THE SUFFERINGS OF FRITZ AND WILHELMINA.
The King an Artist.--Cruel Exactions of the King.--Conflicts of
Etiquette.--Quarrel with George II.--Nuptial Intrigues.--Energetic
Action of Frederick William.--Marriage of Frederica Louisa.--Fritz
and his Flute.--Wrath of the King.--Beats Wilhelmina and Fritz.--
Attempts to strangle Fritz.--The Hunt at Wusterhausen.--Intrigues
in reference to the Double Marriage.--Anguish of Wilhelmina.--
Cruelty of her Mother.--Resolve of Fritz to escape to England.
While Frederick William was confined to his room, tormented by the
gout, he endeavored to beguile the hours in painting in oil. Some of
these paintings still exist, with the epigraph, “Painted by Frederick
William in his torments.” Wilhelmina writes:
“For the most part, one of his own grenadiers was the model from
which he copied. And when the portrait had more color in it than the
original, he was in the habit of coloring the cheeks of the soldier to
correspond with the picture. Enchanted with the fruits of his genius,
he showed them to his courtiers, and asked their opinion concerning
them. As he would have been very angry with any one who had criticised
them, he was quite sure of being gratified with admiration.
“‘Well,’ said he one day to an attendant, who was extolling the
beauties of one of his pictures, ‘how much do you think that picture
would bring at a sale?’
“‘Sire, it would be cheap at a hundred ducats.’
“‘You shall have it for fifty,’ said the king, ‘because you are a good
judge, and I am therefore anxious to do you a favor.’
“The poor courtier,” Wilhelmina adds, “obliged to become possessor of
this miserable performance, and to pay so dear for it, determined for
the future to be more circumspect in his admiration.”
While the king was thus suffering the pangs of the gout, his
irascibility vented itself upon his wife and children. “We were
obliged,” says Wilhelmina, “to appear at nine o’clock in the morning
in his room. We dined there, and did not dare to leave it even for
a moment. Every day was passed by the king in invectives against my
brother and myself. He no longer called me any thing but ‘the English
blackguard.’ My brother was named the ‘rascal Fritz.’ He obliged us to
eat and drink the things for which we had an aversion. Every day was
marked by some sinister event. It was impossible to raise one’s eyes
without seeing some unhappy people tormented in one way or other. The
king’s restlessness did not allow him to remain in bed. He had himself
placed in a chair on rollers, and was thus dragged all over the palace.
His two arms rested upon crutches, which supported them. We always
followed this triumphal car, like unhappy captives who are about to
undergo their sentence.”
We have now reached the summer of 1729. George II. was a weak-minded,
though a proud, conceited man, who, as King of England, assumed airs
of superiority which greatly annoyed his irascible and petulant
brother-in-law, Frederick William. Flushed with his new dignity, he
visited his hereditary domain of Hanover. The journey led him through
a portion of the Prussian territory. Courtesy required that George
II. should announce that intention to the Prussian king. Courtesy
also required that, as the British monarch passed over Prussian soil,
Frederick William should furnish him with free post-horses. “I will
furnish the post-horses,” said Frederick William, “if the king apprise
me of his intention. If he do not, I shall do nothing about it.”
George did not write. In affected unconsciousness that there was any
such person in the world as the Prussian king, he crossed the Prussian
territory, paid for his own post-horses, and did not even condescend to
give Frederick William any notice of his arrival in Hanover. The King
of Prussia, who could not but be conscious of the vast inferiority of
Prussia to England, stung to the quick by this contemptuous treatment,
growled ferociously in the Tobacco Parliament.
The English minister at Berlin, Dubourgay, wrote to Hanover, urging
that some notification of the king’s arrival should be sent to the
Prussian court to appease the angry sovereign. George replied through
Lord Townshend that, “under the circumstances, it is not necessary.”
Thus the two kings were no longer on speaking terms. It is amusing,
while at the same time it is humiliating, to observe these traits of
frail childhood thus developed in full-grown men wearing crowns. When
private men or kings are in such a state of latent hostility, an open
rupture is quite certain soon to follow. George accused Frederick
William of recruiting soldiers in Hanover. In retaliation, he seized
some Prussian soldiers caught in Hanoverian territory. There was an
acre or so of land, called the “Meadow of Clamei,” which both Hanover
and Brandenburg claimed. The grass, about eight cart-loads, had been
cut by Brandenburg, and was well dried.
On the 28th of June, 1729, the population of Bühlitz, a Hanoverian
border village, sallied forth with carts, escorted by a troop of
horse, and, with demonstrations both defiant and exultant, raked up
and carried off all the hay. The King of Prussia happened to be at
that time about one hundred miles distant from Bühlitz, at Magdeburg,
reviewing his troops. He was thrown into a towering passion. Sophie
Dorothee, Wilhelmina, Fritz, all felt the effects of his rage.
