Frederick William, Elector of Hesse

He was born at Hanau on 20 August 1802. He was the son of Prince William, later William II, Elector of Hesse, and Princess Augusta of Prussia, daughter of King Frederick William II of Prussia. During the French occupation of Hesse-Kassel from 1806 to 1813, he stayed with his mother in Berlin. Reportedly, he had a poor relationship with his father because of his father's affair with Emilie Ortlöpp. Frederick was educated at Marburg and Leipzig. ==Career==

On 30 September 1831, he became co-regent and, in 1847, Prince-elector. Under influence of his minister Hans Daniel Ludwig Friedrich Hassenpflug, he conducted a reactionary policy, which made him very unpopular. He was forced to give in to the demands of the March Revolution, but reinstated Hassenpflug in 1850 after the revolution had been crushed. In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, he chose the side of Austria. His capital, Kassel, was occupied by Prussia, and, as a consequence of his refusal to negotiate, he was transferred as a prisoner to Stettin on 23 June. Hessen-Kassel was annexed by Prussia in the same year. Frederick William never accepted the Prussian dominance over his territory. Even after the creation of the unified German Empire in 1871, he tried to regain his throne. == Personal life ==

On 26 June 1831, Frederick William was morganatically married to Gertrude Falkenstein Lehmann (1803–1882). She had been born in Bonn and was the daughter of apothecary Johann Gottfried Falkenstein and Magdalena Schulz. When Frederick William met Gertrude, she was the wife of Lt Karl Michael Lehmann (married in 1822) and the mother of two sons. Gertrude and her husband were divorced in 1830/31, but already by this time, some children had been born to her and Frederick William. They were married in 1831, after which they had further children. In 1831, Frederick William's father William II made Gertrude Her Illustrious Highness Countess of Schaumburg. In 1853, she was made Princess of Hanau and to Horowitz. All of the nine children that she bore to Frederick William, whether born before or after their marriage, were made Princes of Hanau, and granted the style of Serene Highness in 1862: • Augusta Marie Gertrude (Niederdorfelden, 21 September 1829 - Halle an der Saale, 18 September 1887; bur Wächtersbach), who married Ferdinand Maximilian III, Prince of Isenburg-Büdingen in Wächtersbach (Wächtersbach, 24 October 1824 - Wächtersbach, 5 June 1903) in Wilhelmshohe on 17 July 1849. • 18 June 1821: Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle • 1837: Grand Cross of the Order of St. Stephen • April 1844: Knight of the Order of St. Andrew the First-called • 15 February 1846: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold • 29 January 1848: Knight of the Order of the Elephant • 13 August 1865: Grand Cross of the House Order of the Wendish Crown ==Ancestry==