Frederic Ier of Wurtemberg (duke)

Frederic Ier , duke of Wurtemberg and count de Montbéliard of 1568 with 1608, was born in 1557 in Horburg, deceased in 1608 with Stuttgart.

His/her father, Georges I {{er}} of Wurtemberg, had married at 57 years his mother, Barbe, girl of Philippe the " Magnanime" whereas it was only 19 years old. The couple quickly had a son whom it lost. In 1557, was born a second wire, the future Frederic Ist Georges Ier died little of time after its birth and the child was raised by the family.

Frederic Ier accepted the nomination of the Emperor Rodolphe II in 1580.

Descent

With Stuttgart in 1581, Frederic Ier of Wurtemberg married Sybille d' Anhalt (1564 - 1614), 17 years old the day of its marriage.

The couple had fifteen children:

Jean I {{er}} of Wurtemberg (Jean-Frederic of Wurtemberg), duke of Wurtemberg-Stuttgart, count de Montbéliard
Georges of Wurtemberg (1583 - 1591)
Sybille of Wurtemberg (1584 - 1606), married the voter Jean-Georges I {{er}} of Saxony in 1604
Elisabeth of Wurtemberg (1585 - 1585)
Louis of Wurtemberg (1586 - 1631), duke of Wurtemberg-Montbeliard, married Elisabeth of Hesse-Darmstadt (girl of the Landgrave Louis V of Hesse-Darmstadt) widowed in 1624, in 1617, married Anne de Nassau-Gleiberg (posterity) in 1625
Joachim of Wurtemberg (1587 - 1587)
Jules of Wurtemberg (1588 - 1635), duke of Wurtemberg-Juliusbourg, (it founded the second branch of the House of Wurtemberg)
Philippe of Wurtemberg (1589 - 1589)
Eve of Wurtemberg (1590 - 1657), married the duke Jean-Georges von Jägerndorf in 1610
Frederic of Wurtemberg (1591 - 1630)
Agnes of Wurtemberg (1592 - 1629), married François of Saxony in 1620
Barbara of Wurtemberg (1593 - 1627), it married the Margrave Friedrich V of Bade-Durlach in 1616 (posterity)
Magnus of Wurtemberg (1594 he was killed in 1622)
Auguste of Wurtemberg (1596 - 1596)
Anne of Wurtemberg (1597 - 1650)

Biography

Frederic Ier reigned in person forty years; what significantly to mark its print on the country. It consolidated the dogma Lutheran in the county and all the grounds which belonged to him (in 1586, it referee an important conference held with Montbeliard between calvinists and Lutherans). The Lutheranism is definitively strengthened in religion of State. The prince is from now on chief of the Church, " summus episcopus" , whose authority and functions are comparable with a bishop.

In the country, it reinforced the instruction for the good of the people and controlled carefully the French School of Montbeliard, but more still the academic college of the city (called " old man collège"), in which passed all the pupils deserving and together with a purse which enabled them to go to follow higher learning to the University of Tubingue in Germany. It drove out the troops of very catholic the Duc of Own way which had invaded all the country, because he was the friend of Henri de Navarre (future king Henri IV) and that he carried help to the Protestants of France. He undertook many voyages abroad, in particular his voyage in Italy in 1599, in company of his favorite architect: Heinrich Schickhardt which metamorphosed the city.

Frederic supported the corporation of the trades by granting statutes privileged to certain professions, as well as the ovine breeding by creating several domanial farms. He developed the exploitation of the paper and the iron ore in all the area. These are the sons Jean-Frederic then Louis-Frederic which mainly developed the mines from which they benefitted by the forging mills from Audincourt and of Chagey.

But the maintenance with its many family, the luxury of her court to the image of those more powerful than his, its festivals sumptuous, its brilliant huntings, its frequent and expensive voyages, its many constructions and its acquisitions, its considerable loans with the king Henri IV and the Protestants of France, exhausted its finances.

He believed capacity to sponge his debts, initially by loans, then by delivering to research Philosopher's stone. This madness which was that of its time still worsened its finances. But beside his defects, Frederic had great qualities; he was intelligent, scholar, generous and large protective of arts and the letters; he had seriously dealt with the development of agriculture, the breeding and the clearing on a vast scale in all the country.

He had, by the genius of his principal architect, Heinrich Schickhardt, metamorphosed the city by arranging the urban fortifications, by increasing it (the " Neuville") and by equipping it with public fountains. The castle was also enriched with construction by the new tower which, from now on, was going to bear its name; with what one can still add the Hotel of the gentlemen, as well as the rebuilding of the bridge of Voujeaucourt and establishment of that of Sochaux. The Market with the grains had been also increased of a wing. But one especially owes in Frederic the construction of the most beautiful temple of the country: Saint Martin's day, admirable sanctuary of the late Rebirth, located in the middle of the city (it is the oldest temple of France in function).

More than very other of its precursors, prince Frederic Ier, had in a lit despotic attitude, by its economic and social actions, the explosion of the ideas of its time, engaged the first and true springs of progress. It controlled the Wurtemberg with the death of his cousin Louis VI of Wurtemberg in 1593 and died in Stuttgart, struck of an vascular accident in January 1608.

Frederic Ier of Wurtemberg is ascending current chief of the Maison of Wurtemberg.

Sources

D. Seigneur, the Novel of a Principality, Montbeliard , Cêtre Editions, Besancon, 2006 ISBN 2878231619

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