Dubourgay writes, under date of July 30, 1729:
“Her majesty, all in tears, complained of her situation. The king is
nigh losing his senses on account of the differences with Hanover; goes
from bed to bed in the night-time, and from chamber to chamber, like
one whose brains are turned. Took a fit at two in the morning lately to
be off to Wusterhausen. Since his return he gives himself up entirely
to drink. The king will not suffer the prince royal to sit next his
majesty at table, but obliges him to go to the lower end, where things
are so ordered that the poor prince often rises without getting one
bit, insomuch that the queen was obliged two days ago to send, by one
of the servants who could be trusted, a box of cold fowls and other
eatables for his royal highness’s subsistence.”
Frederick William, in his extreme exasperation, seriously contemplated
challenging George II. to a duel. In his own mind he arranged all the
details--the place of meeting, the weapons, the seconds. With a stern
sense of justice, characteristic of the man, he admitted that it would
not be right to cause the blood of his subjects to flow in a quarrel
which was merely personal. But the “eight cart-loads of hay” had been
taken under circumstances so insulting and contemptuous as to expose
the Prussian king to ridicule; and he was firm in his determination to
settle the difficulty by a duel. The question was much discussed in the
Tobacco Parliament. The Prussian ministers opposed in vain. “The true
method, I tell you,” said the king, “is the duel, let the world cackle
as it may.”
But at length one of the counselors, Baron Borck, urged the following
consideration: “Swords will be the weapons used. Your majesty has
been very sick, is now weak, and also crippled with gout. The King of
England is in health and vigor. There is great danger that your majesty
may be worsted in the combat. That would render matters tenfold worse.”
The king was staggered. War seemed the only alternative. But war would
empty his money-casks, disfigure his splendid troops, and peril the
lives even of his costly giants. One of these men, James Kirkman,
picked up in the streets of London, cost the king six thousand dollars
“before he could be inveigled, shipped, and brought to hand.” Nearly
all had cost large sums of money. Such men were too valuable to be
exposed to danger. Frederick William was in a state of extreme nervous
excitement. There was no rest for him night or day. His deep potations
did not calm his turbulent spirit. War seemed imminent. Military
preparations were in vigorous progress. Ovens were constructed to bake
ammunition bread. Artillery was dragged out from the arsenals. It was
rumored that the Prussian troops were to march immediately upon the
duchy of Mecklenburg, which was then held by George II. as an appendage
to Hanover.
All thoughts of the double marriage were for the moment relinquished.
The Czar of Russia had a son and a daughter. It was proposed to marry
Wilhelmina to the son and Fritz to the daughter, and thus to secure a
Russian instead of an English alliance. Harassed by these difficulties,
Frederick William grew increasingly morose, venting his spite upon
his wife and children. Fritz seriously contemplated escaping from his
father’s abuse by flight, and to take refuge with his uncle George in
England, and thus to secure his marriage with Amelia. The portraits
of the princess which he had seen proved her to be very beautiful.
All reports pronounced her to be as lovely in character as in person.
He was becoming passionately attached to her. Wilhelmina was his only
confidante. Regard for her alone restrained him from attempting to
escape. “He would have done so long ago,” writes Dubourgay, under date
of August 11, 1729, “were it not for his sister, upon whom the whole
weight of his father’s resentment would then fall. Happen what will,
therefore, he is resolved to share with her all the hardships which the
king, his father, may be pleased to put upon her.”
[Illustration: WILHELMINA.]
One night, about the middle of August, as the king was tossing
restlessly upon his pillow, he sprang from his bed, exclaiming
“Eureka! I now see what will bring a settlement.” Immediately a special
messenger was dispatched, with terms of compromise, to Kannegiesser,
the king’s embassador at Hanover. We do not know what the propositions
were. But the king was exceedingly anxious to avoid war. He had, in
many respects, a very stern sense of justice, and would not do that
which he considered to be wrong. When he abused his family or others he
did not admit that he was acting unjustly. He assumed, and with a sort
of fanatical conscientiousness, detestable as it was, that he was doing
right; that they deserved the treatment. And now he earnestly desired
peace, and was disposed to present the most honorable terms to avert a
war.
Kannegiesser, at Hanover, received the king’s propositions for
reconciliation at ten o’clock in the morning of the 15th of August,
1729. George II. was then absent on a hunting excursion. The Prussian
embassador called immediately at the council-chamber of the Hanoverian
court, and informed M. Hartoff, the privy secretary, that he wished
an audience with the ministry, then in session, to make a proposition
to them from the Prussian court. Hartoff, who had met Kannegiesser
in a room adjoining the council-chamber, reported the request to
the council, and returned with the disrespectful answer that “M.
