Frederick William II of Prussia

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Frederick William II of Prussia bigraphy, stories - Monarchs

Frederick William II of Prussia : biography

25 September 1744 – 16 November 1797

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Frederick William II ( 25 September 1744 – 16 November 1797) was King of Prussia, from 1786 until his death. He was in personal union the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg and the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel. Pleasure-loving and indolent, he is seen as the antithesis to his predecessor, Frederick II. Under his reign, Prussia was weakened internally and externally, and he failed to deal adequately with the challenges to the existing order posed by the French Revolution. His religious policies were directed against the Enlightenment and aimed at restoring a traditional Protestantism. However, he was a patron of the arts and responsible for the construction of some notable buildings, among them the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin.

Children

Frederick William II had the following children:

  • By Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick-Lüneburg:
    • Frederica Charlotte (1767–1820), who became Duchess of York by her marriage to Frederick, Duke of York
  • By Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt:
    • Frederick William III of Prussia (1770–1840)
    • Christine (1772–73)
    • Louis (1773–96)
    • Frederika Louisa Wilhelmina (1774–1837), wife of William of Orange, afterwards King William I of the Netherlands
    • Augusta (1780–1841), wife of William II, Elector of Hesse
    • Charles (1781–1846)
    • William (1783–1851)

Reign

The misgivings of Frederick II appear justified in retrospective. Frederick William′s accession to the throne (17 August 1786) was, indeed, followed by a series of measures for lightening the burdens of the people, reforming the oppressive French system of tax-collecting introduced by Frederick, and encouraging trade by the diminution of customs dues and the making of roads and canals. This gave the new king much popularity with the masses; the educated classes were pleased by his removal of Frederick′s ban on the German language, with the admission of German writers to the Prussian Academy, and by the active encouragement given to schools and universities. Frederick William also terminated his predecessor’s state monopolies for coffee and tobacco and the sugar monopoly. However, under his reign the codification known as Allgemeines Preußisches Landrecht, initiated by Frederick II, continued and was completed in 1794.

Mysticism and religious policies

In 1781 Frederick William, then prince of Prussia, inclined to mysticism, had joined the Rosicrucians, and had fallen under the influence of Johann Christoph von Wöllner and Johann Rudolf von Bischoffwerder. On 26 August 1786 Wöllner was appointed privy councillor for finance (Geheimer Oberfinanzrath), and on 2 October 1786 was ennobled. Though not in name, he in fact became prime minister; in all internal affairs it was he who decided; and the fiscal and economic reforms of the new reign were the application of his theories. Bischoffswerder, too, still a simple major, was called into the king′s counsels; by 1789 he was already an adjutant-general. The opposition to Wöllner was, indeed, at the outset strong enough to prevent his being entrusted with the department of religion; but this too in time was overcome, and on 3 July 1788 he was appointed active privy councillor of state and of justice and head of the spiritual department for Lutheran and Catholic affairs. From this position Wöllner pursued long lasting reforms concerning religion in the Prussian state.

The king proved eager to aid Wöllner’s crusade. On 9 July 1788 the famous religious edict was issued, which forbade Evangelical ministers from teaching anything not contained in the letter of their official books, proclaimed the necessity of protecting the Christian religion against the "enlighteners" (Aufklärer), and placed educational establishments under the supervision of the orthodox clergy. On 18 December 1788 a new censorship law was issued, to secure the orthodoxy of all published books. This forced major Berlin journals like Friedrich Nicolai’s Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek und Johann Erich Biester’s Berliner Monatsschrift to publish only outside the Prussian borders. Moreover, people like Imanuel Kant were forbidden to speak in public on the topic of religion.