirtschaftspolitik Friedrich Wilhelms I.,”Historische Zeitschrift, xc.; M. Lehmann, “Werbung, &c., im Heere Friedrich Wilhelms I.,”ibid.lxvii.; Isaacson, “Erbpachtsystem in der preussischen Domänenverwaltung,”Zeitschrift für preuss. Gesch.xi. Cf. alsoHohenzollernjahrbuch, viii. (1905), for particulars of his education and death; letters to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau in theActa Borussica(1905). English readers will find a picturesque account of him in Thomas Carlyle’sFrederick the Great.

(J. Hn.)

FREDERICK WILLIAM II.(1744-1797), king of Prussia, son of Augustus William, second son of King Frederick William I. and of Louise Amalie of Brunswick, sister of the wife of Frederick the Great, was born at Berlin on the 25th of September 1744, and became heir to the throne on his father’s death in 1757. The boy was of an easy-going and pleasure-loving disposition, averse from sustained effort of any kind, and sensual by nature. His marriage with Elisabeth Christine, daughter of Duke Charles of Brunswick, contracted in 1765, was dissolved in 1769, and he soon afterwards married Frederika Louisa, daughter of the landgrave Louis IX. of Hesse-Darmstadt. Although he had a numerous family by his wife, he was completely under the influence of his mistress, Wilhelmine Enke, afterwards created Countess Lichtenau, a woman of strong intellect and much ambition. He was a man of singularly handsome presence, not without mental qualities of a high order; he was devoted to the arts—Beethoven and Mozart enjoyed his patronage and his private orchestra had a European reputation. But an artistic temperament was hardly that required of a king of Prussia on the eve of the Revolution; and Frederick the Great, who had employed him in various services—notably in an abortive confidential mission to the court of Russia in 1780—openly expressed his misgivings as to the character of the prince and his surroundings.

The misgivings were justified by the event. Frederick William’s accession to the throne (August 17, 1786) was, indeed, followed by a series of measures for lightening the burdens of the people, reforming the oppressive French system of tax-collecting introduced by Frederick, and encouraging trade by the diminution of customs dues and the making of roads and canals. This gave the new king much popularity with the mass of the people; while the educated classes were pleased by his removal of Frederick’s ban on the German language by the admission of German writers to the Prussian Academy, and by the active encouragement given to schools and universities. But these reforms were vitiated in their source. In 1781 Frederick William, then prince of Prussia, inclined, like many sensual natures, to mysticism, had joined the Rosicrucians, and had fallen under the influence of Johann Christof Wöllner (1732-1800), and by him the royal policy was inspired. Wöllner, whom Frederick the Great had described as a “treacherous and intriguing priest,” had started life as a poor tutor in the family of General von Itzenplitz, a noble of the mark of Brandenburg, had, after the general’s death and to the scandal of king and nobility, married the general’s daughter, and with his mother-in-law’s assistance settled down on a small estate. By his practical experiments and by his writings he gained a considerable reputation as an economist; but his ambition was not content with this, and he sought to extend his influence by joining first the Freemasons and afterwards (1779) the Rosicrucians. Wöllner, with his impressive personality and easy if superficial eloquence, was just the man to lead a movement of this kind. Under his influence the order spread rapidly, and he soon found himself the supreme director (Oberhauptdirektor) of some 26 “circles,” which included in their membership princes, officers and high officials. As a Rosicrucian Wöllner dabbled in alchemy and other mystic arts, but he also affected to be zealous for Christian orthodoxy, imperilled by Frederick II.’s patronage of “enlightenment,” and a few months before Frederick’s death wrote to his friend the Rosicrucian Johann Rudolph von Bischoffswerder (1741-1803) that his highest ambition was to be placed at the head of the religious department of the state “as an unworthy instrument in the hand of Ormesus” (the prince of Prussia’s Rosicrucian name) “for the purpose of saving millions of souls from perdition and bringing back the whole country to the faith of Jesus Christ.”

