Ludwig I of Bavaria.html



Ludwig I
King of Bavaria
Portrait by Joseph Stieler, 1825
Reign	October 13, 1825 - March 20, 1848
Born	August 25, 1786(1786-08-25)
Birthplace	Strasbourg
Died	February 29, 1868 (aged 81)
Place of death	Nice
Predecessor	Maximilian I
Successor	Maximilian II
Consort	Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen
Offspring	Maximilian II, Mathilde, Otto, Theodelinde, Luitpold, Adelgunde, Hildegard, Alexandra, Adalbert
Royal House	Wittelsbach
Father	Maximilian I
Mother	Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt

Ludwig I (also rendered in English as Louis I) (August 25, 1786 in Strasbourg – February 29, 1868 in Nice) was king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states.

Crown Prince

He was the son of Count Palatine Maximilian Joseph of Zweibrücken by his first wife Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt. At the time of his birth, his father was an officer in the French army stationed at Strasbourg. He was the godson and namesake of Louis XVI of France. On April 1, 1795 his father succeeded Ludwig's uncle, Charles II, as duke of Zweibrücken, and on February 16, 1799 became Elector of Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Arch-Steward of the Empire, and Duke of Berg on the extinction of the Sulzbach line with the death of the elector Charles Theodore. His father assumed the title of King of Bavaria on January 1, 1806.

In October 1810, he married Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (1792-1854), the daughter of Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The wedding was the occasion of the first ever Oktoberfest. Ludwig studied in Landshut where he was taught by Johann Michael Sailer and in Göttingen.

Ludwig strongly rejected the alliance of his father with Napoleon I of France but in spite of his anti-French politics the crown prince had to join the emperor's wars with allied Bavarian troops. In 1817 Ludwig was involved in the fall of Prime Minister Count Max Josef von Montgelas. He succeeded his father on the throne in 1825.

Reign

Ludwig I of Bavaria, ca 1830

Ludwig's rule was strongly affected by his enthusiasm for the arts and women and by his overreaching royal assertiveness. An enthusiast also for the German Middle Ages, Ludwig ordered the re-erection of several monasteries in Bavaria which had been closed during the German Mediatisation. He reorganized the administrative regions of Bavaria in 1837 and re-introduced the old names Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia, Upper Palatinate and Palatinate. He changed his royal titles to Ludwig, King of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia, Duke in Swabia and Count Palatinate of the Rhine. His successors kept these titles. Ludwig's plan to reunite also the eastern part of the Palatinate with Bavaria could not be realized. The Electoral Palatinate, a former dominion of the Wittelsbach, had been split up in 1815, the eastern bank of the Rhine with Mannheim and Heidelberg was given to Baden, only the western bank was granted to Bavaria. Here Ludwig founded the city of Ludwigshafen as a Bavarian rival to Mannheim.

Ludwig also encouraged Bavaria's industrialization. He initiated the Ludwig channel between the River Main and the Danube. In 1835 the first German railway was constructed in his domain, between the cities of Fürth and Nuremberg.

Ludwig supported the Greek fight of independence: His second son Otto was elected king of Greece in 1832.

Ludwig was an eccentric and notoriously bad poet. He would write about anything, no matter how trivial, with strings of rhyming couplets. After the July Revolution in France 1830, his previous liberal policy became more and more repressive. The Hambacher Fest in 1832 showed the discontent of the population suffered from high taxes and censorship. In 1837, the Roman Catholic supported clerical movement, the Ultramontanes, came to power in the Bavarian parliament and began a campaign of reform to the constitution, which removed civil rights that had earlier been granted to Protestants, as well as enforcing censorship and forbidding the free discussion of internal politics. This regime was short-lived due to the demand by the Ultramontanes of the naturalization of Ludwig I's Irish-born mistress Eliza Gilbert (better known by her stage name Lola Montez), which was resented by Ludwig and the Ultramontanes were pushed out.

Ludwig had several extramarital affairs and became one of the lovers of Lady Jane Digby, an aristocratic English adventuress. Ludwig became tainted with scandals associated with another of his mistresses, Lola Montez. It seems likely that his relationship with her contributed greatly to the fall from grace of the previously popular king.

During the revolutions of 1848 he abdicated on March 20, 1848 in favour of his eldest son, Maximilian. He was buried in St. Boniface's Abbey, Munich.

Arms of the Kingdom of Bavaria 1835:

Cultural legacy

As admirer of ancient Greece and the Italian renaissance Ludwig patronised the arts as principal of many neoclassical buildings, especially in Munich, and as fanatic collector. Among others he ordered to erect were the Walhalla temple, the Ludwigstrasse, the Glyptothek, the Old and the New Pinakothek. One of his most famous conceptions was the celebrated "Schönheitengalerie" (Gallery of Beauties), in charge of the painter Joseph Stieler, which contained portraits of several beautiful women who principally came from the high middle class. Also after his abdication, Ludwig remained an important sponsor for the arts.

He moved the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität from Landshut to Munich in 1826.

Ludwig I of Bavaria, monument in the Walhalla

Issue

By Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (8 July 1792 – 26 October 1854; married on 12 October 1810 in Theresienwiese, Munich)

Ancestry

See also

• Revolutions of 1848 in the German states

Sources

• Heinz Gollwitzer, Ludwig I. von Bayern. Königtum im Vormärz, Munich 1986 (²1997).

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ludwig I of Bavaria

• The king's portrait

• George Washington's German "Cousin" {Baron Jakob von Washington-an advisor to King Ludwig I}