Monarchy of Prussia | |
---|---|
König von Preußen | |
Details | |
Style | His Majesty |
First monarch | Albert (as Duke) |
Last monarch | Wilhelm II |
Formation | 10 April 1525 |
Abolition | 9 November 1918 |
Residence | Königsberg Castle Stadtschloss, Berlin (last) |
Appointer | Hereditary |
Pretender(s) | Georg Friedrich |
The monarchs of Prussia were members of the House of Hohenzollern who were the hereditary rulers of the former German state of Prussia from its founding in 1525 as the Duchy of Prussia. The Duchy had evolved out of the Teutonic Order, a Roman Catholic crusader state and theocracy located along the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Teutonic Knights were under the leadership of a Grand Master, the last of whom, Albert, converted to Protestantism and secularized the lands, which then became the Duchy of Prussia.
The Duchy was initially a vassal of the Kingdom of Poland, as a result of the terms of the Prussian Homage whereby Albert was granted the Duchy as part of the terms of peace following the Prussian War. When the main line of Prussian Hohenzollerns died out in 1618, the Duchy passed to a different branch of the family, who also reigned as Electors of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire. While still nominally two different territories, Prussia under the suzerainty of Poland and Brandenburg under the suzerainty of the Holy Roman Empire, the two states are known together historiographically as Brandenburg-Prussia.
Following the third Northern War, a series of treaties freed the Duchy of Prussia from vassalage to any other state, making it a fully sovereign Duchy in its own right. This complex situation (where the Hohenzollern ruler of the independent Duchy of Prussia was also a subject of the Holy Roman Emperor as Elector of Brandenburg) laid the eventual groundwork for the establishment of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. For diplomatic reasons, the rulers of Prussia called themselves King in Prussia from 1701 to 1772. They still nominally owed fealty to the Emperor as Electors of Brandenburg, so the "King in Prussia" title (as opposed to "King of Prussia") avoided offending the Emperor. Additionally, calling themselves "King of Prussia" implied sovereignty over the entire Prussian region, parts of which were still part of Poland.
As the Prussian state grew through several wars and diplomatic moves throughout the 18th century, it became apparent that Prussia had become a Great Power in its own right. By 1772, the pretense was dropped, and the style "King of Prussia" was adopted. The Prussian kings continued to use the title "Elector of Brandenburg" until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, reflecting the legal fiction that their domains within the empire were still under the ultimate overlordship of the Emperor. Legally, the Hohenzollerns ruled Brandenburg in personal union with their Prussian kingdom, but in practice they treated their domains as a single unit. The Hohenzollerns gained de jure sovereignty over Brandenburg when the empire dissolved in 1806, and Brandenburg was formally merged into Prussia.
In 1871, in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, the German Empire was formed, and the King of Prussia, Wilhelm I was crowned German Emperor. From that point forward, though the Kingdom of Prussia retained its status as a constituent state of the empire (by far the largest and most powerful), all subsequent Kings of Prussia also served as German Emperor, and that title took precedence.
Name | Lifespan | Reign start | Reign end | Notes | Family | Image |
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Albert | 77) | 17 May 1490 – 20 March 1568 (aged10 April 1525 | 20 March 1568 | Grand Master of Teutonic Knights, granted the title of Duke of Prussia | Hohenzollern | |
Albert Frederick | 65) | 7 May 1553 – 27 August 1618 (aged20 March 1568 | 27 August 1618 | Son of Albert | Hohenzollern | |
John Sigismund | 47) | 8 November 1572 – 23 December 1619 (aged27 August 1618 | 23 December 1619 | Son in law and second cousin thrice removed of Albert Frederick, also Elector of Brandenburg | Hohenzollern | |
George William | 45) | 13 November 1595 – 1 December 1640 (aged23 December 1619 | 1 December 1640 | Son of John Sigismund, also Elector of Brandenburg | Hohenzollern | |
Frederick William
| 68) | 16 February 1620 – 29 April 1688 (aged1 December 1640 | 29 April 1688 | Son of George William, also Elector of Brandenburg | Hohenzollern | |
Frederick I | 55) | 11 July 1657 – 25 February 1713 (aged29 April 1688 | 18 January 1701 | Son of Frederick William, also Elector of Brandenburg | Hohenzollern |
Name | Lifespan | Reign start | Reign end | Notes | Family | Image |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Frederick I
| 55) | 11 July 1657 – 25 February 1713 (aged18 January 1701 | 25 February 1713 | Son of Frederick William, also Elector of Brandenburg | Hohenzollern | |
Frederick William I
| 51) | 14 August 1688 – 31 May 1740 (aged25 February 1713 | 31 May 1740 | Son of Frederick I | Hohenzollern | |
Frederick II
| 74) | 24 January 1712 – 17 August 1786 (aged31 May 1740 | 17 August 1786 | Son of Frederick William I | Hohenzollern | |
Frederick William II | 53) | 25 September 1744 – 16 November 1797 (aged17 August 1786 | 16 November 1797 | Nephew of Frederick II, grandson of Frederick William I | Hohenzollern | |
Frederick William III | 69) | 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840 (aged16 November 1797 | 7 June 1840 | Son of Frederick William II | Hohenzollern | |
Frederick William IV | 65) | 15 October 1795 – 2 January 1861 (aged7 June 1840 | 2 January 1861 | Son of Frederick William III; also President of the Erfurt Union (1849–1850) | Hohenzollern | |
William I | 90) | 22 March 1797 – 9 March 1888 (aged2 January 1861 | 9 March 1888 | Brother of Frederick William IV, son of Frederick William III; also President of the North German Confederation (1867–1871) and German Emperor (from 1871) | Hohenzollern | |
Frederick III | 56) | 18 October 1831 – 15 June 1888 (aged9 March 1888 | 15 June 1888 | Son of Wilhelm I; also German Emperor; only Prussian monarch to rule for less than one year | Hohenzollern | |
William II | 82) | 27 January 1859 – 4 June 1941 (aged15 June 1888 | 9 November 1918 (abdicated) [2] | Son of Frederick III; also German Emperor; also last King of Prussia and last German Emperor | Hohenzollern |
The House of Hohenzollern is a formerly royal German dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenburg, Prussia, the German Empire, and Romania. The family came from the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the late 11th century and took their name from Hohenzollern Castle. The first ancestors of the Hohenzollerns were mentioned in 1061.
Frederick I, of the Hohenzollern dynasty, was Elector of Brandenburg (1688–1713) and Duke of Prussia in personal union (Brandenburg-Prussia). The latter function he upgraded to royalty, becoming the first King in Prussia (1701–1713). From 1707 he was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel.
The Duchy of Prussia or Ducal Prussia was a duchy in the region of Prussia established as a result of secularization of the Monastic Prussia, the territory that remained under the control of the State of the Teutonic Order until the Protestant Reformation in 1525.
Brandenburg-Prussia is the historiographic denomination for the early modern realm of the Brandenburgian Royal dynasty of the House of Hohenzollern between 1618 and 1701. Based in the Electorate of Brandenburg, the main branch of the Hohenzollern intermarried with the branch ruling the Duchy of Prussia, and secured succession upon the latter's extinction in the male line in 1618.
The Kingdom of Prussia constituted the German state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1866 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Its capital was Berlin.
Prussia was a German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. The Knights had to relocate their headquarters to Mergentheim, but managed to keep land in Livonia until 1561.
The Prussian Homage or Prussian Tribute was the formal investiture of Albert, Duke of Prussia (1490-1568), with his Duchy of Prussia as a fief of the Kingdom of Poland that took place on 10 April 1525 in the then capital of Kraków, Kingdom of Poland. This ended the rule of the Teutonic Order in Prussia, which became a secular Protestant state.
