Frederick William IV of Prussia

Frederick William IV
A daguerreotype portrait done by Hermann Biow in 1847.
King of Prussia
Reign	7 June 1840 – 2 January 1861
Predecessor	Frederick William III
Successor	William I
Born	15 October 1795 Crown Prince's Palace, Berlin, Prussia
Died	2 January 1861 (age 65) Potsdam
Burial	Crypt of the Friedenskirche, Sanssouci Park, Potsdam[1] (Heart in the Mausoleum at Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin)[2]
Spouse	Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria
House	House of Hohenzollern
Father	Frederick William III of Prussia
Mother	Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Religion	Evangelical Christian Church
Signature

Frederick William IV (German: Friedrich Wilhelm IV.; 15 October 1795^[3] – 2 January 1861), the eldest son and successor of Frederick William III of Prussia, reigned as King of Prussia from 1840 to 1861. Also referred to as the "romanticist on the throne", he is best remembered for the many buildings he had constructed in Berlin and Potsdam, as well as for the completion of the Gothic Cologne cathedral. In politics, he was a conservative, and in 1849 rejected the title of Emperor of the Germans offered by the Frankfurt Parliament as not the Parliament's to give. In 1857, he suffered a stroke and was left incapacitated until his death.

Early life

Born to Frederick William III by his wife Queen Louise, he was the latter's favourite son.^[3] Frederick William was educated by private tutors, many of whom were experienced civil servants, such as Friedrich Ancillon.^[3] He also gained military experience by serving in the Prussian Army during the War of Liberation against Napoleon in 1814, although he was an indifferent soldier. He was a draftsman interested in both architecture and landscape gardening and was a patron of several great German artists, including architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel and composer Felix Mendelssohn. In 1823 he married Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria. Since she was a Roman Catholic, the preparations for this marriage included difficult negotiations which ended with her conversion to Lutheranism. There were two wedding ceremonies—one in Munich, and another in Berlin. The couple had a very harmonious marriage, but childless.^[4]

Frederick William was a staunch Romanticist, and his devotion to this movement, which in the German States featured nostalgia for the Middle Ages, was largely responsible for his developing into a conservative at an early age. In 1815, when he was only twenty, the crown prince exerted his influence to structure the proposed new constitution of 1815, which was never actually enacted, in such a way that the landed aristocracy would hold the greatest power. He was firmly against the liberalization of Germany and only aspired to unify its many states within what he viewed as a historically legitimate framework, inspired by the ancient laws and customs of the recently-dissolved Holy Roman Empire. AFrederick William opposed the idea of a unified German state, believing that Austria was divinely ordained to rule over Germany, and contented himself with the title of "Grand General of the Realm".

Reign

Frederick William became King of Prussia on the death of his father in 1840. Through a personal union, he also became the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel (1840–1857), today part of Switzerland. In 1842, he gave his father's menagerie at Pfaueninsel to the new Berlin Zoo, which opened its gates in 1844 as the first of its kind in Germany. Other projects during his reign—often involving his close collaboration with the architects—included the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) and the Neues Museum in Berlin, the Orangerieschloss at Potsdam as well as the reconstruction of Schloss Stolzenfels on the Rhine (Prussian since 1815) and Burg Hohenzollern, in the ancestral homelands of the dynasty which became part of Prussia in 1850.^[4]

Although a staunch conservative, Frederick William did not seek to be a despot, and so he toned down the reactionary policies pursued by his father, easing press censorship and promising to enact a constitution at some point, but he refused to create an elected legislative assembly, preferring to work with the nobility through "united committees" of the provincial estates. Despite being a devout Lutheran, his Romantic leanings led him to settle the Cologne church conflict by releasing the imprisoned Clemens August von Droste-Vischering, the Archbishop of Cologne. He also patronized further construction of Cologne Cathedral, Cologne having become part of Prussia in 1815. In 1844, he attended the celebrations marking the completion of the cathedral, becoming the first king of Prussia to enter a Roman Catholic building. When he finally called a national assembly in 1847, it was not a representative body, but rather a United Diet comprising all the provincial estates, which had the right to levy taxes and take out loans, but no right to meet at regular intervals.

Silver Coin of Frederick William IV, struck 1860
Obverse (German): FRIEDR[ICH] WILHELM IV KOENIG V PREUSSEN, or in English, "Frederick William IV, King of Prussia"	Reverse (German): EIN VEREINSTHALER XXX EIN PFUND FEIN 1860, or in English, "One Double Thaler 30 to the Fine Pound"