Such was the man whom Frederick William II., immediately after his accession, called to his counsels. On the 26th of August 1786 he was appointed privy councillor for finance (Geheimer Oberfinanzrath), and on the 2nd of October was ennobled. Though not in name, in fact he was prime minister; in all internal affairs it was he who decided; and the fiscal and economic reforms of the new reign were the application of his theories. Bischoffswerder, too, still a simple major, was called into the king’s counsels; by 1789 he was already an adjutant-general. These were the two men who enmeshed the king in a web of Rosicrucian mystery and intrigue, which hampered whatever healthy development of his policy might have been possible, and led ultimately to disaster. The opposition to Wöllner was, indeed, at the outset strong enough to prevent his being entrusted with the department of religion; but this too in time was overcome, and on the 3rd of July 1788 he was appointed active privy councillor of state and of justice and head of the spiritualdepartment for Lutheran and Catholic affairs. War was at once declared on what—to use a later term—we may call the “modernists.” The king, so long as Wöllner was content to condone his immorality (which Bischoffswerder, to do him justice, condemned), was eager to help the orthodox crusade. On the 9th of July was issued the famous religious edict, which forbade Evangelical ministers to teach anything not contained in the letter of their official books, proclaimed the necessity of protecting the Christian religion against the “enlighteners” (Aufklärer), and placed educational establishments under the supervision of the orthodox clergy. On the 18th of December a new censorship law was issued, to secure the orthodoxy of all published books; and finally, in 1791, a sort of Protestant Inquisition was established at Berlin (Immediat-Examinations-commission) to watch over all ecclesiastical and scholastic appointments. In his zeal for orthodoxy, indeed, Frederick William outstripped his minister; he even blamed Wöllner’s “idleness and vanity” for the inevitable failure of the attempt to regulate opinion from above, and in 1794 deprived him of one of his secular offices in order that he might have more time “to devote himself to the things of God”; in edict after edict the king continued to the end of his reign to make regulations “in order to maintain in his states a true and active Christianity, as the path to genuine fear of God.”

The effects of this policy of blind obscurantism far outweighed any good that resulted from the king’s well-meant efforts at economic and financial reform; and even this reform was but spasmodic and partial, and awoke ultimately more discontent than it allayed. But far more fateful for Prussia was the king’s attitude towards the army and foreign policy. The army was the very foundation of the Prussian state, a truth which both Frederick William I. and the great Frederick had fully realized; the army had been their first care, and its efficiency had been maintained by their constant personal supervision. Frederick William, who had no taste for military matters, put his authority as “War-Lord” into commission under a supreme college of war (Oberkriegs-Collegium) under the duke of Brunswick and General von Möllendorf. It was the beginning of the process that ended in 1806 at Jena.

In the circumstances Frederick William’s intervention in European affairs was not likely to prove of benefit to Prussia. The Dutch campaign of 1787, entered on for purely family reasons, was indeed successful; but Prussia received not even the cost of her intervention. An attempt to intervene in the war of Russia and Austria against Turkey failed of its object; Prussia did not succeed in obtaining any concessions of territory from the alarms of the Allies, and the dismissal of Hertzberg in 1791 marked the final abandonment of the anti-Austrian tradition of Frederick the Great. For, meanwhile, the French Revolution had entered upon alarming phases, and in August 1791 Frederick William, at the meeting at Pillnitz, arranged with the emperor Leopold to join in supporting the cause of Louis XVI. But neither the king’s character, nor the confusion of the Prussian finances due to his extravagance, gave promise of any effective action. A formal alliance was indeed signed on the 7th of February 1792, and Frederick William took part personally in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793. He was hampered, however, by want of funds, and his counsels were distracted by the affairs of Poland, which promised a richer booty than was likely to be gained by the anti-revolutionary crusade into France. A subsidy treaty with the sea powers (April 19, 1794) filled his coffers; but the insurrection in Poland that followed the partition of 1793, and the threat of the isolated intervention of Russia, hurried him into the separate treaty of Basel with the French Republic (April 5, 1795), which was regarded by the great monarchies as a betrayal, and left Prussia morally isolated in Europe on the eve of the titanic struggle between the monarchical principle and the new political creed of the Revolution. Prussia had paid a heavy price for the territories acquired at the expense of Poland in 1793 and 1795, and when, on the 16th of November 1797, Frederick William died, he left the state in bankruptcy and confusion, the army decayed and the monarchy discredited.

