Frederick I of Württemberg position held King of Württemberg
Frederick I (German: Friedrich Wilhelm Karl; 6 November 1754 – 30 October 1816) was the ruler of Württemberg from 1797 to his death. He was the last Duke of Württemberg from 1797 to 1803, then the first and only Elector of Württemberg from 1803 to 1806, before raising Württemberg to a kingdom in 1806 with the approval of Napoleon I. He was known for his size, at 2.12 m (6 ft 11 in) and about 200 kg (440 lb).King
In exchange for providing France with a large auxiliary force, Napoleon allowed Frederick to raise Württemberg to a kingdom on 26 December 1805. Friedrick was formally crowned king at Stuttgart on 1 January 1806, and took the regnal name of King Frederick I. Soon after, Württemberg seceded from the Holy Roman Empire and joined Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine. Once again, the assumption of a new title also meant territorial expansion, as the territories of various nearby princes were mediatized and annexed by Württemberg. As a symbol of his alliance with Napoleon, Frederick's daughter, Princess Catharina, was married to Napoleon's youngest brother, Jérôme Bonaparte.
The newly elevated king's alliance with France technically made him the enemy of his father-in-law, George III. However, the king's dynastic connections would enable him to act as a go-between with Britain and various continental powers. In 1810, Frederick banished the composer Carl Maria von Weber from Württemberg on the pretext that Weber had mismanaged the funds of Frederick's brother, Louis, for whom Weber had served as secretary since 1807.
During the German campaign of 1813, Frederick changed sides and went over to the Allies, where his status as the brother-in-law of the British Prince Regent (later George IV) and uncle to the Russian emperor Alexander I helped his standing. After the fall of Napoleon, he attended the Congress of Vienna and was confirmed as King. At Vienna, Frederick and his ministers were very concerned to make sure that Württemberg would be able to retain all the territories it had gained in the past fifteen years. Frederick's harsh treatment of the mediatized princes within his domain made him one of the principal targets of the organization of dispossessed princes, which hoped to gain the support of the Powers in regaining their lost sovereignty. In the end, however, Austria, which was seen as the natural ally of the princes, was more interested in alliance with the medium-sized German states like Württemberg than in asserting its traditional role as protector of the smaller sovereigns of the old Empire; and Frederick was allowed to retain his dubiously acquired lands. Frederick, along with the other German princes, joined the new German Confederation in 1815. He died in Stuttgart in October of the next year.
When he became king, he granted his children and further male-line descendants the titles Princes and Princesses of Württemberg with the style Royal Highness, and he styled his siblings as Royal Highnesses with the titles Dukes and Duchesses of Württemberg.
He was very tall and obese: behind his back he was known as "The Great Belly-Gerent". Napoleon remarked that God had created the Prince to demonstrate the utmost extent to which the human skin could be stretched without bursting. In return, Frederick wondered how so much poison could fit in such a small head as Napoleon's.
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