Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse

King Väinö I of Finland, Prince and Landgrave Frederick Charles of Hesse (May 1, 1868 – May 28, 1940), officially Väinö I, Suomen ja Karjalan kuningas, Ahvenanmaan herttua, Lapinmaan suuriruhtinas, Kalevan ja Pohjolan isäntä (in Finnish), Friedrich Karl Ludwig Konstantin Prinz und Landgraf von Hessen-Kassel (in German), (Frederick Charles Louis Constantine, Prince and Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel), (also Fredrik Kaarle or Fredrik Kaarlo in Finnish), (Fredrik Carl in Swedish), (Frederik Carl in Danish), was the brother-in-law of the German Emperor William II and was the elected King of Finland from October 9 to December 14, 1918.

Early life

Frederick was born in Panker Castle, a castle on the Baltic Sea which belonged to his family. He was the third son of the then Prince Frederik of Hesse, and his wife Princess Anna of Prussia, daughter of Prince Charles of Prussia and Princess Marie Louise of Saxe-Weimar. The elder Frederick, a Danish military officer, had been one (and perhaps the foremost) of the candidates of Christian VIII of Denmark in the 1840s to succeed on the Danish throne if the latter's male line died out, but renounced his rights to the throne in 1851 in favor of his sister, Louise. The elder Frederick was of practically Danish upbringing, having lived all his life in Denmark, but in 1875, when the senior branch of Hesse-Kassel became extinct, he settled in Northern Germany, where the House had substantial landholdings.

Eighteen days after his own birth, the baby Frederick's first cousin, the then Grand Duchess Maria Fyodorovna, daughter of his aunt Queen Louise of Denmark, gave birth in Saint Petersburg to Nicholas II of Russia, who would become Frederick Charles' predecessor as the monarch of Finland (1894–1917).

On January 25, 1893, Frederick married Princess Margaret of Prussia, the youngest daughter of the late Frederick III, German Emperor and Victoria, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of Victoria of the United Kingdom and her consort Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. They had six children, including two sets of twins:

• Friedrich Wilhelm Sigismund (1893–1916)
• Maximilian Friedrich Wilhelm Georg (1894–1914)
• Philipp (1896–1980)
• Wolfgang Moritz (1896–1989)
• Prince Christoph Ernst August of Hesse (1901–1943) married Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark, had issue.
• Richard Wilhelm Leopold (1901–1969)

Upon their father's death, Frederick's eldest brother Frederick William became the head of the House of Hesse, and afterwards his next brother Alexander.

For Frederick Charles' ancestry, see Ahnentafel of Frederick Charles, elected king of Finland

The Finnish throne

On the urging of the German Empire, Finland had declared independence from Russia on December 6, 1917, leading to a fierce debate on whether the new state should declare itself a republic or remain a monarchy. At the time of the declaration of independence, monarchists were a minority in the Finnish Eduskunta (Parliament), and Finland was declared a republic. After a civil war, and while the pro-republic Social Democratic Party was excluded from the Eduskunta, Frederick was elected to the throne of the Kingdom of Finland on October 9, 1918.

Lithuania had already taken a similar step in July 1918, electing Wilhelm Karl, Duke of Urach, Count of Württemberg as King Mindove II of Lithuania. For Latvia and Estonia, a "General Provincial Assembly" consisting of Baltic-German aristocrats, had called upon the German Kaiser Wilhelm to recognize the Baltic provinces as a joint monarchy and a German protectorate. Consequently Adolf Friedrich, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was nominated Duke of "the United Baltic Duchy" by the Germans.

Independent Finland had initially, like the Baltic provinces, close ties with the German Empire. Germany was the only power that had supported the preparations for independence, not the least by the training of voluntary Finnish Jäger troops. Germany had also intervened in the Finnish Civil War, despite her own precarious situation. Finland's position vis-à-vis Germany was already evolving towards that of a protectorate by spring 1918, and the election of Prince Frederick, brother-in-law of William II, German Emperor, was rather thought of as a confirmation of the close relations.

The adoption of a new monarchist constitution had been delayed, and the legitimacy of the royal election was based upon the Instrument of Government of 1772, adopted under King Gustav III of Sweden, when Finland had been a part of Sweden. The same constitutional document had also served as the basis for the rule of the Russian Tsars, as Grand Dukes of Finland, during the 19th century.

Governmental archives reveal that the monarchical designation of the king was intended, at least tentatively, to be "Charles I, King of Finland and Karelia, Duke of Åland, Grand Prince of Lapland, Lord of Kaleva and the North" (Kaarle I, Suomen ja Karjalan kuningas, Ahvenanmaan herttua, Lapinmaan suuriruhtinas, Kalevan ja Pohjolan isäntä).

In the Finnish election document the prince is called Fredrik Kaarle, but according to conventional wisdom his name as king would have been Väinö I of Finland. Although the correctness of this name is not quite undisputed, it is repeated in many places, for instance at the Finnish Parliament's official web site [1]. In truth, Väinö I as name was presented at the time in a satirical column in a leading Finnish newspaper, written by V.Nuorteva ("Olli"), a much-read political criticist, satirist and humorist of the time.

On November 11, 1918, the armistice between the warring factions of World War I was signed, and two days earlier William II had abdicated and Germany was declared a Republic. Germany's defeat in the war, and the stated fact that none of the Allies of World War I would ever accept a German-born prince as the King of Finland, led Frederick to renounce the throne on December 14, 1918, and subsequently for Finland to adopt a republican constitution.

Later life

Landgrave Alexander of Hesse abdicated as the head of the House of Hesse on March 15, 1925, and was succeeded by Frederick.

At Frederick's death, his eldest surviving son, Philipp, succeeded him as head. However, according to certain family documents and correspondence, his successor as King of Finland would have been his second surviving son Prince Wolfgang of Hesse (1896–1989), apparently because Wolfgang was with his parents in 1918 and ready to travel to Finland, where a wedding to a Finnish lady was already in preparation for the coming Crown Prince. Philipp was in the military and unable to be contacted at the time.

See also

• List of Finnish monarchs
• Rulers of Hesse