Augustus II the Strong

Augustus II the Strong, born on 12 May 1670 and dying on 1 February 1733, ruled as Elector of Saxony (under the name Frederick Augustus I) from 1694 and as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1697 to 1706, and again from 1709 until his death. He was a member of the Albertine line of the House of Wettin. His extraordinary physical prowess led to the nicknames "the Strong," "the Saxon Hercules," and "Iron-Hand." To demonstrate this strength, he would snap horseshoes with his bare hands and participate in fox tossing, where he held one end of a sling with a single finger while two of his court's strongest men held the other. He was also famous for his immense number of offspring, with contemporary accounts estimating between 360 and 380 children.

To secure his election as king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Augustus converted to Roman Catholicism. As a Catholic, he was awarded the Order of the Golden Fleece by the Holy Roman Emperor and founded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest honor. As Saxon elector, he is most remembered for his patronage of the arts and architecture. He turned Dresden into a major cultural hub, drawing artists from across Europe to his court, built up a vast art collection, and constructed lavish Baroque palaces in both Dresden and Warsaw. In 1711, he served as Imperial vicar of the Holy Roman Empire.

His reign caused significant difficulties for Poland. He led the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth into the Great Northern War, which enabled the Russian Empire to expand its influence in Europe, particularly within Poland. His main goal was to strengthen royal authority in the Commonwealth, which was far more decentralized than other European monarchies. To reduce the autonomy of his subjects, he relied on foreign powers, which destabilized the country. His rule over Poland was interrupted for three years between 1706 and 1709; in 1704, the Swedes installed nobleman Stanisław Leszczyński as king, who officially reigned from 1706 to 1709 and again after Augustus's death in 1733, triggering the War of the Polish Succession.

Augustus's body was interred in Poland's royal Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, while his heart rests in Dresden Cathedral. His only legitimate son, Augustus III of Poland, succeeded him as king in 1733.

Augustus was born in Dresden on 12 May 1670, the younger son of Elector John George III of Saxony and Princess Anna Sophie of Denmark. As the second son, he did not expect to inherit the electorate; that role went to his older brother, John George IV, who became elector after their father died on 12 September 1691. Augustus received a good education and spent several years traveling and fighting against France. He married Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth on 20 January 1693 in Bayreuth. They had one son, the future Augustus III of Poland (1696–1763), who later became both Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. While in Venice during carnival, his older brother, Elector John George IV, caught smallpox from his mistress, Magdalena Sibylla of Neidschutz. John George died without legitimate children on 27 April 1694, making Augustus the new elector of Saxony, as Frederick Augustus I.

To become eligible for election to the Polish–Lithuanian throne in 1697, Augustus had to convert to Roman Catholicism. The Saxon electors had long been known as "champions of the Reformation." Christian August of Saxe-Zeitz performed the baptism and announced his conversion. Since Saxony was a stronghold of German Protestantism, this conversion shocked Protestant Europe. Although Augustus guaranteed Saxony's religious status quo, his conversion alienated many of his Protestant subjects. Because he spent enormous sums bribing Polish nobility and clergy, his contemporaries mockingly called his royal ambitions his "Polish adventure." Within the Holy Roman Empire, his church policy followed orthodox Lutheranism, contradicting his new Catholic and absolutist beliefs. The Protestant princes and the two remaining Protestant electors (of Hanover and Prussia) were anxious to keep Saxony in their camp. Under the Peace of Augsburg, Augustus theoretically could have reintroduced Roman Catholicism or granted full religious freedom to Catholics in Saxony, but he never did. Saxony remained Lutheran, and the few Roman Catholics there had no political or civil rights. In 1717, the awkwardness became clear: to pursue his dynastic plans in Poland and Germany, Augustus needed his heirs to be Catholic. After five years as a convert, his son—the future Augustus III—publicly declared his Roman Catholicism. The Saxon Estates were outraged and revolted, realizing the conversion was not just a formality but a substantive change. Since the Peace of Westphalia, the elector of Saxony had directed the Protestant body in the Reichstag. To soothe other Protestant states, Augustus nominally delegated this directorship to Johann Adolf II, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. However, when his son also converted, the electorate faced a permanent Catholic succession rather than a return to a Protestant elector after Augustus II's death. When the conversion became public in 1717, Brandenburg–Prussia and Hanover tried to remove Saxony from the directorship and appoint themselves as joint directors, but they abandoned the attempt in 1720. Saxony kept the directorship of the Protestant body.