Louisa Ulrika of Prussia

Louisa Ulrika was born in Berlin as the daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and his wife Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, and was thus a younger sister of both Wilhelmine of Bayreuth and Frederick the Great. She was given the Swedish name Ulrika because Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden had been her godmother. She exchanged letters with her godmother, and it was thought that she would marry a future son by Ulrika Eleonora, as Ulrika Eleonora herself had once been considered as a consort for Louisa Ulrika's father. However, Ulrika Eleonora remained childless. Louisa Ulrika was described as beautiful, intelligent, with a fierce temperament and a strong will. but none came to fruition. She was appointed co-adjutrix of Quedlinburg Abbey with the prospect of becoming a reigning princess-abbess in 1743, a future of which she did not approve. In 1743, an election was held to appoint a crown prince to the Swedish throne, as Frederick I of Sweden was childless, and the French de facto regent, Cardinal Fleury, suggested a marriage between Louisa Ulrika and the French candidate: Christian IV, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken. The heir to the Swedish throne was therefore to marry a member of the Prussian royal house, while the heir to the Russian throne was to marry Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst (the future Catherine the Great) who had been selected by Prussia. In accordance with this agreement, Louisa Ulrika or her sister Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia were to be selected for the Swedish match. The Swedish envoy in Berlin, Carl Rudenschöld, inspected them and recommended that the proposal be made to Louisa Ulrika. Frederick the Great himself preferred Anna Amalia for the Swedish marriage: he described Anna Amalia for the Swedish representatives as goodhearted and more suitable for Sweden, while Louisa Ulrika was arrogant, temperamental and a plotting intriguer. It has been suggested that Fredrick's judgment was given because he believed that Anna Amalia would be easier to control as a Prussian agent in Sweden than the strong willed and dominant Louisa Ulrika. After having consulted Adolf Frederick, however, the Swedes chose Louisa Ulrika, and her brother gave his consent on 1 March 1744. She was given tuition about Sweden, was advised not to get involved in politics, and converted to Lutheranism on 28 June. ==Crown Princess==

(1747). . Wedding On 17 July 1744, Louisa Ulrika and Adolf Frederick were married per procura in Berlin, with her favorite brother August Wilhelm as proxy for the absent groom. She was escorted from Berlin to Swedish Pomerania by the Swedish envoy count Carl Gustaf Tessin, his spouse Ulla Tessin and his wife's niece Charlotta Sparre, who was appointed her maid of honor. In Swedish Pomerania, the entourage was welcomed by the Swedish General Governor of the province and the court of the late queen under the leadership of her Mistress of the Robes, countess Hedvig Elisabet Strömfelt: she kept only her lady-in-waiting Wilhelmine von der Knesebeck and a couple of footmen of her Prussian entourage. The entourage left from Rügen and arrived in Sweden in Karlskrona, where she was officially welcomed by her spouse, Crown Prince Adolf Frederick of Sweden. On 18 August 1744, they were welcomed by King Frederick I at Drottningholm Palace, where their second wedding ceremony was performed the same day, followed by a ball, a court reception and the consummation of the marriage. Louisa Ulrika and Adolf Frederick reportedly had a mutually good impression of each other at their first meeting, and their personal relationship is described as mutually happy and harmonious. Adolf Frederick is described as introverted, gentle, and submissive. Reportedly, Louisa Ulrika was pleased with him because she immediately felt secure in the fact that she was his superior. Her circle at court included Henrika Juliana von Liewen, who immediately became her favorite among her ladies-in-waiting; the intellectual Cathérine Charlotte De la Gardie, the scientist Eva Ekeblad, and the witty Anders Johan von Höpken. Political activity From the moment she arrived in Sweden, Louisa Ulrika engaged in political activity. Her political ideal was absolute monarchy, She respected the political ability of Carl Gustaf Tessin, and identified him as an ally in her wish to increase royal power. At Christmas 1744, she visited Tessin and gave him a lantern in the guise of the goddess Diana with the inscription: "Made only to shed light on the political system of the day". In the circle of her own court, she was surrounded by sympathizers of the Hats. Her favorite Henrika Juliana von Liewen was a prominent sympathizer of the Hats, as was Claes Ekeblad, Hans Henrik von Liewen, Anders Johan von Höpken and other members of her personal circle of friends, and through her court connections, she made an alliance with the Hats (party). Kalsenius is also confirmed to have voted with the Hats party in the exactly the issues interesting to Louisa Ulrika during the votes in the Riksdag. ==Queen==

