Queen Louisa Ulrika and her Political Legacy

Queen Louisa Ulrika and her Political Legacy Dr Elise M. Dermineur Umeå University

Workshop: The Lasting Effects of Early Modern Cultural Encounters Stockholm, September 2016

Introduction

Louisa Ulrika of Prussia (24 July 1720 – 16 July 1782) was born in Berlin in 1720, the daughter of the king in Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm I, and his wife, Sophie Dorothea von Hannover. She was one of the siblings of Friedrich the Great. In 1744, she married Adolf Friedrich of HolsteinGottorp, recently elected crown prince of Sweden. In 1751, following the king’s death, her husband acceded to the throne and she became queen of Sweden. Her marriage was a very happy union, resulting in the birth of four children; the eldest, Gustav, succeeded his father in 1772 as Gustav III, king of Sweden.

Luisa Ulrika was particularly known as a dynamic patron of science and art. She founded the Witterhetsakademin in Stockholm in 1753; she supported various artists, including several women, by awarding pensions; she encouraged the development of theatre with the reconstruction of a theatre at Drottningholm Palace (although plays were in French); and she was also an avid collector of art. The cultural legacy of Louisa Ulrika still visible today; it makes easier for us to assess. But what about Louisa Ulrika’s political legacy? We are facing two difficulties here. First, how do we assess the political legacy of someone who was not officially in charge? Secondly, how do we

distinguish political achievement and political legacy? In this paper, I will attempt to answer these questions and assess Louisa Ulrika’s political legacy. First, we may recall the significance of Louisa Ulrika’s political action (I). Then, we must take a closer look to her political activities and the environment in which the princess developed (II). Finally, we will attempt to draw a line between her political achievements and her political legacy (III).

1. Louisa Ulrika’s Political Action Throughout her entire life, Louisa Ulrika’s political agency and action were guided by one unique objective, the increase of royal prerogatives in Sweden. This guiding principle directed her political actions entirely. In spite of her sex and in spite of the traditional expectations pertaining to a queen consort, Louisa Ulrika participated in the political sphere with much energy and determination, trespassing the traditional norms and boundaries of consortship.

Thanks to the position she occupied, as the wife of the king and the head of the court, various people repeatedly placed their political hopes and expectations in her. Frederick II, for example, through their mutual dynastic ties, had wished to use her as a political instrument on various occasions, either as a Hohenzollern lobbyist or an unofficial Prussian diplomat. The Hats leader, Carl Gustaf Tessin, had also placed great political expectations in Louisa Ulrika. Upon her marriage to Adolf Fredrik, Tessin had hoped to use her to reach – and likely manipulate – the crown prince. Tessin envisioned turning to the princess as the main intermediary agent between the Hats Council and the Court. He also worked with her towards unifying the nobility and establishing harmony within the political sphere in the late 1740s.

Within a few weeks of her arrival in Stockholm, Louisa Ulrika had drawn attention to herself and had become a major political catalyst. The princess filled, in fact, a vacuum in the Swedish

political landscape. Many gathered around her in order to seek protection, support, and/or favours. In turn, she expected them to serve her interests and those of the monarchy. She fulfilled a void as an intermediary between the political elite and the crown, offering a genderless space for socialization and lobbying.

Louisa Ulrika’s involvement as a political agent over the years, pursuing her objective, turned her into a key player. She carried her own political agenda, nurtured her very own political doctrine, and resorted to strategies to advance her cause and gain support. Many recognized her influence and her political acumen, but also saw her potential as a nuisance in the way in which she interfered in affairs. Her political enemies such as Fredrik Axel von Fersen, for instance, also had to negotiate with Louisa Ulrika and had to involve her in political affairs, especially at the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War and at the Diet of 1765-1766, acknowledging therefore her key political role.

2. Louisa Ulrika’s Political Achievements and Legacy

While the value of her political role cannot be denied, it is much more difficult to assess Louisa Ulrika’s political legacy. You may wonder if her actions in any way left an impact on the Swedish grand narrative and if so to what extent, to what limits and in what respect. In order to answer these questions, we need to look in three directions. First, the strategies Louisa Ulrika employed to pursue her political objectives need to be carefully reviewed. While Louisa Ulrika resorted to traditional methods to secure loyalty, she also developed more extreme and unconventional approaches, contributing in turn to making her actions distinctive. Secondly, the context in which she found herself can be labelled both particular and unique. The specificities of the diplomatic and domestic context throughout her tenure put her actions into a specific light that impacted on

the significance of her political accomplishments. Finally, we can distinguish some of her political achievements. It is imperative to question whether these political achievements constituted in turn a lasting legacy or not and why.

