Education and the Rituals of Monarchy in the Kingdom of Württemberg: Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, Crown Prince Karl and Prince Wilhelm Compared

Abstract

In as highly specialized an area of education as the preparation of a prince or princess for their status as future king or queen, the question of the continuity of educational ideals through the centuries appears to be very important. A traditional institution like monarchy requires a certain conservative element that insists on the behaviour and values of the past, even if some of them prove to be archaic. At the same time the education of a future heir or heiress cannot be regarded entirely as a private matter of the reigning family because interests of the state are also concerned. In an instruction concerning ‘my children’s supervision’, Duke Friedrich of Württemberg wrote in 1792 that his offspring were at the same time ‘children of the state’.¹ Times change, though, and monarchy develops. In an interview in 2009 Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark revealed that he had been educated in a very traditional fashion, rather distant from his parents:

My mum [Queen Margarethe] had me brought up by nannies and governesses. I didn’t have much to do with my parents until I was 21. When I was small, I was presented to them, washed and brushed, before I was put to bed. I still see Nanny — she came to our wedding — but there is no way our two [children] will be brought up like that.²