Frederick William II. was twice married: (1) in 1765 to Elizabeth of Brunswick (d. 1841), by whom he had a daughter, Frederika, afterwards duchess of York, and from whom he was divorced in 1769; (2) in 1769 to Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, by whom he had four sons, Frederick William III., Louis (d. 1796), Henry and William, and two daughters, Wilhelmina, wife of William of Orange, afterwards William I., king of the Netherlands, and Augusta, wife of William II., elector of Hesse. Besides his relations with hismaîtresse en titre, the countess Lichtenau, the king—who was a frank polygamist—contracted two “marriages of the left hand” with Fräulein von Voss and the countess Dönhoff.

See article by von Hartmann inAllgem. deutsche Biog.(Leipzig, 1878); Stadelmann,Preussens Könige in ihrer Tätigkeit für die Landeskultur, vol. iii. “Friedrich Wilhelm II.” (Leipzig, 1885); Paulig,Friedrich Wilhelm II., sein Privatleben u. seine Regierung(Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, 1896).

FREDERICK WILLIAM III.(1770-1840), king of Prussia, eldest son of King Frederick William II., was born at Potsdam on the 3rd of August 1770. His father, then prince of Prussia, was out of favour with Frederick the Great and entirely under the influence of his mistress; and the boy, handed over to tutors appointed by the king, lived a solitary and repressed life which tended to increase the innate weakness of his character. But though his natural defects of intellect and will-power were not improved by the pedantic tutoring to which he was submitted, he grew up pious, honest and well-meaning; and had fate cast him in any but the most stormy times of his country’s history he might well have left the reputation of a model king. As a soldier he received the usual training of a Prussian prince, obtained his lieutenancy in 1784, became a colonel commanding in 1790, and took part in the campaigns of 1792-94. In 1793 he married Louise, daughter of Prince Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, whom he had met and fallen in love with at Frankfort (seeLouise, queen of Prussia). He succeeded to the throne on the 16th of November 1797 and at once gave earnest of his good intentions by cutting down the expenses of the royal establishment, dismissing his father’s ministers, and reforming the most oppressive abuses of the late reign. Unfortunately, however, he had all the Hohenzollern tenacity of personal power without the Hohenzollern genius for using it. Too distrustful to delegate his responsibility to his ministers, he was too infirm of will to strike out and follow a consistent course for himself.

The results of this infirmity of purpose are written large on the history of Prussia from the treaty of Lunéville in 1801 to the downfall that followed the campaign of Jena in 1806. By the treaty of Tilsit (July 9th, 1807) Frederick William had to surrender half his dominions, and what remained to him was exhausted by French exactions and liable at any moment to be crushed out of existence by some new whim of Napoleon. In the dark years that followed it was the indomitable courage of Queen Louise that helped the weak king not to despair of the state. She seconded the reforming efforts of Stein and the work of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in reorganizing the army, by which the resurrection of Prussia became a possibility. When Stein was dismissed at the instance of Napoleon, Hardenberg succeeded him as chancellor (June 1810). In the following month Queen Louise died, and the king was left alone to deal with circumstances of ever-increasing difficulty. He was forced to join Napoleon in the war against Russia; and even when the disastrous campaign of 1812 had for the time broken the French power, it was not his own resolution, but the loyal disloyalty of General York in concluding with Russia the convention of Tauroggen that forced him into line with the patriotic fervour of his people.

