Uncle Frederik

Uncle Frederik was around for a long time and especially in family crisises it was usually his name which popped up as the reconciler.


Uncle Frederik is not my uncle Frederik, he’s III’s uncle Frederik and Wiwill and Alexander also knew him as uncle Frederik. I just call him uncle Frederik because everybody else seems to as well.

I’ve watched the Dutch TV-series “the Throne” a few times now. Uncle Frederik was then mainly known as William II’s younger brother. After William II had become King and then very quickly died, Frederik disappeared out of the story. He didn’t even turn up when Sophie fled the Netherlands to her homeland while in reality, he had played a big part in the return of Sophie to the Netherlands to continue the tragedy that was her marriage.

Don’t judge uncle Frederik based on the above. He was simply a man of his time and his situation. A divorce would have been a drama, or so people thought at the time. Not really for the people closely involved, but for the Orange dynasty and the Netherlands. Uncle Frederik just desperately tried to keep things together and relations bearable. He was a great support to Sophie and also to Wiwill and Alexander.

Only recently I missed him while watching "the Throne". We had some good looks at the young Frederik, who is one of the very few actors who actually looks a little like the young prince, but I would have loved to see a bit more of him. Except, the piece of history during the III era has been skipped completely. It was literally: Alexander was born and oh look, he's now 25 or something. For my own enjoyment, that kind of mistakes, according to the series we skipped 20 years while in reality Alexander was 25/26 when his mother died, I ignore those mistakes. In this case however, one more glimpse of uncle Frederik would have been nice.

So who was he? Willem Frederik Karel was the younger brother of King William II. He was born in Berlin 28 February 1797 when his parents had fled from the Dutch patriots. As a child he grew up in his grandfather’s kingdom in Prussia and he felt very much at home there. When he first came to the Netherlands he felt uncomfortable in a country he didn’t speak the language of and didn’t know the culture of. The prins went to study in Leiden to get educated more broadly.

Crownprince Frederik of Denmark

In the army he first served as commissioner-general of the ministry of war under his father King William I. Later he became inspector-general in the forces requested by his nephew the then King III. Later, when he didn’t get any support from the ministers and improvements didn’t happen, he quit.
He was also candidate to become King of Greece, but he refused due to not wanting to rule over a country of which he didn’t speak its language.

Frederik married his cousin princess Louise of Prussia and they had four children. His oldest daughter Louise married King Karel XV of Sweden. This means his was grandfather of Queen Louise of Denmark and great grandfather of King Christian X of Denmark and King Haakon of Norway. He’s also a great-, great-, great-, great-, great grandfather of the current crownprince Frederik of Denmark.

Like I wrote before, prince Frederik became known as the reconciler of the family. He was the only person keeping contact with his father after abdication and after the old King moved to Berlin with his new bride Henriette d’Oultremont (there’s another story). And he made sure, after the death of his father, Henriette was taken care of.
He also took care of his younger sister princess Marianne who divorced her husband; something uncalled for in those times. And after the death of both Sophie and Wiwill, he helped Alexander arrange the funeral.

He also tried to encourage Alexander to change his ways. Frederik was worried about Alexander’s lifestyle and he wanted to help him in preparing for taking the throne. Alexander didn’t accept that however and contact got lost. Frederik died shortly after. According to the book about Alexander he regretted his behaviour towards his uncle Frederik, but it didn’t seem to take him long to get over it.

Prince Frederik was also the prince who encouraged Alexander to become a member of the freemasons. He himself had been Grand-Master National since 1816. His plans first had been to hand his grand-master ship over to Alexander, but he wasn’t sure his nephew was up for the task, so he remained in that position till his death.

Prince Frederik died in September 1881, age 84. For a long time he was the longest living member of the Orange family. This record was only broken by Queen Juliana who reached age 95.