FREDERICK II. (1411-1464), called “the Mild,” elector and duke of Saxony, eldest son of the elector Frederick I., was born on the 22nd of August 1411. He succeeded his father as elector in 1428, but shared the family lands with his three brothers, and was at once engaged in defending Saxony against the attacks of the Hussites. Freed from these enemies about 1432, and turning his attention to increasing his possessions, he obtained the burgraviate of Meissen in 1439, and some part of Lower Lusatia after a struggle with Brandenburg about the same time. In 1438 it was decided that Frederick, and not his rival, Bernard IV., duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, was entitled to exercise the Saxon electoral vote at the elections for the German throne; and the elector then aided Albert II. to secure this dignity, performing a similar service for his own brother-in-law, Frederick, afterwards the emperor Frederick III., two years later. Family affairs, meanwhile, occupied Frederick’s attention. One brother, Henry, having died in 1435, and another, Sigismund (d. 1463), having entered the church and become bishop of Würzburg, Frederick and his brother William (d. 1482) were the heirs of their childless cousin, Frederick “the Peaceful,” who ruled Thuringia and other parts of the lands of the Wettins. On his death in 1440 the brothers divided Frederick’s territory, but this arrangement was not satisfactory, and war broke out between them in 1446. Both combatants obtained extraneous aid, but after a desolating struggle peace was made in January 1451, when William received Thuringia, and Frederick Altenburg and other districts. The remainder of the elector’s reign was uneventful, and he died at Leipzig on the 7th of September 1464. By his wife, Margaret (d. 1486), daughter of Ernest, duke of Styria, he left two sons and four daughters. In July 1455 occurred the celebrated Prinzenraub, the attempt of a knight named Kunz von Kaufungen (d. 1455) to abduct Frederick’s two sons, Ernest and Albert. Having carried them off from Altenburg, Kunz was making his way to Bohemia when the plot was accidentally discovered and the princes restored.
See W. Schäfer, Der Montag vor Kiliani (1855); J. Gersdorf, Einige Aktenstücke zur Geschichte des sächsischen Prinzenraubes (1855); and T. Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, vol. iv. (London, 1899).
FREDERICK III. (1463-1525), called “the Wise,” elector of Saxony, eldest son of Ernest, elector of Saxony, and Elizabeth, daughter of Albert, duke of Bavaria-Munich (d. 1508), was born at Torgau, and succeeded his father as elector in 1486. Retaining the government of Saxony in his own hands, he shared the other possessions of his family with his brother John, called “the Stedfast” (1468-1532). Frederick was among the princes who pressed the need of reform upon the German king Maximilian I. in 1495, and in 1500 he became president of the newly-formed council of regency (Reichsregiment). He took a genuine interest in learning; was a friend of Georg Spalatin; and in 1502 founded the university of Wittenberg, where he appointed Luther and Melanchthon to professorships. In 1493 he had gone as a pilgrim to Jerusalem, and had been made a knight of the Holy Sepulchre; but, although he remained throughout life an adherent of the older faith, he seems to have been drawn into sympathy with the reformers, probably through his connexion with the university of Wittenberg. In 1520 he refused to put into execution the papal bull which ordered Luther’s writings to be burned and the reformer to be put under restraint or sent to Rome; and in 1521, after Luther had been placed under the imperial ban by the diet at Worms, the elector caused him to be conveyed to his castle at the Wartburg, and afterwards protected him while he attacked the enemies of the Reformation. In 1519, Frederick, who alone among the electors refused to be bribed by the rival candidates for the imperial throne, declined to be a candidate for this high dignity himself, and assisted to secure the election of Charles V. He died unmarried at Langau, near Annaberg, on the 5th of May 1525.
See G. Spalatin, Das Leben und die Zeitgeschichte Friedrichs des Weisen, edited by C. G. Neudecker and L. Preller (Jena, 1851); M. M. Tutzschmann, Friedrich der Weise, Kurfürst von Sachsen (Grimma, 1848); and T. Kolde, Friedrich der Weise und die Anfänge der Reformation (Erlangen, 1881).
