The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-27 00:00:00

Death of the King of Wurtemberg.

The eldest of European sovereigns, the King of
Wurtemberg, died on Saturday morning at Rosen-
tien Castle. He had for some time been in failing
health, and it was well known that his death might
be expected at any moment. He has died at last
calmly and without pain in his 84th year—" Non
erepta vita sed donata mors." The King of Wur•
temberg, who was nearly allied to our own royal
family,and was a knight of the most Noble Order of
the Garter, was one of the most venerated monarchs
in Europe—a liberal, honest King, who loyally kept
his word to his subjects—a simple unassuming man,
whose happiness was the wellbeing of his people.
On one of the public buildings in Stuttgardt may
be seen an inscription in his honour, "Happy the
land where love is the subject and love is the lord.'
This was in truth the condition of the land over
which for nearly 50 years King William I. ruled.

Frederick Charles, King of Wurtemberg, under
the designation of William 1., was born on the
27th of September, 1781, at Lubin, in Silesia. His
father was Frederick 1., and his mother was
Augusta Caroline Frederica Louisa of Brunswick-
Wolfenbrettel—a favourite of Catherine 11. of Rus-
sia, who eventually banished her to Siberia, passing
her off as dead. On her actual death Frederick 1.,
then prince royal of Wurtemberg, came to England,
and was betrothed to Charlotte Augusta Matilda,
Princess Royal of England, eldest daughter of
George 111. He was described by contemporary
gossips as "shorter in stature and more corpulent
then the Prince of Wales, but, though fat, active,
well-proportioned, and of an expressive counte-
nance. His father had thought fit to become a
Romaa Catholic in hopes of being made an Elector,
but he " was a Protestant, and when anyone saw
him he would affirm that the hereditary prince
would never change his religion, having such a
princely, firm, open, and unaspiring countenance."
On May 3, 1797, the King sent a message to both
houses, announcing the coming union, and speak-
ing of the bridegroom as" considerable in rank and
station, and descended from the Electreas Sophia of
Hanover.' The marriage, which was welcomed
with great joy in this country, chiefly arising front
the fact of the descent of this "Protestant Prince"
from the " Electress Sophia," was solemnised in the
Chapel Royal, St. James's, May 18, 1797. By it
the King became brother•in-law of our Queen's
father. It may be added that the first cousin of
King William I. was the Duchess Dowager of Saxe-
Coburg, mother...in-law of the late Prince Consort.
From Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick, and
Sophie, daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia,
came George I, and his sister, the wife of Frederic
1., King of Prussia, whose son married George the
First's daughter. The granddaughter of Frederic 1.,
Sophia Dorothea, married Frederic William, Mar-
grave of Brandenberg-Schwedt, and their son
married the late King of Wurtemberg's mother.
Such is the genealogical connection of the King of
Wurtemberg with the House of Hanover. How
he was also connected with the House of Orleans
will appear subsequently.
Frederic I. was a curious personage. Both the
beginning and the end of his reign were enlivened
by differences between him and his States, which
complained of the infringement of their privileges.
In 1803, in consequence of the Peace of Luneville,
he was made Elector, and on the Peace of Presburg
he was made King (he was proclaimed January 1,
1806), and placed the crown over the entrance of
his palace at Stuttgardt. Conditions, however, were
exacted of him. He was to furnish contingents to
Napoleon, and to give his daughter, Princess Fre-
derica Catherine Sophia Dorothea, in marriage to
Jerome Bonaparte, who in the following year was
created King of Westphalia. During the Revolu-
tion, when the Republican army advanced on the
Danube, he was obliged to fly and abandon his
capital to foreign troops. One of the most zealous
sovereigns of the Rhenish Confederacy, he rigorously
executed Bonaparte's conscription law in his States.
He built Frederic's Haven, a small port on the Lake
of Constance, to facilitate the commerce of Wur-
temberg with other countries. Frederie's sister was
married to Paul I. of Russia. What the old King's
opinion of Napoleon was may best be gathered from
the fact of his passing over in his will his daughter,
Jerome Bonaparte's wife. Jerome and she declined
to live at Stuttgardt after the King's death in
1816.

