and finally in 1739 attacked in a special edict the Legen, i.e. the expropriation of the peasant proprietors. He did nothing for the higher learning, and even banished the philosopher Christian Wolff at forty-eight hours’ notice “on pain of the halter,” for teaching, as he believed, fatalist doctrines. Afterwards he modified his judgment in favour of Wolff, and even, in 1739, recommended the study of his works. He established many village schools, which he often visited in person; and after the year 1717 (October 23) all Prussian parents were obliged to send their children to school (Schulzwang). He was the especial friend of the Franckische Stiftungen at Halle on the Saale. Under him the people flourished; and although it stood in awe of his vehement spirit it respected him for his firmness, his honesty of purpose and his love of justice. He was devoted also to his army, the number of which he raised from 38,000 to 83,500, so that under him Prussia became the third military power in the world, coming next after Russia and France. There was not a more thoroughly drilled or better appointed force. The Potsdam guard, made up of giants collected from all parts of Europe, sometimes kidnapped, was a sort of toy with which he amused himself. The reviewing of his troops was his chief pleasure. But he was also fond of meeting his friends in the evening in what he called his Tobacco-College, where amid clouds of tobacco smoke he not only discussed affairs of state but heard the newest “guard-room jokes.” He died on the 31st of May 1740, leaving behind him his widow, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, whom he had married on the 26th of November 1706. His son was Frederick the Great, who was the opposite of Frederick William. This opposition became so strong in 1730 that the crown prince fled from the court, and was later arrested and brought before a court-martial. A reconciliation was brought about, at first gradually. In later years the relations between father and son came to be of the best (see Frederick II., king of Prussia).
Bibliography.—D. Fassmann, Leben und Thaten Friedrich Wilhelms (2 vols., Hamburg and Breslau, 1735, 1741); F. Förster, Friedrich Wilhelm I. (3 vols., Potsdam, 1834 and 1835); C. v. Noorden, Historische Vorträge (Leipzig, 1884); O. Krauske, “Vom Hofe Friedrich Wilhelms I.,” Hohenzollernjahrbuch, v. (1902); R. Koser, Friedrich der Grosse als Kronprinz (2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1901); W. Oncken, “Sir Charles Hotham und Friedrich Wilhelm I. im Jahre 1730,” Forschungen zur brandenburgischen Geschichte, vol. vii. et seq.; J. G. Droysen in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vii. (1878), and in Geschichte der preussischen Politik, section iv., vols. ii.-iv. (2nd ed., 1868 et seq.); L. v. Ranke, Zwölf Bücher preussischer Geschichte (1874 et seq.); Stenzel, Geschichte des preussischen Staates, iii. (1841); F. Holke, “Strafrechtspflege unter Friedrich Wilhelm I.,” Beiträge zur brandenburgischen Rechtsgeschichte, iii. (1894); V. Loewe, “Allodifikation der Leben unter Friedrich Wilhelm I.,” Forschungen zur brandenburgischen Geschichte, xi.; G. Schmoller, “Epochen der preuss. Finanzpolitik,” Umrisse und Untersuchungen (Leipzig, 1898), “Innere Verwaltung unter Friedrich Wilhelm I.,” Preuss. Jahrbücher, xxvi., “Städtewesen unter Friedrich Wilhelm I.,” Zeitschrift für preussische Geschichte, x. et seq.; B. Reuter, “König Friedrich Wilhelm I. und das General-Direktorium,” ibid. xii.; V. Loewe, “Zur Grundungsgeschichte des General-Direktoriums,” Forschungen, &c., xiii.; R. Stadelmann, Preussens Könige in ihrer Tätigkeit für die Landeskultur, vol. i. “Friedrich Wilhelm I.” (1878); M. Beheim-Schwarzbach, Hohenzollern’sche Kolonizationen (Leipzig, 1874); W. Naude, “Die merkantilistische Wirtschaftspolitik Friedrich Wilhelms I.,” Historische Zeitschrift, xc.; M. Lehmann, “Werbung, &c., im Heere Friedrich Wilhelms I.,” ibid. lxvii.; Isaacson, “Erbpachtsystem in der preussischen Domänenverwaltung,” Zeitschrift für preuss. Gesch. xi. Cf. also Hohenzollernjahrbuch, viii. (1905), for particulars of his education and death; letters to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau in the Acta Borussica (1905). English readers will find a picturesque account of him in Thomas Carlyle’s Frederick the Great. (J. Hn.)
FREDERICK WILLIAM II. (1744–1797), king of Prussia,
son of Augustus William, second son of King Frederick William
I. and of Louise Amalie of Brunswick, sister of the wife of
Frederick the Great, was born at Berlin on the 25th of September
1744, and became heir to the throne on his father’s death in 1757.
The boy was of an easy-going and pleasure-loving disposition,
averse from sustained effort of any kind, and sensual by nature.
His marriage with Elisabeth Christine, daughter of Duke Charles
of Brunswick, contracted in 1765, was dissolved in 1769, and he
soon afterwards married Frederika Louisa, daughter of the landgrave
Louis IX. of Hesse-Darmstadt. Although he had a
numerous family by his wife, he was completely under the influence
of his mistress, Wilhelmine Enke, afterwards created
Countess Lichtenau, a woman of strong intellect and much
ambition. He was a man of singularly handsome presence, not
without mental qualities of a high order; he was devoted to the
arts—Beethoven and Mozart enjoyed his patronage and his
private orchestra had a European reputation. But an artistic
temperament was hardly that required of a king of Prussia on
the eve of the Revolution; and Frederick the Great, who had
employed him in various services—notably in an abortive confidential
mission to the court of Russia in 1780—openly expressed
his misgivings as to the character of the prince and his surroundings.
The misgivings were justified by the event. Frederick William’s accession to the throne (August 17, 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 mass of the people; while the educated classes were pleased by his removal of Frederick’s ban on the German language by the admission of German writers to the Prussian Academy, and by the active encouragement given to schools and universities. But these reforms were vitiated in their source. In 1781 Frederick William, then prince of Prussia, inclined, like many sensual natures, to mysticism, had joined the Rosicrucians, and had fallen under the influence of Johann Christof Wöllner (1732–1800), and by him the royal policy was inspired. Wöllner, whom Frederick the Great had described as a “treacherous and intriguing priest,” had started life as a poor tutor in the family of General von Itzenplitz, a noble of the mark of Brandenburg, had, after the general’s death and to the scandal of king and nobility, married the general’s daughter, and with his mother-in-law’s assistance settled down on a small estate. By his practical experiments and by his writings he gained a considerable reputation as an economist; but his ambition was not content with this, and he sought to extend his influence by joining first the Freemasons and afterwards (1779) the Rosicrucians. Wöllner, with his impressive personality and easy if superficial eloquence, was just the man to lead a movement of this kind. Under his influence the order spread rapidly, and he soon found himself the supreme director (Oberhauptdirektor) of some 26 “circles,” which included in their membership princes, officers and high officials. As a Rosicrucian Wöllner dabbled in alchemy and other mystic arts, but he also affected to be zealous for Christian orthodoxy, imperilled by Frederick II.’s patronage of “enlightenment,” and a few months before Frederick’s death wrote to his friend the Rosicrucian Johann Rudolph von Bischoffswerder (1741–1803) that his highest ambition was to be placed at the head of the religious department of the state “as an unworthy instrument in the hand of Ormesus” (the prince of Prussia’s Rosicrucian name) “for the purpose of saving millions of souls from perdition and bringing back the whole country to the faith of Jesus Christ.”
Such was the man whom Frederick William II., immediately after his accession, called to his counsels. On the 26th of August 1786 he was appointed privy councillor for finance (Geheimer Oberfinanzrath), and on the 2nd of October was ennobled. Though not in name, in fact he was 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. These were the two men who enmeshed the king in a web of Rosicrucian mystery and intrigue, which hampered whatever healthy development of his policy might have been possible, and led ultimately to disaster. 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 the 3rd of July 1788 he was appointed active privy councillor of state and of justice and head of the spiritual
