King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia (1795-1861)
King Friedrich Wilhelm (or Frederick William) IV was nicknamed the “romanticist on the throne”. He was born in 1795 in Berlin as the eldest son of Friedrich Wilhelm III and his consort, Luise. Even in his early years, the prince showed a profound interest in history and art. His childhood and youth were marked by the conflict with France, the flight of the Prussian royal family to Königsberg (today’s Kaliningrad) and the Napoleonic wars of liberation. He used to maintain a certain distance vis-à-vis his soberly militaristic father, whereas he had a heartfelt relationship with his mother, who died early, and with his numerous brothers and sisters.
Hohenzollern Castle: exterior view.
It was in 1819, while on a journey through southern Germany, that he visited his family’s ancestral seat, which by then had fallen into total disrepair, and decided to rebuild it. It was during the same journey that he first made the acquaintance of his future spouse, the Bavarian Princess Elisabeth, whom he married in 1823. Their marriage was certainly a harmonious one, although it was overshadowed by the lack of offspring. After a long period as crown prince, he finally ascended the throne in 1840, which kindled liberal hopes that, as King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, he was going to adopt an eloquent stance as monarch and that he was also going to be close to the people. When, however, in 1847, he rejected a new constitution, after there had been strong hints that he would accept it, that action was one of the sparks for the revolution which broke out the following year. His initial reaction to the revolution was one of forceful rejection, but he did make concessions later on. When the National Assembly, meeting in Frankfurt in April 1849, offered to have him crowned German Emperor, he rejected the proposal on the grounds that he was already a monarch by divine right.
He paid his last visit to Hohenzollern Castle for the formal celebration of the completion of the shell of the new building in 1856. The year after that, he suffered a stroke, which caused his health to deteriorate to such an extent that his brother, Wilhelm I, had to take over the reins of power. The queen consort devoted herself to nursing the king until he died in Sanssouci Palace on 2 January 1861 and was buried in the nearby “Friedenskirche” (Church of Peace), which he himself had had built. To this day, controversy still surrounds King Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s role in political matters, but there is no doubt that he is owed a big debt of gratitude for all he did to promote the arts and sciences. However, he never lived to fulfil his dream of one day watching the sun rise from the Hohenzollern Castle that he had rebuilt.