The late King William led a wandering life in
his youth, owing partly to the troublous nature of
the times, partly to the troublesome temperament
of his singular father, He lived in Silesia, in Rus-
sia, in Switzerland, and in the Rhenish provinces.
On the invasion of Wurtemberg by French armies
in 1796 and 1799 he was an involuntary exile; and
from 1803 to 1806 he exiled himself in conseauence
of his disapproval of his father's despotic conduct,
taking up his residence in Paris, where he com-
pleted his education. On his return he lived a very
retired life, and warmly condemned his father's
pliancy in yielding to the demands of Napoleon
Bonaparte. The conqueror, however, forced him
eventually to marry, in 1808, the Princess Caroline
Augusta of Bavaria ; but the union was dissolved
by mutual consent in 1814.
The young prince had entered the army early,
and in 1812 he commanded the Wurtemberg con-
tingent of la grande armee, Subsequently he had
the command of the 7th corps of the allied army,
and distinguished himself at Rothiere and Mont-
mirail. At time of his death he was proprietaire of
the 6th Regiment of Austrian Hussars, and chef of
the 25th Regiment of Prussian infantry.
The late King succeeded his father, who died of
liver complaint, on the 30th of October, 1816.
Old King Frederic, a tyrannical and illiberal man,
was in the middle of a violent squabble with the
States, which had protested, much to the King's
disgust, against the levying of taxes by the
Crown without their authority. The King set
himself vigorously to reduce the expenditure, espe-
cially curtailing the expenses of those corps of the
army (Royal and Hulan Body Guards) which were
used chiefly on occasions of regal state. He also
liberated the State prisoners in the Castle of Asperg,
O❑ the 16th of March, 1817, he told the States
that he would not permit members of his privy
council to be present at his discussions With the
States who came to prefer complaints against them.
He found himself, however, unable to control the
States, and on the 4th of June dissolved them,
issuing a proclamation the next day expressive of
the pain felt by his " paternal heart" at these dis-
sensions, his royal dignity not allowing him to make
further sacrifices. He still leaned, nevertheless, to
popular principles, and took part with the citizens
against the privileged orders. The mediatised
princes opposed the reconvocation of the States, but
he surmounted all difficulties at last, and in 1819
the constitution (providing for two chambers,
equality of religion, &c.) was established.
In 1840 the King abolished the censorship of
the press; but in 1848, under the pressure of the
year of revolutions, tried to bring it back again.
This year he also, among other less fortunate and
popular sovereigns, came into collision with his
subjects. In March an assembly of tradesmen

PRICF
STAMPED ... .sd.

demanded a German Parliament, trial by jury, the
liberty of the press, &c. The King, lour days
afterwards, engeged to abolish feudal rights and
to establish the civic guards. He submitted with
some regret to the constitution voted at Frankfort
in 1819.

The King (NI irch 15) denounced the " vis;on of
unity" as the most " dangerous enemy of Germany."
Prussia, in wrath, recalled her ambassador from
Stuttgardt. The King of IV urtemberg, nothing
daunted, ridiculed the ‘. German unitarian spirit"
as "a chimera, the most dangerous of all chimeras,
for Germany and Europe." All the means used for
this end only produced division and dissolution.
He protested in favour of fostering the indepen-
dence, strength, harmony, and civilisation of all
States. Such was the King of Wurtemburg—a
king of smaller territory than many of his more
important neighbours, but of less ambition, of less
notoriety, bat less evil repute; of less ambition
abroad, less arrogance at home, and consequently
of greater popularity at home and greater respect
abroad. It is true that lately he suffered himself
to be dregged into the muddy vortex of German
folly and recknessness in the Sehleswig-Holstein
question ; but, though taking the German view, he
is not believed to have desired to carry it out as
Prussia has done, by the utter violation of the
rights of a gallant nation, as well as tha laws of
war. Happily, perhaps, for him, he has gone down
to an honoured grave beloved and respected, before
in his extreme old age, he could see Germany dis-
graced and humiliated before the world as 'a righteous
penalty of an act of high.handed and cowardly
aggression.

We have spoken of the late King's first disastrous
marriage, He married, secondly, Jan. 24, 1816,
Catherine Paulowna, dau;hter of the late Emperor
Paul of Russia, widow of Prince Peter of Holstein-
Oldenburg ; and by her (who died Jan. 9, 1819) he
had issue two daughters, Maria Frederica Charlotte,
born Oct. 30, 1816, and married March 19, 1840, to
Alfred, Count of Neipperg ; and Sophia Frederica
Matilda, born Juno 17, 1818, married June 18, 1839,
to the present King of Holland. By the King's
third marriage, of April 15, 1820, with Pauline
Theresa Louisa, daughter of Louis Frederic Alex-
ander, Duke of Wurtemberg, his uncle, he had two
daughters and one son. One of the daughters, the
elder, Catherine Frederica Charlotte, born Aug. 24,
1821, married Nov. 20, 1845, Frederic Prince of
Wurtemberg, her cousin, and the other, Augusta
Wilhelmina Henrietta, born Oct. 4, 1826, married
June 17,1851, Hermann Bernard George Prince of
Saxe-Weimar, colonel commandant of the 2d Regi-
ment of Wurtemberg Cavalry. His only son, Prince
Charles Frederic Alexander, now King of Wurtem-
berg, was born March 6,1823, and is a lieutenant-
general in the army and colonel of the Nijni-Nov.
gorod Regiment of Russian Dragoons. His
Majesty married July 13 (Ist), 1846, the Grand.
Duchess Olga Nicolaewna, daughter of the late
Emperor Nicholas I. of Russia.