Frederick I of Sweden

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

Reign

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

Related Topics:
Charles XII of Sweden - 1718 - Treaty of Nystad - Estonia - Livonia - Russia - Absentee landowner - Stockholm

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