Elector Wilhelm I.
Wilhelm I of Hessen-Kassel (born June 3, 1743 in Kassel; † February 27, 1821 there) from the House of Hesse was known as Wilhelm IX. from 1760 Count von Hanau, from 1764 regent there and from 1785 ruling Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. After his elevation to electoral in the course of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss (1803), he called himself Wilhelm I.
Childhood and adolescence
Coat of arms of Wilhelm as regent of the secondary school in the county of Hanau
Wilhelm was born the son of the Hereditary Prince Friedrich II of Hessen-Kassel and Princess Maria, a daughter of King George II of Great Britain. He attended the University of Göttingen and spent years studying in Denmark.
After his father Friedrich converted to the Roman Catholic Confession, his father, Landgrave Wilhelm VIII, wanted to ensure that Friedrich II would have as little influence as possible after he took office. For this purpose, in the Hessian Insurance Act of 1754, among other things, the County of Hanau-Münzenberg, which fell to Hesse-Kassel in 1736 after the death of the last Count from the House of Hanau, Johann Reinhard III., Was separated from the Hessian ancestral lands and Prince Wilhelm there used as the grandson and direct heir of Wilhelm VIII, bypassing Frederick II. After the death of his grandfather in 1760, Wilhelm inherited the County of Hanau directly. For the prince, who was still underage at the time, his mother, Landgravine Maria, was in charge of the guardianship; from 1764 he ruled himself, declared of legal age. The most impressive architectural testimony to his work there is the Wilhelmsbad spa complex.
Politics
Wilhelm as Hereditary Prince of Hessen-Kassel, painted by Carl Gustaf Pilo around 1770
Wilhelm was a sovereign who remained stuck to the standards of the princely "absolutism" of the ancien régime throughout his life - in his politics, in his "mistress economy" and in his controversial soldier trade, which was financially very profitable and was also operated by other princes. Wilhelm was considered one of the richest German princes of his time, and with the help of the Frankfurt banker Mayer Amschel Rothschild, he managed to save this fortune even after the Napoleonic era.
On May 15, 1803, Wilhelm succeeded in being promoted to electoral prince. His territory, in particular the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel, was subsequently mostly, if only unofficially, referred to as the "Electorate of Hesse". The electoral dignity became meaningless as early as 1806 with the end of the Holy Roman Empire.
From 1803 Wilhelm paid his relative Carl Constantin von Hessen-Rheinfels-Rotenburg, who had served as a general in the French army and then in the revolutionary armies, but was imprisoned several times during the turmoil of the French Revolution and finally banished, a pension to support him. because he had tried in vain for a pension from the French treasury.
Because Wilhelm did not join the Rhine Confederation and at the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War in 1806 partially mobilized his army and declared his country neutral, Napoleon occupied the Electorate of Hesse. On November 1, 1806, the French military marched into Kassel. The elector fled in good time and went into exile, first to Holstein, where he resided in the Itzehoer Prinzesshof, and later to Prague. Major parts of the Hessian state treasure were brought to safety by Captain Wilhelm Mensing in 1806 before Napoleon seized it. The ancestral lands of Hesse-Kassel were added to the Kingdom of Westphalia, newly created by Napoleon, the southern parts of the country, i.e. the County of Hanau-Munzenberg, were initially under the French military government from 1806 and belonged to the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt from 1810 to 1813.
Germany's restoration. The long-awaited return of the Elector to the honest Hesse.
In 1813 Hessen-Kassel was restituted, and Wilhelm I moved back into his royal seat on November 21, 1813. At the Congress of Vienna he tried in vain to obtain the title of "King of Chattas", named after the Germanic tribal name of the Hessians, by paying considerable bribes, but retained the title "Elector" with the personal title "Royal Highness". Wilhelm I pursued a restorative course, reversed the reforms that had taken place during his exile (for example, powdered wigs were reintroduced in the military and court), and with this policy alienated the rising bourgeoisie. < br />
In Kassel he had extensive extensions carried out in the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe and the Löwenburg built. The construction of a monumental new castle, the so-called Chattenburg, which he began in 1817 on the site of the Landgrave's castle, which was destroyed by a major fire in 1811 and completely demolished on his instructions in 1816, was discontinued after his death.
Wilhelm died in 1821 and was buried in a crypt under the castle chapel of the Löwenburg.