Louisa Ulrika of Prussia

Louisa Ulrika of Prussia (; ; 24 July 1720 – 16 July 1782) was Queen of Sweden from 1751 to 1771 as the wife of King Adolf Frederick. She was queen mother during the reign of King Gustav III. Background Louisa Ulrika was born in Berlin as the daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and his wife Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, and was thus a younger sister of both Wilhelmine of Bayreuth and Frederick the Great. She was given the Swedish name Ulrika because Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden had been her godmother. She exchanged letters with her godmother, and it was thought that she would marry a future son by Ulrika Eleonora, as Ulrika Eleonora herself had once been considered as a consort for Louisa Ulrika's father. However, Ulrika Eleonora remained childless. Louisa Ulrika was described as beautiful, intelligent, with a fierce temperament and a strong will. She was given an advanced education in accordance with the French age of enlightenment by the governess Marthe de Roucoulle and the governor Maturin Veyssiére la Croze, both French Huguenots. Her intellectual interests were not opposed by her father who, while disapproving in her brothers interest for learning, did not do so in the case of Louisa Ulrika, who was reportedly a favorite of her father. She and her eldest brother, the future Frederick the Great, had a reasonably good relationship, sharing their interest in science and culture. Her favorites among her siblings were her younger brother Prince Augustus William of Prussia and her sister Princess Sophia Dorothea of Prussia. At the court of her mother, she was introduced to Voltaire, with whom she engaged in a lifelong correspondence, and Maupertuis. Several dynastic marriages were considered for her from 1732 onward, including Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, Charles III of Spain and Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, but none came to fruition. She was appointed co-adjutrix of Quedlinburg Abbey with the prospect of becoming a reigning princess-abbess in 1743, a future of which she did not approve. In 1743, an election was held to appoint a crown prince to the Swedish throne, as Frederick I of Sweden was childless, and the French de facto regent, Cardinal Fleury, suggested a marriage between Louisa Ulrika and the French candidate: Christian IV, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken. This plans discontinued when Christian lost the election to the Russian candidate, Adolf Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp.