This date in history: December 18, 1626, birth of Queen Christina of Sweden

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Anna of Prussia, Brandenburg, Charles I of England, Charles II of England and Scotland, Elector of Brandenburg Holy Roman Empire, House of Vasa, King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden, Kingdom of Sweden, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, Queen Christina of Sweden, Sigismund III of Poland

Christina (December 18, 1626 – April 19, 1689), the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden and his wife Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, reigned as Queen of Sweden from 1632 until her abdication in 1654.

Queen Christina of Sweden’s ancestry.

Her mother was Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg (1599-1655) who was was the daughter of Johann Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and Anna, Duchess of Prussia,

Maternal grandparents: John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg was the son Joachim III Friedrich, Elector of Brandenburg, and his first wife Catherine of Brandenburg-Küstrin.

Anna, Duchess of Prussia was the daughter of Albert Friedrich Duke of Prussia and Marie Eleonore of Cleves.

Her father was King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden (1594-1632) the son of King Carl IX of Sweden and and his second wife, Christina of Holstein-Gottorp.

Paternal grandparents: King Carl IX of Sweden was the youngest son of King Gustaf I of Sweden and his second wife, Margaret Leijonhufvud.

Christina of Holstein-Gottorp was the daughter of Adolf, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and Christine of Hesse.

King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden

In 1616, the 22-year-old Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden started looking for a Protestant bride. He had since 1613 tried to get his mother’s permission to marry the noblewoman Ebba Brahe, but this was not allowed, and he had to give up his wishes to marry her, though he continued to be in love with her. He received reports with the most flattering descriptions of the physical and mental qualities of the beautiful 17-year-old princess Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. Elector Johann Sigismund of Brandenburg was favorably inclined towards the Swedish king, but he had become very infirm after an apoplectic stroke in the autumn of 1617.

Elector Johann Sigismund of Brandenburg’s determined Prussian wife, wife Catherine of Brandenburg-Küstrin, showed a strong dislike for this Swedish suitor, because Prussia was a Polish fief and the Polish King Sigismund III Vasa still resented his loss of Sweden to Gustaf II Adolph’s father Carl IX.

Maria Eleonora had additional suitors in the young Willem II, Prince of Orange, Wladislaw Vasa of Poland, Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg and even the future Charles I of England. Maria Eleonora’s brother Elector Georg Wilhelm was flattered by the offer of the British Prince of Wales and proposed their younger sister Catherine (1602–1644) as a more suitable wife for the Swedish king.

Maria Eleonora, however, seems to have had a preference for Gustaf Adolph. For Gustaf Adolph it was a matter of honour to acquire the hand of Maria Eleonora and none other. He had the rooms of his castle in Stockholm redecorated and started making preparations to leave for Berlin to press his suit in person, when a letter arrived from Maria Eleonora’s mother to his mother.

Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg

The Electress Anna demanded in no uncertain terms that the Queen Dowager Christina should prevent her son’s journey, as “being prejudicial to Brandenburg’s interests in view of the state of war existing between Sweden and Poland”. Her husband, she wrote, was “so enfeebled in will by illness that he could be persuaded to agree to anything, even if it tended to the destruction of the country”. It was a rebuff that verged on an insult.

The Elector Johann Sigismund, Maria Eleonora’s father, died on December 23, 1619, and the prospect of a Swedish marriage seemed gone with him. In the spring of 1620, however, stubborn Gustaf Adolph arrived in Berlin. The Electress Dowager maintained an attitude of reserve and even refused to grant the Swedish king a personal meeting with Maria Eleonora. All those who were present, however, noticed the princess’s interest in the young king.

Afterwards, Gustaf Adolph made a round of other Protestant German courts with the professed intention of inspecting a few matrimonial alternatives. On his return to Berlin, the Electress Dowager seems to have become completely captivated by the charming Swedish king. After plighting his troth to Maria Eleonora Gustaf Adolph hurried back to Sweden to make arrangements for the reception of his bride.

The new Elector, Georg Wilhelm who resided in Prussia, was appalled when he heard of his mother’s independent action. He wrote to Gustaf Adolph to refuse his consent to the marriage until Sweden and Poland had settled their differences. It was the Electress Dowager, however, who, in accordance with Hohenzollern family custom, had the last word in bestowing her daughter’s hand in marriage. She sent Maria Eleonora to territory outside of Georg Wilhelm’s reach and concluded the marriage negotiations herself.