Kannegiesser must defer what he has to say to some other time.”
The Prussian minister condescended then so importunately to urge an
audience, in view of the menacing state of affairs, that M. Hartoff
returned to the council-chamber, and in seven minutes came back with an
evasive answer, still refusing to grant an audience. The next day M.
Kannegiesser called again at the council-chamber. “I let them know in
the mildest terms,” he writes in his dispatch home, “that I desired to
be admitted to speak with them, which was refused me a second time.” He
then informed M. Hartoff that the Prussian court expected a definite
answer to some propositions which had previously been sent to the
council at Hanover; that he would remain two days to receive it; that,
in case he did not receive it, he would call again, to remind them that
an answer was desired.
The next day M. Hartoff called at the residence of M. Kannegiesser, and
informed him “that the ministers, understanding that he designed to ask
an audience to-morrow to remind them of the answer which he demanded,
wished to say that such applications were not customary among sovereign
princes; that they dared not treat farther in that affair with him;
that, as soon as they received instructions from his Britannic majesty,
they would communicate to him the result.”
The Prussian minister replied that he could not conceive why he
should be refused an audience; that he should not fail to be at the
council-chamber at eleven o’clock the next day to receive an answer
to the proposals already made, and also to the proposals which he was
prepared to make. He endeavored to inform Hartoff of the terms of
compromise which the Prussian king was ready to present. But Hartoff
refused to hear him, declaring that he had positive orders not to
listen to any thing he had to say upon the subject. We will give the
conclusion in the words of the Prussian minister, as found in his
dispatch of the 18th of August, 1729:
“At eleven this day I went to the council-chamber for the third time,
and desired Secretary Hartoff to prevail with the ministry to allow
me to speak with them, and communicate what the King of Prussia had
ordered me to propose. Herr von Hartoff gave them an account of my
request, and brought me, for answer, that I must wait a little, because
the ministers were not yet all assembled; which I did. But after having
made me stay almost an hour, and after the president of the council was
come, Herr von Hartoff came out to me and repeated what he had said
yesterday, in very positive and absolute terms, that the ministers were
resolved not to see me, and had expressly forbid him taking any paper
at my hands.
“To which I replied, that this was very hard usage, and the world would
see how the King of Prussia would relish it. But having strict orders
from his majesty, my most gracious master, to make a declaration to the
ministers of Hanover in his name, and finding that Herr von Hartoff
would neither receive it nor take a copy of it, I had only to tell
him that I was under the necessity of leaving it in writing, and had
brought the paper with me; and that now, as the council were pleased
to refuse to take it, I was obliged to leave the said declaration on
a table in an adjoining room, in the presence of Herr von Hartoff and
other secretaries of the council, whom I desired to lay it before the
ministry.
“After this I went home, but had scarcely entered my apartment when
a messenger returned me, by order of the ministers, the declaration,
still sealed as I left it; and perceiving that I was not inclined to
receive it, he laid it on my table, and immediately left the house.”
Having met with this repulse, Kannegiesser returned to Berlin with the
report. Frederick William was exasperated in the highest degree by such
treatment from a brother-in-law whom he both hated and despised. He
had at his command an army in as perfect condition, both in equipment
and drill, as Europe had ever seen. Within a week’s time forty-four
thousand troops, horse, foot, and artillery, were rendezvoused at
Magdeburg. Fritz was there, looking quite soldierly on his proud
charger, at the head of his regiment of the giant guard. Vigorously
they were put upon the march. George II., who had already in his
boyhood felt the weight of Frederick William’s arm, and who well knew
his desperate energy when once roused, was terrified. He had no forces
in Hanover which could stand for an hour in opposition to the army
which the Prussian king was bringing against him.
War between Prussia and England might draw all the neighboring nations
into the conflict. There was excitement in every continental court. The
Pope, it is reported, was delighted. “He prays,” says Carlyle, “that
Heaven would be graciously pleased to foment and blow up to the proper
degree this quarrel between the two chief heretical powers, Heaven’s
chief enemies, whereby holy religion might reap a good benefit.”
In the general alarm, France, Holland, and other neighboring courts
interposed and called loudly for a settlement. Frederick William had
never wished for war. George II. was thoroughly frightened. As it was
certain that he would be severely chastised, he was eager to escape
from the difficulty through the mediation of others. An arbitration was
agreed upon, and the quarrel was settled without bloodshed.
On the 8th of September Fritz returned to Potsdam from this his first
military expedition, with his regiment of giants. He was then seventeen
years of age. His soldierly bearing had quite rejoiced the king, and
he began to think that, after all, possibly something might be made of
Fritz.
