Frederick William Adolf, Prince of Nassau-Siegen

Frederick William Adolf was born in the in Siegen on 20 February 1680 as the eldest son of Fürst William Maurice of Nassau-Siegen and Princess Ernestine Charlotte of Nassau-Schaumburg. He was baptised in Siegen on 3 March. Among his godfathers were two later kings, namely Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg (later King Frederick I of Prussia) and Prince William III of Orange (later King William III of England). of Friesland. Frederick William Adolf also succeeded his father as count of Bronkhorst, lord of , , and , and hereditary knight banneret of the Duchy of Guelders and the County of Zutphen. The young prince made several trips to the royal courts of England and France, from where he returned to Siegen as late as 1701. Both buildings were built in 1488 by Count John V of Nassau-Siegen as a Franciscan monastery. The Nassauischer Hof housed, among others, the collection of paintings of the Fürsten of Nassau-Siegen. Numerous valuable paintings by famous artists, including Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, fell victim to the flames. Frederick William Adolf devoted all his energy to governmental affairs and the reconstruction of the city of Siegen and the new palace (for which the plans were still the work of Fürst John Maurice and his Dutch architects Pieter and Maurits Post). William Hyacinth, who stayed with the Emperor in Vienna at the beginning of 1705 and hoped in vain to win him over, experienced many changes on his return. Suddenly he intensified the pressure in the religious domain. Complaints about this and about the unbearable burden of the tax rate, as well as about completely nonsensical regulations which paralysed economic life in Siegerland, finally led the Aulic Council to order the Electoral Palatinate to investigate the conditions in Nassau-Siegen. On 15 July 1706, dragoons from Palatinate-Neuburg suddenly entered Siegen, together with a detachment of Prussian troops and 500 men of the Ausschuß of the Duchy of Berg. They did not leave the city until 24 July, after various military measures to end harrowing injustices. The next year and a half, William Hyacinth stayed in Regensburg. His attempts at the Imperial Diet achieved nothing. Furthermore, at that time he also tried to sell the Catholic principality of Nassau-Siegen. He offered it to Frederick I of Prussia, but the latter did not even consider it because he knew that such a sale would be against the Nassau house laws. Willem Hyacinth also offered it to his Protestant second cousin Frederick William Adolf. The latter did not accept the offer because everyone could foresee that the Catholic line of Nassau-Siegen sooner or later would become extinct without male heirs and that the part of the land would fall to the Protestant relatives anyway. In October 1712 Frederick William Adolf and William Hyacinth reached an agreement about their share in the city of Siegen. William Hyacinth ceded the Catholic land to Frederick William Adolf in exchange for an annual pension of 12,000 Reichsthalers. There was even an intention to marry off Maria Anna Josepha, William Hyacinth's underage daughter, to the even younger reformed Hereditary Prince Frederick William. All this was done not in the least to get rid of the troublesome foreign administration. These territories represented one third of the inheritance. As they belonged to both William Hyacinth and Frederick William Adolf, Frederick William Adolf therefore owned only one-sixth of Nassau-Hadamar. Franzalexander stadtmuseum.jpg|Fürst Francis Alexander of Nassau-Hadamar. Stadtmuseum Hadamar. Willem II van Nassau-Dillenburg 1670-1734.jpg|Fürst William II of Nassau-Dillenburg. Anonymous portrait. Townhall, Herborn. Portrait of Johan Willem Friso van Nassau-Dietz (1687-1711) by Lancelot Volders.jpg|Fürst John William Friso of Nassau-Diez. Portrait by Lancelot Volders, 1710. Stadhouderlijk Hof, Leeuwarden. Death, burial and succession Frederick William Adolf died of dropsy He was buried on 10 April in the Fürstengruft there. He was succeeded by his son Frederick William II, who was under the custody and regency of his stepmother until 1727. ==Marriages and issue==