Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Duchess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (German: Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie Herzogin zu Mecklenburg; 10 March 1776 – 19 July 1810) was Queen consort of Prussia as the wife of King Frederick William III.
| Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Queen consort of Prussia Electress consort of Brandenburg | |||||
 Portrait by Josef Grassi | |||||
| 16 November 1797 – 19 July 1810 | |||||
| Born | 10 March 1776 Hanover | ||||
| Died | 19 July 1810 (aged 34) Schloss Hohenzieritz | ||||
| Burial | |||||
| Spouse | Frederick William III | ||||
| Issue | Frederick William IV, King of Prussia William I, German Emperor Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of Russia Princess Frederica Prince Charles Alexandrine, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin Prince Ferdinand Louise, Princess Frederick of the Netherlands Prince Albert | ||||
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| House | House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz House of Hohenzollern | ||||
| Father | Charles II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz | ||||
| Mother | Landgravine Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt | ||||
| Religion | Lutheran | ||||
| Signature |  | ||||
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After her husband's ascension, Louise developed many ties to senior ministers and became a powerful figure within the government as she began to command universal respect and affection. The queen always tried to stay informed of political developments at court, and from the very beginning of his reign the new king consulted Louise on matters of state.[1]
Though Prussia had not fought in a war since 1795, its military leaders were confident that they could win against Napoleon's troops. After a small incident concerning an anti-French pamphlet occurred, King Frederick William was finally pressured by his wife and family to break off his uneasy peace and enter the war against the French emperor.[2] Prussian troops began mobilizing, culminating in the October 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, which was a disaster for Prussia, as the ability of its armed forces to continue the war were effectively wiped out. The king and queen had accompanied their troops into battle at Jena (with Louise apparently dressed "like an Amazon"), but had to flee from French troops.[3]
Napoleon himself occupied Berlin, and the king, queen and the rest of the royal family had to flee, despite Louise's illness, in the dead of winter to Königsberg in the easternmost part of the kingdom.[4] On the journey there, there was no food or clean water, and the king and queen were forced to share the same sleeping arrangements in "one of the wretched barns they call houses", according to one witness traveling with them.[5]
Napoleon demanded, from a highly superior position, peace terms in what was to be called the Peace of Tilsit (1807).[6] In the midst of these negotiations, the emperor agreed to keep half of Prussia intact. Louise reluctantly agreed to meet the emperor at Tilsit, but only to save "her Prussia." She tried to use her beauty and charm to flatter him into more favorable terms. Before she had called him "the Monster", but now she made a request for a private interview with the emperor. She threw herself at his feet;[7] Napoleon was impressed by her grace and determination, but he refused to make any concessions. Queen Louise's efforts to protect her adopted country from French aggression became well admired by future generations.
On 19 July 1810, the Queen died in her husband's arms from an unidentified illness. The queen's subjects attributed the French occupation as the cause of her early death. Louise's death left her husband alone during a period of great difficulty, as the Napoleonic Wars and need for reform continued. Napoleon remarked the king "has lost his best minister."[8]
Ancestry
| Adolf Frederick I, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin | |||||||||||||||||||
| Adolf Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz | |||||||||||||||||||
| Duchess Marie Katharina of Brunswick-Dannenberg | |||||||||||||||||||
| Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg, Prince of Mirow | |||||||||||||||||||
| Christian Wilhelm, Prince of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen | |||||||||||||||||||
| Princess Christiane Emilie of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen | |||||||||||||||||||
| Countess Antonie Sibylle of Barby-Muhlingen | |||||||||||||||||||
| Charles II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ernest Frederick I, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen | |||||||||||||||||||