Just as these troubles were commencing, there was, in May, 1729, a
marriage in the Prussian royal family. Some two hundred miles south of
Brandenburg there was, at that time, a small marquisate called Anspach,
next in dignity to a dukedom. The marquis was a frail, commonplace
boy of seventeen, under the care of a young mother, who was widowed,
sick, and dying. Much to the dissatisfaction of Sophie Dorothee, the
queen-mother, Frederick William had arranged a marriage between this
young man, who was far from rich, and his second daughter, Frederica
Louisa, who was then fifteen years of age.[7]
Fritz went in the royal carriage, with suitable escort, to meet the
young marquis on the Prussian frontier, as he came to his bridals.
They returned together in the carriage to Potsdam with great military
display. The wedding took place on the 30th of May, 1729. It was very
magnificent. Fritz was conspicuous on the occasion in a grand review
of the giant grenadiers. Wilhelmina, in her journal, speaks quite
contemptuously of her new brother-in-law, the Marquis of Anspach,
describing him as a foolish young fellow. It was, indeed, a marriage
of children. The bridegroom was a sickly, peevish, undeveloped boy
of seventeen; and the bride was a self-willed and ungoverned little
beauty of fifteen. The marriage proved a very unhappy one. There was
no harmony between them. Frederick writes: “They hate one another like
the fire” (_comme le feu_). They, however, lived together in incessant
petty quarrelings for thirty years. Probably during all that time
neither one of them saw a happy day.
Fritz had now attained eighteen years of age, and Wilhelmina
twenty-one. Fritz was very fond of music, particularly of his
flute, upon which he played exquisitely, being, however, careful
never to sound its notes within hearing of his father. A celebrated
music-master from Dresden, by the name of Quantz, was his teacher. He
came occasionally from Dresden and spent a week or two at Potsdam,
secretly teaching the young prince. The mother of Fritz was in warm
sympathy with her son, and aided him in all ways in her power in this
gratification. Still it was a very hazardous measure. The fierce
old king was quite uncertain in his movements. He might at any hour
appear at Potsdam, and no one could tell to what lengths, in case of
a discovery, he might go in the intensity of his rage. Fritz had an
intimate friend in the army, a young man of about his own age, one
Lieutenant Katte, who, when Fritz was with his music-teacher, was
stationed on the look-out, that he might give instant warning in case
there were any indications of the king’s approach. His mother also was
prepared, when Quantz was at Potsdam, promptly to dispatch a messenger
to her son in case she suspected his father of being about to turn his
steps in that direction.
Fritz, having thus established his outposts, was accustomed to retire
to his room with his teacher, lay aside his tight-fitting Prussian
military coat, which he detested, and called his shroud, draw on a very
beautiful, flowing French dressing-gown of scarlet, embroidered with
gold, and decorated with sash and tags, and, with his hair dressed in
the most fashionable style of the French court, surrender himself to
the indulgence of his own luxurious tastes for sumptuous attire as well
as for melodious sounds. He was thus, one day, in the height of his
enjoyment, taking his clandestine music-lesson, when Lieutenant Katte
came rushing into the room in the utmost dismay, with the announcement
that the king was at the door. The wily and ever-suspicious monarch
had stolen the march upon them. He was about to make his son a very
unwelcome surprise visit.
A bomb bursting in the room could scarcely have created a greater
panic. Katte and Quantz seized the flutes and music-books, and rushed
into a wood-closet, where they stood quaking with terror. Fritz threw
off his dressing-gown, hurried on his military coat, and sat down at
the table, affecting to be deeply engaged with his books. The king,
frowning like a thunder-cloud--for he always frowned when he drew near
Fritz--burst into the room. The sight of the frizzled hair of his
son “kindled the paternal wrath into a tornado pitch.” The king had a
wonderful command of the vocabulary of abuse, and was heaping epithets
of vituperation upon the head of the prince, when he caught sight of
the dressing-gown behind a screen. He seized the glittering garment,
and, with increasing outbursts of rage, crammed it into the fire. Then
searching the room, he collected all the French books, of which Fritz
had quite a library, and, sending for a bookseller near by, ordered him
to take every volume away, and sell them for what they would bring.
For more than an hour the king was thus raging, like a maniac, in the
apartment of his son. Fortunately he did not look into the wood-closet.
Had he done so, both Quantz and Katte would have been terribly beaten,
even had they escaped being sent immediately to the scaffold.
[Illustration: THE DRESSING-GOWN.]
