 Frederick succeeded his father Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen in 1780, when only seventeen years old; because of this, his great grand uncle, the prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen, assumed the regency on his behalf, this regency only ended in 1787 at the death of Prince Joseph.Until 1806 he was subject to the restrictions of the imperial debit commission, which had placed the duchy of Saxe-Hildburghausen under official administration, because of his predecessors' dissolute financial policy.In 1806 Frederick joined the Confederation of the Rhine, and in 1815 the German Confederation, under whose guarantee he gave 1818 the duchy a new basic condition.