When revolution broke out in Prussia in March 1848, part of the larger series of Revolutions of 1848, the king initially moved to repress it with the army, but on 19 March he decided to recall the troops and place himself at the head of the movement. He committed himself to German unification, formed a liberal government, convened a national assembly, and ordered that a constitution be drawn up. Once his position was more secure again, however, he quickly had the army reoccupy Berlin and in December dissolved the assembly. He did, however, remain dedicated to unification for a time, leading the Frankfurt Parliament to offer him the crown of Germany on 3 April 1849, which he refused, purportedly saying that he would not accept "a crown from the gutter". The King's refusal was rooted in his Romantic aspiration to re-establish the medieval Holy Roman Empire, comprising smaller, semi-sovereign monarchies under the limited authority of a Habsburg emperor. Therefore, Frederick William would only accept the imperial crown after being elected by the German princes, as per the former empire's ancient customs.^[5] He expressed this sentiment in a letter to his sister the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, in which he said the Frankfurt Parliament had overlooked that "in order to give, you would first of all have to be in possession of something that can be given."^[6] In the king's eyes, only a reconstituted College of Electors could possess such authority.^[7] With the failed attempt by the Frankfurt Parliament to include the Habsburgs into a newly unified German Empire, the Parliament turned to Prussia. Seeing Austrian ambivalence towards Prussia taking a more powerful role in German affairs, Frederick William began considering a Prussian-led union. All German states, excluding those of the Habsburgs, would be unified under Hohenzollern authority, and these two polities would be linked in an overarching political framework.^[8] Frederick William, therefore, did attempt to establish the Erfurt Union, a union of the German states except for Austria, but abandoned the idea by the Punctation of Olmütz on 29 November 1850, in the face of renewed Austrian and Russian resistance. The German Confederation remained the common government of German Europe.

The crypt containing the Sarcophagi of Frederick William IV and his wife Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria in the Church of Peace, Sanssouci Park in Potsdam

Rather than returning to bureaucratic rule after dismissing the Prussian National Assembly, Frederick William promulgated a new constitution that created a Parliament of Prussia with two chambers, an aristocratic upper house and an elected lower house. The lower house was elected by all taxpayers, but in a three-tiered system based on the amount of taxes paid, so that true universal suffrage was denied. The constitution also reserved to the king the power of appointing all ministers, reestablished the conservative district assemblies and provincial diets, and guaranteed that the civil service and the military remained firmly in the hands of the king. This was a more liberal system than had existed in Prussia before 1848, but it was still a conservative system of government in which the monarch, the aristocracy, and the military retained most of the power. This constitution remained in effect until the dissolution of the Prussian kingdom in 1918.

Later years and death

Following the revolutions of 1848, the increasingly gloomy king withdrew from the public eye, surrounding himself with advisers who preached absolute orthodoxy and conservatism in religious and political matters. A stroke in 1857 left the king partially paralyzed and largely mentally incapacitated, and his brother (and heir-presumptive) William served as regent from 1858 until the king's death in 1861, at which point the regent acceded to the throne as William I of Prussia.

Frederick William IV is buried with his wife in the crypt underneath the Church of Peace in the park of Sanssouci, at Potsdam.^[4]

Ancestry

Ancestors of Frederick William IV of Prussia

16. Frederick William I of Prussia               8. Prince Augustus William of Prussia                       17. Sophia Dorothea of Hanover               4. Frederick William II of Prussia                             18. Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg               9. Duchess Louise Amalie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel                       19. Duchess Antoinette of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel               2. Frederick William III of Prussia                                   20. Louis VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt               10. Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt                       21. Countess Charlotte of Hanau-Lichtenberg               5. Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt                             22. Christian III, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken               11. Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken                       23. Countess Caroline of Nassau-Saarbrücken               1. Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia                                         24. Adolf Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz               12. Charles Louis Frederick, Duke of Mecklenburg-Mirow                       25. Princess Christiane Emilie of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen               6. Charles II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz                             26. Ernest Frederick I, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen               13. Princess Elizabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen                       27. Countess Sophia Albertine of Erbach-Erbach               3. Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz                                   28. Louis VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (= 20)               14. Landgrave George William of Hesse-Darmstadt                       29. Countess Charlotte of Hanau-Lichtenberg (= 21)               7. Landgravine Friederike Caroline Luise of Hesse-Darmstadt                             30. Count Christian Karl Reinhard of Leiningen-Dachsburg-Falkenburg-Heidesheim               15. Maria Louise Albertine of Leiningen-Falkenburg-Dagsburg                       31. Countess Katharina Polyxena of Solms-Rödelheim

See also

• Equestrian statue of Frederick William IV

Notes

1. Dorgerloh, Hartmut, ed. (18 August 2011). "Palaces and Gardens in Potsdam: 18-Church of Peace". Palaces and Gardens (PDF). Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg. p. 4. Retrieved 10 January 2012. The Church of Peace was built from 1845– 54, based upon Italian models. King Frederick William IV and Queen Elisabeth were laid to rest here.
2. Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, (Hartmut Dorgerloh, ed) (1992–2012). "König Friedrich Wilhelm IV". Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany: Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur des Landes Brandenburg. Retrieved 10 January 2012. Begräbnisstätte: Friedenskirche im Park von Sanssouci; das Herz im Mausoleum im Park von Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin
3. Koch 2014, p. 227.
4. Feldhahn, Ulrich (2011). Die preußischen Könige und Kaiser (German). Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg. pp. 21–23. ISBN 978-3-89870-615-5.
5. Clark, Christopher (2006). Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947. Cabridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 490.
6. Ibid. p. 494.
7. Ibid. p. 490.
8. Ibid. 495.

References

• Frederick William IV and the Prussian Monarchy 1840-1862, by David E. Barclay, (Oxford, 1995).
• Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, by Christopher Clark, (Harvard University Press, 2006).
• Koch, H.W. (2014). A History of Prussia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1317873082.

External links

• Texts on Wikisource:
  • "Frederick William IV, king of Prussia". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
  • "Frederick William IV.". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.