The Province of West Prussia was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and 1878 to 1919. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773, formed from Royal Prussia of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth annexed in the First Partition of Poland. West Prussia was dissolved in 1829 and merged with East Prussia to form the Province of Prussia, but was re-established in 1878 when the merger was reversed and became part of the German Empire. From 1918, West Prussia was a province of the Free State of Prussia within Weimar Germany, losing most of its territory to the Second Polish Republic and the Free City of Danzig in the Treaty of Versailles. West Prussia was dissolved in 1920, and its remaining western territory was merged with Posen to form Posen-West Prussia, and its eastern territory merged with East Prussia as the Region of West Prussia district.
King in Prussia was a title used by the Prussian kings from 1701 to 1772. Subsequently, they used the title King of Prussia.
The Treaty of Bromberg or Treaty of Bydgoszcz was a treaty between John II Casimir of Poland and Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia that was ratified at Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) on 6 November 1657. The treaty had several agreements, including the Treaty of Wehlau, signed on 19 September 1657 by the Brandenburg–Prussian and Polish–Lithuanian envoys in Wehlau. Thus, the Treaty of Bromberg is sometimes referred to as treaty of Wehlau-Bromberg or Treaty of Wehlau and Bromberg.
The Treaty of Labiau was a treaty signed between Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg and Charles X Gustav of Sweden on 10 November (O.S.) / 20 November (N.S.) 1656 in Labiau. With several concessions, the most important being the elevation of Frederick William I from a Swedish vassal to a full sovereign in the Duchy of Prussia and in Ermland, Charles X Gustav strove to "buy Frederick William's support" in the ongoing Second Northern War.
The state of Prussia developed from the State of the Teutonic Order. The original flag of the Teutonic Knights had been a black cross on a white flag. Emperor Frederick II in 1229 granted them the right to use the black Eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. This "Prussian Eagle" remained the coats of arms of the successive Prussian states until 1947.
The state of Prussia had its origins in the separate lands of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and of the Duchy of Prussia. The Margraviate of Brandenburg developed from the medieval Northern March of the Holy Roman Empire, passing to the House of Hohenzollern in 1415. The Duchy of Prussia originated in 1525 when Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a member of a cadet branch of the Hohenzollern house, secularized the eastern lands of the Teutonic Knights as a Polish fief. Prince-elector John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, inherited the Duchy of Prussia in 1618, thus uniting Brandenburg and Prussia under one ruler in a personal union; the Elector's state became known as Brandenburg-Prussia. The Kingdom of Prussia formed when Elector Frederick III assumed the title of Frederick I, King in Prussia, on 18 January 1701.
The Margraviate of Brandenburg was a major principality of the Holy Roman Empire from 1157 to 1815 that, having electoral status although being quite poor, grew rapidly in importance after inheriting the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 and then came to play a pivotal role in the history of Germany and that of Central Europe as core of the Prussian kingdom.
The Pomeranian Voivodeship was a unit of administrative division and local government in the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1454/1466 until the First partition of Poland in 1772. From 1613 the capital was at Skarszewy.
Lauenburg and Bütow Land formed a historical region in the western part of Pomerelia or in the eastern part of Farther Pomerania. It was composed of two districts centered on the towns of Lauenburg (Lębork) and Bütow (Bytów). The land is today part of the Polish Pomeranian Voivodeship.
This is the 1519-1521 Polish-Teutonic War. For a list of all Polish-German Wars, see Polish-German Wars.
From the 1680s to 1789, Germany comprised many small territories which were parts of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Prussia finally emerged as dominant. Meanwhile, the states developed a classical culture that found its greatest expression in the Enlightenment, with world class leaders such as philosophers Leibniz and Kant, writers such as Goethe and Schiller, and musicians Bach and Beethoven.
The German Emperors after 1873 had a variety of titles and coats of arms, which in various compositions became the officially used titles and coats of arms. The title and coat of arms were last fixed in 1873, but the titles did not necessarily mean that the area was really dominated, and sometimes even several princes bore the same title.