. . The Royal Court Party In 1751, the night before the death of King Frederick I, Louisa Ulrika prepared a coup d'état with Crown Prince Adolf Frederick and Hans Henrik von Liewen. The plan was, that rather than being confirmed as monarch by the Riksdag of the Estates after having made the royal oath to respect the constitution, Adolf Frederick was to take the initiative and, immediately after the King's death, take control of the royal council and declare himself monarch by inheritance rather than to be elected as such by the Riksdag. To investigate the preparations of the Royal Council, Louisa Ulrika personally contacted her favorite, Councillor Carl Gustaf Tessin, in his bed chamber that night. However, Tessin refused to inform her of the plans of the council, and further refused to support her plans of a coup Adolf Frederick and Louisa Ulrika were crowned King and Queen of Sweden at Storkyrkan in Stockholm 26 November 1751. As Queen, Louisa Ulrika had some significance as a patron of culture and science. In 1753, she founded the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, and acted as patron of Carl von Linné, who was given the responsibility for the nature scientific collection at Drottningholm Palace. Her "adoption" of Gustav Badin was, in fact, intended as a form of scientific experiment. She also acted as patron for artists such as Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht, Olof von Dalin, Jean Erik Rehn and Johan Pasch. She also had the Drottningholm Palace Theater and the Confidencen theater built: however, being a Francophile, as was the fashion, she did not benefit but rather interrupted the development of the Swedish theater, as she evicted the newly founded Swedish language theater at Bollhuset and replaced it with a French Theatre, the Du Londel Troupe, which was only a benefit for those who could speak French. Immediately after the coronation, Louisa Ulrika prepared a new coup in favor of absolute monarchy. Queen Louisa Ulrika strongly dominated her husband and the court, and she would likely had been the real ruler during her spouse's reign had Sweden been an absolute monarchy: at this point, however, the King was a mere decoration. This greatly displeased the Queen, herself born in an absolute monarchy. She could not understand nor condone the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag. For her, it was not acceptable for a royal person to have to receive peasants in the royal salons, as she was forced to do with the peasant's representatives from the Riksdag. She was further enraged when the Riksdag forced the King to give up his claims on the throne of Holstein-Gottorp. To display her contempt, she humiliated the representatives of the Riksdag by using the etiquette of the royal court: she stopped their carriages at the Palace gates, forced them to wait for hours while she let those who arrived after them be received, and let them sit on smaller chairs to humiliate them. In the court theatres, the French theatre troupe and the Italian opera company performed plays encouraging the King to take control of his kingdom. and second, when he had betrayed her plans of a coup at the accession of her spouse. The relation between Louisa Ulrika and Tessin was never well seen by Adolf Frederick. It is unknown whether there was ever any physical relationship between the Queen and Tessin, but Louisa Ulrika herself mention in her memoirs that she had been offended somehow in that aspect. According to Crown Prince Gustav wrote in 1769, that Tessin had made Louisa Ulrika "suggestions far from the reverence one is expected to show toward a sovereign." The Queen felt her pride offended and informed the King, who surprised Tessin on his knees before the Queen. This incident led to the King's animosity toward Tessin and the exile of Count and Countess Tessin from court. The queen only remarked that she missed Countess Tessin. Revolution of 1756 The question on the replacement of Tessin as the governor of the Crown Prince placed the Queen in conflict with the Riksdag. Tessin was replaced as governor of the Crown Prince with Carl Fredrik Scheffer, a candidate selected by the Riksdag, an appointment which was enforced even after the candidate had been refused by the Queen. Reportedly, this provocation triggered the Queen's plan of a coup d'état, known in history as Coup of 1756. At this point, rumors reached the Riksdag. A lady-in-waiting of the Queen, Ulrika Strömfelt, who was a loyal follower of the Hats and not a supporter of absolute monarchy, reportedly informed the Riksdag that parts of the Crown Jewels were missing. In April 1756, the Riksdag demanded to inventory the Crown Jewels. The queen replied that she refused to allow them to see the Crown Jewels as she regarded them as her private property. In the end, however, no action was taken against her, possibly with consideration to foreign powers. She officially replied to the note from the Riksdag with gratitude for the reprimands on the behalf of the good of the nation and herself, and assured "that she had wished no evil upon the Kingdom". Troilius reported that "only God knows if it was said by heart, though one should hope for the best". However, a potential Swedish defeat was seen by her as a good opportunity for a coup d'état in favor of absolute monarchy, as a defeat would discredit the Riksdag. Therefore, she successfully asked her brother Frederick the Great to ask for her as a mediator in future peace negotiations. In January 1762, her suggestion of peace with Prussia was accepted in the Riksdag through her bought parliamentarians there, in exchange for a promise not to take revenge on the Hats (party). She was given the official assignment from the Riksdag to handle the peace negotiations with Prussia and secure that Sweden could keep Swedish Pomerania, a task she performed successfully, and she was officially thanked by the Riksdag for her service to the state in May. As a sign of gratitude for this act, the government paid her debts, which made it possible for her to use her money to affect the voting in the Riksdag through bribes. The 1760s Riksdag In exchange for her service during the war, she demanded the 1756 reform of the constitution be retracted. She appointed Anders Rudolf Du Rietz as her informal ambassador to Catherine the Great in Russia, and she also had Carl Julius von Bohlen appointed official ambassador of Sweden in Prussia. She secured the support of Russia, France and Great Britain, but failed in securing the necessary funds for bribes to the coming Riksdag. In November 1764, the unity between the Caps and Hats parties was broken due to the suspicions of France (who supported the Hats) and Great Britain (who supported the Caps), which deprived Louisa Ulrika of her alliance with the Hats party. She also summoned the Ambassador of Russia to Kina Slott to secure support from Russia and its ally Denmark. The tense relationship between her and her son, whom she viewed as a political rival, grew when he opposed her will by insisting to honor his engagement to Sophia Magdalena of Denmark, whom he finally married in 1766, instead of marrying a Prussian bride selected by her, which he viewed as a way for her to keep her influence over him and the family. After the Riksdag of 1766, it was no longer her, but her son the Crown Prince, who became the leader of the followers of absolute monarchy. In 1767, when the French ambassador sketched a suggestion of a Swedish coup d'état, it was, for the first time, the Crown Prince rather than the Queen who was regarded as the natural center figure of the coup. ==Queen Dowager==

In 1771, the King died and she became Queen Dowager. By this time, Louisa Ulrika was immensely unpopular in Sweden. When the news of the old King's death reached her son, the new King Gustav III of Sweden, who was then in Paris, he wrote that the Queen Mother be protected, as "I know how little loved my mother is". In the Revolution of 1772, her son succeeded where she had failed in 1756 by reinstating absolute monarchy, and his revolution was of great satisfaction to her. Louisa Ulrika wrote to Gustav III to congratulate him on the coup about which she said: "Yes, you are my son, and you deserve to be. I fly in to your arms and bless you. Perhaps I shall die of joy". At the time of the coup, she was in Berlin with her daughter. She was present in Swedish Pomerania when that province gave allegiance to the new constitution. When her brother, the King of Prussia, told her that the neighboring countries would now attack Sweden, she wrote to him that she would defend the province of Pomerania against him with her own blood. Louisa Ulrika could, however, never settle with the position of Queen Dowager. She had expected to be the real ruler behind the throne, and when her son made it clear that he would rule independently from her, their relationship worsened. Louisa Ulrika suggested that surely the Queen must also be an exception. In reply, her sons laughed and asked her if she had not heard of the rumors that Sophia Magdalena had an affair with Fredrik Munck. She became very upset and ordered Prince Charles to investigate if this were true, as his inheritance to the throne would be endangered by "the common offspred of a common nobleman". Charles talked to Munck, Munck talked to King Gustav, Gustav talked to Charles who claimed the whole thing was the fault of the Queen Mother, which resulted in a great conflict between mother and son. When the son of the King was born in 1778, rumours circulated that he was the son of Munck. Louisa Ulrika accused the King of having another man father his child. A great scandal erupted, during which the King even threatened to exile her to Pomerania. The relationship with Gustav was not repaired until she was on her deathbed. She died in Svartsjö. ==Children==

Adolf Frederick and Louisa Ulrika had five children: • Stillborn son (April 1745 – April 1745) • Gustav III of Sweden ( – 29 March 1792) • Charles XIII of Sweden (7 October 1748 – 5 February 1818) • Frederick Adolf (18 July 1750 – 12 December 1803) • Sophia Albertine (8 October 1753 – 17 March 1829) ==Ancestry==