Looking for a Wife for Frederick the Great (that's not Maria Theresa)

Who Should Frederick the Great Marry

  • Elisabeth Katharina of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Anna Leopoldovna)

    Votes: 3 10.3%
  • Amalie Sophie Eleonore of Hannover, Princess of Great Britain

    Votes: 19 65.5%
  • Maria Theresa (but let's be realistic)

    Votes: 6 20.7%
  • Another princess (who and why?)

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • Total voters
    29
I was wondering who Frederick the Great could've married instead of his OTL wife. The common trope is that he wed Maria Theresia of Austria, but I wonder if this is as likely as everyone makes it out to be? Friedrich Wilhelm I was a staunch Calvinist, and although he apparently would've been willing to offer Wilhelmine (OTL margravine of Bayreuth) to the Habsburgs had an archduke been available, I can't see him signing on to the idea of his son and heir marrying a Catholic - likewise, Karl VI might be equally opposed to his godson (Friedrich) wedding his daughter on religious grounds. Sure, Fritz can convert everyone says, but if he didn't sleep with his OTL wife because he regarded her as an Austrian spy or that it was a constant reminder of Austria's attempt to pigeonhole Prussia, why would he have slept with Maria Theresia? Is he suddenly having a personality change? He can't stay heir to Prussia if he converts (Karl will insist on a renunciation as he did for François Étienne most likely) and he won't be allowed to marry Maria Theresia unless he converts.

So that's the common Friedrich-Maria Theresia idea out of the window.

I'm only aware of two other candidates that were ever considered for him, one of which I view as unlikely as Maria Theresa (Amalie/Amelia of Hannover and Elisabeth Katharina of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Anna Leopoldovna). Anna Leopoldovna would likely also necessitate a conversion (or at least an agreement that their kids would be Orthodox) and possible renunciation, hence why I don't think it's likely. Hannover might be a good buy if we could just get Friedrich Wilhelm and his brother-in-law to agree for a hot minute so that the match could go through.

But are/were there any other ladies worthy of consideration?
 
I've found a few ladies I was wondering if they'd make the grade:

  • Luise Friederike of Württemberg (OTL, duchess of Schwerin, only surviving child of the erbprinz of Württemberg and his Hohenzollern wife)
  • One of the granddaughters of Karl III of the Palatinate (I presume they were Catholics, but the youngest, Maria Franziska's husband, Friedrich Michael, was brother to the man they considered for a candidate of future king of Sweden in the 1730s with marriage to the princess of Denmark to follow, and I can't see Sweden accepting a Catholic king). I'd suggest this marriage to set a seal on the agreement reached over the Cleves inheritances.
  • Princess Karoline of Zweibrucken (married the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt OTL, and was one of the few women that Friedrich respected calling her "a woman in body, but a man in spirit")
  • Princess Amalie of Nassau-Dietz (OTL erbprinzessin of Baden-Durlach), she'd be a bit older than Fritz, but not by much, and if Prussia and Dietz are in their OTL squabble about who should be rightful heir to William III, a marriage between the two could help smooth things over in the same way as a Palatine match)
  • A Saxon princess. IDK who (i.e. I know there were some princesses in the cadet Albertine line who might suit (OTL duchess of Courland perhaps?), but not sure who, exactly) and Friedrich went to Dresden with his dad as a teenager (and lost his virginity there to one of August II's mistresses apparently), plus the elector of Saxony was Princess Wilhelmine's godfather.
 
Wait, a wedding with Maria Theresia will not force Friedrich to renounce to anything. Karl VI needed François Étienne’s renounciations to his own lands because France wanted Lorraine and so they asked for the cession of the Duchy of Lorraine to the the former King of Poland (whose only child was the Queen of France) as compensation offering the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in exchange. Karl forced Francis Stephen to sign the renounce in exchange for his daughter’s hand because he needed the French recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction (and he would never have it without the cession of Lorraine) while François’ mother and younger brother were strongly against that cession (his mother doubly because she was a french princesses and her wedding to the previous Duke of Lorraine was the condition who France had imposed for giving him back his ancestral lands). Here Karl can try to impose a conversion to Friedrich but he can also settle for having all the children of Friedrich and Maria Theresia being raised as Catholics. Friedrich OTL thinked, rightly, of Austria as his main enemy but if he marry the heiress of Austria he had zero reason for seeing it as enemy. He will be Holy Roman Emperor, prince elector of Brandenburg, King of Prussia and consort to the Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and his children will inhereit all (just Bohemia and Brandenburg can not be inhereited by the same son being both electorates)
 
Karl will demand a conversion for Friedrich (no ifs, buts or coconuts), since his own wife (as well as Karoline of Ansbach) had been expected to change religions, Karl is likely to be stupid/intractible like that. If Friedrich decides Vienna is worth a mass, Friedrich Wilhelm will probably be rubbing his hands with glee since he can then legally demand a renunciation from a Catholic Friedrich and his heirs and push his favourite son - August Wilhelm - into the role of crown prince.
 
I see that at the moment, there seems to be a majority vote for Fritz to marry Amelia of England/Amalie of Hannover. The idea might have still had legs under George I, but I think it died with him. Neither George II nor Friedrich Wilhelm seem to have been overly keen on it, and kept making unreasonable demands of the other. The Austrians played on this to push in their own candidate (Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick).

Any idea how to keep this idea alive post-1727? The other problem was Sophie Dorothea of Hannover (Friedrich Wilhelm's wife and George's sister) who kept hoping for a double match (Friedrich-Amalie and Frederick, prince of Wales-Wilhelmine).

@Stateless, @Socrates anyone else knowledgeable on early Hannoverian policy in Britain?
 
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