VOLUME XI SLICE I Franciscans to French Language (continued 5)

As soon as the case of Derry v. Peek had established, as the general rule of law, that a merely negligent misstatement is not actionable, a statutory exception was made to the rule in the case of directors and promoters of companies who publish prospectuses and similar documents. By the Directors’ Liability Act 1890, such persons are liable for damage caused by untrue statements in such documents, unless they can prove that they had reasonable grounds for believing the statements to be true. It is also to be observed that, though damages cannot be recovered in an action for a misrepresentation made with an honest belief in its truth, still any person induced to enter into a contract by a misrepresentation, whether fraudulent or innocent, is entitled to avoid the contract and to obtain a declaration that it is not binding upon him. This is in accordance with the rule of equity, which since the Judicature Act prevails in all the courts. Whether the representation is fraudulent or innocent, the contract is not void, but voidable. The party misled must exercise his option to avoid the contract without delay, and before it has become impossible to restore the other party to the position in which he stood before the contract was made. If he is too late, he can only rely on his claim for damages, and in order to assert this claim it is necessary to prove that the misrepresentation was fraudulent. Fraud, in its wider sense of dishonest dealing, though not a distinct cause of action, is often material as preventing the acquisition of a right, for which good faith is a necessary condition. Also a combination or conspiracy by two or more persons to defraud gives rise to liabilities not very clearly or completely defined.

FRAUENBURG, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the Frische Haff, at the mouth of the Bande, 41 m. S.W. from Königsberg on the railway to Elbing. Pop. 2500. The cathedral (founded 1329), with six towers, stands on a commanding eminence adjoining the town and surrounded by castellated walls and bastions. This is known as Dom-Frauenburg, and is the seat of the Roman Catholic bishop of Ermeland. Within the cathedral is a monument to the astronomer Copernicus bearing the inscription Astronomo celeberrimo, cujus nomen et gloria utrumque implevit orbem. There is a small port with inconsiderable trade. Frauenburg was founded in 1287 and received the rights of a town in 1310.

FRAUENFELD, the capital of the Swiss canton of Thurgau, 27 m. by rail N.E. of Zürich or 14½ m. W. of Romanshorn. It is built on the Murg stream a little above its junction with the Thur. It is a prosperous commercial town, being situated at the meeting point of several routes, while it possesses several industrial establishments, chiefly concerned with different branches of the iron trade. In 1900 its population (including the neighbouring villages) was 7761, mainly German-speaking, while there were 5563 Protestants to 2188 Romanists. Frauenfeld is the artillery depôt for North-East Switzerland. The upper town is the older part, and centres round the castle, of which the tower dates from the 10th century, though the rest is of a later period. Both stood on land belonging to the abbot of Reichenau, who, with the count of Kyburg, founded the town, which is first mentioned in 1255. The abbot retained all manorial rights till 1803, while the political powers of the Kyburgers (who were the “protectors” of Reichenau) passed to the Habsburgs in 1273, and were seized by the Swiss in 1460 with the rest of the Thurgau. In 1712 the town succeeded Baden in Aargau as the meeting-place of the Federal Diet, and continued to be the capital of the Confederation till its transformation in 1798. In 1799 it was successively occupied by the Austrians and the French. The old Capuchin convent (1591-1848) is now occupied as a vicarage by the Romanist priest.

(W. A. B. C.)

FRAUENLOB, the name by which Heinrich von Meissen, a German poet of the 13th century, is generally known. He seems to have acquired the sobriquet because in a famous Liederstreit with his rival Regenbogen he defended the use of the word Frau (i.e. frouwe, = lady) instead of Weib (wîp = woman). Frauenlob was born about 1250 of a humble burgher family. His youth was spent in straitened circumstances, but he gradually acquired a reputation as a singer at the various courts of the German princes. In 1278 we find him with Rudolph I. in the Marchfeld, in 1286 he was at Prague at the knighting of Wenceslaus (Wenzel) II., and in 1311 he was present at a knightly festival celebrated by Waldemar of Brandenburg before Rostock. After this he settled in Mainz, and there according to the popular account, founded the first school of Meistersingers (q.v.). He died in 1318, and was buried in the cloisters of the cathedral at Mainz. His grave is still marked by a copy made in 1783 of the original tombstone of 1318; and in 1842 a monument by Schwanthaler was erected in the cloisters. Frauenlob’s poems make a great display of learning; he delights in far-fetched metaphors, and his versification abounds in tricks of form and rhyme.

Frauenlob’s poetry was edited by L. Ettmüller in 1843; a selection will be found in K. Bartsch, Deutsche Liederdichter des 12. bis 14. Jahrhunderts (3rd ed., 1893). An English translation of Frauenlob’s Cantica canticorum, by A. E. Kroeger, with notes, appeared in 1877 at St Louis, U.S.A. See A. Boerkel, Frauenlob (2nd ed., 1881).

FRAUNCE, ABRAHAM (c. 1558-1633), English poet, a native of Shropshire, was born between 1558 and 1560. His name was registered as a pupil of Shrewsbury School in January 1571/2, and he joined St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1576, becoming a fellow in 1580/81. His Latin comedy of Victoria, dedicated to Sidney, was probably written at Cambridge, where he remained until he had taken his M.A. degree in 1583. He was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn in 1588, and then apparently practised as a barrister in the court of the Welsh marches. After the death of his patron Sir Philip Sidney, Fraunce was protected by Sidney’s sister Mary, countess of Pembroke. His last work was published in 1592, and we have no further knowledge of him until 1633, when he is said to have written an Epithalamium in honour of the marriage of Lady Magdalen Egerton, 7th daughter of the earl of Bridgwater, whose service he may possibly have entered.

His works are: The Lamentations of Amintas for the death of Phyllis (1587), a version in English hexameters of his friend’s, Thomas Watson’s, Latin Amyntas; The Lawiers Logike, exemplifying the praecepts of Logike by the practise of the common Lawe (1588); Arcadian Rhetorike (1588); Abrahami Fransi Insignium, Armorum ... explicatio (1588); The Countess of Pembroke’s Yvychurch (1591/2), containing a translation of Tasso’s Aminta, a reprint of his earlier version of Watson, “The Lamentation of Corydon for the love of Alexis” (Virgil, eclogue ii.), a short translation from Heliodorus, and, in the third part (1592) “Aminta’s Dale,” a collection of “conceited” tales supposed to be related by the nymphs of Ivychurch; The Countess of Pembroke’s Emanuell (1591); The Third Part of the Countess of Pembroke’s Ivychurch, entituled Aminta’s Dale (1592). His Arcadian Rhetorike owes much to earlier critical treatises, but has a special interest from its references to Spenser, and Fraunce quotes from the Faerie Queene a year before the publication of the first books. In “Colin Clout’s come home again,” Spenser speaks of Fraunce as Corydon, on account of his translations of Virgil’s second eclogue. His poems are written in classical metres, and he was regarded by his contemporaries as the best exponent of Gabriel Harvey’s theory. Even Thomas Nashe had a good word for “sweete Master France.”

The Countess of Pembroke’s Emanuell, hexameters on the nativity and passion of Christ, with versions of some psalms, were reprinted by Dr A. B. Grosart in the third volume of his Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library (1872). Joseph Hunter in his Chorus Vatum stated that five of Fraunce’s songs were included in Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, but it is probable that these should be attributed not to Fraunce, but to Thomas Campion. See a life prefixed to the transcription of a MS. Latin comedy by Fraunce, Victoria, by Professor G. C. Moore Smith, published in Bang’s Materialien zur Kunde des alteren englischen Dramas, vol. xiv., 1906.

FRAUNHOFER, JOSEPH VON (1787-1826), German optician and physicist, was born at Straubing in Bavaria on the 6th of March 1787, the son of a glazier who died in 1798. He was apprenticed in 1799 to Weichselberger, a glass-polisher and looking-glass maker. On the 21st of July 1801 he nearly lost his life by the fall of the house in which he lodged, and the elector of Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph, who was present at his extrication from the ruins, gave him 18 ducats. With a portion of this sum he obtained release from the last six months of his apprenticeship, and with the rest he purchased a glass-polishing machine. He now employed himself in making optical glasses, and in engraving on metal, devoting his spare time to the perusal of works on mathematics and optics. In 1806 he obtained the place of optician in the mathematical institute which in 1804 had been founded at Munich by Joseph von Utzschneider, G. Reichenbach and J. Liebherr; and in 1807 arrangements were made by Utzschneider for his instruction by Pierre Louis Guinand, a skilled optician, in the fabrication of flint and crown glass, in which he soon became an adept (see R. Wolf, Gesch. der Wissensch. in Deutschl. bd. xvi. p. 586). With Reichenbach and Utzschneider, Fraunhofer established in 1809 an optical institute at Benedictbeuern, near Munich, of which he in 1818 became sole manager. The institute was in 1819 removed to Munich, and on Fraunhofer’s death came under the direction of G. Merz.

Amongst the earliest mechanical contrivances of Fraunhofer was a machine for polishing mathematically uniform spherical surfaces. He was the inventor of the stage-micrometer, and of a form of heliometer; and in 1816 he succeeded in constructing for the microscope achromatic glasses of long focus, consisting of a single lens, the constituent glasses of which were in juxtaposition, but not cemented together. The great reflecting telescope at Dorpat was manufactured by him, and so great was the skill he attained in the making of lenses for achromatic telescopes that, in a letter to Sir David Brewster, he expressed his willingness to furnish an achromatic glass of 18 in. diameter. Fraunhofer is especially known for the researches, published in the Denkschriften der Münchener Akademie for 1814-1815, by which he laid the foundation of solar and stellar chemistry. The dark lines of the spectrum of sunlight, earliest noted by Dr W. H. Wollaston (Phil. Trans., 1802, p. 378), were independently discovered, and, by means of the telescope of a theodolite, between which and a distant slit admitting the light a prism was interposed, were for the first time carefully observed by Fraunhofer, and have on that account been designated “Fraunhofer’s lines.” He constructed a map of as many as 576 of these lines, the principal of which he denoted by the letters of the alphabet from A to G; and by ascertaining their refractive indices he determined that their relative positions are constant, whether in spectra produced by the direct rays of the sun, or by the reflected light of the moon and planets. The spectra of the stars he obtained by using, outside the object-glass of his telescope, a large prism, through which the light passed to be brought to a focus in front of the eye-piece. He showed that in the spectra of the fixed stars many of the dark lines were different from those of the solar spectrum, whilst other well-known solar lines were wanting; and he concluded that it was not by any action of the terrestrial atmosphere upon the light passing through it that the lines were produced. He further expressed the belief that the dark lines D of the solar spectrum coincide with the bright lines of the sodium flame. He was also the inventor of the diffraction grating.

