FREDERICK

born c. 1286 died Jan. 13, 1330, Gutenstein, Austria byname Frederick The Fair, German Friedrich Der Schne German king from 1314 to 1326, also duke of Austria (as Frederick III) from 1308, the second son of the German king Albert I. After his father's murder (1308) Frederick became the head of the House of Habsburg and duke of Austria but did not succeed him as king, the count of Luxembourg being elected instead, as Henry VII. Frederick and his brothers made a treaty with Henry at Speyer in 1309, whereby they renounced the Habsburg claim to Bohemia in return for a sum of 50,000 Marks. Frederick's quarrel with his cousin Louis IV of Upper Bavaria concerning the wardship of Henry III of Lower Bavaria ended with Frederick's defeat at Gammelsdorf on Nov. 9, 1313. Henry VII's death (August 1313) led to a double election. Four electors chose Frederick as German king at Sachsenhausen, near Frankfurt, on Oct. 19, 1314, and he was crowned by the correct archbishop, namely the archbishop of Cologne, but at the wrong place, Bonn (instead of Aachen), on November 25. On the other hand, five electors chose Louis of Bavaria outside Frankfurt on October 20, and Louis was crowned at the correct place but by the wrong archbishop (Mainz) on November 25 likewise. The resultant war between the two rivals lasted nearly eight years. Finally, Frederick was decisively defeated by Louis on Sept. 28, 1322, at Mhldorf in Bavaria and was imprisoned in the castle of Trausnitz (Upper Palatinate). In March 1325 he was freed after taking an oath to recognize Louis as king and to see to it that his brother Leopold did so too. When he proved unable to do so he returned voluntarily to prison, though the Pope had freed him from his oath. In September 1325 Louis accepted Frederick as co-ruler, but after Leopold's death (February 1326) Frederick's power was confined to Austria. born Jan. 17, 1463, Torgau, Saxony died May 5, 1525, Lochau, near Torgau byname Frederick the Wise, German Friedrich der Weise elector of Saxony who worked for constitutional reform of the Holy Roman Empire and protected Martin Luther after Luther was placed under the imperial ban in 1521. Succeeding his father, the elector Ernest, in 1486, Frederick allied himself with Berthold, archbishop of Henneberg, to promote imperial reforms that would increase the power of the nobles at the expense of the Holy Roman emperor. In 1500 he became president of the Reichsregiment (Imperial Governing Council), which, however, because of lack of funds was soon disbanded. He was instrumental in securing the election of the emperor Charles V in 1519 after refusing the crown himself. Frederick appointed Luther and his colleague Philipp Melanchthon to the University of Wittenberg and refused to carry out a papal bull against Luther in 1520. After the ban was imposed on Luther the next year, Frederick welcomed him to the Wartburg, where Luther translated the Bible into German. A patron of the artists Albrecht Drer and Lucas Cranach the Elder and a friend of the Humanist Georg Spalatin, Frederick also collected a large number of religious relics and founded the University of Wittenberg in 1502. Never having married, he died without legitimate heirs. born March 18, 1609, Haderslev, Den. died Feb. 9, 1670, Copenhagen king of Denmark and Norway (164870) whose reign saw the establishment of an absolute monarchy, maintained in Denmark until 1848. In his youth Frederick served successively as bishop coadjutor (i.e., assistant bishop with the right of succession) of the German dioceses of Bremen, Verden, and Halberstadt. He commanded Danish forces in Schleswig-Holstein during Denmark's disastrous war with Sweden (164345) and succeeded to the throne shortly after the death (1648) of his father, Christian IV, agreeing to a charter that reduced the royal prerogatives. In 1655 the Swedish king Charles X Gustav went to war with Poland, and in 1657 Frederick launched an invasion of Sweden. His plans for regaining the Danish territories lost in 1645 were shattered when Charles suddenly seized the Danish province of Jutland and threatened Sjlland. Shortly afterward Frederick signed the Treaty of Roskilde (Feb. 26, 1658), by which Denmark ceded to Sweden the provinces of Skne, Blekinge, and Halland, the island of Bornholm, and the Norwegian province of Trondheim. Within six months Charles again invaded Denmark. The tide of the war turned in favour of Denmark when the inhabitants of Copenhagen resisted a Swedish siege. Assisted by a Dutch squadron, the Danish fleet was then able to drive the Swedes away from The Sound (resund), and by the Treaty of Copenhagen (1660) Denmark recovered Bornholm and Trondheim. Frederick called a meeting of the Estates in September 1660 to meet the debts incurred in the war. The clergy and the townsmen forced the Rigsrd (state council) and nobility to give up their fiscal privileges, to negotiate with the King for a new constitution, and to recognize Frederick as hereditary sovereign, nullifying his royal charter. In January 1661 the government issued a decree conferring absolute power on the king. The new constitution was signed in November 1665, but the King's Law, or Kongeloven, written by Peder Schumacher, later Count Griffenfeld, confirming the king's absolute authority, was not made public until 1709. With the aid of his adviser Hannibal Sehested, Frederick introduced sweeping reforms of the state administration. These included a reorganization of the government into five departments, or colleges, with policy recommendations being made by the Privy Council, the members of which were usually selected from the heads of the colleges. The bourgeoisie gained greatly in power, buying the major part of the royal estates and, for the first time, holding important government positions. also called (until 1888) Crown Prince Frederick William, German Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm, in full Friedrich Wilhelm Nikolaus Karl born Oct. 18, 1831, Potsdam, Prussia died June 15, 1888, Potsdam king of Prussia and German emperor for 99 days in 1888, during which time he was a voiceless invalid, dying of throat cancer. Although influenced by liberal, constitutional, and middle-class ideas, he retained a strong sense of the Hohenzollern royal and imperial dignity. The son of the future king and emperor William I and Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, he was the first Prussian prince to attend a university; he received a thorough military education as well. In 1858 he married the British princess royal, Victoria (18401901; from 1888 called the empress Frederick). Despite the influence of his wife's liberal ideas, he favoured a strong central government and at times exceeded the prime minister and chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in willingness to exert pressure on the allied German princes. As crown prince from 1861, Frederick spent 27 years chiefly in waiting to do something. Thanks to his chief of staff, Leonhard von Blumenthal, he was a successful commander in the Danish War of 1864, the Seven Weeks' War of 1866, and the Franco-German War of 187071. Although Frederick supported Bismarck in the war of 1866, in general the blood and iron aspects of Bismarck's domestic and international policies were alien to him. In 1887 Frederick showed symptoms of cancer of the throat. Although the disease was correctly diagnosed as such by German doctors, the British specialist Sir Morell Mackenzie advised against an operation (scheduled for May 21, 1887, and cancelled). A tracheotomy in February 1888 was too late. The Crown Prince, who became emperor on March 9, by this time was able to do little. His only significant official act was to dismiss the minister of the interior, Robert von Puttkamer, an extreme conservative. Frederick was succeeded by his son and heir, William II.