by the absorbing character of the internal problems of Prussia. He was one of the original co-signatories of the Holy Alliance, though, in common with most, he signed it with reluctance; and in the counsels of the Grand Alliance he allowed himself to be practically subordinated to Alexander and later to Metternich. In a ruler of his character it is not surprising that the Revolution and its developments had produced an unconquerable suspicion of constitutional principles and methods, which the Liberal agitations in Germany tended to increase. At the various congresses, from Aix-la-Chapelle (1818) to Verona (1822), therefore, he showed himself heartily in sympathy with the repressive policy formulated in the Troppau Protocol. The promise of a constitution, which in the excitement of the War of Liberation he had made to his people, remained unfulfilled partly owing to this mental attitude, partly, however, to the all but insuperable difficulties in the way of its execution. But though reluctant to play the part of a constitutional king, Frederick William maintained to the full the traditional character of “first servant of the state.” Though he chastised Liberal professors and turbulent students, it was in the spirit of a benevolent Landesvater; and he laboured assiduously at the enormous task of administrative reconstruction necessitated by the problem of welding the heterogeneous elements of the new Prussian kingdom into a united whole. He was sincerely religious; but his well-meant efforts to unite the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, in celebration of the tercentenary of the Reformation (1817), revealed the limits of his paternal power; eleven years passed in vain attempts to devise common formulae; a stubborn Lutheran minority had to be coerced by military force, the confiscation of their churches and the imprisonment or exile of their pastors; not till 1834 was outward union secured on the basis of common worship but separate symbols, the opponents of the measure being forbidden to form communities of their own. With the Roman Church, too, the king came into conflict on the vexed question of “mixed marriages,” a conflict in which the Vatican gained an easy victory (see Bunsen, C. C. J., Baron von).
The revolutions of 1830 strengthened Frederick William in his reactionary tendencies; the question of the constitution was indefinitely shelved; and in 1831 Prussian troops concentrated on the frontier helped the task of the Russians in reducing the military rising in Poland. Yet, in spite of all, Frederick William was beloved by his subjects, who valued him for the simplicity of his manners, the goodness of his heart and the memories of the dark days after 1806. He died on the 7th of June 1840. In 1824 he had contracted a morganatic marriage with the countess Auguste von Harrach, whom he created Princess von Liegnitz. He wrote Luther in Bezug auf die Kirchenagenda von 1822 und 1823 (Berlin, 1827), Reminiszenzen aus der Kampagne 1792 in Frankreich, and Journal meiner Brigade in der Kampagne am Rhein 1793.
The correspondence (Briefwechsel) of King Frederick William III. and Queen Louise with the emperor Alexander I. has been published (Leipzig, 1900) and also that between the king and queen (ib. 1903), both edited by P. Bailleu. See W. Hahn, Friedrich Wilhelm III. und Luise (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1877); M. W. Duncker, Aus der Zeit Friedrichs des Grossen und Friedrich Wilhelms III. (Leipzig, 1876); Bishop R. F. Eylert, Charakterzüge aus dem Leben des Königs von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm III. (3 vols., Magdeburg, 1843–1846).
FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. (1795–1861), king of Prussia,
eldest son of Frederick William III., was born on the 15th of
October 1795. From his first tutor, Johann Delbrück, he imbibed
a love of culture and art, and possibly also the dash of Liberalism
which formed an element of his complex habit of mind. But after
a time Delbrück, suspected of inspiring his charge with a dislike
of the Prussian military caste and even of belonging to a political
secret society, was dismissed, his place being taken by the pastor
and historian Friedrich Ancillon, while a military governor was
also appointed. By Ancillon he was grounded in religion, in
history and political science, his natural taste for the antique
and the picturesque making it easy for his tutor to impress upon
him his own hatred of the Revolution and its principles. This
hatred was confirmed by the sufferings of his country and family
in the terrible years after 1806, and his first experience of active
soldiering was in the campaigns that ended in the occupation of
Paris by the Allies in 1814. In action his reckless bravery had
earned him rebuke, and in Paris he was remarked for the exact
performance of his military duties, though he found time to whet
his appetite for art in the matchless collections gathered by
Napoleon as the spoil of all Europe. On his return to Berlin
he studied art under the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch and
the painter and architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841),
proving himself in the end a good draughtsman, a born architect
and an excellent landscape gardener. At the same time he was
being tutored in law by Savigny and in finance by a series of
distinguished masters. In 1823 he married the princess Elizabeth
of Bavaria, who adopted the Lutheran creed. The union,
though childless, was very happy. A long tour in Italy in 1828
was the beginning of his intimacy with Bunsen and did much to
develop his knowledge of art and love of antiquity.
On his accession to the throne in 1840 much was expected of a prince so variously gifted and of so amiable a temper, and his first acts did not belie popular hopes. He reversed the unfortunate ecclesiastical policy of his father, allowing a wide liberty of dissent, and releasing the imprisoned archbishop of Cologne; he modified the strictness of the press censorship; above all he undertook, in the presence of the deputations of the provincial diets assembled to greet him on his accession, to carry out the long-deferred project of creating a central constitution, which he admitted to be required alike by the royal promises, the needs of the country and the temper of the times. The story of the evolution of the Prussian parliament belongs to the history of Prussia. Here it must suffice to notice Frederick William’s personal share in the question, which was determined by his general attitude of mind. He was an idealist; but his idealism was of a type the exact reverse of that which the Revolution in arms had sought to impose upon Europe. The idea of the sovereignty of the people was to him utterly abhorrent, and even any delegation of sovereign power on his own part would have seemed a betrayal of a God-given trust. “I will never,” he declared, “allow to come between Almighty God and this country a blotted parchment, to rule us with paragraphs, and to replace the ancient, sacred bond of loyalty.” His vision of the ideal state was that of a patriarchial monarchy, surrounded and advised by the traditional estates of the realm—nobles, peasants, burghers—and cemented by the bonds of evangelical religion; but in which there should be no question of the sovereign power being vested in any other hands than those of the king by divine right. In Prussia, with its traditional loyalty and its old-world caste divisions, he believed that such a conception could be realized, and he took up an attitude half-way between those who would have rejected the proposal for a central diet altogether as a dangerous “thin end of the wedge,” and those who would have approximated it more to the modern conception of a parliament. With a charter, or a representative system based on population, he would have nothing to do. The united diet which was opened on the 3rd of February 1847 was no more than a congregation of the diets instituted by Frederick William III. in the eight provinces of Prussia. Unrepresentative though it was—for the industrial working-classes had no share in it—it at once gave voice to the demand for a constitutional system.
This demand gained overwhelmingly in force with the revolutionary outbreaks of 1848. To Frederick William these came as a complete surprise, and, rudely awakened from his medieval dreamings, he even allowed himself to be carried away for a while by the popular tide. The loyalty of the Prussian army remained inviolate; but the king was too tender-hearted to use military force against his “beloved Berliners,” and when the victory of the populace was thus assured his impressionable temper yielded to the general enthusiasm. He paraded the streets of Berlin wrapped in a scarf of the German black and gold, symbol of his intention to be the leader of the united Germany; and he even wrote to the indignant tsar in praise of “the glorious German revolution.” The change of sentiment was, however, apparent rather than real. The shadow of venerable institutions, past or