Louisa Ulrika’s political strategies. Louisa Ulrika’s main political objective throughout her life was to modify the Swedish constitution in order to grant the king more royal prerogatives. In order to reach her goal, the princess resorted to three types of political strategy. These can be identified and categorized as follows: traditional, extreme and unconventional.

First, the princess resorted to traditional means to gather support, strengthen loyalty, and reward allegiance. More particularly, the princess attempted to establish asymmetric bonds of dependence in which the other person was socially and/or financially dependent on her favors, disposition, and position of power. In this respect, she concretely resorted to a wide range of tools. Letter-writing (including the art of writing secret letters), spying, letter-theft, the organization of social events, gift-making, cultural patronage, ambivalence, involvement in charitable activities, the resort to her dynastic ties (including match-making negotiations), as well as networking with both women and men, were part of Louisa Ulrika’s rich palette of political tools and strategies. Some of these strategies proved to be much more effective than others at times.

The strategies Louisa Ulrika resorted to were not unfamiliar to elite women in the early modern period. Many before and after Louisa Ulrika have used them.i Elaine Chalus has labelled this set of strategies “social politics”, a non-parliamentary arena in which elite women were legitimate political actors.ii

It is essential to underline, however, that political leaders did not reckon with her sex. Louisa Ulrika could operate in an environment in which her sex mattered much less than her position of power, although a symbolic power rather than an actual one. The traditional respect due to a sovereign won the day over gender considerations. In fact, as Elaine Chalus has noted, elite women were seen by the men in their circles as “functioning members of a political world.iii” As such, it was understood and accepted that women took part in non-parliamentary political activities.iv As for Louisa Ulrika, as a queen she was above everyone else in the kingdom with the exception of the king. Involvement in politics was not expected of a queen consort but nothing prevented it either, and surely nothing and no one could prevent Louisa Ulrika from doing so.

I shall, however, fly the ointment here in respect to what I just said. Louisa Ulrika could not have access to important political spaces such as clubs, taverns, salons, coffee-houses, spaces where commoners discussed and “made” politics on an almost daily basis. She was bound to resort of intermediaries and was obliged to delegate tasks and responsibilities.

Looking at the political strategies she resorted to, Louisa Ulrika appeared in that respect to be an active but an ordinary queen consort engaged in politics, although she might have been one of the most politically active queens consort.

The princess, however, also employed extreme means in attempting to reach her objective. She especially distinguished herself in plotting a constitutional change through a coup d’état. In the early 1750s, the princess drafted several plans for such a revolution. While she denied her involvement in the failed coup of 1756, it can hardly be doubted that not only did she know about the whole scheme but she had engineered part it –perhaps all of it- herself. Louisa Ulrika was certainly not the first elite woman to resort to violence, but these women, in turn, constituted a

marginal group. Reigning and/or regents queens did not ignore violent processes with which to get rid of enemies and/or simply to get their way. These methods, however, were less common among queens consort. This can be explained by the fact that these women’s husbands either took the credit for such actions or prevented their wives from resorting to such conduct. Resorting to violence represented an extreme form of political strategy.

Finally, Louisa Ulrika resorted to unconventional and exceptional political strategies. The creation of the Court Party in the early 1750s is, to the best of my knowledge, a unique example in history of a queen consort’s political leadership. Evidently, the establishment of such a party was made possible because of the functioning and the nature of the Swedish parliamentary monarchy. In medieval and early modern Europe, some elite women and queens consort could head coteries at Court, which resembled those of early modern political parties, with a coopting system instead of an election process. The French Court in the early modern period was famously known for its opposing factions supporting various political leaders and ministers. These factions were often headed by prominent women. Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764), official mistress of Louis XV, successfully contrived the exile of the minister Maurepas (1701-1781) while favoring the ascension of Choiseul. A few years later, Madame du Barry (1743-1794), also mistress of Louis XV, engineered the fall of the said Choiseul. In England, the influence of queens consort on politics has been referred to “petticoat power”.v However, it was not the same as forming a political party and taking part to elections.

Most queens consort limited their activities to charitable and/or cultural patronage, which in turn could sometimes have been perceived as informal politics. A handful of these women can be credited with formal political action. Most of these actions were circumscribed to informal diplomacy, networking, and strategies, like those mentioned earlier. The fact that most queens

consort did not engage actively in political matters as much as Louisa Ulrika did, could be explained through the particular circumstances and unique environment in which she evolved.