FREDERICK, a city and the county-seat of Frederick county, Maryland, U.S.A., on Carroll’s Creek, a tributary of the Monocacy, 61 m. by rail W. by N. from Baltimore and 45 m. N.W. from Washington. Pop. (1890) 8193; (1900) 9296, of whom 1535 were negroes; (1910 census) 10,411. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio and the Northern Central railways, and by two interurban electric lines. Immediately surrounding it is the rich farming land of the Monocacy valley, but from a distance it appears to be completely shut in by picturesque hills and mountains; to the E., the Linga ore Hills; to the W., Catoctin Mountain; and to the S., Sugar Loaf Mountain. It is built for the most part of brick and stone. Frederick is the seat of the Maryland school for the deaf and dumb and of the Woman’s College of Frederick (1893; formerly the Frederick Female Seminary, opened in 1843), which in 1907-1908 had 212 students, 121 of whom were in the Conservatory of Music. Francis Scott Key and Roger Brooke Taney were buried here, and a beautiful monument erected to the memory of Key stands at the entrance to Mount Olivet cemetery. Frederick has a considerable agricultural trade and is an important manufacturing centre, its industries including the canning of fruits and vegetables, and the manufacture of flour, bricks, brushes, leather goods and hosiery. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $1,937,921, being 34.7% more than in 1900. The municipality owns and operates its water-works and electric-lighting plant. Frederick, so named in honour of Frederick Calvert, son and afterward successor of Charles, Lord Baltimore, was settled by Germans in 1733, and was laid out as a town in 1745, but was not incorporated until 1817. Here in 1755 General Braddock prepared for his disastrous expedition against the French at Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg). During the Civil War the city was occupied on different occasions by Unionists and Confederates, and was made famous by Whittier’s poem “Barbara Frietchie.”
FREDERICK AUGUSTUS I. (1750-1827), king of Saxony, son of the elector Frederick Christian, was born at Dresden on the 23rd of December 1750. He succeeded his father under the guardianship of Prince Xavier in 1763, and was declared of age in 1768. In the following year (January 17, 1769) he married Princess Maria Amelia, daughter of Duke Frederick of Zweibrücken, by whom he had only one child, Princess Augusta (born June 21, 1782). One of his chief aims was the reduction of taxes and imposts and of the army. He was always extremely methodical and conscientious, and a good example to all his officials, whence his surname “the Just.” On account of the claims of his mother on the inheritance of her brother, the elector of Bavaria, he sided with Frederick the Great in the short Bavarian succession war of 1778 against Austria. At the peace of Teschen, which concluded the war, he received 6 million florins, which he employed partly in regaining those parts of his kingdom which had been lost, and partly in favour of his relatives. In 1785 he joined the league of German princes (Deutscher Fürstenbund) formed by Prussia, but without prejudice to his neutrality. Thus he remained neutral during the quarrel between Austria and Prussia in 1790. In the following year he declined the crown of Poland. He refused to join the league against France (February 7, 1792), but when war was declared his duty to the Empire necessitated his taking part in it. Even after the peace of Basel (April 5, 1795) he continued the war. But when the French army, during the following year, advanced into the heart of Germany, he was compelled by General Jourdan to retreat (August 13, 1796). He maintained his neutrality during the war between France and Austria in 1805, but in the following year he joined Prussia against France. After the disastrous battle of Jena he concluded a treaty of peace with Napoleon at Posen (December 11, 1806), and, assuming the title of king, he joined the Confederation of the Rhine. But he did not alter the constitution and administration of his new kingdom. After the peace of Tilsit (July 9, 1807) he was created by Napoleon grand-duke of Warsaw, but his sovereignty of Poland was little more than nominal. There was a kind of friendship between Frederick Augustus and Napoleon. In 1809 Frederick Augustus fought with him against Austria. On several occasions (1807, 1812, 1813) Napoleon was entertained at Dresden, and when, on his return from his disastrous Russian campaign, he passed through Saxony by Dresden (December 16, 1812), Frederick Augustus remained true to his friend and ally. It was only during April 1813 that he made overtures to Austria, but he soon afterwards returned to the side of the French. He returned to Dresden on the 10th of May and was present at the terrible battle of August 26 and 27, in which Napoleon’s army and his own were defeated. He fell into the hands of the Allies after their entry into Leipzig on the 19th of October 1813; and, although he regained his freedom after the congress of Vienna, he was compelled to give up the northern part—three-fifths—of his kingdom to Prussia (May 21, 1814). He entered Dresden on the 7th of July, and was enthusiastically welcomed by his people. The remainder of his life was spent in repairing the damages caused by the Napoleonic wars, in developing the agricultural, commercial and industrial resources of his kingdom, reforming the administration of justice, establishing hospitals and other charitable institutions, encouraging art and science and promoting education. He had a special interest in botany, and originated the beautiful park at Pillnitz. His reign throughout was characterized by justice, probity, moderation and prudence. He died on the 5th of May 1827.
Bibliography.—The earlier lives, by C. E. Weisse (1811), A. L. Herrmann (1827), Pölitz (1830), are mere panegyrics. On the other side see Flathe in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, and Böttiger-Flathe, History of Saxony (2nd ed., 1867 ff.), vols. ii. and iii.; A. Bonnefons, Un Allié de Napoléon, Frédéric Auguste, premier roi de Saxe ... (Paris, 1902); Fritz Friedrich, Politik Sachsens 1801-1803 (1898); P. Rühlmann, Öffentliche Meinung ... 1806-1813 (1902). There are many pamphlets bearing on the Saxon question and on Frederick Augustus during the years 1814 and 1815.