| Countess Sophie of Waldeck | |||||||||||||||||||
| Princess Elizabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen | |||||||||||||||||||
| Count Georg Ludwig of Erbach-Erbach | |||||||||||||||||||
| Countess Sophie Albertine of Erbach-Erbach | |||||||||||||||||||
| Countess Amalia Katharina of Waldeck | |||||||||||||||||||
| Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ernest Louis, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt | |||||||||||||||||||
| Louis VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt | |||||||||||||||||||
| Margravine Dorothea Charlotte of Brandenburg-Ansbach | |||||||||||||||||||
| Prince George William of Hesse-Darmstadt | |||||||||||||||||||
| Count Johann Reinhard III of Hanau | |||||||||||||||||||
| Countess Charlotte Christine Magdalene Johanna of Hanau | |||||||||||||||||||
| Countess Dorothea Friederike of Brandenburg-Ansbach | |||||||||||||||||||
| Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt | |||||||||||||||||||
| Count Johann Karl August of Leiningen-Dagsburg | |||||||||||||||||||
| Count Christian Karl Reinhard of Leiningen-Dagsburg | |||||||||||||||||||
| Countess Johanna Magdalene of Hanau-Lichtenberg | |||||||||||||||||||
| Maria Luise Albertine von Leiningen-Dagsburg-Falkenburg | |||||||||||||||||||
| Count Ludwig of Solms-Rödelheim | |||||||||||||||||||
| Countess Katharina Polyxena of Solms-Rödelheim | |||||||||||||||||||
| Charlotte Sibylla Ahlefeld, Countess of Ahlefeld | |||||||||||||||||||
Louise Of Mecklenburg-Strelitz Media
Louise and Frederick William, 1794 – a year after their marriage
A painting by German artist Henriette-Félicité Tassaert of Louise in 1797, the year she became queen
Napoleon, Alexander I of Russia, Queen Louise, and Frederick William in Tilsit, 1807. Painted by Nicolas Gosse, c. 1900
Queen Louise in a riding habit, c. 1810, by Wilhelm Ternite
A statue of Queen Louise in the park of Charlottenburg, Berlin
A bust of Queen Louise in the Queen Louise Memorial Temple on the Pfaueninsel in Wannsee, Berlin
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References
Sources
- Blackburn, Gilmer W. (1985). Education in the Third Reich: a study of race and history in Nazi textbooks. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 9780873958226.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911a). "Louise of Prussia". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press (Eleventh ed).
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911b). "Frederick William III, king of Prussia". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press (Eleventh ed).
- Clark, Christopher (2006). Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: Belknam Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674023857.
- Fischer, Conan (1996). The Rise of National Socialism and the Working Classes in Weimar. Berghahn Books. ISBN 9781571819154.
- Fisher, Todd; Gregory Fremont-Barnes and Bernhard Cornwell (2004). The Napoleonic Wars: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781841768311. Retrieved 2017-08-31.[dead link]
- Herold, J. Christopher (2002) [1963]. The Age of Napoleon. New York: Mariner Books. ISBN 0618154612.
- Hudson, Elizabeth Harriot (1874). The Life and Times of Louisa, Queen of Prussia, Volume 1. London: Adamant Media Corporation [W. Isbister & Co]. ISBN 9781421225371.
- Hudson, Elizabeth Harriot (1874). The Life and Times of Louisa, Queen of Prussia, Volume 2. London: Adamant Media Corporation.
- Kluckhohn, August (1889). Louise, queen of Prussia: a memorial. Translated by Elizabeth H. Denio. Boston: Avery L. Rand.
- Knowles Bolton, Sarah (1892). Famous types of womanhood. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. ISBN 9780722216897.
- Maxwell Moffat, Mary (1907). Queen Louisa of Prussia. New York: E.P. Dutton and Company.
- Reagin, Nancy Ruth (1995). A German women's movement: class and gender in Hanover, 1880-1933. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807845257.
- Simms, Brendan (1997). The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797-1806. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521893855.
Further reading
- Schulte, R. (2002). "The Queen – A Middle–Class Tragedy: The Writing of History and the Creation of Myths in Nineteenth–Century France and Germany". Gender & History. 14 (2): 266–293. doi:10.1111/1468-0424.00266. S2CID 144283456.
- Wright, Constance (1969). Beautiful Enemy: A Biography of Queen Louise of Prussia. Dodd, Mead. ASIN B0006C00XY.
Other websites
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Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Louise of Prussia. |
- Louise's death mask Archived 2008-12-18 at the Wayback Machine, from the Laurence Hutton Collection
- A list of uses in literature concerning Queen Louise, found in Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases