Frederick I of Prussia

Frederick I of Prussia (1657-1713), first King of Prussia (1701-1713), and as Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg (1688-1701), son of Frederick William, the Great Elector, born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). Frederick endeavoured to establish a court modelled on that of Louis XIV of France. He wished to secure a royal title for himself, but could not do so as ruler of Brandenburg, as the title king was forbidden to princes of the Holy Roman Empire. Prussia, however, which was part of Frederick's domain, lay outside the empire, and in 1701 Emperor Leopold I recognized Frederick as King of Prussia in return for his military support in the War of the Spanish Succession. Frederick crowned himself at Königsberg, expending vast sums of money on his coronation. Although he depleted the public treasury during his reign, he undertook some projects beneficial to the welfare of Prussia, such as the establishment in 1694 of the University of Halle and the founding in 1707 of the Academy of Sciences, Berlin. He patronized scholars, including the German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and encouraged persecuted Protestants from other countries to settle in Prussia.