Frederick William III
King of Prussia from 1797 to 1840
Frederick William III (German: Friedrich Wilhelm III.; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, when the empire was dissolved.
Frederick William III ruled Prussia during the times of the Napoleonic Wars. The king reluctantly joined the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon in the German campaign of 1813. Following Napoleon's defeat, he took part in the Congress of Vienna, which assembled to settle the political questions arising from the new, post-Napoleonic order in Europe. His primary interests were internal – the reform of Prussia's Protestant churches. He was determined to unify the Protestant churches to homogenize their liturgy, organization, and architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of Churches.
The king was said to be extremely shy and indecisive. His wife Queen Louise (1776–1810) was his most important political advisor.
“Frederick William III” enters the record as king of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Frederick, William and King can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Frederick William III” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Frederick, William and King provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q37134. VIAF identifies the subject as 774683. The Library of Congress control number is n81147121. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1770, 1840, 1797 and 1806.
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This entry incorporates text from “Frederick William III” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.