FREDERICK WILLIAM i 



3327 



FREDERICKSBURO 



Frederick William I, 

 King of Prussia 



Frederick William I (1688- 

 1740). King of Prussia. Bora Aug. 

 15, 1688, he was a son of Frederick 

 I, and related 

 through hia 

 mother to 

 George I of 

 Great Britain. 

 In Feb., 1713, 

 after a some- 

 what strict 

 upbringing, he 

 became king of 

 Prussia. In 

 the name of 

 economy, he was continually cut- 

 ting down expenses, although he 

 spent much on the celebrated col- 

 lection of giants for his army, 

 which he raised to a high state of 

 efficiency. 



Frederick was a successful ruler, 

 and greatly improved the condition 

 of Prussia. He provided a more 

 efficient administration ; and with 

 an increased revenue old debts 

 were paid off. Trade was en- 

 couraged by restricting manufac- 

 tured imports, and by other 

 methods in harmony with current 

 theories, while E. Prussia was 

 peopled with industrious settlers. 

 He secured Pomerania from Swe- 

 den, and was concerned in the 

 various European alliances of the 

 period. He founded a number of 

 schools and, in a somewhat ortho- 

 dox way, was a friend of learning. 

 He died May 31, 1740. His wife 

 was a princess of Hanover, and his 

 son was Frederick the Great, and, 

 although the king was by no means 

 a wise parent, the wealth and the 

 army that he left laid the founda- 

 tions of his son's successes. See 

 History of Prussia, H. Tuttle, 1884. 

 Frederick William II (1744- 

 97). King of Prussia. Born in 

 Berlin, Sept. 25, 1744, he was a 

 grandson of Frederick William I, 

 and a nephew of Frederick the 

 Great. In 1757 his father, Prince 

 Augustus William, died, and for the 

 next 29 years he was the heir to the 

 Prussian throne. Well educated, 

 he passed this period occupied 

 with his pleasures, chiefly music, 

 troubling little about affairs of 

 state. In Aug., 1786, he became 

 king. In external affairs, Prussia 

 was engaged in watching the pro- 

 gress of the revolution in France, 

 and from 1792-95 in fighting 

 against that country, not, how- 

 ever, with any great determination. 

 A share of Poland was acquired, 

 and there was a campaign against 

 Holland. But in these matters the 

 king was not the leading spirit, nor 

 even the head of the army. 



Before his accession he had be- 

 come a Rosicrucian, and it was a 

 member of this curious fraternity, 

 Johann Christof Wollner, who 





Frederick William III, 

 King of Prussia 



really ruled Prussia, his chief as- 

 sistant being another Rosicrucian, 

 Johann Rudolf Bischoffswerder. 

 These men spared no efforts to 

 crush liberty of thought, ostensibly 

 in the interest of the Christian 

 faith, and in so doing they counter- 

 acted the popularity gained when 

 the king ordered the abandonment 

 of some of the French ideas intro- 

 duced by Frederick the Great. 

 Frederick William, who died Nov. 

 16, 1797, was twice married, and 

 had several mistresses. See A 

 Mystic on the Prussian Throne, 

 G." Stanhope, 1912. 



Frederick William III (1770- 

 1840). King of Prussia. Born Aug. 

 3, 1770, he was the eldest son of 

 Frederick William II by his second 

 wife, a princess of Hesse-Darm- 

 stadt. He was 

 well educated 

 and had served 

 in the field 

 when he be- 

 came king in 

 1797. He suf- 

 fered the hu- 

 miliation of 

 Jena and of 

 the surrender 

 of much of 

 Prussia to Napoleon. But in 1812 

 he called upon his people to rise, 

 and saw the victories and enthusi- 

 asms of the war of liberation. He 

 took part in the European confer- 

 ences of 1815 and after, but, as a 

 rule, merely as an echo of the tsar 

 Alexander I. 



At home he showed a dislike for 

 the current liberal movements, but 

 died before Prussia had been 

 seriously disturbed by them. He 

 did something, however, to im- 

 prove the administration of his 

 lands, especially those acquired in 

 1815. He died June 7, 1840. His 

 wife was Louise, a princess of Meck- 

 lenburg-Strelitz, and it was she 

 who, more than the king himself, 

 helped the ministers to free the 

 country from the misfortunes of 

 1807. She died in June, 1810. 



Frederick William IV (1795- 

 1861). King of Prussia. The 

 eldest son of Frederick William III, 

 he was born 

 Oct. 15, 1795. 

 He saw a little 

 military ser- 

 vice in 1814, 

 but his main 

 interest was in 

 arts and cul- 

 ture generally. 

 He had been 

 well and care- 

 fully educated, 

 and showed a After j.o. out 

 real liking for the society of scholars. 

 In 1840 Frederick came to the 

 throne. Although he had some 



Frederick William IV, 

 Kin * o! Prussia 



'sympathy with the liberal move- 

 ments of the age, he was a strong 

 believer in maintaining the old 

 order, including the divine right of 

 his own position. He showed sense 

 in acting with much more tolora- 

 tion than his father. 



In 1848, during the rising in 

 Berlin, Frederick William appeared, 

 with some loss of dignity, as an 

 enthusiast in the popular cause, but 

 this was a passing phase. He re- 

 fused, probably wisely, the new 

 crown offered to him by the Ger- 

 man princes, and the union was de- 

 layed until 1871. Next followed 

 a return to the policy of hostility 

 to Austria, but when this meant 

 war he drew back, preferring rather 

 to give way in the convention of 

 Olmutz. Later he carried forward 

 a little the plan of constitutional 

 reform in Prussia and was con- 

 cerned in the international matters 

 of his time. In 1857 the king's mind 

 became deranged, and until his 

 death, Jan. 2, 1861, his brother 

 acted as regent. 



Frederick William (b. 1882). 

 German prince. The eldest son of 

 the ex-Kaiser William II, he was 

 born May 6, 

 1882, and in 

 1888, on his 

 father's ac- 

 cession, became 

 crown prince. 

 H e was edu- 

 cated for the 

 throne, served 



in the army, 



Frederick William, and was loaded 

 ex-Crown Prince with honours, 

 of Germany When the Great 

 War broke out he was given a high 

 command and was nominally the 

 head of a group of armies on the 

 west front. He did not in any way 

 distinguish himself, although from 

 time to time his name was men- 

 tioned in official accounts of vic- 

 tories. On the collapse of Germany 

 in 1918 the crown prince associated 

 himself with his father's abdication 

 and took refuge in Holland. In 

 1903 he was married to Cecile, 

 duchess of Mecklenburg. He pub- 

 lished his Memoirs in 1922, and in 

 Nov., 1923, returned to liis estate in 

 Silesia 



Fredericksburg. City of Vir- 

 ginia, U.S.A., in Spottsylvania co. 

 On the Rappahannock river, 60 m. 

 N. of Richmond, it is served by 

 the Potomac, Fredericksburg, and 

 Piedmont, and other rlys. It con- 

 tains Fredericksburg College, a 

 state Normal school, two public 

 libraries, and a monument to the 

 mother of Washington. Water- 

 power is obtained for industrial 

 purposes from a dam 300 yards long 

 just above the city. Flour, woollen 

 and silk goods, carriages, leather, 



