King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia

[Barbara of Hohenzollern]

I know the family's nickname for Frederick William IV was 'butt' and he used to sketch pics of himself in the shape of a plump fish;-).
Yes, they couldn't have children so the brother of Frederick William IV, the later Kaiser William I, wasn't allow to marry his big love Eliza von Radsziwill but had to take Augusta of Sachsen-Weimar. It was an unhappy marriage and they only had two children which were nearly ten years apart.
Frederick William IV should some years before his brother become a Kaiser, but he said, this would be 'a crown made of dirt and clay' because the democratic people 1848 asked him to become a Kaiser. Later it was said he was a)'too modest' or b) he 'was melancholy'. It was neither a nor b but he thought kingdom was made by god and so the people hadn't to interfere.

[Eric_Lowe]

He was a strange man.

[Barbara of Hohenzollern]

Yes, indeed you're right. He is one of the Hohenzollerns I dislike most and cannot understand.

[Eric_Lowe]

But his marriage with Elisabeth of Bavaria (godmother to Sisi) was a love match. She nursed him tenderly throughout her life. When he died, she cried "My life's work is finished.".

[Barbara of Hohenzollern]

Yes. It was was very rare that a Hohenzoller would marry a catholic woman. They said they were the shield of protestantism.So it must have been a really, really great love! And he was no prince with no name, if you know what I mean, he was the crown prince. His poor brother hadn't the big luck to be allowed to marry his love!
But I don't like that he lived in the thought and the spirit of the middle ages (it's not that this is my opinion, HE said this :-) ). This was not necessary in the middle of the nineteenth century. By the way, the crown as a Kaiser wich he refused because the parliament wanted to give  it to him he would have taken if the german souvereigns would have given it to him. Such things make him 'not a nice person' in my eyes. But the happy marriage is a very sympathetic point in his life. 

[Eric_Lowe]

Yes as Elisabeth also paid dearly as the lone Catholic in a Protestant State, even later when she did convert. It did not take the pressure off her.

[Barbara of Hohenzollern]

Yes, that is very true  . She seems to be a stranger in that family till today. I read many books about the Hohenzollern, old schoolbooks too, she is only mentioned, never really talken about. She must have been very very lonesome in lifetime.

[Eric_Lowe]

The only thing written about her was in the book "Prussian Queens". I got a translation on the chapter. She was very close to her sisters (especially Archduchess Sofie, Mother of Franz Josef). She left her jewelry collection to Vicky.

[Превед]

Gotta love how the always high-minded Friedrich Wilhelm IV built the rather lovely Italianate Heilandskirche am Port von Sacrow by the Lake of Sacrow / river Havel outside Potsdam calling it in Latin Ecclesia sanctissimi Salvatoris in portu sacro - Church of the Holiest Saviour in the Sacred Haven, misinterpreting the Slavic name Sacrow as "sacro-", "sacred", when actually it comes from za krowje, "behind the bush"!



BTW 1961 - 1989 it could be rather aptly named "Ecclesia sanctissimi Salvatoris extra murum", as the Berlin Wall ran directly behind it.

[Barbara of Hohenzollern]

I love that church. When I was a child we could not reach it and only look at it from the water, the GDR bwanted to demolish it. Nikolskoe on our side of the Havel did put the chime of Sacrow into the church so the chime was still there but it came from our side to the other, not vice versa.

By the way, I forgot to mention years ago, Elisabeth wasn't forced to change her religion, she made it with free will and said to - hm, I don't know this minute and I am far from home so I cannot look into my books but it was someone very high in the catholic church, maybe even the pope- when he asked her why : 'because the best of all men showed me how wonderful an evangelical human is.' But it was said she 'only did act so' but stayed catholic and tried to change her husband nto a catholic too.
Friedrich Wilhelm IV loved the Middle Ages and the catholicism, it was modern in that time as you may know, many people changed their religion back to catholicsm, and he would have done so too but of course couldn't.
He even did let bury his heart in the Mausoleum of Charlottenburg while his body rests in Potsdam, as the catholic Habsburgs used to do but never the evangelical Hohenzollern.

[Kalafrana]

Friedrich Wilhelm was certainly a talented architect. When I visited Potsdam in 1998, I went to the Friedenkirche, which includes a magnificent tenth-century Byzantine mosaic. Apparently, FW was travelling in Italy as Crown Prince when he found the mosaic in a church which was about to demolished. Waiting no time, he bought the mosaic, had it dismantled and shipped home, and designed the Friedenkirche around it.

He may have been a bit 'odd', but I warm to him because of this!

Ann

[Превед]

The reign of the passive-aggressive mystic and architecture romanticist Friedrich Wilhelm IV is perhaps a good indicator of what Prince Charles's reign will look like....
I am quite sure that if he lived today, he would have embraced all things organic, ecological and bio.

His fascination with Catholicism did of course connect the Prussian monarchy with the newly acquired Rhenian Province and promote Prussia as a successor to the Holy Roman Empire, but I would have wished it also created some interesting links to the Polish minority.