“The king,” writes Wilhelmina, “almost caused my brother and myself to
die of hunger. He always acted as carver, and served every body except
us. When, by chance, there remained any thing in the dish, he spit in
it, to prevent our eating of it. We lived entirely upon coffee, milk,
and dried cherries, which ruined our health. I was nourished with
insults and invectives, and was abused all day long, in every possible
manner, and before every body. The king’s anger went so far against my
brother and myself that he drove us from him, forbidding us to appear
in his presence except at meals.
“The queen had contrived in her bedroom a sort of labyrinth of screens,
so arranged that I could escape the king without being seen, in case
he suddenly entered. One day the king came and surprised us. I wished
to escape, but found myself embarrassed among these screens, of which
several fell, and prevented my getting out of the room. The king was at
my heels, and tried to catch hold of me in order to beat me. Not being
able any longer to escape, I placed myself behind my governess. The
king advanced so much that she was obliged to fall back, but, finding
herself at length near the chimney, she was stopped. I found myself in
the alternative of bearing the fire or the blows. The king overwhelmed
me with abuse, and tried to seize me by the hair. I fell upon the
floor. The scene would have had a tragical end had it continued, as my
clothes were actually beginning to take fire. The king, fatigued with
crying out and with his passion, at length put an end to it and went
away.”
These sufferings bound the brother and sister very intimately together.
“This dear brother,” Wilhelmina writes, “passed all his afternoons with
me. We read and wrote together, and occupied ourselves in cultivating
our minds. The king now never saw my brother without threatening
him with the cane. Fritz repeatedly told me that he would bear any
thing from the king except blows; but that, if he ever came to such
extremities with him, he would regain his freedom by flight.”
On the 10th of December, 1729, Dubourgay writes in his journal: “His
Prussian majesty can not bear the sight of either the prince or the
princess royal. The other day he asked the prince, ‘Kalkstein makes you
English, does not he?’ To which the prince answered, ‘I respect the
English, because I know the people there love me.’ Upon which the king
seized him by the collar, struck him fiercely with his cane, and it was
only by superior strength that the poor prince escaped worse. There is
a general apprehension of something tragical taking place before long.”
Wilhelmina gives the following account of this transaction, as
communicated to her by her brother: “As I entered the king’s room
this morning, he first seized me by the hair and then threw me on the
floor, along which, after having exercised the vigor of his arm upon
my unhappy person, he dragged me, in spite of all my resistance, to a
neighboring window. His intention apparently was to perform the office
of the mutes of the seraglio, for, seizing the cord belonging to the
curtain, he placed it around my neck. I seized both of his hands, and
began to cry out. A servant came to my assistance, and delivered me
from his hands.”
In reference to this event, the prince wrote to his mother from
Potsdam, “I am in the utmost despair. What I had always apprehended has
at last come on me. The king has entirely forgotten that I am his son.
This morning I came into his room as usual. At the first sight of me
he sprang forward, seized me by the collar, and struck me a shower of
blows with his rattan. I tried in vain to screen myself, he was in so
terrible a rage, almost out of himself. It was only weariness that made
him give up. I am driven to extremity. I have too much honor to endure
such treatment, and I am resolved to put an end to it in one way or
another.”
Wilhelmina well understood that her brother contemplated running away,
escaping, if possible, to England. We have mentioned that the young
prince, after his return from Dresden, had become quite dissipated.
The companions he chose were wild young army officers of high birth,
polished address, and, in godless lives, fashionable men of the world.
Lieutenant Katte was a genteel man of pleasure. Another of his bosom
companions, Lieutenant Keith, a young man of illustrious lineage, was
also a very undesirable associate for any young man whose principles
of virtue were not established.[8] Of Keith and Katte, the two most
intimate friends of Fritz, Wilhelmina writes, about this time:
[Illustration: A ROYAL EXECUTIONER.]
“Lieutenant Keith had been gone some time, stationed in Wesel with his
regiment. Keith’s departure had been a great joy to me, in the hope
my brother would now lead a more regular life. But it proved quite
otherwise. A second favorite, and a much more dangerous, succeeded
Keith. This was a young man of the name of Katte, captain lieutenant
in the regiment _Gens d’Armes_. He was highly connected in the army.
His mother was daughter of Field-marshal Wartensleben. General Katte,
his father, had sent him to the universities, and afterward to travel,
desiring that he should be a lawyer. But, as there was no favor to be
hoped for out of the army, the young man found himself at last placed
there, contrary to his expectation. He continued to apply himself to
studies. He had wit, book-culture, and acquaintance with the world.
The good company which he continued to frequent had given him polite
manners to a degree then rare in Berlin. His physiognomy was rather
disagreeable than otherwise. A pair of thick black eyebrows almost
covered his eyes. His look had in it something ominous, presage of
the fate he met with. A tawny skin, torn by small-pox, increased his
ugliness. He affected the freethinker, and carried libertinism to
excess. A great deal of ambition and headlong rashness accompanied this
vice. Such a favorite was not the man to bring back my brother from his
follies.”