Once committed to the Russian alliance, however, he became the faithful henchman of the emperor Alexander, whose fascinating personality exercised over him to the last a singular power, and began that influence of Russia at the court of Berlin which was to last till Frederick William IV.’s supposed Liberalism was to shatter the cordiality of theentente. That during and after the settlement of 1815 Frederick William played a very secondary part in European affairs is explicable as well by his character asby the absorbing character of the internal problems of Prussia. He was one of the original co-signatories of the Holy Alliance, though, in common with most, he signed it with reluctance; and in the counsels of the Grand Alliance he allowed himself to be practically subordinated to Alexander and later to Metternich. In a ruler of his character it is not surprising that the Revolution and its developments had produced an unconquerable suspicion of constitutional principles and methods, which the Liberal agitations in Germany tended to increase. At the various congresses, from Aix-la-Chapelle (1818) to Verona (1822), therefore, he showed himself heartily in sympathy with the repressive policy formulated in the Troppau Protocol. The promise of a constitution, which in the excitement of the War of Liberation he had made to his people, remained unfulfilled partly owing to this mental attitude, partly, however, to the all but insuperable difficulties in the way of its execution. But though reluctant to play the part of a constitutional king, Frederick William maintained to the full the traditional character of “first servant of the state.” Though he chastised Liberal professors and turbulent students, it was in the spirit of a benevolentLandesvater; and he laboured assiduously at the enormous task of administrative reconstruction necessitated by the problem of welding the heterogeneous elements of the new Prussian kingdom into a united whole. He was sincerely religious; but his well-meant efforts to unite the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, in celebration of the tercentenary of the Reformation (1817), revealed the limits of his paternal power; eleven years passed in vain attempts to devise common formulae; a stubborn Lutheran minority had to be coerced by military force, the confiscation of their churches and the imprisonment or exile of their pastors; not till 1834 was outward union secured on the basis of common worship but separate symbols, the opponents of the measure being forbidden to form communities of their own. With the Roman Church, too, the king came into conflict on the vexed question of “mixed marriages,” a conflict in which the Vatican gained an easy victory (seeBunsen, C. C. J., Baron von).

The revolutions of 1830 strengthened Frederick William in his reactionary tendencies; the question of the constitution was indefinitely shelved; and in 1831 Prussian troops concentrated on the frontier helped the task of the Russians in reducing the military rising in Poland. Yet, in spite of all, Frederick William was beloved by his subjects, who valued him for the simplicity of his manners, the goodness of his heart and the memories of the dark days after 1806. He died on the 7th of June 1840. In 1824 he had contracted a morganatic marriage with the countess Auguste von Harrach, whom he created Princess von Liegnitz. He wroteLuther in Bezug auf die Kirchenagenda von 1822 und 1823(Berlin, 1827),Reminiszenzen aus der Kampagne 1792 in Frankreich, andJournal meiner Brigade in der Kampagne am Rhein 1793.

The correspondence (Briefwechsel) of King Frederick William III. and Queen Louise with the emperor Alexander I. has been published (Leipzig, 1900) and also that between the king and queen (ib. 1903), both edited by P. Bailleu. See W. Hahn,Friedrich Wilhelm III. und Luise(3rd ed., Leipzig, 1877); M. W. Duncker,Aus der Zeit Friedrichs des Grossen und Friedrich Wilhelms III.(Leipzig, 1876); Bishop R. F. Eylert,Charakterzüge aus dem Leben des Königs von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm III.(3 vols., Magdeburg, 1843-1846).

FREDERICK WILLIAM IV.(1795-1861), king of Prussia, eldest son of Frederick William III., was born on the 15th of October 1795. From his first tutor, Johann Delbrück, he imbibed a love of culture and art, and possibly also the dash of Liberalism which formed an element of his complex habit of mind. But after a time Delbrück, suspected of inspiring his charge with a dislike of the Prussian military caste and even of belonging to a political secret society, was dismissed, his place being taken by the pastor and historian Friedrich Ancillon, while a military governor was also appointed. By Ancillon he was grounded in religion, in history and political science, his natural taste for the antique and the picturesque making it easy for his tutor to impress upon him his own hatred of the Revolution and its principles. This hatred was confirmed by the sufferings of his country and family in the terrible years after 1806, and his first experience of active soldiering was in the campaigns that ended in the occupation of Paris by the Allies in 1814. In action his reckless bravery had earned him rebuke, and in Paris he was remarked for the exact performance of his military duties, though he found time to whet his appetite for art in the matchless collections gathered by Napoleon as the spoil of all Europe. On his return to Berlin he studied art under the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch and the painter and architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841), proving himself in the end a good draughtsman, a born architect and an excellent landscape gardener. At the same time he was being tutored in law by Savigny and in finance by a series of distinguished masters. In 1823 he married the princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, who adopted the Lutheran creed. The union, though childless, was very happy. A long tour in Italy in 1828 was the beginning of his intimacy with Bunsen and did much to develop his knowledge of art and love of antiquity.

