He wasn't meant to be a legend. Honestly, if you look at the long line of Hohenzollern rulers, Frederick I of Prussia usually gets lost between his terrifyingly efficient father and his world-shaking grandson, Frederick the Great. People call him "The Mercenary King" or "The Vain King." History books sometimes treat him like a footnote in a wig. But that’s a mistake. Without this man’s obsession with status, Prussia—and by extension, modern Germany—might never have happened.
Frederick I of Prussia was born into a world of "almosts." He was the Elector of Brandenburg. He was the Duke of Prussia. But he wasn't a king. In the hierarchy of 17th-century Europe, being an Elector was like being the vice-president of a club where only the president gets the good wine. He hated it. He spent his entire life trying to fix that one specific problem.
The Expensive Art of Getting Noticed
The Great Elector, Frederick’s father, had left him a solid military and a decent chunk of land. But Brandenburg-Prussia was a fractured mess of territories. You had pieces in the west, pieces in the east, and nothing holding them together but a family name. Frederick realized early on that power wasn't just about how many muskets you had in the shed. It was about how people looked at you.
He loved the French style. He obsessed over Louis XIV and the glittering court at Versailles. To Frederick, a king wasn't a king unless he looked the part, which meant he spent money like it was going out of style. He built the Charlottenburg Palace. He founded the Academy of Arts. He turned Berlin from a muddy town into a cultural hub. Was it expensive? Devastatingly so. Was it necessary? He thought so.
He basically gambled the entire state budget on the idea that if he acted like a king, the rest of Europe would eventually have to call him one. It was the ultimate "fake it till you make it" strategy.
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The 1701 Coronation: A DIY Royalty Project
Here is the thing about becoming a king in 1701: you couldn't just print new business cards. You needed the Holy Roman Emperor’s permission. Emperor Leopold I was in a tight spot, though. He needed troops for the War of the Spanish Succession. Frederick saw his opening. He told the Emperor, "I'll give you 8,000 soldiers, but you have to let me call myself King."
Leopold agreed, but with a weird catch. Frederick couldn't be the "King of Prussia" because part of Prussia was still technically Polish. He had to be the "King in Prussia."
It sounds like a minor grammatical tweak. It wasn't. It was a massive diplomatic tightrope walk.
The coronation in Königsberg on January 18, 1701, was perhaps the most self-indulgent event in European history. Frederick didn't let a priest crown him. He took the crown and put it on his own head. Then he crowned his wife, Sophie Charlotte. He spent six million thalers on the ceremony. To put that in perspective, the entire annual state revenue was barely four million. He literally spent more than a year's worth of his country's entire earnings on a single party.
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Why the "King in Prussia" Title Actually Worked
You might think the other European powers laughed at him. Some did. But by creating the title "King in Prussia," Frederick unified his scattered lands under one identity. Before 1701, people were Brandenburgers or Prussians or Cleves-Markians. After 1701, they were all subjects of the Prussian King.
- The Academy of Sciences: Founded in 1700 with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz as its first president. This wasn't just for show; it made Berlin an intellectual powerhouse.
- The Royal Navy: He tried to start one. It failed miserably, but it showed his ambition wasn't limited to the dirt of Central Europe.
- The Arts: He imported Italian singers and French architects. He wanted Berlin to be "Athens on the Spree."
His wife, Sophie Charlotte, was actually the brainy one. She was a philosopher-queen who stayed up all night talking to Leibniz about the nature of the universe. She often poked fun at Frederick’s love for ceremony. There’s a famous story that on her deathbed, she said she was happy to die because she would finally get to satisfy her curiosity about things even Leibniz couldn't explain—and because she wouldn't have to watch Frederick's next long, boring parade.
The Dark Side of the Golden Age
We have to talk about the money. Frederick's lifestyle almost bankrupted the state. He had a "Grand Chamber of Ceremonies" that took up a huge chunk of the administration. While he was busy picking out the right shade of velvet for his throne, the average peasant was struggling under massive taxes.
His administration was, frankly, a bit of a mess. He relied on favorites like Johann Kasimir Kolbe von Wartenberg, who was notoriously corrupt. The "Three Woes" (Wartenberg, Wittgenstein, and Wartensleben) basically ran the country into the ground while Frederick focused on his medals.
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His son, Frederick William I, watched all of this with growing disgust. When Frederick I died in 1713, his son took one look at the palace, fired most of the servants, sold the jewels, and turned the country into a giant military camp.
What Most People Get Wrong About Frederick I
The biggest misconception is that Frederick I was a "weak" king because he wasn't a soldier. In the context of Prussian history, being a "soldier king" is the gold standard. But Frederick I understood soft power before it was a term. He knew that for Prussia to be taken seriously, it couldn't just be a pack of mercenaries for hire. It needed a soul. It needed a court. It needed to look like a Great Power.
He was a man of his time—Baroque, dramatic, and deeply concerned with his place in the divine order. He wasn't trying to build a military machine; he was trying to build a legacy.
Take Action: How to Explore the World of Frederick I
If you want to see the physical manifestation of Frederick's ego and vision, you don't have to look far.
- Visit Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin. It’s the finest example of Baroque architecture in Northern Germany. Walk through the Amber Room (the replica, anyway—the original was a gift from Frederick's son to Peter the Great and vanished in WWII).
- Read the correspondence between Sophie Charlotte and Leibniz. It gives you a much better sense of the intellectual fire that was happening behind the scenes of the flashy court.
- Check out the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. It’s the direct descendant of the society Frederick founded.
- Look at the coinage of 1701. The "King in Prussia" coins are a fascinating look at how a ruler uses small pieces of silver to broadcast a massive political change.
Frederick I of Prussia taught us that sometimes, the costume makes the king. He bought the crown, he wore the wig, and he forced the world to acknowledge a kingdom that didn't really exist until he said it did. He was the architect of Prussian prestige, even if he forgot to check the bank balance along the way.