In 1823 he was appointed conservator of the physical cabinet at Munich, and in the following year he received from the king of Bavaria the civil order of merit. He died at Munich on the 7th of June 1826, and was buried near Reichenbach, whose decease had taken place eight years previously. On his tomb is the inscription “Approximavit sidera.”

See J. von Utzschneider, Kurzer Umriss der Lebensgeschichte des Herrn Dr J. von Fraunhofer (Munich, 1826); and G. Merz, Das Leben und Wirken Fraunhofers (Landshut, 1865).

FRAUSTADT (Polish, Wszowa), a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Posen, in a flat sandy country dotted with windmills, 50 m. S.S.W. of Posen, on the railway Lissa-Sagan. Pop. (including a garrison) 7500. It has three Evangelical and two Roman Catholic churches, a classical school and a teachers’ seminary; the manufactures include woollen and cotton goods, hats, morocco leather and gloves, and there is a considerable trade in corn, cattle and wool. Fraustadt was founded by Silesians in 1348, and afterwards belonged to the principality of Glogau. Near the town the Swedes under Charles XII. defeated the Saxons on the 13th of February 1706.

FRAYSSINOUS, DENIS ANTOINE LUC, Comte de (1765-1841), French prelate and statesman, distinguished as an orator and as a controversial writer, was born of humble parentage at Curières, in the department of Aveyron, on the 9th of May 1765. He owes his reputation mainly to the lectures on dogmatic theology, known as the “conferences” of Saint Sulpice, delivered in the church of Saint Sulpice, Paris, from 1803 to 1809, to which admiring crowds were attracted by his lucid exposition and by his graceful oratory. The freedom of his language in 1809, when Napoleon had arrested the pope and declared the annexation of Rome to France, led to a prohibition of his lectures; and the dispersion of the congregation of Saint Sulpice in 1811 was followed by his temporary retirement from the capital. He returned with the Bourbons, and resumed his lectures in 1814; but the events of the Hundred Days again compelled him to withdraw into private life, from which he did not emerge until February 1816. As court preacher and almoner to Louis XVIII., he now entered upon the period of his greatest public activity and influence. In connexion with the controversy raised by the signing of the reactionary concordat of 1817, he published in 1818 a treatise entitled Vrais Principes de l’église Gallicane sur la puissance ecclésiastique, which though unfavourably criticized by Lamennais, was received with favour by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The consecration of Frayssinous as bishop of Hermopolis “in partibus,” his election to the French Academy, and his appointment to the grand-mastership of the university, followed in rapid succession. In 1824, on the accession of Charles X., he became minister of public instruction and of ecclesiastical affairs under the administration of Villèle; and about the same time he was created a peer of France with the title of count. His term of office was chiefly marked by the recall of the Jesuits. In 1825 he published his lectures under the title Défense du christianisme. The work passed through 15 editions within 18 years, and was translated into several European languages. In 1828 he, along with his colleagues in the Villèle ministry, was compelled to resign office, and the subsequent revolution of July 1830 led to his retirement to Rome. Shortly afterwards he became tutor to the duke of Bordeaux (Comte de Chambord) at Prague, where he continued to live until 1838. He died at St Géniez on the 12th of December 1841.

See Bertrand, Bibl. Sulpicienne (t. ii. 135 sq.; iii. 253) for bibliography, and G. A. Henrion (Paris, 2 vols., 1844) for biography.

FRÉCHETTE, LOUIS HONORÉ (1839-1908), French-Canadian poet, was born at Levis, Quebec, on the 16th of November 1839, the son of a contractor. He was educated in his native province, and called to the Canadian bar in 1864. He started the Journal de Lévis, and his revolutionary doctrines compelled him to leave Canada for the United States. After some years spent in journalism at Chicago, he was in 1874 elected as the Liberal candidate to represent Levis in the Canadian parliament. At the elections of 1878 and 1882 he was defeated, and thereafter confined himself to literature. He edited La Patrie and other French papers in the Dominion; and in 1889 was appointed clerk of the Quebec legislative council. He was long a warm advocate of the political union of Canada and the United States, but in later life became less ardent, and in 1897 accepted the honour of C.M.G. from Queen Victoria. He was president of the Royal Society of Canada, and of the Canadian Society of Arts, and received numerous honorary degrees. His works include: Mes Loisirs (1863); La Voix d’un exilé (1867), a satire against the Canadian government; Pêle-mêle (1877); Les Fleurs boréales, and Les Oiseaux de neige (1880), crowned by the French academy; La Légende d’un peuple (1887); two historical dramas, Papineau (1880) and Felix Poutré (1880); La Noël au Canada (1900), and several prose works and translations. An exponent of local French sentiment, he won the title of the “Canadian Laureate.” He died on the 1st of June 1908.

FREDEGOND (Fredigundis) (d. 597), Frankish queen. Originally a serving-woman, she inspired the Frankish king, Chilperic I., with a violent passion. At her instigation he repudiated his first wife Audovera, and strangled his second, Galswintha, Queen Brunhilda’s sister. A few days after this murder Chilperic married Fredegond (567). This woman exercised a most pernicious influence over him. She forced him into war against Austrasia, in the course of which she procured the assassination of the victorious king Sigebert (575); she carried on a malignant struggle against Chilperic’s sons by his first wife, Theodebert, Merwich and Clovis, who all died tragic deaths; and she persistently endeavoured to secure the throne for her own children. Her first son Thierry, however, to whom Bishop Ragnemod of Paris stood godfather, died soon after birth, and Fredegond tortured a number of women whom she accused of having bewitched the child. Her second son also died in infancy. Finally, she gave birth to a child who afterwards became king as Clotaire II. Shortly after the birth of this third son, Chilperic himself perished in mysterious circumstances (584). Fredegond has been accused of complicity in his murder, but with little show of probability, since in her husband she lost her principal supporter.

Henceforth Fredegond did all in her power to gain the kingdom for her child. Taking refuge at the church of Notre Dame at Paris, she appealed to King Guntram of Burgundy, who took Clotaire under his protection and defended him against his other nephew, Childebert II., king of Austrasia. From that time until her death Fredegond governed the western kingdom. She endeavoured to prevent the alliance between King Guntram and Childebert, which was cemented by the pact of Andelot; and made several attempts to assassinate Childebert by sending against him hired bravoes armed with poisoned scramasaxes (heavy single-edged knives). After the death of Childebert in 595 she resolved to augment the kingdom of Neustria at the expense of Austrasia, and to this end seized some cities near Paris and defeated Theudebert at the battle of Laffaux, near Soissons. Her triumph, however, was short-lived, as she died quietly in her bed in 597 soon after her victory.

See V. N. Augustin Thierry, Récits des temps mérovingiens (Brussels, 1840); Ulysse Chevalier, Bio-bibliographie (2nd ed.), s.v. “Frédégonde.”

(C. Pf.)

FREDERIC, HAROLD (1856-1898), Anglo-American novelist, was born on the 19th of August 1856 at Utica, N.Y., was educated there, and took to journalism. He went to live in England as London correspondent of the New York Times in 1884, and was soon recognized for his ability both as a writer and as a talker. He wrote several clever early stories, but it was not till he published Illumination (1896), followed by Gloria Mundi (1898), that his remarkable gifts as a novelist were fully realized. He died in England on the 19th of October 1898.

FREDERICIA (Friedericia), a seaport of Denmark, near the S.E. corner of Jutland, on the west shore of the Little Belt opposite the island of Fünen. Pop. (1901) 12,714. It has railway communication with both south and north, and a steam ferry connects with Middelfart, a seaside resort and railway station on Fünen. There is a considerable shipping trade, and the industries comprise the manufacture of tobacco, salt and chicory, and of cotton goods and hats. A small fort was erected on the site of Fredericia by Christian IV. of Denmark, and his successor, Frederick III., determined about 1650 to make it a powerful fortress. Free exercise of religion was offered to all who should settle in the new town, which at first bore the name of Frederiksodde, and only received its present designation in 1664. In 1657 it was taken by storm by the Swedish general Wrangel, and in 1659, after the fortress had been dismantled, it was occupied by Frederick William of Brandenburg. It was not till 1709-1710 that the works were again put in a state of defence. In 1848 no attempt was made by the Danes to oppose the Prussians, who entered on the 2nd of May, and maintained their position against the Danish gunboats. During the armistice of 1848-1849 the fortress was strengthened, and soon afterwards it stood a siege of two months, which was brought to a glorious close by a successful sortie on the 6th of July 1849. In memory of the victory several monuments have been erected in the town and its vicinity, of which the most noticeable are the bronze statue of the Danish Land Soldier by Bissen (one of Thorvaldsen’s pupils), and the great barrow over 500 Danes in the cemetery of the Holy Trinity Church, with a bas-relief by the same sculptor. On the outbreak of the war of 1864, the fortress was again strengthened by new works and an entrenched camp; but the Danes suddenly evacuated it on the 28th of April after a siege of six weeks. The Austro-Prussian army partly destroyed the fortifications, and kept possession of the town till the conclusion of peace.

FREDERICK (Mod. Ger. Friedrich; Ital. Federigo; Fr. Frédéric and Fédéric; M.H.G. Friderîch; O.H.G. Fridurîh, “king or lord of peace,” from O.H.G. fridu, A.S. frith, “peace,” and rîh “rich,” “a ruler,” for derivation of which see Henry), a Christian name borne by many European sovereigns and princes, the more important of whom are given below in the following order:—(1) Roman emperors and German kings; (2) other kings in the alphabetical order of their states; (3) other reigning princes in the same order.