The uniqueness of the context. Every queen consort in medieval and early modern Europe faced a unique context and developed in a singular environment. Louisa Ulrika was no exception. The princess was able to actively engage in politics because of various contextual and intrinsic elements that made the environment in which she maneuvered distinctive. Several factors and vectors influenced her actions and impacted on their breadth.

First, the Swedish parliamentary monarchy in the Age of Liberty allowed the rise of various political opinions and debates, at least within the bounds of censorship. The very existence of the Diet as an institution created the conditions for a political forum in which the politicized elite participated and exchanged. The constitution of 1720, with particular reference to its interpretation regarding certain areas, sparked debates in which the monarchy was engaged. The conflict over appointments, for example, resulted from these constitutional imperfections and vagueness. This particular issue not only fueled Louisa Ulrika and her supporters’ argument for constitutional revision, but it also gave them a chance to enter into a debate on how power and authority was distributed between the Council, the Estates and the king. The Swedish parliamentary monarchy in the Age of Liberty offered an arena for political debates involving various strata of the population including elite women.

The personality of the princess might have constituted a decisive element, if not the most essential, in Louisa Ulrika’s political involvement. Determined, proud, hard-working, persevering, Louise Ulrika never gave up her goal despite all the difficulties and adversities she encountered throughout almost her entire tenure in Sweden. Her ambition was undeniably the main force

behind her actions. This, however, should not be perceived negatively. Louisa Ulrika’s education and training had conditioned the princess to believe firmly in the monarchy as the most efficient and reliable form of governance.

Louisa Ulrika’s political acumen and intelligence needs thus to be recognized. Traditional historiography has often implied she lacked both these qualities, perhaps because she never succeeded in increasing the power of the monarch.vi Some contemporary observers, and later some historians, have also often perceived Louisa Ulrika’s intransigence as simply Prussian arrogance and female impatience. She was a relentless politician, a skilled strategist, a woman of determination and persuasion. Her plans did fail in the end but their failure cannot be fully imputed to her lack of political discernment.

Her political determination needs to be acknowledged and perhaps seen through a different lens. If she had been a king, the assessment of her political skills would have certainly been different.

Additionally, as we have seen, not only did the princess easily overshadow her malleable and shy husband, but she also had great ascendency over him. Adolf Fredrik’s interest in politics might not have been as deep as hers. He let her maneuver freely and followed most of her political schemes and ideas. In this respect, their relationship constituted an asymmetrical working partnership. She assumed most of the leadership in political affairs. Much evidence and contemporary testimonies contend that Louisa Ulrika was the one behind the court’s political plans. The French ambassador d’Havrincourt expressed deep concerns to his Court when the possibility of extending royal prerogatives in Sweden lay on the table in the late 1760s: “there might be some danger in granting the king more power as this power would be totally exercised by

the queen who dominates him totally.vii” Louisa Ulrika appears in the spotlight while her husband plays a more passive role.

While the context in which Louisa Ulrika evolved was in many respects unique and favored her political involvement, the question of her political achievements must be addressed.

Louisa Ulrika’s achievements. Louisa Ulrika’s input in the political decision-making process is difficult to quantify and impervious to neat correlations. It is difficult to assess any political impact for a person who is not officially in charge. But her direct effect on the realm’s policy through her socio-political endeavors was, in effect, almost null, mainly because she focused only on increasing royal prerogatives. In this respect, her political agenda was extremely narrow. But on the other hand, her contribution to the political debate in the Age of Liberty was considerable. Over the years, Louisa Ulrika greatly contributed to sparking a general debate regarding the content of the Swedish constitution and more especially its execution in practice. The princess and her Court Party did not miss an occasion to criticize its imperfections and vagueness. Such a debate had taken place before Louisa Ulrika’s arrival in Sweden but never with the same intensity. In this respect, she oriented and polarized part of the political debate for a few decades. This debate, in fact, would in some ways survive her and last for several generations, even throughout Gustav III’s reign.

Undeniably, transmitting her conception of the monarchy to her eldest son constituted her most successful achievement. Gustav III inherited his mother’s firm idea of a constitutional revision to make the monarchy stronger. The plan he developed in 1772 – to stage a non-violent revolution – closely resembled his own mother’s plan of almost two decades earlier. Scheffer, Gustav III’s mentor, incidentally congratulated Louisa Ulrika upon Gustav III’s success, stating “God forbid

the Swedes who would lose the memory of Your Majesty’s good deedviii!”, implying she had played a critical role in shaping her son’s political ideology.

