Louisa Ulrika of Prussia
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| Louisa Ulrika of Prussia | ||
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| Queen of Sweden | ||
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| Louisa Ulrika, Queen of Sweden painting by Antoine Pesne, c. 1744 | ||
| Reign | 1751 - 1771 | |
| Titles | HM Queen Dowager Louisa Ulrika of Sweden HM The Queen of Sweden HRH Princess Friedrich von Holstein-Gottorp HRH Princess Louisa Ulrika of Prussia |
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| Born | 1720 | |
| Died | 1782 | |
| Consort to | Adolf Friedrich von Holstein-Gottorp | |
| Issue | Stillborn Gustav III of Sweden Charles XIII of Sweden Fredrik Adolf Sophia Albertine |
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| Royal House | House of Holstein-Gottorp House of Hohenzollern |
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| Father | Frederick William I of Prussia | |
| Mother | Sophia Dorothea of Hanover | |
Louisa Ulrika of Prussia (Swedish: Lovisa Ulrika; German: Luise Ulrike) (1720—1782) was Queen consort of Sweden between 1751 and 1771. She was the daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and his wife Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, and was thus a younger sister of both Wilhelmine of Bayreuth and Frederick the Great.
Ulrika married in 1744 to Adolf Friedrich von Holstein-Gottorp, who was elected crown prince of Sweden in 1743 and after his succession to the throne in 1751 reigned as King Adolf Frederick of Sweden.
Lovisa Ulrika was received with great enthusiasm in Sweden as a hope of solving the country's succession problems, and gained popularity with her beauty and by the birth of her children; no children had been born in the Swedish royal house in over fifty years by the birth of her first child.
When she became queen, Lovisa Ulrika revitalized the royal court, which had been neglected during the reign of King Frederick I, and founded a theater at Drottningholm Palace.
Queen Lovisa Ulrika strongly dominated her husband and the court, and she would also had been the real ruler during her husband's reign if the swedish monarchy had not been stripped from its power in 1718 and 1720; at this point, the king was a mere decoration and Sweden was a monarchy only in name. This greatly displeased the queen, herself born in an absolute monarchy, and she gathered followers to plan a coup d'état to overthrow the government and reinstall absolute monarchy in Sweden. The coup was to take place in 1756, but the plan was discovered; the queen was reprimanded by the government and her followers executed.
Nevertheless, she remained a dominant figure, with numerous quarrels with the government over the years. In 1763, the government asked her to write to her brother the King of Prussia in a matter of the Seven Years War. In Sweden, she is mainly remembered for the founding of the Witterhetsakademin, an academy who counted Carl von Linné among its members.
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In 1772, her son the new king succeeded with the same thing she failed with in 1756 by owerthrowing the democracy and reinstalling absolute monarchy, which was a great satisfaction to her. However, she could never settle with the position of dowager queen and her last years was spent in bitterness. She broke with her son in 1778 after having accused him of having another man father his child, and was forced to make a formal statement during which she withdrew her accusation, a repetition of the humiliation of 1756.
They had the following children:
- (Stillborn) (1745)
- Gustav III of Sweden (1746-1792)
- Charles XIII of Sweden (1748-1818)
- Frederick Adolf (1750-1803)
- Sophia Albertine (1753-1829)
Louisa Ulrika was also a maternal grandchild of the King George I of Great Britain.
[edit] Titles
- Her Royal Highness Princess Louisa Ulrika of Prussia
- Her Royal Highness Princess Friedrich von Holstein-Gottorp
- Her Majesty The Queen of Sweden
- Her Majesty Queen Dowager Louisa Ulrika of Sweden
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