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Louisa Ulrika of Prussia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Louisa Ulrika of Prussia | |
|---|---|
| Queen of Sweden | |
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| Louisa Ulrika, Queen of Sweden painting by Antoine Pesne, c. 1744 | |
| Reign | 1751 - 1771 |
| Titles | HM Queen Dowager Louisa Ulrika of Sweden HM The Queen of Sweden HRH Princess Friedrich von Holstein-Gottorp HRH Princess Louisa Ulrika of Prussia |
| Born | 1720 |
| Died | 1782 |
| Consort to | Adolf Friedrich von Holstein-Gottorp |
| Issue | Stillborn Gustav III of Sweden Charles XIII of Sweden Fredrik Adolf Sophia Albertine |
| Royal House | House of Holstein-Gottorp House of Hohenzollern |
| Father | Frederick William I of Prussia |
| Mother | Sophia Dorothea of Hanover |
Louisa Ulrika of Prussia (Swedish: Lovisa Ulrika; German: Luise Ulrike) (1720—1782) was Queen consort of Sweden between 1751 and 1771. She was the daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and his wife Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, and was thus a younger sister of both Wilhelmine of Bayreuth and Frederick the Great.
In 1744, Ulrika married Adolf Friedrich von Holstein-Gottorp, who had been elected crown prince of Sweden in 1743 and after his succession to the throne in 1751 reigned as King Adolf Frederick of Sweden.
Lovisa Ulrika was received with great enthusiasm in Sweden as a hope of solving the country's succession problems, and gained popularity with her beauty and by the birth of her children; no children had been born in the Swedish royal house in over fifty years by the birth of her first child.
When she became queen, Lovisa Ulrika revitalized the royal court, which had been neglected during the reign of King Frederick I, and founded a theater at Drottningholm Palace. Her interest for theater was, however, intirely French-influented, and she interrupted the development of a native Swedish theatre at Bollhuset.
Queen Lovisa Ulrika strongly dominated her husband and the court, and she would also had been the real ruler during her husband's reign if the Swedish monarchy had not been stripped of its power in 1718 and 1720; at this point, the king was a mere decoration and Sweden was a monarchy only in name. This greatly displeased the queen, herself born in an absolute monarchy, and she gathered followers to plan a coup d'état to overthrow the government and reinstate absolute monarchy in Sweden. The coup was to take place in 1756, but the plan was discovered; the queen was reprimanded by the government and her followers executed.
Nevertheless, she remained a dominant figure, with numerous quarrels with the government over the years. In 1763, the government asked her to write to her brother the King of Prussia in to prevent the Swedish province of Pommerania in Germany to be anexed by Prussia after the Seven Years War, and she succeeded in this. In Sweden, she is mainly remembered for the founding of the Witterhetsakademin, an academy which counted Carl von Linné among its members; she was a great patron of science and art, a protector of the work of scientists such as Carl von Linné and artists such as the painter Ulrika Pasch and the poet Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht.
In 1772, her son the new king succeeded where she had failed in 1756 by overthrowing the democracy and reinstating absolute monarchy, which was a great satisfaction to her. However, she could never settle with the position of dowager queen and her last years was spent in bitterness. She did not get along with either of her daughter-in-law's, calling Sophia Magdalena of Denmark "cold and shy" and Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp "flirtatious." She broke with her son in 1778 after having accused him of having another man father his child, and was forced to make a formal statement during which she withdrew her accusation, a repetition of the humiliation of 1756.
She had the following children:
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- (Stillborn) (1745)
- Gustav III of Sweden (1746-1792)
- Charles XIII of Sweden (1748-1818)
- Frederick Adolf (1750-1803)
- Sophia Albertine (1753-1829)
Louisa Ulrika was also a maternal grandchild of the King George I of Great Britain.
- Her Royal Highness Princess Louisa Ulrika of Prussia
- Her Royal Highness Princess Friedrich von Holstein-Gottorp
- Her Majesty The Queen of Sweden
- Her Majesty Queen Dowager Louisa Ulrika of Sweden
- Herman Lindqvist (2006). Historien om alla Sveriges drottningar (in Swedish). Norstedts Förlag. ISBN 9113015249.
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Louisa Ulrika of Prussia
Born: 24 July 1720 Died: 16 July 1782 |
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| Swedish royalty | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden (Queen consort) |
Royal Consort of Sweden (Queen consort) 1751 - 1771 |
Succeeded by Sophia Magdalena of Denmark (Queen consort) |