FREDERICK I. (c. 1123-1190), Roman emperor, surnamed “Barbarossa” by the Italians, was the son of Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen, duke of Swabia, and Judith, daughter of Henry IX. the Black, duke of Bavaria. The precise date and place of his birth, together with details of his early life, are wanting; but in 1143 he assisted his maternal uncle, Count Welf VI., in his attempts to conquer Bavaria, and by his conduct in several local feuds earned the reputation of a brave and skilful warrior. When his father died in 1147 Frederick became duke of Swabia, and immediately afterwards accompanied his uncle, the German king Conrad III., on his disastrous crusade, during which he greatly distinguished himself and won the complete confidence of the king. Abandoning the cause of the Welfs, he fought for Conrad against them, and in 1152 the dying king advised the princes to choose Frederick as his successor to the exclusion of his own young son. Energetically pressing his candidature, he was chosen German king at Frankfort on the 4th or 5th of March 1152, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 9th of the same month, owing his election partly to his personal qualities, and partly to the fact that he united in himself the blood of the rival families of Welf and Waiblingen.

The new king was anxious to restore the Empire to the position it had occupied under Charlemagne and Otto the Great, and saw clearly that the restoration of order in Germany was a necessary preliminary to the enforcement of the imperial rights in Italy. Issuing a general order for peace, he was prodigal in his concessions to the nobles. Count Welf was made duke of Spoleto and margrave of Tuscany; Berthold VI., duke of Zähringen, was entrusted with extensive rights in Burgundy; and the king’s nephew, Frederick, received the duchy of Swabia. Abroad Frederick decided a quarrel for the Danish throne in favour of Svend, or Peter as he is sometimes called, who did homage for his kingdom, and negotiations were begun with the East Roman emperor, Manuel Comnenus. It was probably about this time that the king obtained a divorce from his wife Adela, daughter of Dietpold, margrave of Vohburg and Cham, on the ground of consanguinity, and made a vain effort to obtain a bride from the court of Constantinople. On his accession Frederick had communicated the news of his election to Pope Eugenius III., but neglected to ask for the papal confirmation. In spite of this omission, however, and of some trouble arising from a double election to the archbishopric of Magdeburg, a treaty was concluded between king and pope at Constance in March 1153, by which Frederick promised in return for his coronation to make no peace with Roger I. king of Sicily, or with the rebellious Romans, without the consent of Eugenius, and generally to help and defend the papacy.

The journey to Italy made by the king in 1154 was the precursor of five other expeditions which engaged his main energies for thirty years, during which the subjugation of the peninsula was the central and abiding aim of his policy. Meeting the new pope, Adrian IV., near Nepi, Frederick at first refused to hold his stirrup; but after some negotiations he consented and received the kiss of peace, which was followed by his coronation as emperor at Rome on the 18th of June 1155. As his slender forces were inadequate to encounter the fierce hostility which he aroused, he left Italy in the autumn of 1155 to prepare for a new and more formidable campaign. Disorder was again rampant in Germany, especially in Bavaria, but general peace was restored by Frederick’s vigorous measures. Bavaria was transferred from Henry II. Jasomirgott, margrave of Austria, to Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony; and the former was pacified by the erection of his margraviate into a duchy, while Frederick’s step-brother Conrad was invested with the Palatinate of the Rhine. On the 9th of June 1156 the king was married at Würzburg to Beatrix, daughter and heiress of the dead count of Upper Burgundy, Renaud III., when Upper Burgundy or Franche Comté, as it is sometimes called, was added to his possessions. An expedition into Poland reduced Duke Boleslaus IV. to an abject submission, after which Frederick received the homage of the Burgundian nobles at a diet held at Besançon in October 1157, which was marked by a quarrel between pope and emperor. A Swedish archbishop, returning from Rome, had been seized by robbers, and as Frederick had not punished the offenders Adrian sent two legates to remonstrate. The papal letter when translated referred to the imperial crown as a benefice conferred by the pope, and its reading aroused great indignation. The emperor had to protect the legates from the fury of the nobles; and afterwards issued a manifesto to his subjects declaring that he held the Empire from God alone, to which Adrian replied that he had used the ambiguous word beneficia as meaning benefits, and not in its feudal sense.

In June 1158 Frederick set out upon his second Italian expedition, which was signalized by the establishment of imperial officers called podestas in the cities of northern Italy, the revolt and capture of Milan, and the beginning of the long struggle with pope Alexander III., who excommunicated the emperor on the 2nd of March 1160. During this visit Frederick summoned the doctors of Bologna to the diet held near Roncaglia in November 1158, and as a result of their inquiries into the rights belonging to the kingdom of Italy he obtained a large amount of wealth. Returning to Germany towards the close of 1162, Frederick prevented a conflict between Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, and a number of neighbouring princes, and severely punished the citizens of Mainz for their rebellion against Archbishop Arnold. A further visit to Italy in 1163 saw his plans for the conquest of Sicily checked by the formation of a powerful league against him, brought together mainly by the exactions of the podestas and the enforcement of the rights declared by the doctors of Bologna. Frederick had supported an anti-pope Victor IV. against Alexander, and on Victor’s death in 1163 a new anti-pope called Paschal III. was chosen to succeed him. Having tried in vain to secure the general recognition of Victor and Paschal in Europe, the emperor held a diet at Würzburg in May 1165; and by taking an oath, followed by many of the clergy and nobles, to remain true to Paschal and his successors, brought about a schism in the German church. A temporary alliance with Henry II., king of England, the magnificent celebration of the canonization of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the restoration of peace in the Rhineland, occupied Frederick’s attention until October 1166, when he made his fourth journey to Italy. Having captured Ancona, he marched to Rome, stormed the Leonine city, and procured the enthronement of Paschal, and the coronation of his wife Beatrix; but his victorious career was stopped by the sudden outbreak of a pestilence which destroyed the German army and drove the emperor as a fugitive to Germany, where he remained for the ensuing six years. Henry the Lion was again saved from a threatening combination; conflicting claims to various bishoprics were decided; and the imperial authority was asserted over Bohemia, Poland and Hungary. Friendly relations were entered into with the emperor Manuel, and attempts made to come to a better understanding with Henry II., king of England, and Louis VII., king of France.

In 1174, when Frederick made his fifth expedition to Italy, the Lombard league had been formed, and the fortress of Alessandria raised to check his progress. The campaign was a complete failure. The refusal of Henry the Lion to bring help into Italy was followed by the defeat of the emperor at Legnano on the 29th of May 1176, when he was wounded and believed to be dead. Reaching Pavia, he began negotiations for peace with Alexander, which ripened into the treaty of Venice in August 1177, and at the same time a truce with the Lombard league was arranged for six years. Frederick, loosed from the papal ban, recognized Alexander as the rightful pope, and in July 1177 knelt before him and kissed his feet. The possession of the vast estates left by Matilda, marchioness of Tuscany, and claimed by both pope and emperor, was to be decided by arbitration, and in October 1178 the emperor was again in Germany. Various small feuds were suppressed; Henry the Lion was deprived of his duchy, which was dismembered, and sent into exile; a treaty was made with the Lombard league at Constance in June 1183; and most important of all, Frederick’s son Henry was betrothed in 1184 to Constance, daughter of Roger I., king of Sicily, and aunt and heiress of the reigning king, William II. This betrothal, which threatened to unite Sicily with the Empire, made it difficult for Frederick, when during his last Italian expedition in 1184 he met Pope Lucius III. at Verona, to establish friendly relations with the papacy. Further causes of trouble arose, moreover, and when the potentates separated the question of Matilda’s estates was undecided; and Lucius had refused to crown Henry or to recognize the German clergy who had been ordained during the schism. Frederick then formed an alliance with Milan, where the citizens witnessed a great festival on the 27th of January 1186. The emperor, who had been crowned king of Burgundy, or Arles, at Arles on the 30th of July 1178, had this ceremony repeated; while his son Henry was crowned king of Italy and married to Constance, who was crowned queen of Germany.

The quarrel with the papacy was continued with the new pope Urban III., and open warfare was begun. But Frederick was soon recalled to Germany by the news of a revolt raised by Philip of Heinsberg, archbishop of Cologne, in alliance with the pope. The German clergy remained loyal to the emperor, and hostilities were checked by the death of Urban and the election of a new pope as Gregory VIII., who adopted a more friendly policy towards the emperor. In 1188 Philip submitted, and immediately afterwards Frederick took the cross in order to stop the victorious career of Saladin, who had just taken Jerusalem. After extensive preparations he left Regensburg in May 1189 at the head of a splendid army, and having overcome the hostility of the East Roman emperor Isaac Angelus, marched into Asia Minor. On the 10th of June 1190 Frederick was either bathing or crossing the river Calycadnus (Geuksu), near Seleucia (Selefke) in Cilicia, when he was carried away by the stream and drowned. The place of his burial is unknown, and the legend which says he still sits in a cavern in the Kyffhäuser mountain in Thuringia waiting until the need of his country shall call him, is now thought to refer, at least in its earlier form, to his grandson, the emperor Frederick II. He left by his wife, Beatrix, five sons, of whom the eldest afterwards became emperor as Henry VI.

Frederick’s reign, on the whole, was a happy and prosperous time for Germany. He encouraged the growth of towns, easily suppressed the few risings against his authority, and took strong and successful measures to establish order. Even after the severe reverses which he experienced in Italy, his position in Germany was never seriously weakened; and in 1181, when, almost without striking a blow, he deprived Henry the Lion of his duchy, he seemed stronger than ever. This power rested upon his earnest and commanding personality, and also upon the support which he received from the German church, the possession of a valuable private domain, and the care with which he exacted feudal dues from his dependents.

Frederick I. is said to have taken Charlemagne as his model; but the contest in which he engaged was entirely different both in character and results from that in which his great predecessor achieved such a wonderful temporary success. Though Frederick failed to subdue the republics, the failure can scarcely be said to reflect either on his prudence as a statesman or his skill as a general, for his ascendancy was finally overthrown rather by the ravages of pestilence than by the might of human arms. In Germany his resolute will and sagacious administration subdued or disarmed all discontent, and he not only succeeded in welding the various rival interests into a unity of devotion to himself against which papal intrigues were comparatively powerless, but won for the empire a prestige such as it had not possessed since the time of Otto the Great. The wide contrast between his German and Italian rule is strikingly exemplified in the fact that, while he endeavoured to overthrow the republics in Italy, he held in check the power of the nobles in Germany, by conferring municipal franchises and independent rights on the principal cities. Even in Italy, though his general course of action was warped by wrong prepossessions, he in many instances manifested exceptional practical sagacity in dealing with immediate difficulties and emergencies. Possessing frank and open manners, untiring and unresting energy, and a prowess which found its native element in difficulty and danger, he seemed the embodiment of the chivalrous and warlike spirit of his age, and was the model of all the qualities which then won highest admiration. Stern and ambitious he certainly was, but his aims can scarcely be said to have exceeded his prerogatives as emperor; and though he had sometimes recourse when in straits to expedients almost diabolically ingenious in their cruelty, yet his general conduct was marked by a clemency which in that age was exceptional. His quarrel with the papacy was an inherited conflict, not reflecting at all on his religious faith, but the inevitable consequence of inconsistent theories of government, which had been created and could be dissipated only by a long series of events. His interference in the quarrels of the republics was not only quite justifiable from the relation in which he stood to them, but seemed absolutely necessary. From the beginning, however, he treated the Italians, as indeed was only natural, less as rebellious subjects than as conquered aliens; and it must be admitted that in regard to them the only effective portion of his procedure was, not his energetic measures of repression nor his brilliant victories, but, after the battle of Legnano, his quiet and cheerful acceptance of the inevitable, and the consequent complete change in his policy, by which if he did not obtain the great object of his ambition, he at least did much to render innoxious for the Empire his previous mistakes.