Early in January, 1730, the king, returning from a hunt at
Wusterhausen, during which he had held a drinking carouse and a
diplomatic interview with the King of Poland, announced his intention
of being no longer annoyed by matrimonial arrangements for Wilhelmina.
He resolved to abandon the English alliance altogether, unless an
immediate and unequivocal assent were given by George II. for the
marriage of Wilhelmina with the Prince of Wales, without any compact
for the marriage of Fritz with the Princess Amelia. Count Finckenstein,
Baron Grumkow, and General Borck were sent to communicate this, the
king’s unalterable resolve, to the queen. The first two were friends
of the queen. Grumkow was understood to be the instigator of the king.
Wilhelmina chanced to be with her mother when the gentlemen announced
themselves as the bearers of a very important message from the king to
her majesty. Wilhelmina trembled, and said in a low tone to her mother,
“This regards me. I have a dreading.” “No matter,” the worn and weary
mother replied; “one must have firmness, and that is not what I shall
want.” The queen retired with the ministers to the audience-chamber.
There they informed her that they had each received a letter the night
before from the king, the contents of which they were forbidden,
under penalty of death, from communicating to any one but to her. The
king wished them to say to her majesty that he would no longer endure
her disobedience in reference to the marriage of Wilhelmina; that, in
case this disobedience continued, there should be an entire separation
between him and his wife--a divorce--and that she and her daughter
should both be banished to the château of Oranienburg, about twenty
miles from Berlin, and there held in close imprisonment. The king was
willing that Sophie Dorothee should write once more, and only once
more, to her brother, George II., and demand of him a categorical
answer, yes or no, whether he would consent to the immediate marriage
of the Prince of Wales and Wilhelmina. The king would wait a fortnight
for an answer, or, if the winds were contrary, three weeks; but not a
day more. Should no answer in that time be returned, or a negative or
an evasive answer, then Wilhelmina was to make her immediate choice
of a husband between either the Duke of Weissenfels or the Marquis of
Schwedt, and to be married without delay.[9]
Weissenfels was a small duchy in Saxony. The duke, so called by
courtesy, had visited Berlin before in the train of his sovereign, King
Augustus, when his majesty returned the visit of Frederick William. He
was then quite captivated by the beauty and vivacity of Wilhelmina.
He was titular duke merely, his brother being the real duke; and he
was then living on his pay as officer in the army, and was addicted to
deep potations. Carlyle describes him as “a mere betitled, betasseled,
elderly military gentleman of no special qualities, evil or good.”
Sophie Dorothee, noticing his attentions to Wilhelmina, deemed it the
extreme of impudence for so humble a man to aspire to the hand of her
illustrious child. She reproved him so severely that he retired from
the court in deep chagrin. He never would have presumed to renew the
suit but for the encouragement given by Frederick William.
The Marquis of Schwedt was a very indifferent young man, living under
the tutelage of his dowager mother. She was a cousin of the King of
Prussia, and had named her son Frederick William. Having rendered
herself conspicuously ridiculous by the flaunting colors of her dress,
which tawdry display was in character with her mind, both she and her
son were decidedly disagreeable to Wilhelmina.
There was no alternative left the young princess. Unless there were
an immediate consummation of the marriage contract with the English
Frederick, she was, without delay, to choose between Weissenfels and
Schwedt. The queen, in response to this communication, said, “I will
immediately write to England; but, whatever may be the answer, it is
impossible that my daughter should marry either of the individuals whom
the king has designated.” Baron Grumkow, who was in entire accord with
the king, “began,” says Wilhelmina, “quoting Scripture on her majesty,
as the devil can on occasion. ‘Wives, be obedient to your husbands,’
said he. The queen very aptly replied, ‘Yes; but did not Bethuel, the
son of Milcah, when Abraham’s servant asked his daughter in marriage
for young Isaac, answer, “We will call the damsel, and inquire of her
mouth?” It is true, wives must obey their husbands, but husbands must
command things just and reasonable.’
“The king’s procedure,” added the unhappy mother, “is not in accordance
with that law. He is doing violence to my daughter’s inclinations, thus
rendering her wretched for the remainder of her days. He wishes to
give her for a husband a brutal debauchee, a younger brother, who is
nothing but an officer in the army of the King of Poland; a landless
man, without the means of living according to his rank. I will write to
England. But, whatever the answer, I had rather a thousand times see my
child in the grave than hopelessly miserable.”