On his accession to the throne in 1840 much was expected of a prince so variously gifted and of so amiable a temper, and his first acts did not belie popular hopes. He reversed the unfortunate ecclesiastical policy of his father, allowing a wide liberty of dissent, and releasing the imprisoned archbishop of Cologne; he modified the strictness of the press censorship; above all he undertook, in the presence of the deputations of the provincial diets assembled to greet him on his accession, to carry out the long-deferred project of creating a central constitution, which he admitted to be required alike by the royal promises, the needs of the country and the temper of the times. The story of the evolution of the Prussian parliament belongs to the history of Prussia. Here it must suffice to notice Frederick William’s personal share in the question, which was determined by his general attitude of mind. He was an idealist; but his idealism was of a type the exact reverse of that which the Revolution in arms had sought to impose upon Europe. The idea of the sovereignty of the people was to him utterly abhorrent, and even any delegation of sovereign power on his own part would have seemed a betrayal of a God-given trust. “I will never,” he declared, “allow to come between Almighty God and this country a blotted parchment, to rule us with paragraphs, and to replace the ancient, sacred bond of loyalty.” His vision of the ideal state was that of a patriarchial monarchy, surrounded and advised by the traditional estates of the realm—nobles, peasants, burghers—and cemented by the bonds of evangelical religion; but in which there should be no question of the sovereign power being vested in any other hands than those of the king by divine right. In Prussia, with its traditional loyalty and its old-world caste divisions, he believed that such a conception could be realized, and he took up an attitude half-way between those who would have rejected the proposal for a central diet altogether as a dangerous “thin end of the wedge,” and those who would have approximated it more to the modern conception of a parliament. With a charter, or a representative system based on population, he would have nothing to do. The united diet which was opened on the 3rd of February 1847 was no more than a congregation of the diets instituted by Frederick William III. in the eight provinces of Prussia. Unrepresentative though it was—for the industrial working-classes had no share in it—it at once gave voice to the demand for a constitutional system.

This demand gained overwhelmingly in force with the revolutionary outbreaks of 1848. To Frederick William these came as a complete surprise, and, rudely awakened from his medieval dreamings, he even allowed himself to be carried away for a while by the popular tide. The loyalty of the Prussian army remained inviolate; but the king was too tender-hearted to use military force against his “beloved Berliners,” and when the victory of the populace was thus assured his impressionable temper yielded to the general enthusiasm. He paraded the streets of Berlin wrapped in a scarf of the German black and gold, symbol of his intention to be the leader of the united Germany; and he even wrote to the indignant tsar in praise of “the glorious German revolution.” The change of sentiment was, however, apparent rather than real. The shadow of venerable institutions, past orpassing, still darkened his counsels. The united Germany which he was prepared to champion was not the democratic state which the theorists of the Frankfort national parliament were evolving on paper with interminable debate, but the old Holy Roman Empire, the heritage of the house of Habsburg, of which he was prepared to constitute himself the guardian so long as its lawful possessors should not have mastered the forces of disorder by which they were held captive. Finally, when Austria had been excluded from the new empire, he replied to the parliamentary deputation that came to offer him the imperial crown that he might have accepted it had it been freely offered to him by the German princes, but that he would never stoop “to pick up a crown out of the gutter.”

