Frederic-Guillaume IV of Prussia

Frederic-Guillaume IV of Prussia (October 15th 1795 with Berlin - January 2nd 1861 with the Palate of Sanssouci), king of Prussia of 1840 with its death. He is the oldest son and successor of Frederic-Guillaume III and Louise de Mecklembourg-Strelitz.

He receives an education by tutors, of which much was experienced civils servant. He has military experience in the army against Napoleon Bonaparte, however he was an indifferent soldier. It is a draftsman who expresses deep leaning with regard to arts. Regarded as an architect girds crown, it prepares projects directly and assumes the follow-up on some others like the interventions on modifications in urban matter of Berlin, gardens or the construction of churches, castles, monuments and is the silent partner of several large German artists of which the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel assistance in its extraordinary company for the completion of the dome of Cologne and the rebuilding of the Stolzenfels castle.

Romantic passion and of the the Middle Ages of Frederic, whom it makes divide with his brothers and cousins, for the landscape and the castles of the Rhine which belonged to them almost all their fact of making modifications in this very cut out style.

He marries Elisabeth of Bavaria in 1823 but the couple does not have a child.

At the time of the Congress of Vienna, he seeks to make approve an increase in the capacity of the land aristocracy. He reduces the policies of oppression of his father in particular for the censure but does not leave the capacity to the popular assemblies, preferring a collaboration with plain committees.

Initially opposed to the reunification of Germany and favorable to an Austrian direction of Germany, it agrees at the time of the revolts of 1848 to promote the reunification and the formation of a liberal government. However when it takes again the situation in hand, it makes occupy Berlin by the army and dissolves the assembly in December. When the National Assembly of Frankfurt proposes the April 3rd to him 1849 the crown of Germany, he refuses it by saying that he “would not collect it in the gutter”. He tries to establish the Union of Erfurt, a gathering of the States excluding Austria, but by the backing of Olmütz, the November 29th 1850, he gives up it vis-a-vis Austrian resistance.

Rather than to return to the bureaucratic rule, Frederic-Guillaume promulgates a new constitution with a Parliament of two rooms on the British model, the high room made up members of the aristocracy and the low room elected on a system Censitaire, depend on the paid taxes. The king preserves the right to name all the ministers and the civils servant and thus keeps the control of the bureaucracy and the army. This constitution will remain in place until the defeat of 1918.

A stroke leaves the king partially paralyzed and largely incompetent mentally. As it is without posterity, it is his/her young brother Guillaume Ier who succeeds to him in the capacity as regent as from 1858 then like successor in 1861.

Genealogy

Frederic-Guillaume IV of Prussia belongs to the first branch of the Maison of Hohenzollern, this line gave voters, kings, emperors with the Prussia, the Germany.

Internal bonds

Frederic-Guillaume II of Prussia (paternal grandfather)

Charles II of Mecklembourg-Strelitz (maternal grandfather)

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