- Frederick I of Prussia
Frederick I ( _de. Friedrich I.,
July 11 ,1657 –February 25 ,1713 ), of the Hohenzollern dynasty, was (as Frederick III) Elector ofBrandenburg (1688 – 1713) and the firstKing in Prussia (1701 – 1713).Biography
Born in
Königsberg , he was the third son ofFrederick William, Elector of Brandenburg by his father's first marriage toLouise Henriette of Orange-Nassau , eldest daughter ofFrederick Henry, Prince of Orange andAmalia of Solms-Braunfels . His maternal cousin was KingWilliam III of England . Upon the death of his father onApril 29 ,1688 , Frederick became Elector Frederick III ofBrandenburg .The Hohenzollern state was then known as
Brandenburg-Prussia , as the family's main possessions were theMargraviate of Brandenburg within theHoly Roman Empire and theDuchy of Prussia outside of the Empire. Although he was theMargrave andPrince-elector of Brandenburg and theDuke of Prussia , Frederick desired the more prestigious title of king. However, according to Germanic law at that time, no kingdoms could exist within the Holy Roman Empire, with the exception of the Kingdom ofBohemia .Leopold I, Archduke of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor, was convinced by Frederick to allow Prussia to be ruled as a kingdom. This agreement was ostensibly given in exchange for an alliance against King
Louis XIV of France in theWar of the Spanish Succession . Frederick's argument was that Prussia had never belonged to the Holy Roman Empire and therefore there was no legal or political barrier to prevent the Elector of Brandenburg from being King in Prussia. Frederick was aided in the negotiations byCharles Ancillon .Frederick crowned himself "King Frederick I in Prussia" on
January 18 1701 in Königsberg. To indicate that Frederick's royalty was limited to Prussia and did not reduce the rights of the Emperor in Frederick's Imperial territories, he had to call himself "King in Prussia ", instead of "King of Prussia"; his grandsonFrederick II of Prussia was the first Prussian king to formally style himself "King of Prussia".Frederick was a patron of the arts. The
Akademie der Künste in Berlin was founded by Frederick in 1696, as was the Academy of Sciences in 1700.Frederick was married three times: first to
Elizabeth Henrietta of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), with whom he had one child, Louise Dorothea, b. 1680, who died without issue at age 25; then toSophia Charlotte of Hanover , with whom he had Frederick William I, born in 1688, who succeeded him. In 1708, he marriedSophia Louise of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , who survived him but had no children by him. Frederick died inBerlin in 1713.His grandson, Frederick the Great, referred to Frederick I as "the mercenary king", due to the fact that he greatly profitted from the hiring of his Prussian troops to defend other territories, such as in northern
Italy against the French. [Spencer, Charles, "Blenheim", Chapter 22: Vindication, p.316]Ancestors
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