FREDERICK WILLIAM IV, King of Prussia. — Born 15 Oct. 1795, Berlin; died 2 Jan. 1861 at Sanssouci. Succeeding his father Frederick William III in 1840, he sought to remove the conflicts with the Holy See. He therefore permitted the archbishop of Gnesen and Posen, Dunin, to return to his diocese and sent Count Brühl to Rome to settle the dispute over the see of Cologne, where the person of Droste-Vischering was unwelcome to the sovereign; the difficulties were overcome by the appointment of Geissel as administrator.
During the crisis of 1848–49 he refused the imperial crown of Germany offered him by the Frankfurt Parliament, because he did not wish to offend Francis Joseph or accept a crown from a democratic assembly (28 March 1849). Subsequently, relations between the state and the Catholic Church again became strained owing to measures issued by the Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs, Raumer. On the whole, however, the position of Catholics in the Kingdom of Prussia under Frederick William IV’s reign showed an improvement compared with the treatment they had received from his father. In 1858, the king, suffering from cerebral softening, appointed his brother William as regent.