Frederick Charles
Frederick Charles c. 1917
King-elect of Finland
Reign9 October 1918 –
14 December 1918
(never reigned)
SuccessorMonarchy abolished[lower-alpha 1]
RegentP. E. Svinhufvud
C. G. E. Mannerheim
Head of the House of Hesse
Tenure16 March 1925 – 28 May 1940
PredecessorAlexander Frederick
SuccessorPhilipp
Born(1868-05-01)1 May 1868
Panker Castle, Plön, Kingdom of Prussia
Died28 May 1940(1940-05-28) (aged 72)
Kassel, Nazi Germany
Burial
Schloss Friedrichshof, Kronberg im Taunus, Germany
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1893)​
IssuePrince Friedrich Wilhelm
Prince Maximilian
Philipp, Landgrave of Hesse
Prince Wolfgang
Prince Christoph
Prince Richard
Names
Frederick Charles Louis Constantine
HouseHesse-Kassel
FatherFrederick William, Landgrave of Hesse
MotherPrincess Anna of Prussia

Frederick Charles Louis Constantine, Prince and Landgrave of Hesse (German: Friedrich Karl Ludwig Konstantin Prinz und Landgraf von Hessen-Kassel; Finnish: Fredrik Kaarle; 1 May 1868 – 28 May 1940), was the brother-in-law of the German Emperor, Wilhelm II. He was elected King of Finland on 9 October 1918, but renounced the throne on 14 December 1918.

Early life

Frederick was born at his family's Panker Castle, in Plön, Holstein. He was the third son of Frederick William of Hesse, Landgrave of Hesse, and his second wife Princess Anna of Prussia, daughter of Prince Charles of Prussia and Princess Marie Louise of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Frederick William, a Danish military officer, had been one (and perhaps the foremost) of the candidates of Christian VIII of Denmark in the 1840s to succeed to the Danish throne if the latter's male line died out, but renounced his rights to the throne in 1851 in favor of his aunt, Louise. Frederick William was of practically Danish upbringing, having lived all his life in Denmark, but in 1875, when the senior branch of Hesse-Kassel became extinct, he settled in northern Germany, where the House had substantial landholdings.

Marriage and issue

Prince Frederick Charles and Princess Margaret of Prussia in 1893

On 25 January 1893, Frederick Charles married Princess Margaret of Prussia, youngest sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. They had six children, all sons, including two sets of twins:

Upon their father's death in 1884, Frederick's eldest brother Frederick William became the head of the House of Hesse, and afterwards his next brother Alexander.

The Finnish throne

The wedding of Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse and Princess Margaret of Prussia.

Frederick Charles was elected the King of Finland by the Parliament of Finland on 9 October 1918. However, with the end of World War I, in light of his German birth (and despite his Danish roots through his paternal grandmother) and the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany ending monarchies in Germany, the arrangement was quickly considered untenable by influential Finns of the time and by Frederick himself. Not much is known of the official stance of the victorious Allied Powers. Frederick Charles renounced the throne on 14 December 1918, without ever arriving in the country, much less taking up his position. Finland's subsequent elections were a victory for anti-monarchists, and the parliament quickly adopted a republican constitution.

The electoral document refers to Prince Frederick Charles with the Finnish name Fredrik Kaarle.[1]: 189  Other proposals for a Finnish regnal name included Kaarle and Kaarlo. The regnal name "Väinö I", which lived on in the memory of the Finns, probably came from a newspaper causerie:[2]: 26  in 1927 in Suomen Sosialidemokraatti, "Hesekiel" (Heikki Välisalmi) claimed Väinö had been the intended name;[3] already in 1918 in Uusi Päivä , "Olli" (Väinö Nuorteva) had suggested "Ilmari, Väinö, Kauko, Jouko, Usko, Jaska?".[4]

Later life

Landgrave Alexander Frederick of Hesse abdicated as the head of the House of Hesse on 16 March 1925, and was succeeded by Frederick Charles, his younger brother.

At Frederick's death, his eldest surviving son, Philipp, succeeded him as head.

However, according to certain family documents and correspondence, his successor as King of Finland would have been his second surviving son Prince Wolfgang of Hesse (1896–1989), apparently because Philipp was already the designated heir of the rights over the Electorate of Hesse, but certainly because Wolfgang was with his parents in 1918 and ready to travel to Finland, where a wedding to a Finnish lady was already in preparation for the coming crown prince. Philipp was in the military and unable to be contacted at the time. This choice of the younger of the twins, however, was not intended to mean that in future generations, the kingship would have been passed on through secundogeniture, with the eldest son always succeeding to the Hesse title (according to Dr. Vesa Vares). On the contrary, it is practically inconceivable that succession of a kingdom would depend on secondary consideration.

Notes

  1. ↑ He was de facto succeeded by Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg as President of the Republic.

Honours

Ancestry

See also

References

  1. ↑ Huldén, Anders: Kuningasseikkailu Suomessa 1918. Helsinki: Kirjayhtymä, 1988. ISBN 951-26-2980-1.
  2. ↑ Baer, Katarina: Suomen kuningas. Helsingin Sanomat monthly supplement #8/2002.
  3. ↑ Väinö, Suomen Sosialidemokraatti 17 February 1927, issue #39.
  4. ↑ Vihdoinkin, Uusi Päivä 11 September 1918, issue #147.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Genealogy", Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Hessen (in German), Darmstadt: Im Verlag der Invalidenanstalt, 1912–1913, p. 4 – via hathitrust.org
  6. 1 2 Großherzoglich Hessische Ordensliste (in German), Darmstadt: Staatsverlag, 1914, pp. 2, 4 – via hathitrust.org
  7. ↑ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch für des Herzogtum Anhalt (1894), "Herzoglicher Haus-Orden Albrecht des Bären" p. 17
  8. ↑ "Schwarzer Adler-orden", Königlich Preussische Ordensliste (supp.) (in German), vol. 1, Berlin, 1886, p. 5 – via hathitrust.org{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  9. ↑ Staatshandbuch für das Großherzogtum Sachsen / Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1900), "Großherzogliche Hausorden" p. 17
  10. ↑ Jørgen Pedersen (2009). Riddere af Elefantordenen, 1559–2009 (in Danish). Syddansk Universitetsforlag. p. 465. ISBN 978-87-7674-434-2.
  11. ↑ Shaw, Wm. A. (1906) The Knights of England, I, London, p. 212
  12. ↑ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Baden (1910), "Großherzogliche Orden" p. 41
  • Large article on Helsingin Sanomat newspaper about Friedrich Karl and his descendants, including the current "pretender" for the throne.
  • Nash, Michael L (2012) The last King of Finland. Royalty Digest Quarterly, 2012 : 1
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.