Frederick IV, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Duke Frederick IV of Holstein-Gottorp (18 October 1671 – 19 July 1702) was Duke of Schleswig.

He was born in Gottorp as the elder son of Duke Christian Albrecht of Holstein-Gottorp and Princess Frederika Amalia of Denmark. He was married on 12 May 1698 with Princess Hedwig Sophia of Sweden and had in this marriage only a son, Karl Friedrich.

He took part in the Great Northern War and was killed in Battle of Kliszów in Poland. His only child, Charles Frederick would eventually father the future Tsar Peter III of Russia.

According to Robert Massie's Peter the Great: His Life and World, Duke Frederick quickly befriended his brother-in-law, King Charles XII of Sweden upon arriving in Stockholm to marry his cousin Princess Hedwig Sophia. He made such an impression on Swedish society that he was nicknamed "the Gottorp Fury." Duke Frederick and King Charles regularly participated in wild festivities, drinking binges, and outlandish pranks. Generally, Duke Frederick's influence was the blame for the King's "reckless" lifestyle. There were even rumors at the time that the Duke sought to kill the King and usurp the throne. As it happened, according to Massie in the aforementioned book, the 18-year-old King Charles, in the summer of 1699, pushed himself to an unbearable point of excess and vowed never to touch another drop of liquor again. Apparently, writes Massie, the King stuck to beer thereafter, and even just drank beer when he was either wounded or post-battle. As for his relationship with his cousin Frederick, they remained on good terms, so much that King Charles gave him military assistance to defend Holstein-Gottorp from Danish invasion.