Frederick Christian, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth

Frederick Christian, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (b. Weferlingen, 17 July 1708 - d. Bayreuth, 20 January 1769), was a member of the House of Hohenzollern and Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth.

Family

He was the youngest of the fourteen children born to Margrave Christian Heinrich of Brandenburg-Bayreuth-Kulmbach by his wife, Countess Sophie Christiane of Wolfstein. His father died on 5 April 1708, almost three months before his birth.

Besides him, only six of his siblings survive adulthood: Georg Frederick Karl, who became in Margrave of Bayreuth; Albrecht Wolfgang -who was killed in action in 1734-; Dorothea Charlotte, Countess of Hohenlohe-Weikersheim -who died in 1712 after only seven months of marriage-; Sophie Magdalene, Queen of Denmark; Frederick Ernst; and Sophie Caroline, Princess of Ostfriesland.

Life

Frederick Christian was considered as an eccentric and the "Black Sheep" of the family. By the time of the death of his cousin Georg Wilhelm, Margrave of Bayreuth (1726) he lived as a Danish Lieutenant-general in Wandsbek near Hamburg and was not prepared for any government tasks in the principality of Bayreuth. He lived pulled back and left all the control of the principality to his older brother Georg Frederick Karl.

However, the death of his nephew Frederick without male issue (26 February 1763), let him as the only male member of the Bayreuth branch of the family, and, in consequence, in the new Margrave of Bayreuth.

After his government assumption in Bayreuth, Frederick Christian tried to stabilize the wrecked finances. He reduced drastically the costs of the Bayreuth court. Most artists (among others, Carl von Gontard) went to Berlin to the court of King Frederick the Great. Almost all construction works in the castles and gardens were stopped. Bayreuth sank again into the "Provinzialität" (Province state).

Marriage and Issue

In Schaumburg an der Lahn on 26 April 1732, Frederick Christian married with Viktoria Charlotte of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym. They had two daughters:
#Christiane Sophie Charlotte (b. Neustadt am Aisch, 15 October 1733 - d. Seidingstadt, 8 October 1757), married on 20 January 1757 to Ernst Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen.
#Sophie Magdalene (b. Neustadt am Aisch, 12 January 1737 - d. Neustadt am Aisch, 23 July 1737).

Christiane, Frederick Christian and Viktoria Charlotte's only surviving daughter, died four days after giving birth a daughter, who only survive her mother by nine days. This tragedy made the total breakdown of the couple, who never recovered by the lost.

Seven years later and shortly after Frederick Christian inherited the Margraviate of Bayreuth (1764), he and Viktoria Charlotte were divorced. Viktoria Charlotte returned to his homeland, were she died in 1792, twenty-three years after her former husband. None of them remarried.

Without male issue, Frederick Christian became in the last member of the Younger line of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, who ruled this principality since 1603. on his death, Bayreuth as inherited by his distant kinsman, Christian Frederick, Margrave of Ansbach.