The queen, looking reproachfully at Grumkow, remarked, “I know full
well to whom I owe all this.” She then excused herself, saying that
she was not well, and retired to her apartment. There she communicated
to the anxious Wilhelmina the cruel message of the king. Sophie
Dorothee then wrote a very earnest letter to Queen Caroline, the wife
of George II., imploring that all obstacles in the way of the marriage
of Wilhelmina with the Prince of Wales might be withdrawn. The idea
of marriage with either Weissenfels or Schwedt was dreadful. But,
on the other hand, the wrath of the king, the divorce of the queen,
and the imprisonment of both mother and daughter in the château of
Oranienburg, were also dreadful. Fritz was taken into the councils
of his mother and sister. It was decided that he should also write
to his aunt, urging his suit for the Princess Amelia. It is true
that George II. was ready to accede to this marriage, but Frederick
William threw obstacles in the way. It was probably the hope of Fritz
to secure Amelia, notwithstanding his father’s opposition. The ready
pen of Wilhelmina was employed to draft the letter, which her brother
submissively copied. As it was not probable, in the intricacies in
which the question was now involved, that both marriages could take
place together, Fritz wrote pleading for the marriage of Wilhelmina at
once, pledging his word that he would remain faithful to the Princess
Amelia.
“I have already,” he wrote, “given your majesty my word of honor never
to wed any one but the Princess Amelia, your daughter. I here reiterate
that promise, in case your majesty will consent to my sister’s
marriage.”
Sophie Dorothee dispatched a courier with these documents, to go with
the utmost speed to England. It was a long journey in those days, and
the winds were often contrary. A fortnight passed. Three weeks were
gone. Still there was no answer. On the 25th of January, 1730--“a
day,” writes Wilhelmina, “which I shall never forget”--Finckenstein,
Borck, and Grumkow again called upon the queen, with the following
message from the king:
“Whatever answer may now be returned from England I will have nothing
to do with it. Whether negative, affirmative, or evasive, to me it
shall be as nothing. You, madam, must now choose between the Duke of
Weissenfels and the Marquis of Schwedt. If you do not choose, you and
Wilhelmina may prepare for Oranienburg, where you shall suffer the just
penalty of mutiny against the authority set over you by God and men.”
The queen summoned firmness to reply: “You can inform the king that he
will never make me consent to render my daughter miserable; and that,
so long as a breath of life remains in me, I will not permit her to
take either the one or the other of these persons.”
Then addressing Grumkow, she said, in tones deliberate and intense,
“For you, sir, who are the author of my misfortunes, may my curse fall
upon you and your house. You have this day killed me. But I doubt not
that Heaven will hear my prayer and avenge my wrongs.”
The queen was at this time in a delicate state of health, and anxiety
and sorrow threw her upon a sick-bed. The king, who felt as much
affection for “Phiekin” as such a coarse, brutal man could feel for any
body, was alarmed; but he remained obdurate. He stormed into her room,
where, in the fever of her troubles, she tossed upon her pillow, and
obstreperously declared that Wilhelmina should be married immediately,
and that she must take either Weissenfels or Schwedt. As both mother
and daughter remained firm in their refusal to choose, he resolved to
decide the question himself.
Accordingly, he made proposals to the Marquise of Schwedt that
Wilhelmina should marry her son. The lady replied, in terms very
creditable both to her head and her heart, “Such a union, your majesty,
would be in accordance with the supreme wish of my life. But how can I
accept such happiness against the will of the princess herself? This
I can positively never do.” Here she remained firm. The raging king
returned to the bedside of his wife, as rough and determined as ever.
He declared that the question was now settled that Wilhelmina was to
marry the old Duke of Weissenfels.
The unhappy princess, distracted by these griefs, had grown thin and
pale. It was soon rumored throughout the court that the king had
written to Weissenfels, and that the duke was on his way to seize
his reluctant bride. In this emergence, the queen’s friend, Baron
Borck, suggested to her that, in order to get rid of the obnoxious
Weissenfels, she should so far yield to the wishes of the king as to
give up the English alliance, and propose a third party, who might be
more acceptable to Wilhelmina. But who shall this substitute be?
About two hundred miles south of Berlin there was quite an important
marquisate called Baireuth. The marquis had a good-looking young
son, the heir-apparent, who had just returned from the grand tour
of Europe. Upon the death of his father he would enter upon quite
a rich inheritance. This young marquis, Frederick by name, Baron
Borck proposed as a substitute for the Duke of Weissenfels. It was
understood that Wilhelmina was such a prize that kings, even, would be
eager to obtain her hand. There could therefore be no doubt but that
the Marquis of Baireuth would feel signally honored by such nuptials.
