I’m currently making my way through Christopher Clark’s Iron Kingdom and ran into the interesting spectacle of Elector Friedrich III of Brandenburg crowning himself “King in Prussia” (as Friedrich I) in a thoroughly opulent ceremony in 1701. Backstory (as best I’ve understood it from Clark): The Hohenzollerns, Electors of Brandenburg, had acquired eastern (formerly “ducal” Prussia) in 1618 through the marriage of Anna of Prussia to Friedrich’s great-grandfather, the Elector John Sigismund. Clark talks about how Elector Friedrich III’s self-coronation was part of an effort throughout the seventeenth century for various rulers in the Holy Roman Empire (he specifically mentions Tuscany, Savoy, Saxony, Bavaria, and the Palatinate) to elevate their titles, ultimately aspiring to be kings. He goes on to discuss that this wasn’t just a matter of vanity but could actually have ramifications for how these various nations would be treated in diplomacy, most particularly in peace settlements (there evidently being some order of precedence involved).

So here are my questions:

• How was it that Elector Friedrich III could just up and crown himself king? My understanding, given what I’ve read in Clark’s book, is largely that because Prussia lay outside the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg Emperors had no control over the title. This is why in negotiations with the Habsburgs, the Emperor said not that he was “creating” a new title, but “acknowledging” it (Clark, p. 74). In addition, the political environment at the time, leading up to the War of the Spanish Succession, meant that the Habsburgs were trying to enlist Brandenburg’s help in the upcoming war and went along with Friedrich III’s dreams of kingship in order to secure more troops for the war against France. So had they been in a stronger political position at the time, they might have been able to successfully oppose it, but they weren’t able to because they had more pressing concerns at the time.

• Was the fact that Prussia lay outside the Holy Roman Empire a major factor in why he was successful in crowning himself king and having no one dispute it? I think so. Clark doesn’t come out and say this, but given the examples of Savoy and Tuscany seeking to use the term of address “Your Highness” and the Saxon elector’s conversion to Catholicism to sit on the Polish throne, this certainly seems to be the case. So I’m guessing that the law of the Holy Roman Empire presumably forbade anyone in the Empire from just taking the title of “king” for themselves.

• Would the terminology “King of Prussia” have constituted a claim to “royal” Prussia (still controlled by Poland)? In other words, what were the reasons behind adopting the somewhat unusual formation of “king in” rather than “king of”? This is the only explanation that I can think of for the terminology that Friedrich chose.

• How did the Polish Commonwealth react to this coronation? Clark doesn’t mention it much, but does suggest that Friedrich was partially motivated to crown himself in order to cement his claim to and hold over formerly-“ducal” Prussia. I can’t imagine they would have been happy, but given that Clark didn’t mention anything specific, I’m guessing that they were for whatever reason not in a position to oppose Friedrich’s coronation.

• At what point in the history of Brandenburg-Prussia did “King in Prussia” yield to “King of Prussia”? Was it not until the acquisition of “royal Prussia” in the first partition of Poland in 1772 (when, except for Danzig and Thorn, all of Prussia belonged to Brandenburg-Prussia), or was there a gradual “creep” toward the arrogation of the title of “King of Prussia?” Clark touches on this a bit earlier in the book, I think – I seem to recall him saying that the transition from Brandenburg to Prussia was a somewhat gradual one. I haven’t really read anything about it in several hundred pages, though, so any further input on the evolution of this would be welcome.

Edit: formatting