Whatever may be thought of the manner of this refusal, or of its immediate motives, it was in itself wise, for the German empire would have lost immeasurably had it been the cause rather than the result of the inevitable struggle with Austria, and Bismarck was probably right when he said that, to weld the heterogeneous elements of Germany into a united whole, what was needed was, not speeches and resolutions, but a policy of “blood and iron.” In any case Frederick William, uneasy enough as a constitutional king, would have been impossible as a constitutional emperor. As it was, his refusal to play this part gave the deathblow to the parliament and to all hope of the immediate creation of a united Germany. For Frederick William the position of leader of Germany now meant the employment of the military force of Prussia to crush the scattered elements of revolution that survived the collapse of the national movement. His establishment of the northern confederacy was a reversion to the traditional policy of Prussia in opposition to Austria, which, after the emperor Nicholas had crushed the insurrection in Hungary, was once more free to assert her claims to dominance in Germany. But Prussia was not ripe for a struggle with Austria, even had Frederick William found it in his conscience to turn his arms against his ancient ally, and the result was the humiliating convention of Olmütz (November 29th, 1850), by which Prussia agreed to surrender her separatist plans and to restore the old constitution of the confederation. Yet Frederick William had so far profited by the lessons of 1848 that he consented to establish (1850) a national parliament, though with a restricted franchise and limited powers. The House of Lords (Herrenhaus) justified the king’s insistence in calling it into being by its support of Bismarck against the more popular House during the next reign.

In religious matters Frederick William was also largely swayed by his love for the ancient and picturesque. In concert with his friend Bunsen he laboured to bring about a rapprochement between the Lutheran and Anglican churches, the first-fruits of which was the establishment of the Jerusalem bishopric under the joint patronage of Great Britain and Prussia; but the only result of his efforts was to precipitate the secession of J. H. Newman and his followers to the Church of Rome. In general it may be said that Frederick William, in spite of his talents and his wide knowledge, lived in a dream-land of his own, out of touch with actuality. The style of his letters reveals a mind enthusiastic and ill-balanced. In the summer of 1857 he had a stroke of paralysis, and a second in October. From this time, with the exception of brief intervals, his mind was completely clouded, and the duties of government were undertaken by his brother William (afterwards emperor), who on the 7th of October 1858 was formally recognized as regent. Frederick William died on the 2nd of January 1861.

Selections from the correspondence (Briefwechsel) of Frederick William IV. and Bunsen were edited by Ranke (Leipzig, 1873); his proclamations, speeches, &c., from the 6th of March 1848 to the 31st of May 1851 have been published (Berlin, 1851); also his correspondence with Bettina von Arnim,Bettina von Arnim und Friedrich Wilhelm IV., ungedruckte Briefe und Aktenstücke, ed. L. Geiger (Frankfort-on-Main, 1902). See L. von Ranke,Friedrich Wilhelm IV., König von Preussen(works 51, 52 also inAllgem. deutsche Biog.vol. vii.), especially for the king’s education and the inner history of the debates leading up to the united diet of 1847; H. von Petersdorff,König Friedrich Wilhelm IV.(Stuttgart, 1900); F. Rachfahl,Deutschland, König Friedrich Wilhelm IV. und die Berliner Märzrevolution(Halle, 1901); H. von Poschinger (ed.),Unter Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Denkwürdigkeiten des Ministers Otto Frhr. von Manteuffel, 1848-1858 (3 vols., Berlin, 1900-1901); andPreussens auswärtige Politik, 1850-1858 (3 vols., ib., 1902), documents selected from those left by Manteuffel; E. Friedberg,Die Grundlagen der preussischen Kirchenpolitik unter Friedrich Wilhelm IV.(Leipzig, 1882).

FREDERICK WILLIAM(1620-1688), elector of Brandenburg, usually called the “Great Elector,” was born in Berlin on the 16th of February 1620. His father was the elector George William, and his mother was Elizabeth Charlotte, daughter of Frederick IV., elector palatine of the Rhine. Owing to the disorders which were prevalent in Brandenburg he passed part of his youth in the Netherlands, studying at the university of Leiden and learning something of war and statecraft under Frederick Henry, prince of Orange. During his boyhood a marriage had been suggested between him and Christina, afterwards queen of Sweden; but although the idea was revived during the peace negotiations between Sweden and Brandenburg, it came to nothing, and in 1646 he married Louise Henriette (d. 1667), daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange, a lady whose counsel was very helpful to him and who seconded his efforts for the welfare of his country.