Queen Christina of Sweden

The wedding took place in Stockholm on November 25, 1620. A comedy was performed based on the history of Olof Skötkonung. Gustaf Adolph – in his own words – finally “had a Brandenburg lady in his marriage bed”. Anna of Prussia actually stayed with her daughter in Sweden for several years after the marriage.

Within six months of their marriage, Gustaf Adolph left to command the siege of Riga, leaving Maria Eleonora in the early stages of her first pregnancy. She lived exclusively in the company of her German ladies-in-waiting and had difficulty in adapting herself to the Swedish people, countryside and climate. She disliked the bad roads, sombre forests and wooded houses, roofed with turf. She also pined for her husband. A year after their wedding she had a miscarriage and became seriously ill.

In the autumn of 1623 Maria Eleonora gave birth to a daughter, named Christina, but the baby died the next year. At that time, the only surviving male heirs to the Swedish throne was the hated Vasa King Sigismund III of Poland and his sons. With Gustaf Adolph risking his life in battles, an heir to the throne was anxiously awaited. In the autumn Maria Eleonora was pregnant for a third time. In May 1625 she was in good spirits and insisted on accompanying her husband on the royal yacht to review the fleet.

There seemed to be no danger, as the warships were moored just opposite the castle, but a sudden storm nearly capsized the yacht. The queen was hurried back to the castle, but when she got there she was heard to exclaim: “Jesus, I cannot feel my child!” Shortly afterwards the longed-for son was stillborn.

Birth of Christina

With the renewal of the war with Poland, Gustaf Adolph had to leave his wife again. It is likely that she gave way to depression and grief, as we know she did in 1627, and it is probably for this reason that the king let his queen join him in Livonia after the Poles had been defeated in January 1626. By April, Maria Eleonora found she was again pregnant. No risks were taken this time and the astrologers predicted the birth of a son and heir. During a lull in the warfare, Gustaf Adolph urried back to Stockholm to await the arrival of the baby. The birth was a difficult one.

On December 18, a baby was born with a fleece (lanugo), which enveloped it from its head to its knees, leaving only its face, arms and lower part of its legs free. Moreover, the baby had a large nose and was covered with hair. Thus, it was assumed the baby was a boy, and so the King was told. Closer inspection, however, determined that the baby was a girl. Gustaf Adolph’s half-sister Catherine informed him that the child was a girl. She “carried the baby in her arms to the king in a condition for him to see and to know and realise for himself what she dared not tell him”. Gustaf Adolph remarked: “She is going to be clever, for she has taken us all in.”

His disappointment did not last long, and he decided that she would be called Christina after his mother. He gave orders for the birth to be announced with all the solemnity usually accorded to the arrival of a male heir. This seems to indicate that Gustaf Adolph, at the age of 33, had little hope of having other children. Maria Eleonora’s state of health seems to be the most likely explanation for this. Her later portraits and actions, however, do not indicate that she was physically fragile.

Shortly after the birth, Maria Eleonora was in no condition to be told the truth about the baby’s gender and the king and court waited several days before breaking the news to her. She screamed: “Instead of a son, I am given a daughter, dark and ugly, with a great nose and black eyes. Take her from me, I will not have such a monster!” She may have suffered from a post-natal depression. In her agitated state, the queen tried to injure the child.

Birth of Friedrich-Wilhelm The Great Elctor of Brandenburg-Prussia.

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Brandenburg, Frederick William the Great Elector, Friedrich I of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm, Germany, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, Imperial Elector, Prussia

On this date in History: February 16, 1620. Birth of Friedrich-Wilhelm the Great Elector, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia.

Friedrich-Wilhelm (February 16, 1620 – April 1688) was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia, from 1640 until his death in 1688. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he is popularly known as “the Great Elector” because of his military and political achievements. Friedrich-Wilhelm was a staunch pillar of the Calvinist faith, associated with the rising commercial class. He saw the importance of trade and promoted it vigorously. His shrewd domestic reforms gave Prussia a strong position in the post-Treaty of Westphalia 1648 German Holy Roman Empire along with political order of north-central Europe, setting Prussia up for elevation from duchy to kingdom, achieved under his son and successor, Elector Friedrich III of Brandenburg who became Friedrich I, King in Prussia in 1701.

Biography

Elector Friedrich-Wilhelm was born in Berlin to Georg-Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg, and Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate of the Rhine. His inheritance consisted of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Duchy of Cleves, the County of Mark, and the Duchy of Prussia.

During the Thirty Years’ War, Georg-Wilhelm strove to maintain, with a minimal army, a delicate balance between the Protestant and Catholic forces fighting throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Out of these unpromising beginnings Frederick William managed to rebuild his war-ravaged territories. In contrast to the religious disputes that disrupted the internal affairs of other European states, Brandenburg-Prussia benefited from the policy of religious tolerance adopted by Frederick William. With the help of French subsidies, he built up an army to defend the country. In the Second Northern War, he was forced to accept Swedish vassalage for the Duchy of Prussia according to the terms of the Treaty of Königsberg.

Friedrich-Wilhelm was a military commander of wide renown, and his standing army would later become the model for the Prussian Army. He is notable for his joint victory with Swedish forces at the Battle of Warsaw, which, according to Hajo Holborn, marked “the beginning of Prussian military history.” However, the Swedes turned on him at the behest of King Louis XIV and invaded Brandenburg. After marching 250 kilometers in 15 days back to Brandenburg, he caught the Swedes by surprise and managed to defeat them on the field at the Battle of Fehrbellin, destroying the myth of Swedish military invincibility. He later destroyed another Swedish army that invaded the Duchy of Prussia during the Great Sleigh Drive in 1678. He is noted for his use of broad directives and delegation of decision-making to his commanders, which would later become the basis for the German doctrine of Auftragstaktik, and he is noted for using rapid mobility to defeat his foes.

Domestic policies

Friedrich-Wilhelm is notable for raising an army of 40,000 soldiers by 1678, through the General War Commissariat presided over by Joachim Friedrich von Blumenthal. He was an advocate of mercantilism, monopolies, subsidies, tariffs, and internal improvements. Following Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Friedrich-Wilhelm encouraged skilled French and Walloon Huguenots to emigrate to Brandenburg-Prussia with the Edict of Potsdam, bolstering the country’s technical and industrial base. On Blumenthal’s advice he agreed to exempt the nobility from taxes and in return they agreed to dissolve the Estates-General. He also simplified travel in Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia by connecting riverways with canals, a system that was expanded by later Prussian architects, such as Georg Steenke; the system is still in use today.

Marriages

On December 7, 1646 in The Hague, Friedrich-Wilhelm entered into a marriage, proposed by Blumenthal as a partial solution to the Jülich-Berg question, with Luise Henriette of Nassau (1627–1667), daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels and his 1st cousin once removed through Willem the Silent. Their children were as follows:

1. Wilhelm-Heinrich, Electoral Prince of Brandenburg (1648–1649)

2. Carl, Electoral Prince of Brandenburg (1655–1674)

3. Friedrich III-I of Prussia (1657–1713), his successor

4. Amalie (1656–1664)

5. Heinrich (1664–1664)

6. Ludwig (1666–1687), who married Ludwika Karolina Radziwiłł

On June 13, 1668 in Gröningen, Friedrich-Wilhelm married Sophie Dorothea of Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, daughter of Philipp, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and Sophie Hedwig of Saxe-Lauenburg. Their children were the following:

1. Philipp-Wilhelm (1669–1711)

2. Marie Amelie (1670–1739)

3. Albrecht-Friedrich (1672–1731)

4. Carl-Philipp (1673–1695)

5. Elisabeth Sofie (1674–1748)

6. Dorothea (1675–1676)

7. Christian Ludwig (1677–1734)

Survival of Monarchies: Prussia Part II

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Brandenburg, Cleves, Constitutional Monarchy, Frederick the Great, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, Mark, Pomerania, Ravensberg

It was during the reign of Friedrich II “The Great” that we see the rise in militarism and the consolidation of Hohenzollern lands into the great state of Prussia. Many of the traditions that were started by Friedrich were continued throughout the monarchy as each Hohenzollern king or emperor tried to emulate their ancestor. To be honest The House of Hohenzollern never did produce a leader as effective as Friedrich the Great. Now in this survey of how monarchies survived into the 21st century I cannot do the reign of Friedrich the Great justice. What I will do is establish how he consolidated the Prussian state and how that was carried on, at least in spirit, with his successors.

When Friedrich II came to the throne in 1740 his lands were strewn throughout the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Poland. His Brandenburg lands were part of the Holy Roman Empire. The entire Prussia state consisted of scattered territories, including Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg in the west of the Holy Roman Empire; Brandenburg, Hither Pomerania, and Farther Pomerania in the east of the Empire; and the former Duchy of Prussia, outside of the Empire bordering the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was through a series of wars with Austria and Russia, annexing portions of Poland, that made Prussia the top military state and one of the most powerful nations in Europe.

By 1772 Friedrich II was able to call himself King of Prussia without any protests from Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. With Prussia a solid European power and a strong military power to back it up, the Hohenzollern kings and the military became not only the actual power behind the throne but the symbolism of the military was steeped in Prussian culture. Every Prussian prince joined the military, if only nominally, at the age of 10 or 11. During the 19th century fancy court dress was replaced by military uniforms as the proper attire for a prince or king.

The rise and strengthening of Prussia during the reign of Friedrich II was also a nail in the coffin of the Holy Roman Empire. From 1648 until the end of the reign of Friedrich II in 1786 all the states in the Empire were, for the most part, autonomous, but none were considered powerful. With Prussia we see the rise of a new nation-state that could rival Austria. Although the Holy Roman Empire would limp on for another 20 years before it was dissolved in 1806. In reality the Empire disappeared as Prussia and Austria grew as rivals and began to compete over the future of the German states and the two also became the strong central powers in Europe.

Forged out of War and conquest Prussia was a mighty military state. After the dissolution of the empire in 1806 Austria looked to dominate the Confederation of the Rhine, the state that took its place, however, Prussia could no longer sit under the thumb of Austria. In the early and mid part of the 19th century when the unification of the German lands became the central issue the question of under whose leadership would Germany be unified; Prussia or Austria? Also, as the Liberal Revolutions of 1848 spread across German lands the question then became would Germany be united as a Liberal or Conservative state?

That is what we will examine next week.

Survival of Monarchies: Prussia

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Brandenburg, Constitutional Monarchy, Frederick I of Prussia, Frederick William, Hohenzollern, House of Hohenzollern, Monarchy, Prussia

Now we begin to examine the fall of three of the more conservative monarchies. My examinations of England and Denmark were quite lengthy, lets see if I can keep these a little more brief. Today I’ll start with Prussia.

Initially Prussia was a fief of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1525 during the Protestant Reformation, Prince Albert of Brandenburg, a scion of the House of Hohenzollern and the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, secularized the order’s Prussian held territory, becoming Albert, Duke of Prussia. The new Duchy, which had its capital in Königsberg was established as fief of the Crown of Poland. In time it was inherited by the Hohenzollern prince-electors of Brandenburg of the main Branch of the House of Hohenzollern. Because of this personal union with the Electorate of Brandenburg the Duchy is often referred to as Brandenburg-Prussia. In 1657 the Treaty of Wehlau, and then in 1660 the Treaty of Oliva granted Friedrich-Wilhelm, the “Great Elector” of Brandenburg, full sovereignty over the territory. In 1701 The Duchy of Prussia was elevated to the Kingdom of Prussia, with Elector Friedrich III assuming the style of King Friedrich I in Prussia.

Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I granted Elector Friedrich III the style “King in Prussia” to acknowledge the legality that the Hohenzollerns were kings only in their former duchy and not their Brandenburg lands that were still part of the Empire. In legal terms this meant that within the Empire the Hohenzollerns were only Electors and were under the over-lordship of the Emperor. In truth this was merely a dog and pony show because at this juncture in history the emperor’s authority was only nominal. Each ruler of the various territories within the Empire acted largely as if they were the rulers of independent sovereign states, and only acknowledged the emperor’s suzerainity in a formal way. The only thing granting the Emperor some respect and power was due to the fact that the Hapsburg Emperor was also the Archduke of Austria, a state with considerable power within the Empire.

The personal union between Brandenburg and Prussia legally continued until the Empire was dissolved in 1806 under the pressure of Napoleon. Despite the legalities, from 1701 onward Brandenburg was treated as an integral part of the Kingdom of Prussia. During this time periods the Hohenzollern kings of Prussia were nominally subjects of the emperor within the parts of their territories that were part of the empire, they continued to style themselves “Elector of Brandenburg” until the empire ceased. It was not until 1772 under King Friedrich II “The Great” of Prussia (1740-1786) that the title was changed to “King of Prussia”.

With Prussia established as a Kingdom, next week I will look at King Friedrich II “The Great” of Prussia and the rise of Militarism, a large aspect of this conservative monarchy.