An Artistic Princess: The Life of Wilhelmine of Prussia, Margravine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth

Princess Wilhelmine Friederike Sophie of Prussia was born on July 3, 1709 in the city of Berlin, the capital of the kingdom of Prussia.  She was the eldest daughter and child among the ten children of Frederick William I of Prussia and his wife Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. One of her siblings was Frederick “the Great”.

Wilhelmine had an unhappy childhood. Her father was a terrible man; her mother was very weak, unable to defend either herself or those belonging to her and the young princess was constantly beaten by her governess. "Not a day passed that she did not prove upon me the fearful power of her fists," she later wrote about the said experience. The abuse only stopped when her brother’s governess told her mother, who was completely oblivious to the maltreatment, that she would not be surprised if Wilhelmine would eventually be crippled from all the beating. Despite this, little princess Wilhelmina was found to be bright and intelligent. Her brother, the future Frederick the Great, with whom she shared a woeful childhood, was her friend and confidante her entire life.

Wilhelmine’s mother wanted her to marry her brother’s son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, however, this plan foiled after the English court gave no clear signs that they would ever approve of the said union except for substantial concessions of which Wilhelmine’s father did not approve.

Wilhelmine eventually married Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth in 1731. The latter was initially betrothed to the former’s sister, Sophie, however Frederick William, without consulting the groom, changed his mind at the last moment. Wilhelmine was forced to marry her Hohenzollern kinsman with a promise of lightening Frederick’s disgrace. The union produced one child, a daughter named Elisabeth Friederike Sophie.

Of this marital arrangement, Mme. Charles Vincens wrote in 1906 that Wilhelmine was married "to a prince whom his father-in-law greatly despised and whom he had chosen merely to punish his wife and his daughter, whom his mother-in-law hated because he represented the ruin of all her dreams, whom his wife had long hesitated to accept instead of a prison, and whom no one, in fact, had ever consulted in the matter." The wedding day saw the King wept and the Queen in worst temperament.

The marriage started out a happy one, but it was beset by limited finances and Frederick’s affair with Dorothea von Marwitz, whose rise to being the official mistress at the court of Bayreuth caused the ire of Frederick the Great. As a result, Wilhelmine and her brother became estranged for three years.

Following their rise as Margrave and Margravine of Bayreuth in 1735, the couple worked on transforming Bayreuth into a miniature Versailles, pushing the court to the verge of bankruptcy. They reconstructed the Bayreuth Palace, rebuilt their summer residence, and revamped the great opera house and added another one. They also founded the University of Erlangen. The margravine’s influence in architecture was such that the Bayreuth Rococo architectural style remains renowned even up to this day.

Wilhelmine developed an interest in the arts and was utterly gifted in her chosen fields. She did stage works, painted, and composed. She was also directed and acted on the theatre. A lutenist, Wilhelmine took lessons from Sylvius Leopold Weiss. She also became the employer of Bernhard Joachim Hagen, the last important lute music composer in 18th-century Germany.

Wilhelmine was an enlightened princess. Like her brother, she struggled for spiritual freedom. Her descendant, Princess Helena of United Kingdom, wrote that the brother and sister "studied the English philosophers, Newton, Locke and Shaftesbury, and were roused to enthusiasm by the writings of Voltaire and Rouseau." As a strong force in the intellectual development of her kingdom, the princess transformed Bayreuth as a hub for culture and learning unparalleled in the German states, save probably by her brother's court in Berlin.

At the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, her interests shifted from dilettantism to diplomacy. Austrian diplomats persuaded the margravine to take sides against Prussia. During the Silesian war, in September 1745, Wilhelmine met with Maria Theresa of Austria, a move which almost destroyed her relationship with Frederick the Great.

In June of 1754, Wilhelmine met Frederick the Great for the last time. After which, she became the eyes and ears for her brother in southern Germany until her own death. Wilhelmine of Prussia, Margravine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, died on October 14, 1758. She was 49 years old. She died at the same night and the same hour that Frederick the Great's forces were crushed by the Austrians at Hochkirch. Her passing was a huge blow on Frederick, a “grief that darkened all his life.” Princess Christian wrote: "The one heart he had loved; the friend, on whose judgment he had ever relied, taken from him when he seemed to have needed her most!"

On her tenth death anniversary, Frederick the Great, who never fully recovered from depression following her favorite sister’s demise, built the Temple of Friendship at Sanssouci in Wilhelmine’s memory.