Born in Homburg, Hesse, on 30 July 1769, Friedrich Joseph Ludwig Carl August[2] was the eldest son of the incumbent Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, Frederick V, and his wife Caroline of Hesse-Darmstadt, the eldest child of the then Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, Louis IX.

Frederick was appointed a captain of the Russian cavalry in 1783 and was made an Austrian general during the Great French War.

[2] For his services in that conflict, he was created a Commander of the Austrian Military Order of Maria Theresa.

[2] Despite the vocal objections of her mother, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Frederick married Princess Elizabeth of the United Kingdom, the third daughter of King George III, in the Queen's House in the Mall (now integrated into Buckingham Palace) on 7 April 1818.

[3] It was no love match: Elizabeth longed to be free from her domineering mother at any cost, while Frederick needed her sizeable dowry to improve the Landgraviate's strained finances.