Frederick I of Sweden

Frederick I of Sweden (April 23, 1676–March 25, 1751), King of Sweden from 1720 and (as Friedrich I von Hessen-Kassel) Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel from 1730.

Fredrik I

Reign	March 24, 1720–March 25, 1751 (from 1730 in Hesse-Kassel)
Coronation	May 3, 1720
Royal motto	"In Deo spes mea" ("In God my hope")
Queen	Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden
Royal House	Hesse-Kassel
Predecessor	Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden
Successor	Adolf Frederick of Sweden
Date of Birth	April 17, 1676
Place of Birth	Kassel, Germany
Date of Death	March 25, 1751
Place of Death	Stockholm
Place of Burial	Riddarholmskyrkan, Stockholm

Ancestry

Frederick was the son of the great Hessian ruler Karl I von Hessen-Kassel (1654–1730) and Marie Amalie Kettler, Princess of Courland (1653–1711). His maternal grandparents were Jacob Kettler , Duke of Courland (1610–1682) and Louise Charlotte, Princess of Brandenburg.

Louise Charlotte was daughter of Georg Wilhelm Hohenzollern, elector of Brandenburg, Duke of Prussia and Charlotte von der Pfalz (1597–1660). Charlotte was daughter of Frederick IV, Elector Palatine (1574–1610) and Louise Juliana von Orange-Nassau. Her brother became Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

Louise Juliana was daughter of William I of Orange and Charlotte de Bourbon-Monpensier.

Marriage

He married his first wife, Luise Dorothee Sophie of Prussia (1680-1705 ), on May 31, 1700. His second wife, whom he married in 1715, was Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden (1688–1741), daughter of Charles XI of Sweden (1655–1697) and of Ulrika Eleonore of Denmark (1656–1693).

Reign

Some historians have suggested that Frederick fired the shot, generally claimed to have been a stray bullet, that caused the death of his brother-in-law Charles XII of Sweden in 1718. After his authoritarian brother-in-law, one of the reason the Swedish Estates elected Frederick was because he was taken to be fairly weak, which indeed he turned out to be. He also had to oversee the loss of Sweden's position as a European power as a result of the wars Charles XII had started; in the Treaty of Nystad, he was forced to cede Estonia and Livonia to Russia, in 1721. He is also considered a very weak Hessian monarch, as he only visited his German country a few times and behaved like an absentee landowner , using the Hessian tax revenues to finance his court in Stockholm.

Illegitimate children

Frederick I had three illegitimate children:

• Friedrich Wilhelm (1735–1808).
• Karl (1737–1769).
• Hedwig Amalia (1743–1752).

Thus, the Hessian line in Sweden ended with him and was followed by that of Holstein-Gottorp. In Hesse-Cassel, he was succeeded by his much abler younger brother William VIII , a famous general.