Augustus II The Strong - Biography

Biography

Augustus was born in Dresden on 12 May 1670, the younger son of the Elector Johann Georg III and Anne Sophie of Denmark.

As the second son, Augustus had no expectation of inheriting the Electorate, since his older brother, Johann Georg IV, assumed the post after the death of their father on 12 September 1691.

Augustus married Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth in Bayreuth on 20 January 1693. They had a son, Frederick Augustus II (1696–1763), who succeeded his father as Elector of Saxony and King of Poland as Augustus III.

While disporting himself during the carnival season in Venice, his older brother, the Elector Johann Georg IV, contracted smallpox from his mistress Magdalene Sybille of Neidschutz. On 27 April 1694 Johann Georg died without legitimate issue and Augustus became Elector of Saxony, as Frederick Augustus I.

To be eligible for election to the throne of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1697, Augustus had to convert to Roman Catholicism. The Saxon dukes had traditionally been called "champions of the Reformation." The duchy had been a stronghold of German Protestantism and Augustus's conversion was therefore considered shocking in Protestant Europe. The electors of Saxony had to cede its prestigious role as leader of the Protestant Estates in the Imperial Diet to Brandenburg-Prussia. Since the prince-elector guaranteed Saxony's religious status quo, Augustus's conversion alienated many of his Protestant subjects. As a result of the enormous expenditure of money used to bribe the Polish nobility and clergy, Augustus's contemporaries derisively referred to the Saxon duke's royal ambitions as his "Polish adventure."

It is noteworthy that the directorate of the Corpus Evangelicorum, which was the official Imperial board of the Protestant Estates and the counterpart of the Corpus Catholicorum, remained under Saxon auspices with the Roman Catholic Augustus, paradoxically, at its head. His church policy within the Holy Roman Empire followed orthodox Lutheranism and ran counter to his new-found religious and absolutist convictions. The Protestant Princes of the Empire and the two remaining Protestant Electors (of Hanover and Prussia) were anxious to keep Saxony well-integrated in their camp. According to the Peace of Augsburg, Augustus theoretically had the right to re-introduce Roman Catholicism (see Cuius regio, eius religio), or at least grant full religious freedom to his fellow Catholics in Saxony, but this never happened. Saxony remained Lutheran and the few Roman Catholics residing in Saxony were without any political or civil rights. In 1717 it became clear just how awkward the situation was: to realize his ambitious dynastic plans in Poland and Germany, it was necessary for Augustus's heirs to become Roman Catholic. After five years as a convert, his son—the future Augustus III—publicly avowed his Roman Catholicism. The Saxon Estates were outraged and revolted. It was becoming clearer that the conversion to Roman Catholicism was not only a matter of form, but of substance as well.

The wife of Augustus I, the Electress Christiane Eberhardine, refused to follow her husband's example and remained a staunch Protestant. She did not attend her husband's coronation in Poland and led a rather quiet life outside Dresden, gaining some popularity for her stubbornness.