Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/520

FRE him an increase of twenty thousand French protestant subjects, well skilled in arts and manufacture. In 1686 he introduced a land tax, which has, with little variation, continued in force ever since. In the same year a treaty was signed (March 22) and ratified (April 8), in which Prussia agreed to make common cause with Austria in all German and European affairs. Frederick William died in April, 1688, of dropsy, induced by gout. Christian principles guided him through life, and he would do no act which he deemed unsanctioned by religion. He had always the good of his country at heart, and regularly attended privy councils, and though his opinions were strong, he always deferred to superior wisdom. By his wisdom and equity he secured to his country power and prosperity, and he mediated upon several occasions between contending sovereigns. Among other benefits conferred upon his people, he united the Spree and the Oder by a canal, founded the university of Duisberg, established a postal system, and promoted agriculture. His habits were simple. He would make purchases in the marketplaces, graft trees in his garden, and cut grapes and catch fish for his own table. He, however, always wore his orders, and procured the most costly jewels for his wife, for whom he displayed the greatest affection. At the time of his death his army consisted of twenty-eight thousand men.—W. A. B.   I., King of Prussia, but the third elector of Brandenburg of that name, was born in 1657, and was the second son of Frederick William, the Great Elector, as he was termed, and the Princess Louisa of Nassau Orange, aunt of William of Orange, afterwards king of Great Britain. When a few months old, he received an injury through the carelessness of his nurse, which made him deformed and weakly for the remainder of his life. On the death of his elder brother he became heir-apparent at the age of seventeen. His mother, who was distinguished for her piety, good sense, and affection, died while he was young. His education was, in consequence, much neglected, and his stepmother, a hard and covetous princess, rendered his home so unhappy, that on one occasion he fled to Hesse-Cassel, and sought the protection of his aunt, whose daughter he afterwards married; and during the last six or eight years of his father's life he obtained a separate allowance, and lived for the most part remote from court. On the death of the Great Elector in 1688, Frederick succeeded to the whole of his dominions. His first wife died suddenly in 1683, and in the following year he married Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, sister of George I., afterwards king of Great Britain. Immediately on his accession, Frederick engaged to send six thousand men to the assistance of William of Orange in his expedition to England, and he showed himself a firm friend of the allied sovereigns in their long and sanguinary wars with Louis XIV. The grand object of Frederick's ambition was the acquisition of the title of king, and this he at length obtained from the emperor in November, 1700, on condition that he would give up the arrears of the subsidy due by Austria; engage to maintain ten thousand soldiers during the war of succession; always vote with the emperor in the diet; at future elections give his support to an Austrian prince, and submit to the obligations imposed on the other states of the empire. On the 18th of January, 1701, Frederick inaugurated this new European monarchy, by placing the crown on his own head and on that of his consort at Königsberg. On that day the new king instituted the order of the Black Eagle, which holds the first rank among the decorations of Prussia. The obligations under which he came to the emperor, though termed humiliating by his grandson, were faithfully observed. He sent twenty thousand men to the Rhine to fight on the side of Austria, and six thousand to Italy, who fought with signal bravery at Blenheim, Turin, Ramillies, Oudendarde, and Malplaquet. Frederick died 25th February, 1713, shortly before the termination of the war and the conclusion of the peace of Utrecht. His latter years were embittered by an unfortunate marriage with the Princess Sophia of Mecklenburg, who became insane. He left his kingdom to his son Frederick William I., considerably augmented by heritages and peaceful acquisitions. Frederick gave great encouragement to arts and sciences, founded the university of Halle, and the royal academy of Berlin, and greatly enlarged and beautified his capital. He was expensive in his habits, lavish to his favourites, and fond of pomp and show; but, says Carlyle, "he was of humane and just disposition, had dignity in his demeanour, had reticence, patience, and although hot-tempered like all the Hohenzollerns, bore himself like a perfect gentleman, and was a courageous and high, though thin-skinned man."—J. T.   I., King of Prussia, son of Frederick I., was born in 1688. At five years of age he was sent to Hanover to be brought up under the care of his grandfather, the elector, along with his son, afterwards George II. of England. The simplicity of the electoral court, its rigid economy, and the absence of ceremony, exercised a powerful and permanent influence upon the character of the young prince, and were much more to his taste than the pomp and ceremony of his father's court. In 1706 Frederick William married the princess Sophia Dorothea of Hanover; and on the death of his father, 25th February, 1713, he succeeded to the throne of Prussia. He lost no time in retrenching the prodigal expenditure which had prevailed during his father's reign. He limited the number of court officials, reduced their salaries, and set an example of rigid economy in his personal and family arrangements. His attention to public business was most praiseworthy, and by his economy and superintendence of the most minute details, he soon succeeded in placing the financial affairs of his kingdom on a satisfactory footing. His administration, however, was often arbitrary and severe, and savoured not a little of the jealousy of a suspicious and narrow nature. He soon saw, that the position of his country among the other European states must depend mainly on its military power, and he therefore principally directed his energies to the maintenance of a numerous army. He was eminently successful in this point of his policy. By strict economy he was able to maintain eighty thousand well disciplined troops, and this without either contracting debt, or neglecting other means of promoting national prosperity. His love of military display and order, however, became in the end an absorbing passion, which led to the perpetration of many acts of injustice and cruelty. He had a mania for tall soldiers, and his agents all over Europe, and even in Egypt and Syria, employed every kind of violence and fraud, and gave most extravagant bribes to collect men of extraordinary stature to serve in his famous regiment of gigantic guards. He was involved in repeated serious quarrels with his neighbours, on account of the detestable practices of his crimps to gratify this absurd whim of their master. His ambassador in London gave a bounty of near £1300 to induce a gigantic Irishman to enlist in the Prussian service, and this at a time when the envoys of Frederick William at foreign courts were in a state of abject poverty, the salaries of his counsellors and servants so scandalously low that the whole of them were fain to accept pay from foreign powers, and the members of the royal family were half-starved, and were driven by hunger to eat the most loathsome food. Frederick William, however, devoted considerable sums to the advancement of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; and, in spite of his avarice, he was even liberal in rewarding those who introduced any new art into his dominions. He repeopled the provinces, which had been desolated by war and the plague; and gave an asylum to the protestant emigrants from Salzburg, and the Polish dissidents who had been expelled from their own country. He erected various public buildings, founded the medico-chirurgical college, and several benevolent institutions, but he entertained a great contempt for science and literature, heaped the grossest insults upon the men of letters at his court, and expelled the celebrated philosopher. Wolf, from his kingdom. The amusements of the king were, hunting, drinking, smoking, and coarse, unfeeling, practical jokes. He usually passed his evenings in his Tabagie, or smoking-room, surrounded by his favourite courtiers, among whom he could give full vent to his buffoonery and his dislike for show and etiquette. When anything occurred to rouse his savage temper, his rage vented itself in curses and blows, without respect either to sex or rank, and his own wife and children were often the severest sufferers from the fury of the half-mad tyrant. The public events of Frederick William's reign deserve only a very brief notice. The treaty of Utrecht in 1713 conferred upon him the sovereignty of Neufchatel and Vallengin. Two years later he entered into an alliance with Russia, Saxony, and Denmark, against Sweden, and took the isles of Rugen and Stralsund. After the death of Charles XII. he obtained Hither Pomerania, Stettin, and the islands of Usedom and Wollin, on paying to Sweden 2,000,000 of dollars. He at one time entered into an alliance with England and Holland; but he was induced by the intrigues of Count Seckendorf, the Austrian ambassador, and of his own minister Grumkow, 