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Germany – German States – Kingdom of Saxony
Death of King Friedrich August II
1843
G Silver Thaler 33.5mm (22.10 grams) 0.750 Silver (0.537 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 1162, AKS# 100
FRIEDRICH AUGUST V.G.G.KOENIG V.SACHSEN G, Friedrich August II facing right.
SEGEN DES BERGBAUS XIV EINE 18 41 F. MARK, Crowned Saxonian Coat-of-arms.
Edge Lettering:
GOTT SEGNE SACHSEN
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 Frederick Augustus II (German: Friedrich August II.; 18 May 1797 in Dresden – 9 August 1854 in Brennbüchel, Karrösten, Tyrol) was King of Saxony and a member of the House of Wettin.
He was the eldest son of Maximilian, Prince of Saxony – younger son of the Elector Frederick Christian of Saxony – by his first wife, Caroline of Bourbon, Princess of Parma.
From his birth, it was clear that one day Frederick Augustus would become the ruler of Saxony. His father was the only son of the Elector Frederick Christian of Saxony who left surviving male issue. When the King Frederick Augustus I died (1827) and Anton succeeded him as King, Frederick Augustus became second in line to the throne, preceded only by his father Maximilian.
He was an officer in the War of the Sixth Coalition. However, he had little interest in military affairs.
The July Revolution of 1830 in France marked the beginning of disturbances in Saxony that autumn. The people claimed a change in the constitution and demanded a young regent of the kingdom to share the government with the King Anton. On 1 September the Prince Maximilian renounced his rights of succession in favor of his son Frederick Augustus, who was proclaimed Prince Co-Regent (de: Prinz-Mitregenten) of Saxony. On 2 February 1832 Frederick Augustus brought Free Autonomy to the cities. Also, by an edict of 17 March of that year, the farmers were freed from the corvée and hereditary submission.
King of Saxony
On 6 June 1836, King Anton died and Frederick Augustus succeeded him. As an intelligent man, he was quickly popular with the people as he had been since the time of his regency. The new king solved political questions only from a pure sense of duty. Mostly he preferred to leave these things on the hands of his ministers.
A standardized jurisdiction for Saxony created the Criminal Code of 1836. During the Revolutionary disturbances of 1848 (March Revolution), he appointed liberal ministers in the government, lifted censorship, and remitted a liberal electoral law. Later his attitude changed. On 28 April Frederick August II dissolved the Parliament. In 1849, Frederick Augustus was forced to flee to the Königstein Fortress. The May Uprising was crushed by Saxon and Prussian troops and Frederick was able to return after only a few days.
In 1844 Frederick Augustus, accompanied by his personal physician Carl Gustav Carus, made an informal (incognito) visit to England and Scotland. Among places they visited were Lyme Regis where he purchased from the local fossil collector and dealer, Mary Anning, an ichthyosaur skeleton for his own extensive natural history collection. It was not a state visit, but the King was the guest of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Windsor Castle, visited many of the sights in London and in the university cities of Oxford and Cambridge, and toured widely in England, Wales and Scotland.
During a journey in Tyrol, he had an accident in Brennbüchel in which he fell in front of a horse that stepped on his head. On 8 August 1854, he died in the Gasthof Neuner. He was buried on 16 August in the Katholische Hofkirche of Dresden. In his memory, the Dowager Queen Maria arranged to establish the Königskapelle (King’s Chapel) at the accident place, which was consecrated one year later, some of the last members of the Saxon royal family, including Maria Emanuel, Margrave of Meissen, are buried beside the chapel.
In Vienna on 26 September 1819 (by proxy) and again in Dresden on 7 October 1819 (in person), Frederick Augustus married firstly with the Archduchess Maria Caroline of Austria (Maria Karoline Ferdinande Theresia Josephine Demetria), daughter of Emperor Francis I of Austria. They had no children.
In Dresden on 24 April 1833 Frederick Augustus married secondly with the Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria (Maria Anna Leopoldine Elisabeth Wilhelmine), daughter of the King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria. Like his first marriage, this was childless.
The musician Theodor Uhlig (1822–1853) was an illegitimate son of Frederick Augustus.
Without legitimate issue, after his death Frederick Augustus was succeeded by his younger brother, Johann.
 Saxony (German: Sachsen, Upper Sorbian: Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony, Upper Sorbian: Swobodny stat Sakska), is a landlocked federal state of Germany, bordering the federal states of Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland (Lower Silesian and Lubusz Voivodeships) and the Czech Republic (Karlovy Vary, Liberec, and Ústí nad Labem Regions). Its capital is Dresden, and its largest city is Leipzig.
Saxony is the tenth largest of Germany’s sixteen states, with an area of 18,413 square kilometres (7,109 sq mi), and the sixth most populous, with 4 million people.
 The history of the state of Saxony spans more than a millennium. It has been a medieval duchy, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, a kingdom, and twice a republic.
The area of the modern state of Saxony should not be confused with Old Saxony, the area inhabited by Saxons. Old Saxony corresponds roughly to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and the Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
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