Frederick William I of Prussia
1 2017-05-26T21:48:08-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e 8476 3 Portrait of Frederick William I by Samuel Theodor Gericke (1713) plain 2017-05-26T21:51:02-07:00 Public Domain Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673eThis page is referenced by:
-
1
2016-12-11T17:40:45-08:00
Frederick William I of Prussia
20
Letters in which Frederick William I of Prussia appears.
plain
2017-09-22T23:44:55-07:00
Frederick William I of Prussia (14 August 1688 – 31 May 1740)
Frederick William I (14 August 1688 – 31 May 1740) served as King of Prussia from 1713 until his death in 1740, at which time his eldest surviving son, Frederick II (“the Great”), took the throne.
Frederick William I inherited from his own father, King Frederick I (11 July 1657 – 25 February 1713), an absolutist regime with a sizeable state debt. Upon his accession to the throne of Prussia, Frederick William revamped the state’s power structure, eliminating the majority of court posts and significantly lowering the salaries of the appointed officials that remained. He resented the ostentatiousness and excessive spending of the nobility, and created in 1713 a new “Table of Ranks” that placed high-ranking military officers above the majority of nobles in the new power structure. In place of the Baroque opulence of his father, Frederick William embraced austerity and celebrated militaristic prowess above all else. Over the course of his 27-year reign, the Prussian army doubled in size, from 40,000 soldiers in 1713 to 80,000 in 1740.
In his personal life, Frederick William was emotionally unpredictable and possessed a violent temper. His immediate family members, particularly his wife Sophia Dorothea and their son Frederick II, came to fear and resent his brutality. From a young age, Frederick William’s eldest son Frederick II (Frederick the Great) was frequently made the victim of Frederick William’s abuse. As he grew older, Frederick II came to resent his father’s oppressive Calvinist rejection of the “worldly vanities” of arts and entertainment. As an extension of these strict Calvinist beliefs, Frederick William imposed on his son a highly regimented daily routine, dictating in detail every moment of young Frederick II’s life in the hope of molding his son into a robust militaristic man like himself who was equally as dedicated to his orthodox beliefs.
Where Frederick William prided himself on his aggressiveness, physical strength, and imposing figure, young Frederick II exhibited physical weakness and a melancholic sensitivity that disappointed Frederick William, who came to further resent his son’s interest in reading novels and his propensity to daydream at the expense of more practical pursuits. The distance between father and son grew as Frederick II rejected Frederick William’s strict Calvinist beliefs and morals in favor of Enlightenment values that prized reason above religious dogma. In August of 1730, Frederick II attempted to flee Prussia alongside his close friend and companion Hans Hermann von Katte, a lieutenant in the Prussian Army. The two men were arrested and imprisoned. Katte was subsequently convicted of desertion and sentenced by the court to life imprisonment. Seeking to punish his son for his defiance, Frederick William rejected the court’s ruling and ordered that Katte be executed. He forced Frederick II to watch the beheading, a sobering and psychologically scarring experience for the future king.
Emily Rucker, Nov 2016.Source
Schieder, Theodor, Sabina Berkeley, and H. M. Scott. "Frederick's Youth: The International Situation and Personal Destiny." Frederick the Great. London: Longman, 2000, pp. 1-32.Frederick William I of Prussia appears in the following letters.Frederick William I of Prussia appears in the following indexes.