In appearance Frederick was a man of well-proportioned, medium stature, with flowing yellow hair and a reddish beard. He delighted in hunting and the reading of history, was zealous in his attention to public business, and his private life was unimpeachable. Carlyle’s tribute to him is interesting: “No king so furnished out with apparatus and arena, with personal faculty to rule and scene to do it in, has appeared elsewhere. A magnificent, magnanimous man; holding the reins of the world, not quite in the imaginary sense; scourging anarchy down, and urging noble effort up, really on a grand scale. A terror to evil-doers and a praise to well-doers in this world, probably beyond what was ever seen since.”

The principal contemporary authority for the earlier part of the reign of Frederick is the Gesta Friderici imperatoris, mainly the work of Otto, bishop of Freising. This is continued from 1156 to 1160 by Rahewin, a canon of Freising, and from 1160 to 1170 by an anonymous author. The various annals and chronicles of the period, among which may be mentioned the Chronica regia Coloniensis and the Annales Magdeburgenses, are also important. Other authorities for the different periods in Frederick’s reign are Tageno of Passau, Descriptio expeditionis asiaticae Friderici I.; Burchard, Historia Friderici imperatoris magni; Godfrey of Viterbo, Carmen de gestis Friderici I., which are all found in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores (Hanover and Berlin, 1826-1892); Otto Morena of Lodi, Historia rerum Laudensium, continued by his son, Acerbus, also in the Monumenta; Ansbert, Historia de expeditione Friderici, 1187-1196, published in the Fontes rerum Austriacarum. Scriptores (Vienna, 1855 fol.). Many valuable documents are found in the Monumenta Germaniae selecta, Band iv., edited by M. Doeberl (Munich, 1889-1890).

The best modern authorities are J. Jastrow, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Hohenstaufen (Berlin, 1893); W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, Band iv. (Brunswick, 1877); H. von Bünau, Leben und Thaten Friedrichs I. (Leipzig, 1872); H. Prutz, Kaiser Friedrich I. (Dantzig, 1871-1874); C. Peters, Die Wahl Kaiser Friedrichs I. in the Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, Band xx. (Göttingen, 1862-1886); W. Gundlach, Barbarossalieder (Innsbruck, 1899). For a complete bibliography see Dahlmann-Waitz, Quellenkunde der deutschen Geschichte (Göttingen, 1894), and U. Chevalier, Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge, tome iii. (Paris, 1904).

FREDERICK II. (1194-1250), Roman emperor, king of Sicily and Jerusalem, was the son of the emperor Henry VI. and Constance, daughter of Roger I., king of Sicily, and therefore grandson of the emperor Frederick I. and a member of the Hohenstaufen family. Born at Jesi near Ancona on the 26th of December 1194, he was baptized by the name of Frederick Roger, chosen German king at Frankfort in 1196, and after his father’s death crowned king of Sicily at Palermo on the 17th of May 1198. His mother, who assumed the government, died in November 1198, leaving Pope Innocent III. as regent of Sicily and guardian of her son. The young king passed his early years amid the terrible anarchy in his island kingdom, which Innocent was powerless to check; but his education was not neglected, and his character and habits were formed by contact with men of varied nationalities and interests, while the darker traits of his nature were developed in the atmosphere of lawlessness in which he lived. In 1208 he was declared of age, and soon afterwards Innocent arranged a marriage, which was celebrated the following year, between him and Constance, daughter of Alphonso II. king of Aragon, and widow of Emerich or Imre, king of Hungary.

The dissatisfaction felt in Germany with the emperor Otto IV. came to a climax in September 1211, when a number of influential princes met at Nuremberg, declared Otto deposed, and invited Frederick to come and occupy the vacant throne. In spite of the reluctance of his wife, and the opposition of the Sicilian nobles, he accepted the invitation; and having recognized the papal supremacy over Sicily, and procured the coronation of his son Henry as its king, reached Germany after an adventurous journey in the autumn of 1212. This step was taken with the approval of the pope, who was anxious to strike a blow at Otto IV.

Frederick was welcomed in Swabia, and the renown of the Hohenstaufen name and a liberal distribution of promises made his progress easy. Having arranged a treaty against Otto with Louis, son of Philip Augustus, king of France, whom he met at Vaucouleurs, he was chosen German king a second time at Frankfort on the 5th of December 1212, and crowned four days later at Mainz. Anxious to retain the support of the pope, Frederick promulgated a bull at Eger on the 12th of July 1213, by which he renounced all lands claimed by the pope since the death of the emperor Henry VI. in 1197, gave up the right of spoils and all interference in episcopal elections, and acknowledged the right of appeal to Rome. He again affirmed the papal supremacy over Sicily, and promised to root out heresy in Germany. The victory of his French allies at Bouvines on the 27th of July 1214 greatly strengthened his position, and a large part of the Rhineland having fallen into his power, he was crowned German king at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 25th of July 1215. His cause continued to prosper, fresh supporters gathered round his standard, and in May 1218 the death of Otto freed him from his rival and left him undisputed ruler of Germany. A further attempt to allay the pope’s apprehension lest Sicily should be united with the Empire had been made early in 1216, when Frederick, in a letter to Innocent, promised after his own coronation as emperor to recognize his son Henry as king of Sicily, and to place him under the suzerainty of Rome. Henry nevertheless was brought to Germany and chosen German king at Frankfort in April 1220, though Frederick assured the new pope, Honorius III., that this step had been taken without his consent. The truth, however, seems to be that he had taken great trouble to secure this election, and for the purpose had won the support of the spiritual princes by extensive concessions. In August 1220 Frederick set out for Italy, and was crowned emperor at Rome on the 22nd of November 1220; after which he repeated the undertaking he had entered into at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1215 to go on crusade, and made lavish promises to the Church. The clergy were freed from taxation and from lay jurisdiction, the ban of the Empire was to follow the ban of the Church, and heretics were to be severely punished.

Neglecting his promise to lead a crusade, Frederick was occupied until 1225 in restoring order in Sicily. The island was seething with disorder, but by stern and sometimes cruel measures the emperor suppressed the anarchy of the barons, curbed the power of the cities, and subdued the rebellious Saracens, many of whom, transferred to the mainland and settled at Nocera, afterwards rendered him valuable military service. Meanwhile the crusade was postponed again and again; until under a threat of excommunication, after the fall of Damietta in 1221, Frederick definitely undertook by a treaty made at San Germano in 1225 to set out in August 1227 or to submit to this penalty. His own interests turned more strongly to the East, when on the 9th of November 1225, after having been a widower since 1222, he married Iolande (Yolande or Isabella), daughter of John, count of Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem. John appears to have expected that this alliance would restore him to his kingdom, but his hopes were dashed to the ground when Frederick himself assumed the title of king of Jerusalem. The emperor’s next step was an attempt to restore the imperial authority in northern Italy, and for the purpose a diet was called at Cremona. But the cities, watchful and suspicious, renewed the Lombard league and took up a hostile attitude. Frederick’s reply was to annul the treaty of Constance and place the cities under the imperial ban; but he was forced by lack of military strength to accept the mediation of Pope Honorius and the maintenance of the status quo.

After these events, which occurred early in 1227, preparations for the crusade were pressed on, and the emperor sailed from Brindisi on the 8th of September. A pestilence, however, which attacked his forces compelled him to land in Italy three days later, and on the 29th of the same month he was excommunicated by the new pope, Gregory IX. The greater part of the succeeding year was spent by pope and emperor in a violent quarrel. Alarmed at the increase in his opponent’s power, Gregory denounced him in a public letter, to which Frederick replied in a clever document addressed to the princes of Europe. The reading of this manifesto, drawing attention to the absolute power claimed by the popes, was received in Rome with such evidences of approval that Gregory was compelled to fly to Viterbo. Having lost his wife Isabella on the 8th of May 1228, Frederick again set sail for Palestine, where he met with considerable success, the result of diplomatic rather than of military skill. By a treaty made in February 1229 he secured possession of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and the surrounding neighbourhood. Entering Jerusalem, he crowned himself king of that city on the 18th of March 1229. These successes had been won in spite of the hostility of Gregory, which deprived Frederick of the assistance of many members of the military orders and of the clergy of Palestine. But although the emperor’s possessions on the Italian mainland had been attacked in his absence by the papal troops and their allies, Gregory’s efforts had failed to arouse serious opposition in Germany and Sicily; so that when Frederick returned unexpectedly to Italy in June 1229 he had no difficulty in driving back his enemies, and compelling the pope to sue for peace. The result was the treaty of San Germano, arranged in July 1230, by which the emperor, loosed from the ban, promised to respect the papal territory, and to allow freedom of election and other privileges to the Sicilian clergy. Frederick was next engaged in completing the pacification of Sicily. In 1231 a series of laws were published at Melfi which destroyed the ascendancy of the feudal nobles. Royal officials were appointed for administrative purposes, large estates were recovered for the crown, and fortresses were destroyed, while the church was placed under the royal jurisdiction and all gifts to it were prohibited. At the same time certain privileges of self-government were granted to the towns, representatives from which were summoned to sit in the diet. In short, by means of a centralized system of government, the king established an almost absolute monarchical power.

In Germany, on the other hand, an entirely different policy was pursued. The concessions granted by Frederick in 1220, together with the Privilege of Worms, dated the 1st of May 1231, made the German princes virtually independent. All jurisdiction over their lands was vested in them, no new mints or toll-centres were to be erected on their domains, and the imperial authority was restricted to a small and dwindling area. A fierce attack was also made on the rights of the cities. Compelled to restore all their lands, their jurisdiction was bounded by their city-walls; they were forbidden to receive the dependents of the princes; all trade gilds were declared abolished; and all official appointments made without the consent of the archbishop or bishop were annulled. A further attack on the Lombard cities at the diet of Ravenna in 1231 was answered by a renewal of their league, and was soon connected with unrest in Germany. About 1231 a breach took place between Frederick and his elder son Henry, who appears to have opposed the Privilege of Worms and to have favoured the towns against the princes. After refusing to travel to Italy, Henry changed his mind and submitted to his father at Aquileia in 1232; and a temporary peace was made with the Lombard cities in June 1233. But on his return to Germany Henry again raised the standard of revolt, and made a league with the Lombards in December 1234. Frederick, meanwhile, having helped Pope Gregory against the rebellious Romans and having secured the friendship of France and England, appeared in Germany early in 1235 and put down this rising without difficulty. Henry was imprisoned, but his associates were treated leniently. In August 1235 a splendid diet was held at Mainz, during which the marriage of the emperor with Isabella (1214-1241), daughter of John, king of England, was celebrated. A general peace (Landfrieden), which became the basis of all such peaces in the future, was sworn to; a new office, that of imperial justiciar, was created, and a permanent judicial record was first instituted. Otto of Brunswick, grandson of Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, was made duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg; and war was declared against the Lombards.

Frederick was now at the height of his power. His second son, Conrad, was invested with the duchy of Swabia, and the claim of Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, to some lands which had belonged to the German king Philip was bought off. The attitude of Frederick II. (the Quarrelsome), duke of Austria, had been considered by the emperor so suspicious that during a visit paid by Frederick to Italy a war against him was begun. Compelled to return by the ill-fortune which attended this campaign, the emperor took command of his troops, seized Austria, Styria and Carinthia, and declared these territories to be immediately dependent on the Empire. In January 1237 he secured the election of his son Conrad as German king at Vienna; and in September went to Italy to prosecute the war which had broken out with the Lombards in the preceding year. Pope Gregory attempted to mediate, but the cities refused to accept the insulting terms offered by Frederick. The emperor gained a great victory over their forces at Cortenuova in November 1237; but though he met with some further successes, his failure to take Brescia in October 1238, together with the changed attitude of Gregory, turned the fortune of war. The pope had become alarmed when the emperor brought about a marriage between the heiress of Sardinia, Adelasia, and his natural son Enzio, who afterwards assumed the title of king of Sardinia. But as his warnings had been disregarded, he issued a document after the emperor’s retreat from Brescia, teeming with complaints against Frederick, and followed it up by an open alliance with the Lombards, and by the excommunication of the emperor on the 20th of March 1239. A violent war of words ensued. Frederick, accused of heresy, blasphemy and other crimes, called upon all kings and princes to unite against the pope, who on his side made vigorous efforts to arouse opposition in Germany, where his emissaries, a crowd of wandering friars, were actively preaching rebellion. It was, however, impossible to find an anti-king. In Italy, Spoleto and Ancona were declared part of the imperial dominions, and Rome itself, faithful on this occasion to the pope, was threatened. A number of ecclesiastics proceeding to a council called by Gregory were captured by Enzio at the sea-fight of Meloria, and the emperor was about to undertake the siege of Rome, when the pope died (August 1241). Germany was at this time menaced by the Mongols; but Frederick contented himself with issuing directions for a campaign against them, until in 1242 he was able to pay a short visit to Germany, where he gained some support from the towns by grants of extensive privileges.

The successor of Gregory was Pope Celestine IX. But this pontiff died soon after his election; and after a delay of eighteen months, during which Frederick marched against Rome on two occasions and devastated the lands of his opponents, one of his partisans, Sinibaldo Fiesco, was chosen pope, and took the name of Innocent IV. Negotiations for peace were begun, but the relations of the Lombard cities to the Empire could not be adjusted, and when the emperor began again to ravage the papal territories Innocent fled to Lyons. Hither he summoned a general council, which met in June 1245; but although Frederick sent his justiciar, Thaddeus of Suessa, to represent him, and expressed his willingness to treat, sentence of excommunication and deposition was pronounced against him. Once more an interchange of recriminations began, charged with all the violent hyperbole characteristic of the controversial style of the age. Accused of violating treaties, breaking oaths, persecuting the church and abetting heresy, Frederick replied by an open letter rebutting these charges, and in equally unmeasured terms denounced the arrogance and want of faith of the clergy from the pope downwards. The source of all the evil was, he declared, the excessive wealth of the church, which, in retaliation for the sentence of excommunication, he threatened to confiscate. In vain the mediation of the saintly king of France, Louis IX., was invoked. Innocent surpassed his predecessors in the ferocity and unscrupulousness of his attacks on the emperor (see Innocent IV.). War soon became general in Germany and Italy. Henry Raspe, landgrave of Thuringia, was chosen German king in opposition to Frederick in May 1246, but neither he nor his successor, William II., count of Holland, was successful in driving the Hohenstaufen from Germany. In Italy, during the emperor’s absence, his cause had been upheld by Enzio and by the ferocious Eccelino da Romano. In 1246 a formidable conspiracy of the discontented Apulian barons against the emperor’s power and life, fomented by papal emissaries, was discovered and crushed with ruthless cruelty. The emperor’s power seemed more firmly established than ever, when suddenly the news reached him that Parma, a stronghold of the imperial authority in the north, had been surprised, while the garrison was off its guard, by the Guelphs. To recover the city was a matter of prime importance, and in 1247 Frederick concentrated his forces round it, building over against it a wooden town which, in anticipation of the success that astrologers had predicted, he named Vittoria. The siege, however, was protracted, and finally, in February 1248, during the absence of the emperor on a hunting expedition, was brought to an end by a sudden sortie of the men of Parma, who stormed the imperial camp. The disaster was complete. The emperor’s forces were destroyed or scattered; the treasury, with the imperial insignia, together with Frederick’s harem and some of the most trusted of his ministers, fell into the hands of the victors. Thaddeus of Suessa was hacked to pieces by the mob; the imperial crown was placed in mockery on the head of a hunch-backed beggar, who was carried back in triumph into the city.

Frederick struggled hard to retrieve his fortunes, and for a while with success. But his old confidence had left him; he had grown moody and suspicious, and his temper gave a ready handle to his enemies. Pier della Vigna, accused of treasonable designs, was disgraced; and the once all-powerful favourite and minister, blinded now and in rags, was dragged in the emperor’s train, as a warning to traitors, till in despair he dashed out his brains. Then, in May 1248, came the tidings of Enzio’s capture by the Bolognese, and of his hopeless imprisonment, the captors refusing all offers of ransom. This disaster to his favourite son broke the emperor’s spirit. He retired to southern Italy, and after a short illness died at Fiorentino on the 13th of December 1250, after having been loosed from the ban by the archbishop of Palermo. He was buried in the cathedral of that city, where his splendid tomb may still be seen. By his will he appointed his son Conrad to succeed him in Germany and Sicily, and Henry, his son by Isabella of England, to be king of Jerusalem or Arles, neither of which kingdoms, however, he obtained. Frederick left several illegitimate children: Enzio has already been referred to; Frederick, who was made the imperial vicar in Tuscany; and Manfred, his son by the beloved Bianca Lancia or Lanzia, who was legitimatized just before his father’s death, and was appointed by his will prince of Tarento and regent of Sicily.

The character of Frederick is one of extraordinary interest and versatility, and contemporary opinion is expressed in the words stupor mundi et immutator mirabilis. Licentious and luxurious in his manners, cultured and catholic in his tastes, he united in his person the most diverse qualities. His Sicilian court was a centre of intellectual activity. Michael Scott, the translator of some treatises of Aristotle and of the commentaries of Averroes, Leonard of Pisa, who introduced Arabic numerals and algebra to the West, and other scholars, Jewish and Mahommedan as well as Christian, were welcome at his court. Frederick himself had a knowledge of six languages, was acquainted with mathematics, philosophy and natural history, and took an interest in medicine and architecture. In 1224 he founded the university of Naples, and he was a liberal patron of the medical school at Salerno. He formed a menagerie of strange animals, and wrote a treatise on falconry (De arte venandi cum avibus) which is remarkable for its accurate observation of the habits of birds.1 It was at his court, too, that—as Dante points out—Italian poetry had its birth. Pier della Vigna there wrote the first sonnet, and Italian lyrics by Frederick himself are preserved to us. His wives were kept secluded in oriental fashion; a harem was maintained at Lucera, and eunuchs were a prominent feature of his household. His religious ideas have been the subject of much controversy. The theory of M. Huillard-Bréholles that he wished to unite to the functions of emperor those of a spiritual pontiff, and aspired to be the founder of a new religion, is insufficiently supported by evidence to be credible. Although at times he persecuted heretics with great cruelty, he tolerated Mahommedans and Jews, and both acts appear rather to have been the outcome of political considerations than of religious belief. His jests, which were used by his enemies as a charge against him, seem to have originated in religious indifference, or perhaps in a spirit of inquiry which anticipated the ideas of a later age. Frederick’s rule in Germany and Italy was a failure, but this fact may be accounted for by the conditions of the time and the inevitable conflict with the papacy. In Germany the enactments of 1220 and 1231 contributed to the disintegration of the Empire and the fall of the Hohenstaufen, while conflicting interests made the government of Italy a problem of exceptional difficulty. In Sicily Frederick was more successful. He quelled disorder, and under his rule the island was prosperous and contented. His ideas of government were those of an absolute monarch, and he probably wished to surround himself with some of the pomp which had encircled the older emperors of Rome. His chief claim to fame, perhaps, is as a lawgiver. The code of laws which he gave to Sicily in 1231 bears the impress of his personality, and has been described as “the fullest and most adequate body of legislation promulgated by any western ruler since Charlemagne.” Without being a great soldier, Frederick was not unskilful in warfare, but was better acquainted with the arts of diplomacy. In person he is said to have been “red, bald and short-sighted,” but with good features and a pleasing countenance. It was seriously believed in Germany for about a century after his death that Frederick was still alive, and many impostors attempted to personate him. A legend, afterwards transferred to Frederick Barbarossa, told how he sat in a cavern in the Kyffhäusser before a stone table through which his beard had grown, waiting for the time for him to awake and restore to the Empire the golden age of peace.

The contemporary documents relating to the reign of Frederick II. are very numerous. Among the most important are: Richard of San Germano, Chronica regni Siciliae; Annales Placentini, Gibellini; Albert of Stade, Annales; Matthew Paris, Historia major Angliae; Burchard, Chronicon Urspergense. All these are in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores (Hanover and Berlin, 1826-1892). The Rerum Italicarum scriptores, edited by L. A. Muratori (Milan, 1723-1751), contains Annales Mediolanenses; Nicholas of Jamsilla, Historia de rebus gestis Friderici II., and Vita Gregorii IX. pontificis. There are also the Epistolarum libri of Peter della Vigna, edited by J. R. Iselin (Basel, 1740); and Salimbene of Parma’s Chronik, published at Parma (1857). Many of the documents concerning the history of the time are found in the Historia diplomatica Friderici II., edited by M. Huillard-Bréholles (Paris, 1852-1861); Acta imperii selecta. Urkunden deutscher Könige und Kaiser, edited by J. F. Böhmer and J. Ficker (Innsbruck, 1870); Acta imperii inedita seculi XIII. Urkunden und Briefe zur Geschichte des Kaiserreichs und des Königreichs Sicilien, edited by E. Winkelmann (Innsbruck, 1880); Epistolae saeculi XIII. selecta e regestis pontificum Romanorum, edited by C. Rodenberg, tome i. (Berlin, 1883); P. Pressutti, Regesta Honorii papae III. (Rome, 1888); L. Auvray, Les Registres de Grégoire IX. (Paris, 1890).

The best modern authorities are W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, Band v. (Leipzig, 1888); J. Jastrow, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Hohenstaufen (Berlin, 1893); F. W. Schirrmacher, Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite (Göttingen, 1859-1865); “Beiträge zur Geschichte Kaiser Friedrichs II.” in the Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, Band xi. (Göttingen, 1862-1886), and Die letzten Hohenstaufen (Göttingen, 1871); E. Winkelmann, Geschichte Kaiser Friedrichs II und seiner Reiche (Berlin, 1865) and Kaiser Friedrich II. (Leipzig, 1889); G. Blondel, Étude sur la politique de l’empereur Frédéric II. en Allemagne (Paris, 1892); M. Halbe, Friedrich II. und der päpstliche Stuhl (Berlin, 1888); R. Röhricht, Die Kreuzfahrt des Kaisers Friedrich II. (Berlin, 1874); C. Köhler, Das Verhältnis Kaiser Friedrichs II. zu den Päpsten seiner Zeit (Breslau, 1888); J. Feiten, Papst Gregor IX. (Freiburg, 1886); C. Rodenberg, Innocenz IV. und das Königreich Sicilien (Halle, 1892); K. Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, Band iii. (Berlin, 1891); M. Huillard-Bréholles, Vie et correspondance de Pierre de la Vigne (Paris, 1865); A. del Vecchio, La legislazione de Federico II (Turin, 1874); and K. Hampe, Kaiser Friedrich II. (Munich, 1899).

(A. W. H.*)

1 First printed at Augsburg in 1596; a German edition was published at Berlin in 1896.

FREDERICK III. (1415-1493), Roman emperor,—as Frederick IV., German king, and as Frederick V., archduke of Austria,—son of Ernest of Habsburg, duke of Styria and Carinthia, was born at Innsbruck on the 21st of September 1415. After his father’s death in 1424 he passed his time at the court of his uncle and guardian, Frederick IV., count of Tirol. In 1435, together with his brother, Albert the Prodigal, he undertook the government of Styria and Carinthia, but the peace of these lands was disturbed by constant feuds between the brothers, which lasted until Albert’s death in 1463. In 1439 the deaths of the German king Albert II. and of Frederick of Tirol left Frederick the senior member of the Habsburg family, and guardian of Sigismund, count of Tirol. In the following year he also became guardian of Ladislaus, the posthumous son of Albert II., and heir to Bohemia, Hungary and Austria, but these responsibilities brought only trouble and humiliation in their train. On the 2nd of February 1440 Frederick was chosen German king at Frankfort, but, owing to his absence from Germany, the coronation was delayed until the 17th of June 1442, when it took place at Aix-la-Chapelle.

Disregarding the neutral attitude of the German electors towards the papal schism, and acting under the influence of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., Frederick in 1445 made a secret treaty with Pope Eugenius IV. This developed into the Concordat of Vienna, signed in 1448 with the succeeding pope, Nicholas V., by which the king, in return for a sum of money and a promise of the imperial crown, pledged the obedience of the German people to Rome, and so checked for a time the rising tide of liberty in the German church. Taking up the quarrel between the Habsburgs and the Swiss cantons, Frederick invited the Armagnacs to attack his enemies, but after meeting with a stubborn resistance at St Jacob on the 26th of August 1444, these allies proved faithless, and the king soon lost every vestige of authority in Switzerland. In 1451 Frederick, disregarding the revolts in Austria and Hungary, travelled to Rome, where, on the 16th of March 1452, his marriage with Leonora, daughter of Edward, king of Portugal, was celebrated, and three days later he was crowned emperor by pope Nicholas. On his return he found Germany seething with indignation. His capitulation to the pope was not forgotten; his refusal to attend the diets, and his apathy in the face of Turkish aggressions, constituted a serious danger; and plans for his deposition failed only because the electors could not unite upon a rival king. In 1457 Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Bohemia, and archduke of Austria, died; Frederick failed to secure either kingdom, but obtained lower Austria, from which, however, he was soon driven by his brother Albert, who occupied Vienna. On Albert’s death in 1463 the emperor united upper and lower Austria under his rule, but these possessions were constantly ravaged by George Podĕbrad, king of Bohemia, and by Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary. A visit to Rome in 1468 to discuss measures against the Turks with Pope Paul II. had no result, and in 1470 Frederick began negotiations for a marriage between his son Maximilian and Mary, daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy. The emperor met the duke at Treves in 1473, when Frederick, disliking to bestow the title of king upon Charles, left the city secretly, but brought about the marriage after the duke’s death in 1477. Again attacked by Matthias, the emperor was driven from Vienna, and soon handed over the government of his lands to Maximilian, whose election as king of the Romans he vainly opposed in 1486. Frederick then retired to Linz, where he passed his time in the study of botany, alchemy and astronomy, until his death on the 19th of August 1493.

Frederick was a listless and incapable ruler, lacking alike the qualities of the soldier and of the diplomatist, but possessing a certain cleverness in evading difficulties. With a fine presence, he had many excellent personal qualities, is spoken of as mild and just, and had a real love of learning. He had a great belief in the future greatness of his family, to which he contributed largely by arranging the marriage of Maximilian with Mary of Burgundy, and delighted to inscribe his books and other articles of value with the letters A.E.I.O.U. (Austriae est imperare orbi universo; or in German, Alles Erdreich ist Oesterreich unterthan). His personality counts for very little in German history. One chronicler says: “He was a useless emperor, and the nation during his long reign forgot that she had a king.” His tomb, a magnificent work in red and white marble, is in the cathedral of St Stephen at Vienna.

See Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, De rebus et gestis Friderici III. (trans. Th. Ilgen, Leipzig, 1889); J. Chmel, Geschichte Kaiser Friedrichs IV. und seines Sohnes Maximilians I. (Hamburg, 1840); A. Bachmann, Deutsche Reichsgeschichte im Zeitalter Friedrichs III. und Maximilians I. (Leipzig, 1884); A. Huber, Geschichte Österreichs (Gotha, 1885-1892); and E. M. Fürst von Lichnowsky, Geschichte des Hauses Habsburg (Vienna, 1836-1844).

FREDERICK III. (c. 1286-1330), surnamed “the Fair,” German king and duke of Austria, was the second son of the German king, Albert I., and consequently a member of the Habsburg family. In 1298, when his father was chosen German king, Frederick was invested with some of the family lands, and in 1306, when his elder brother Rudolph became king of Bohemia, he succeeded to the duchy of Austria. In 1307 Rudolph died, and Frederick sought to obtain the Bohemian throne; but an expedition into that country was a failure, and his father’s murder in May 1308 deprived him of considerable support. He was equally unsuccessful in his efforts to procure the German crown at this time, and the relations between the new king, Henry VII., and the Habsburgs were far from friendly. Frederick asked not only to be confirmed in the possession of Austria, but to be invested with Moravia, a demand to which Henry refused to accede; but an arrangement was subsequently made by which the duke agreed to renounce Moravia in return for a payment of 50,000 marks. Frederick then became involved in a quarrel with his cousin Louis IV., duke of Upper Bavaria (afterwards the emperor Louis IV.), over the guardianship of Henry II., duke of Lower Bavaria. Hostilities broke out, and on the 9th of November 1313 he was defeated by Louis at the battle of Gammelsdorf and compelled to renounce his claim.

Meanwhile the emperor Henry VII. had died in Italy, and a stubborn contest ensued for the vacant throne. After a long delay Frederick was chosen German king at Frankfort by a minority of the electors on the 19th of October 1314, while a majority elected Louis of Bavaria. Six days later Frederick was crowned at Bonn by the archbishop of Cologne, and war broke out at once between the rivals. During this contest, which was carried on in a desultory fashion, Frederick drew his chief strength from southern and eastern Germany, and was supported by the full power of the Habsburgs. The defeat of his brother Leopold by the Swiss at Morgarten in November 1315 was a heavy blow to him, but he prolonged the struggle for seven years. On the 28th of September 1322 a decisive battle was fought at Mühldorf; Frederick was defeated and sent as a prisoner to Trausnitz. Here he was retained until three years later a series of events induced Louis to come to terms. By the treaty of Trausnitz, signed on the 13th of March 1325, Frederick acknowledged the kingship of Louis in return for freedom, and promised to return to captivity unless he could induce his brother Leopold to make a similar acknowledgment. As Leopold refused to take this step, Frederick, although released from his oath by Pope John XXII., travelled back to Bavaria, where he was treated by Louis rather as a friend than as a prisoner. A suggestion was then made that the kings should rule jointly, but as this plan aroused some opposition it was agreed that Frederick should govern Germany while Louis went to Italy for the imperial crown. But this arrangement did not prove generally acceptable, and the death of Leopold in 1326 deprived Frederick of a powerful supporter. In these circumstances he returned to Austria broken down in mind and body, and on the 13th of January 1330 he died at Gutenstein, and was buried at Mauerbach, whence his remains were removed in 1783 to the cathedral of St Stephen at Vienna. He married Elizabeth, daughter of James I., king of Aragon, and left two daughters. His voluntary return into captivity is used by Schiller in his poem Deutsche Treue, and by J. L. Uhland in the drama Ludwig der Bayer.

The authorities for the life of Frederick are found in the Fontes rerum Germanicarum, Band i., edited by J. F. Böhmer (Stuttgart, 1843-1868), and in the Fontes rerum Austriacarum, part i. (Vienna, 1855). Modern works which may be consulted are: E. M. Fürst von Lichnowsky, Geschichte des Hauses Habsburg (Vienna, 1836-1844); Th. Lindner, Deutsche Geschichte unter den Habsburgern und Luxemburgern (Stuttgart, 1888-1893). R. Döbner, Die Auseinandersetzung zwischen Ludwig IV. dem Bayer und Friedrich dem Schönen von Österreich (Göttingen, 1875); F. Kurz, Österreich unter König Friedrich dem Schönen (Linz, 1818); F. Krones, Handbuch der Geschichte Österreichs (Berlin, 1876-1879); H. Schrohe, Der Kampf der Gegenkönige Ludwig und Friedrich (Berlin, 1902); W. Friedensburg, Ludwig IV. der Bayer und Friedrich von Österreich (Göttingen, 1877); B. Gebhardt, Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte (Berlin, 1901).

FREDERICK II. (1534-1588), king of Denmark and Norway, son of Christian III., was born at Hadersleben on the 1st of July 1534. His mother, Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg, was the elder sister of Catherine, the first wife of Gustavus Vasa and the mother of Eric XIV. The two little cousins, born the same year, were destined to be lifelong rivals. At the age of two Frederick was proclaimed successor to the throne at the Rigsdag of Copenhagen (October 30th, 1536), and homage was done to him at Oslo for Norway in 1548. The choice of his governor, the patriotic historiographer Hans Svaning, was so far fortunate that it ensured the devotion of the future king of Denmark to everything Danish; but Svaning was a poor pedagogue, and the wild and wayward lad suffered all his life from the defects of his early training. Frederick’s youthful, innocent attachment to the daughter of his former tutor, Anna Hardenberg, indisposed him towards matrimony at the beginning of his reign (1558). After the hands of Elizabeth of England, Mary of Scotland and Renata of Lorraine had successively been sought for him, the council of state grew anxious about the succession, but he finally married his cousin, Sophia of Mecklenburg, on the 20th of July 1572.

The reign of Frederick II. falls into two well-defined divisions: (1) a period of war, 1559-1570; and (2) a period of peace, 1570-1588. The period of war began with the Ditmarsh expedition, when the independent peasant-republic of the Ditmarshers of West Holstein, which had stoutly maintained its independence for centuries against the counts of Holstein and the Danish kings, was subdued by a Dano-Holstein army of 20,000 men in 1559, Frederick and his uncles John and Adolphus, dukes of Holstein, dividing the land between them. Equally triumphant was Frederick in his war with Sweden, though here the contest was much more severe, lasting as it did for seven years; whence it is generally described in northern history as the Scandinavian Seven Years’ War. The tension which had prevailed between the two kingdoms during the last years of Gustavus Vasa reached breaking point on the accession of Gustavus’s eldest son Eric XIV. There were many causes of quarrel between the two ambitious young monarchs, but the detention at Copenhagen in 1563 of a splendid matrimonial embassy on its way to Germany, to negotiate a match between Eric and Christina of Hesse, which King Frederick for political reasons was determined to prevent, precipitated hostilities. During the war, which was marked by extraordinary ferocity throughout, the Danes were generally victorious on land owing to the genius of Daniel Rantzau, but at sea the Swedes were almost uniformly triumphant. By 1570 the strife had degenerated into a barbarous devastation of border provinces; and in July of the same year both countries accepted the mediation of the Emperor, and peace was finally concluded at Stettin on Dec. 13, 1570. During the course of this Seven Years’ War Frederick II. had narrowly escaped the fate of his deposed cousin Eric XIV. The war was very unpopular in Denmark, and the closing of the Sound against foreign shipping, in order to starve out Sweden, had exasperated the maritime powers and all the Baltic states. On New Year’s Day 1570 Frederick’s difficulties seemed so overwhelming that he threatened to abdicate; but the peace of Stettin came in time to reconcile all parties, and though Frederick had now to relinquish his ambitious dream of re-establishing the Union of Kalmar, he had at least succeeded in maintaining the supremacy of Denmark in the north. After the peace Frederick’s policy became still more imperial. He aspired to the dominion of all the seas which washed the Scandinavian coasts, and before he died he succeeded in suppressing the pirates who so long had haunted the Baltic and the German Ocean. He also erected the stately fortress of Kronborg, to guard the narrow channel of the Sound. Frederick possessed the truly royal gift of discovering and employing great men, irrespective of personal preferences and even of personal injuries. With infinite tact and admirable self-denial he gave free scope to ministers whose superiority in their various departments he frankly recognized, rarely interfering personally unless absolutely called upon to do so. His influence, always great, was increased by his genial and unaffected manners as a host. He is also remarkable as one of the few kings of the house of Oldenburg who had no illicit liaison. He died at Antvorskov on the 4th of April 1588. No other Danish king was ever so beloved by his people.

See Lund (Troels), Danmarks og Norges Historie i Slutningen af det XVI. Aarh. (Copenhagen, 1879); Danmarks Riges Historie (Copenhagen, 1897-1905), vol. 3; Robert Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia, cap. 4 (Cambridge, 1905).

(R. N. B.)

FREDERICK III. (1609-1670), king of Denmark and Norway, son of Christian IV. and Anne Catherine of Brandenburg, was born on the 18th of March 1609 at Hadersleben. His position as a younger son profoundly influenced his future career. In his youth and early manhood there was no prospect of his ascending the Danish throne, and he consequently became the instrument of his father’s schemes of aggrandizement in Germany. While still a lad he became successively bishop of Bremen, bishop of Verden and coadjutor of Halberstadt, while at the age of eighteen he was the chief commandant of the fortress of Stade. Thus from an early age he had considerable experience as an administrator, while his general education was very careful and thorough. He had always a pronounced liking for literary and scientific studies. On the 1st of October 1643 Frederick wedded Sophia Amelia of Brunswick Lüneburg, whose energetic, passionate and ambitious character was profoundly to affect not only Frederick’s destiny but the destiny of Denmark. During the disastrous Swedish War of 1643-1645 Frederick was appointed generalissimo of the duchies by his father, but the laurels he won were scanty, chiefly owing to his quarrels with the Earl-Marshal Anders Bille, who commanded the Danish forces. This was Frederick’s first collision with the Danish nobility, who ever afterwards regarded him with extreme distrust. The death of his elder brother Christian in June 1647 first opened to him the prospect of succeeding to the Danish throne, but the question was still unsettled when Christian IV. died on the 28th of February 1648. Not till the 6th of July in the same year did Frederick III. receive the homage of his subjects, and only after he had signed a Haandfaestning or charter, by which the already diminished royal prerogative was still further curtailed. It had been doubtful at first whether he would be allowed to inherit his ancestral throne at all; but Frederick removed the last scruples of the Rigsraad by unhesitatingly accepting the conditions imposed upon him.

The new monarch was a reserved, enigmatical prince, who seldom laughed, spoke little and wrote less—a striking contrast to Christian IV. But if he lacked the brilliant qualities of his impulsive, jovial father, he possessed in a high degree the compensating virtues of moderation, sobriety and self-control. But with all his good qualities Frederick was not the man to take a clear view of the political horizon, or even to recognize his own and his country’s limitations. He rightly regarded the accession of Charles X. of Sweden (June 6th, 1654) as a source of danger to Denmark. He felt that temperament and policy would combine to make Charles an aggressive warrior-king: the only uncertainty was in which direction he would turn his arms first. Charles’s invasion of Poland (July 1654) came as a distinct relief to the Danes, though even the Polish War was full of latent peril to Denmark. Frederick was resolved upon a rupture with Sweden at the first convenient opportunity. The Rigsdag which assembled on the 23rd of February 1657 willingly granted considerable subsidies for mobilization and other military expenses; on the 15th of April Frederick III. desired, and on the 23rd of April he received, the assent of the majority of the Rigsraad to attack Sweden’s German provinces; in the beginning of May the still pending negotiations with that power were broken off, and on the 1st of June Frederick signed the manifesto justifying a war which was never formally declared. The Swedish king traversed all the plans of his enemies by his passage of the frozen Belts, in January and February 1658 (see Charles X. of Sweden). The effect of this unheard-of achievement on the Danish government was crushing. Frederick III. at once sued for peace; and, yielding to the persuasions of the English and French ministers, Charles finally agreed to be content with mutilating instead of annihilating the Danish monarchy (treaties of Taastrup, February 18th, and of Roskilde, February 26th, 1658). The conclusion of peace was followed by a remarkable episode. Frederick expressed the desire to make the personal acquaintance of his conqueror; and Charles X. consented to be his guest for three days (March 3-5) at the castle of Fredriksborg. Splendid banquets lasting far into the night, private and intimate conversations between the princes who had only just emerged from a mortal struggle, seemed to point to nothing but peace and friendship in the future. But Charles’s insatiable lust for conquest, and his ineradicable suspicion of Denmark, induced him, on the 17th of July, without any reasonable cause, without a declaration of war, in defiance of all international equity, to endeavour to despatch an inconvenient neighbour.