Having become ruler of Brandenburg and Prussia by his father’s death in December 1640, Frederick William set to work at once to repair the extensive damage wrought during the Thirty Years’ War, still in progress. After some difficulty he secured his investiture as duke of Prussia from Wladislaus, king of Poland, in October 1641, but was not equally successful in crushing the independent tendencies of the estates of Cleves. It was in Brandenburg, however, that he showed his supreme skill as a diplomatist and administrator. His disorderly troops were replaced by an efficient and disciplined force; his patience and perseverance freed his dominions from the Swedish soldiers; and the restoration of law and order was followed by a revival of trade and an increase of material prosperity. After a tedious struggle he succeeded in centralizing the administration, and controlling and increasing the revenue, while no department of public life escaped his sedulous care (seeBrandenburg). The area of his dominions was largely increased at the peace of Westphalia in 1648, and this treaty and the treaty of Oliva in 1660 alike added to his power and prestige. By a clever but unscrupulous use of his intermediate position between Sweden and Poland he procured his recognition as independent duke of Prussia from both powers, and eventually succeeded in crushing the stubborn and lengthened opposition which was offered to his authority by the estates of the duchy (seePrussia). After two checks he made his position respected in Cleves, and in 1666 his title to Cleves, Jülich and Ravensberg was definitely recognized. His efforts, however, to annex the western part of the duchy of Pomerania, which he had conquered from the Swedes, failed owing to the insistence of Louis XIV. at the treaty of St Germain-en-Laye in 1679, and he was unable to obtain the Silesian duchies of Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau from the emperor Leopold I. after they had been left without a ruler in 1675.

Frederick William played an important part in European politics. Although found once or twice on the side of France, he was generally loyal to the interests of the empire and the Habsburgs, probably because his political acumen scented danger to Brandenburg from the aggressive policy of Louis XIV. He was a Protestant in religion, but he supported Protestant interests abroad on political rather than on religious grounds, and sought, but without much success, to strengthen Brandenburg by allaying the fierce hostility between Lutherans and Calvinists. His success in founding and organizing the army of Brandenburg-Prussia was amply demonstrated by the great victory which he gained over the Swedes at Fehrbellin in June 1675, and by the eagerness with which foreign powers sought his support. He was also the founder of the Prussian navy. The elector assisted trade in every possible way. He made the canal which still bears his name between the Oder and the Spree; established a trading company; and founded colonies on the west coast of Africa. He encouraged Flemings to settle in Brandenburg,and both before and after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 welcomed large numbers of Huguenots, who added greatly to the welfare of the country. Education was not neglected; and if in this direction some of his plans were abortive, it was from lack of means and opportunity rather than effort and inclination. It is difficult to overestimate the services of the great elector to Brandenburg and Prussia. They can only be properly appreciated by those who compare the condition of his country in 1640 with its condition in 1688. Both actually and relatively its importance had increased enormously; poverty had given place to comparative wealth, and anarchy to a system of government which afterwards made Prussia the most centralized state in Europe. He had scant sympathy with local privileges, and in fighting them his conduct was doubtless despotic. His aim was to make himself an absolute ruler, as he regarded this as the best guarantee for the internal and external welfare of the state.

The great elector died at Potsdam from dropsy on the 9th of May 1688, and was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Frederick. His personal appearance was imposing, and although he was absolutely without scruples when working for the interests of Brandenburg, he did not lack a sense of justice and generosity. At all events he deserves the eulogy passed upon him by Frederick the Great, “Messieurs; celui-ci a fait de grandes choses.” His second wife, whom he married in 1668, was Dorothea (d. 1689), daughter of Philip, duke of Holstein-Glücksburg, and widow of Christian Louis, duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg; she bore him four sons and three daughters. His concluding years were troubled by differences between his wife and her step-son, Frederick; and influenced by Dorothea he bequeathed portions of Brandenburg to her four sons, a bequest which was annulled under his successor.

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