Despite this success, granting Gustav III more power, and despite the establishment of de facto absolutism a few years later, a strong monarchy could not last in eighteenth-century Sweden. Neither Louisa Ulrika nor Gustav III had fully grasped the rise of a politicized public sphere in the late-eighteenth century, the discontent of those holding privileges and those looking for socioeconomic ascension and for a more egalitarian society. However, Louisa Ulrika must be credited with her grasp of the political situation in the 1760s. Then, the princess moved away from her wish to restore absolutism in Sweden. She understood the need for a rebalance of power between the triumvirate of king, Council and the Estates and strongly advocated it. Many political leaders and observers did share her opinion on this matter, pointing to the parties’ struggles, the supremacy of the Council at times, and that of the Estates.

We may wonder whether, if she had been a man, a king instead of a queen, she would have been successful in implementing the coup in 1756. After all, one of the coup conspirators, recalled after this failure that Louisa Ulrika regretted only not being a man. Her gender might very well have prevented her reaching her goal in this specific circumstance. When Anne of Austria (1601-1666), queen dowager and consort of Louis XIII of France, died in 1666 a courtier attempted to console her son, Louis XIV, exclaiming “she was a great queen”, to which the king replied “No, monsieur, she was a great king”.ix Gustav III could have said the same about his mother. As a political actor, she often trespassed the limits of her assigned role and her expected behavior. As such, she often fulfilled the shoes of a reigning king. She was perhaps not the only queen consort to do so, after all history is full of these politically active and influential queens consort, but she could certainly be labelled the most politically active queen consort of Sweden.

Louisa Ulrika, however, did not set an example for other queens consort, mostly because the context in which she found herself was unique and because she, too, was a unique political figure. After her, Sofia Magdalena did not have to play the same role in Gustavian Sweden. Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte, consort of Karl XIII, did involve herself in politics but in a more conventional manner and never to the same extent as her mother-in-law.x Incidentally, the dynasty Louisa Ulrika and Adolf Fredrik began together collapsed when Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (1763-1848) was elected to the throne.

Louisa Ulrika has also left to posterity the image of a haughty, intransigent and acrimonious queen. The traditional historiography depicts her as such, emphasizing her bad temperament rather than her political skills and accomplishments. But we also need to recognize that she was a relentless political actor whose political acumen was acute and sharp. Louisa Ulrika can be credited with some victories and achievements throughout her life. It is, on the other hand, much more complicated to assess her political legacy. If Louisa Ulrika’s cultural legacy is still visible today, making her one of the main contributors to Swedish cultural heritage, the princess’s political achievements did not turn into a lasting legacy, with the exception of her son’s nonviolent revolution and constitutional reform of 1772. Louisa Ulrika would have been a great French queen regent or a great enlightened absolutist king.

i

See for example James Daybell, Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, 1450-1700. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001. James Daybell, Women and Politics in Early Modern England: 1450 - 1700. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. My Hellsing, Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte: hertiginna vid det gustavianska hovet. Stockholm: Atlantis, 2015. Svante Norrhem, Kvinnor vid maktens sida: 1632-1772. Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2007. Karin Tegenborg Falkdalen, Kungen är en Kvinna: Retorik och Praktik Kring Kvinnliga Monarker under Tidigmodern Tid. Ph.d Dissertation, Umeå University, 2003. ii Elaine Chalus, “Elite Women, Social Politics, and the Political World of Late Eighteenth-Century England”. The Historical Journal 43, nr 3 (2000): 669–97. iii Ibid. 671. iv Henrika Liewen is a good example. She headed her own political club where politicians met in her house, debated and even produced political pamphlets. See chapter 4 v See Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson (eds.), Women in British politics, 1760-1860: The Power of the Petticoat. Basingstoke; Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Clarissa Campbell Orr. “Making a new start: Queen Charlotte, Popular Politics, and the

Fear of ’Petticoat Power’ in Britain c. 1760-1770”. In Giulia Calvi, Moving Elites: Women and Cultural Transfers in the European Court System, 33–49. Florence, 2010. vi Jägerskiöld in particular has pictured her as a woman with poor political and diplomatic skills. Olof Jägerskiöld, Lovisa Ulrika. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1945. vii AMAE, 242, Suède, dispatch from d’Havrincourt, 13th January 1763. viii Axel von Fersen, Historiska skrifter. Norstedt, 1868. Letter from Carl Fredrik Scheffer to Louisa Ulrika, 16th September, 1772. 471-472. ix Claude Dulong, Anne d’Autriche: Mère de Louis XIV. Paris: Hachette, 1980. My translation. x My Hellsing, Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte.