“In that pleasure-camp of Mühlberg, where the eyes of many strangers were directed to him, the Crown Prince was treated like a disobedient boy, and at one time even with blows, to make him feel that he was such. The enraged king, who never weighed the consequences of his words, added mockery to his manual outrage. ‘Had I been so treated,’ he said, ‘by my father, I would have blown my brains out. But this fellow has no honor. He takes all that comes.’”
It would seem that if ever there were an excuse for suicide it was to be found here. But what folly it would have been! Dark as these days were, they led the prince to a crown, and to achievements of whose recital the world will never grow weary. Fritz, goaded to madness, again adopted the desperate resolve to attempt an escape. A young Englishman, Captain Guy Dickens, secretary of the British embassador, Dubourgay, had become quite the intimate friend of the Crown Prince. They conferred together upon plans of escape. But the precautions adopted by the father were such that no plan which they could devise seemed feasible at that time. Fritz confided his thoughts to his friend, Lieutenant Keith, at Berlin.
It is probable that the suspicions of the king were excited, for suddenly he sent Lieutenant Keith to a garrison at Wesel, at a great distance from Berlin, in a small Prussian province far down the Rhine. The three had, however, concocted the following plan, to be subsequently executed. Immediately after the return from Mühlberg the king was to undertake a long journey to the Rhine. The Crown Prince, as usual, was to be dragged along with him. In this journey they would pass through Stuttgart, within a few miles of Strasbourg, which was on the French side of the river. From Stuttgart the prince was to escape in disguise, on fleetest horses, to Strasbourg, and thence proceed to London. Colonel Hotham, who had accompanied the Prussian king to the camp of Mühlberg, was apprised of all this by his secretary. He immediately dispatched the secretary, on the 16th of June, to convey the confidential intelligence to London.
At the close of these festivities at Mühlberg Frederick William and his suite took boat down the River Elbe to his hunting palace at Lichtenberg. Here they killed, in a grand hunting bout, a thousand animals, boars and deer. The Crown Prince, dishonored by insults which he could not revenge, and stung to the quick by innumerable humiliations, followed, dejected, like a guarded captive, in the train of his father. The unhappy prince had but just returned to his garrison at Potsdam, where spies ever kept their eyes vigilantly upon him, when his friend, Captain Guy Dickens, brought him the answer, returned from London, to the confidential communication of the Crown Prince to his uncle, the British king. The substance of the document was as follows:
“Mr. Guy Dickens may give to the prince the assurance of the deep compassion which the king feels in view of the sad condition in which the prince finds himself, and of the sincere desire of his majesty to aid, by all the means in his power, to extricate him. While waiting the result of some negotiations now on foot, his majesty is of the opinion that it would be best for the prince to defer for a time his present design; that the present critical state of affairs in Europe do not present a favorable opportunity for the execution of the contemplated plan; that the idea of retiring to France demands very careful deliberation; and that there is not time now to ascertain how such a step would be regarded by the French court, which his majesty would think to be essential before he advise a prince so dear to him to withdraw to that country.”
Soon after this, Colonel Hotham, having received a gross insult from the king, demanded his passports. The English embassador had presented the king with a document from his court. Frederick William angrily threw the paper upon the floor, exclaiming, “I have had enough of those things!” and, turning upon his heel, left the room. Colonel Hotham, a high-bred English gentleman, could not brook such an indignity, not only to himself, but to his sovereign. The passionate king had scarcely left the apartment before he perceived the impolicy of his conduct. He tried to make amends. But Colonel Hotham, justly regarding it as an insult to his court, persisted in demanding his passports, and returned to London. The Crown Prince in vain begged Colonel Hotham to remain. Very properly he replied that the incivility was addressed to his king, and that it was for him only to judge what satisfaction was due for the indignity offered.
All negotiation in reference to the marriages was now apparently at an end. Lieutenant Katte remained at Potsdam. In the absence of Lieutenant Keith he became more than ever the friend and confidant of the Crown Prince. Wilhelmina, aware of the dissipated character of Katte, mourned over this intimacy. The king was very much annoyed by the blunder of which he himself had been guilty in insulting the court of England in the person of its embassador. He declared, in his vexation, that he would never again treat in person with a foreign minister; that his hot temper rendered it unsafe for him to do so.
He informed Wilhelmina that the question of her marriage with the Prince of Wales was now settled forever, and that, as she declined taking the Duke of Weissenfels for a husband, she might prepare to retire to the abbey of Hereford, a kind of Protestant nunnery for ladies of quality, who, for any reason, wished to be buried from the world. He mercilessly resolved to make her the abbess of this institution. This living burial was almost the last situation to suit the taste of Wilhelmina. The king was in the worst possible humor. “He bullies and outrages his poor Crown Prince almost worse than ever. There have been rattan showers hideous to think of, descending this very week (July, 1730) on the fine head and far into the high heart of a royal young man, who can not in the name of manhood endure, and must not in the name of sonhood resist, and vainly calls to all the gods to teach him what he shall do in this intolerable, inextricable state of affairs.”[11]
As soon as Hotham had left Berlin the Crown Prince held a secret midnight interview with Captain Dickens and Lieutenant Katte, to devise some new plan of escape during the journey to the Rhine, which was to commence in a few days. He made arrangements to leave all his private papers with Katte, provided himself with a large gray overcoat as a partial disguise, and, with much difficulty, obtained about a thousand ducats to defray his expenses. Lieutenant Keith was at Wesel. He was written to with the utmost secrecy, as he might be able to render efficient aid, could the Crown Prince reach him.
On Saturday, the 15th of July, 1730, the king, with a small train, which really guarded Fritz, set out at an early hour from Potsdam on this memorable journey. Three reliable officers of the king occupied the same carriage with Fritz, with orders to keep a strict watch over him, and never to leave him alone. Thus, throughout the journey, one of his guards sat by his side, and the other two on the seat facing him. The king was not a luxurious traveler. He seemed to covet hardship and fatigue. Post-horses were provided all along the route. The meteoric train rushed along, scarcely stopping for food or sleep, but occasionally delayed by business of inspection, until it reached Anspach, where the king’s beautiful daughter, then but sixteen years of age, resided with her uncongenial husband. Here the Crown Prince had some hope of escape. He endeavored to persuade his brother-in-law, the young Marquis of Anspach, to lend him a pair of saddle-horses, and to say nothing about it. But the characterless young man, suspecting his brother, and dreading the wrath of his terrible father-in-law, refused, with many protestations of good-will.