The worn and weary mother eagerly accepted this proposal. She suggested
it to the king. Sullenly he gave it his assent, saying, “I will
passively submit to it, but will take no active part whatever in the
affair. Neither will I give Wilhelmina one single copper for dowry.”
The queen, delighted in having obtained even this measure of
acquiescence on the part of the king, now conferred with Wilhelmina.
But, to her surprise and bitter disappointment, the young princess did
not share in her mother’s joy. She was not disposed to be thus bartered
away, and presented sundry objections. The poor mother, harassed by
these interminable difficulties, now lost all patience. She broke out
upon her equally unhappy daughter with cruel reproaches.
“Take, then,” she exclaimed, “the Grand Turk or the Great Mogul for
your husband. Follow your own caprice. Had I known you better I would
not have brought so many sorrows upon myself. You may follow the king’s
bidding. It is henceforth your own affair. I will no longer trouble
myself about your concerns. And spare me, if you please, the sorrows of
your odious presence. I can not stand it.”
Wilhelmina endeavored to reply. But the angry mother sternly exclaimed,
“Silence!” and the tortured girl left the apartment, weeping bitterly.
Even Fritz took his mother’s part, and reproached Wilhelmina for not
acceding to her plan. New troubles were thickening around him. He was
in debt. The king had found it out. To his father’s stern questioning,
Fritz, in his terror, had uttered deliberate falsehood. He confessed
a debt of about eight hundred dollars, which his father had detected,
and solemnly declared that this was all. In fact, he owed an additional
sum of seven thousand dollars. Should the king discover this debt, and
thus detect Fritz in a lie, his rage would be tremendous. The king paid
the eight hundred dollar debt of his son, and then issued a decree
declaring that to lend money to any princes of the blood, even to the
prince royal, was a high crime, to be punished, not only by forfeiture
of the money, but by imprisonment. The king had begun to suspect that
Fritz intended to escape. He could not escape without money. The king
therefore took special precautions that his purse should be ever empty,
and watched him with renewed vigilance.
While matters were in this extremity, the British minister,
Dubourgay, and Baron Knyphausen, a distinguished Prussian official,
dispatched Rev. Dr. Villa, a scholarly man, who had been Wilhelmina’s
teacher of English, on a secret mission to the court of England, to
communicate the true state of affairs, and to endeavor to secure some
disentanglement of the perplexities. Dr. Villa was a warm friend of
Wilhelmina, and, in sympathy with her sorrows, wept as he bade her
adieu. The king was in such ill humor that his daughter dared not
appear in his presence. If Fritz came within reach of his father’s arm
he was pretty sure to receive a blow from his rattan.
On the 18th of February, 1730, some affairs of state led the king to
take a trip to Dresden to see the King of Poland. He decided to take
Fritz with him, as he was afraid to leave him behind. Fritz resolved
to avail himself of the opportunity which the journey might offer to
attempt his escape. He was unwilling to do this without bidding adieu
to his sister, who had been the partner of so many of his griefs. It
was not easy to obtain a private interview. On the evening of the 17th
of February, as Wilhelmina, aided by her governess, was undressing for
bed, the door of the anteroom of her chamber was cautiously opened, and
a young gentleman, very splendidly dressed in French costume, entered.
Wilhelmina, terrified, uttered a shriek, and endeavored to hide herself
behind a screen. Her governess, Madam Sonsfeld, ran into the anteroom
to ascertain what such an intrusion meant. The remainder of the story
we will give in the words of Wilhelmina:
“But she returned the next moment accompanying the cavalier, who was
laughing heartily, and whom I recognized for my brother. His dress so
altered him he seemed a different person. He was in the best humor
possible. ‘I am come to bid you farewell once more, my dear sister,’
said he; ‘and as I know the friendship you have for me, I will not
keep you ignorant of my designs. I go, and do not come back. I can
not endure the usage I suffer. My patience is driven to an end. It is
a favorable opportunity for flinging off that odious yoke. I will
glide out of Dresden and get across to England, where, I do not doubt,
I shall work out your deliverance too, when I am got thither. So I
beg you calm yourself. We shall soon meet again in places where joy
shall succeed our tears, and where we shall have the happiness to see
ourselves in peace, and free from these persecutions.’”
[Illustration: FREDERICK AND HIS SISTER.]
Wilhelmina was appalled in view of the difficulty and danger of the
enterprise. It was a long distance from Dresden to the coast. Head
winds might detain the vessel. The suspicious king would not long
remain ignorant that he was missing. He would be pursued with energy
almost demoniac. Being captured, no one could tell how fearful would
be his doom. The sagacious sister was right. Fritz could not but
perceive the strength of her arguments, and gave her his word of honor
that he would not attempt, on the present occasion, to effect his
flight. Fritz accordingly went to Dresden with his father, and returned.