Terror was the first feeling produced at Copenhagen by the landing of the main Swedish army at Korsör in Zealand. None had anticipated the possibility of such a sudden and brutal attack, and every one knew that the Danish capital was very inadequately fortified and garrisoned. Fortunately Frederick had never been deficient in courage. “I will die in my nest” were the memorable words with which he rebuked those counsellors who advised him to seek safety in flight. On the 8th of August representatives from every class in the capital urged the necessity of a vigorous resistance; and the citizens of Copenhagen, headed by the great burgomaster Hans Nansen (q.v.), protested their unshakable loyalty to the king, and their determination to defend Copenhagen to the uttermost. The Danes had only three days’ warning of the approaching danger; and the vast and dilapidated line of defence had at first but 2000 regular defenders. But the government and the people displayed a memorable and exemplary energy, under the constant supervision of the king, the queen, and burgomaster Nansen. By the beginning of September all the breaches were repaired, the walls bristled with cannon, and 7000 men were under arms. So strong was the city by this time that Charles X., abandoning his original intention of carrying the place by assault, began a regular siege; but this also he was forced to abandon when, on the 29th of October, an auxiliary Dutch fleet, after reinforcing and reprovisioning the garrison, defeated, in conjunction with the Danish fleet, the Swedish navy of 44 liners in the Sound. Thus the Danish capital had saved the Danish monarchy. But it was Frederick III. who profited most by his spirited defence of the common interests of the country and the dynasty. The traditional loyalty of the Danish middle classes was transformed into a boundless enthusiasm for the king personally, and for a brief period Frederick found himself the most popular man in his kingdom. He made use of his popularity by realizing the dream of a lifetime and converting an elective into an absolute monarchy by the Revolution of 1660 (see Denmark: History). Frederick III. died on the 6th of February 1670 at the castle of Copenhagen.

See R. Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia, caps. ix. and x. (Cambridge, 1905).

(R. N. B.)

FREDERICK VIII. (1843- ), king of Denmark, eldest son of King Christian IX., was born at Copenhagen on the 3rd of June 1843. As crown prince of Denmark he took part in the war of 1864 against Austria and Prussia, and subsequently assisted his father in the duties of government, becoming king on Christian’s death in January 1906. In 1869 Frederick married Louise (b. 1851), daughter of Charles XV., king of Sweden, by whom he had a family of four sons and four daughters. His eldest son Christian, crown prince of Denmark (b. 1870), was married in 1898 to Alexandrina (b. 1879), daughter of Frederick Francis III., grand-duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; and his second son, Charles (b. 1872), who married his cousin Maud, daughter of Edward VII. of Great Britain, became king of Norway as Haakon VII. in 1905.

FREDERICK I. (1657-1713), king of Prussia, and (as Frederick III.) elector of Brandenburg, was the second son of the great elector, Frederick William, by his first marriage with Louise Henriette, daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange. Born at Königsberg on the 11th of July 1657, he was educated and greatly influenced by Eberhard Danckelmann, and became heir to the throne of Brandenburg through the death of his elder brother, Charles Emil, in 1674. He appears to have taken some part in public business before the death of his father; and the court at Berlin was soon disturbed by quarrels between the young prince and his stepmother, Dorothea of Holstein-Glücksburg. In 1686 Dorothea persuaded her husband to bequeath outlying portions of his lands to her four sons; and Frederick, fearing he would be poisoned, left Brandenburg determined to prevent any diminution of his inheritance. By promising to restore Schwiebus to Silesia after his accession he won the support of the emperor Leopold I.; but eventually he gained his end in a peaceable fashion. Having become elector of Brandenburg in May 1688, he came to terms with his half-brothers and their mother. In return for a sum of money these princes renounced their rights under their father’s will, and the new elector thus secured the whole of Frederick William’s territories. After much delay and grumbling he fulfilled his bargain with Leopold and gave up Schwiebus in 1695. At home and abroad Frederick continued the policy of the great elector. He helped William of Orange to make his descent on England; added various places, including the principality of Neuchâtel, to his lands; and exercised some influence on the course of European politics by placing his large and efficient army at the disposal of the emperor and his allies (see Brandenburg). He was present in person at the siege of Bonn in 1689, but was not often in command of his troops. The elector was very fond of pomp, and, striving to model his court upon that of Louis XIV., he directed his main energies towards obtaining for himself the title of king. In spite of the assistance he had given to the emperor his efforts met with no success for some years; but towards 1700 Leopold, faced with the prospect of a new struggle with France, was inclined to view the idea more favourably. Having insisted upon various conditions, prominent among them being military aid for the approaching war, he gave the imperial sanction to Frederick’s request in November 1700; whereupon the elector, hurrying at once to Königsberg, crowned himself with great ceremony king of Prussia on the 18th of January 1701. According to his promise the king sent help to the emperor; and during the War of the Spanish Succession the troops of Brandenburg-Prussia rendered great assistance to the allies, fighting with distinction at Blenheim and elsewhere. Frederick, who was deformed through an injury to his spine, died on the 25th of February 1713. By his extravagance the king exhausted the treasure amassed by his father, burdened his country with heavy taxes, and reduced its finances to chaos. His constant obligations to the emperor drained Brandenburg of money which might have been employed more profitably at home, and prevented her sovereign from interfering in the politics of northern Europe. Frederick, however, was not an unpopular ruler, and by making Prussia into a kingdom he undoubtedly advanced it several stages towards its future greatness. He founded the university of Halle, and the Academy of Sciences at Berlin; welcomed and protected Protestant refugees from France and elsewhere; and lavished money on the erection of public buildings.

The king was married three times. His second wife, Sophie Charlotte (1668-1705), sister of the English king George I., was the friend of Leibnitz and one of the most cultured princesses of the age; she bore him his only son, his successor, King Frederick William I.

See W. Hahn, Friedrich I., König in Preussen (Berlin, 1876); J. G. Droysen, Geschichte der preussischen Politik, Band iv. (Leipzig, 1872); E. Heyck, Friedrich I. und die Begründung des preussischen Königtums (Bielefeld, 1901): C. Graf von Dohna, Mémoires originaux sur le règne et la cour de Frédéric Ier (Berlin, 1883); Aus dem Briefwechsel König Friedrichs I. von Preussen und seiner Familie (Berlin, 1901); and T. Carlyle, History of Frederick the Great, vol. i. (London, 1872).

FREDERICK II., known as “the Great” (1712-1786), king of Prussia, born on the 24th of January 1712, was the eldest son of Frederick William I. He was brought up with extreme rigour, his father devising a scheme of education which was intended to make him a hardy soldier, and prescribing for him every detail of his conduct. So great was Frederick William’s horror of everything which did not seem to him practical, that he strictly excluded Latin from the list of his son’s studies. Frederick, however, had free and generous impulses which could not be restrained by the sternest system. Encouraged by his mother, and under the influence of his governess Madame de Roucoulle, and of his first tutor Duhan, a French refugee, he acquired an excellent knowledge of French and a taste for literature and music. He even received secret lessons in Latin, which his father invested with all the charms of forbidden fruit. As he grew up he became extremely dissatisfied with the dull and monotonous life he was compelled to lead; and his discontent was heartily shared by his sister, Wilhelmina, a bright and intelligent young princess for whom Frederick had a warm affection.

Frederick William, seeing his son apparently absorbed in frivolous and effeminate amusements, gradually conceived for him an intense dislike, which had its share in causing him to break off the negotiations for a double marriage between the prince of Wales and Wilhelmina, and the princess Amelia, daughter of George II., and Frederick; for Frederick had been so indiscreet as to carry on a separate correspondence with the English court and to vow that he would marry Amelia or no one. Frederick William’s hatred of his son, openly avowed, displayed itself in violent outbursts and public insults, and so harsh was his treatment that Frederick frequently thought of running away and taking refuge at the English court. He at last resolved to do so during a journey which he made with the king to south Germany in 1730, when he was eighteen years of age. He was helped by his two friends, Lieutenant Katte and Lieutenant Keith; but by the imprudence of the former the secret was found out. Frederick was placed under arrest, deprived of his rank as crown prince, tried by court-martial, and imprisoned in the fortress of Cüstrin. Warned by Frederick, Keith escaped; but Katte delayed his flight too long, and a court-martial decided that he should be punished with two years’ fortress arrest. But the king was determined by a terrible example to wake Frederick once for all to a consciousness of the heavy responsibility of his position. He changed the sentence on Katte to one of death and ordered the execution to take place in Frederick’s presence, himself arranging its every detail; Frederick’s own fate would depend upon the effect of this terrible object-lesson and the response he should make to the exhortations of the chaplain sent to reason with him. On the morning of the 7th of November Katte was beheaded before Frederick’s window, after the crown prince had asked his pardon and received the answer that there was nothing to forgive. On Frederick himself lay the terror of death, and the chaplain was able to send to the king a favourable report of his orthodoxy and his changed disposition. Frederick William, whose temper was by no means so ruthlessly Spartan as tradition has painted it,was overjoyed, and commissioned the clergyman to receive from the prince an oath of filial obedience, and in exchange for this proof of “his intention to improve in real earnest” his arrest was to be lightened, pending the earning of a full pardon. “The whole town shall be his prison,” wrote the king; “I will give him employment, from morning to night, in the departments of war, and agriculture, and of the government. He shall work at financial matters, receive accounts, read minutes and make extracts.... But if he kicks or rears again, he shall forfeit the succession to the crown, and even, according to circumstances, life itself.”

For about fifteen months Frederick lived in Custrin, busy according to the royal programme with the details of the Prussian administrative system. He was very careful not to “kick or rear,” and his good conduct earned him a further stage in the restoration to favour. During this period of probation he had been deprived of his status as a soldier and refused the right to wear uniform, while officers and soldiers were forbidden to give him the military salute; in 1732 he was made colonel in command of the regiment at Neuruppin. In the following year he married, in obedience to the king’s orders, the princess Elizabeth Christina, daughter of the duke of Brunswick-Bevern. He was given the estate of Rheinsberg in the neighbourhood of Neuruppin, and there he lived until he succeeded to the throne. These years were perhaps the happiest of his life. He discharged his duties with so much spirit and so conscientiously that he ultimately gained the esteem of Frederick William, who no longer feared that he would leave the crown to one unworthy of wearing it. At the same time the crown prince was able to indulge to the full his personal tastes. He carried on a lively correspondence with Voltaire and other French men of letters, and was a diligent student of philosophy, history and poetry. Two of his best-known works were written at this time—Considérations sur l’état present du corps politique de l’Europe and his Anti-Macchiavel. In the former he calls attention to the growing strength of Austria and France, and insists on the necessity of some third power, by which he clearly means Prussia, counterbalancing their excessive influence. The second treatise, which was issued by Voltaire in Hague in 1740, contains a generous exposition of some of the favourite ideas of the 18th-century philosophers respecting the duties of sovereigns, which may be summed up in the famous sentence: “the prince is not the absolute master, but only the first servant of his people.”