FREDERICK HENRY (1584-1647), prince of Orange, the youngest child of William the Silent, was born at Delft about six months before his father’s assassination on the 29th of January 1584. His mother, Louise de Coligny, was daughter of the famous Huguenot leader, Admiral de Coligny, and was the fourth wife of William the Silent. The boy was trained to arms by his elder brother, Maurice of Nassau, one of the first generals of his age. On the death of Maurice in 1625, Frederick Henry succeeded him in his paternal dignities and estates, and also in the stadtholderates of the five provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Overysel and Gelderland, and in the important posts of captain and admiral-general of the Union. Frederick Henry proved himself scarcely inferior to his brother as a general, and a far more capable statesman and politician. During twenty-two years he remained at the head of affairs in the United Provinces, and in his time the power of the stadtholderate reached its highest point. The “Period of Frederick Henry,” as it is usually styled by Dutch writers, is generally accounted the golden age of the republic. It was marked by great military and naval triumphs, by world-wide maritime and commercial expansion, and by a wonderful outburst of activity in the domains of art and literature. The chief military exploits of Frederick Henry were the sieges and captures of Hertogenbosch in 1629, of Maastricht in 1632, of Breda in 1637, of Sas van Ghent in 1644, and of Hulst in 1645. During the greater part of his administration the alliance with France against Spain had been the pivot of Frederick Henry’s foreign policy, but in his last years he sacrificed the French alliance for the sake of concluding a separate peace with Spain, by which the United Provinces obtained from that power all the advantages for which they had for eighty years been contending. Frederick Henry died on the 14th of March 1647, and was buried with great pomp beside his father and brother at Delft. The treaty of Münster, ending the long struggle between the Dutch and the Spaniards, was not actually signed until the 30th of January 1648, the illness and death of the stadtholder having caused a delay in the negotiations. Frederick Henry was married in 1625 to Amalia von Solms, and left one son, William II. of Orange, and four daughters.
Frederick Henry left an account of his campaigns in his Mémoires de Frédéric Henri (Amsterdam, 1743). See Cambridge Mod. Hist. vol. iv. chap. 24, and the bibliography on p. 931.
FREDERICK LOUIS (1707-1751), prince of Wales, eldest son of George II., was born at Hanover on the 20th of January 1707. After his grandfather, George I., became king of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714, Frederick was known as duke of Gloucester[1] and made a knight of the Garter, having previously been betrothed to Wilhelmina Sophia Dorothea (1709-1758), daughter of Frederick William I., king of Prussia, and sister of Frederick the Great. Although he was anxious to marry this lady, the match was rendered impossible by the dislike of George II. and Frederick William for each other. Soon after his father became king in 1727 Frederick took up his residence in England and in 1729 was created prince of Wales; but the relations between George II. and his son were very unfriendly, and there existed between them the jealousy which Stubbs calls the “incurable bane of royalty.” The faults were not all on one side. The prince’s character was not attractive, and the king refused to make him an adequate allowance. In 1735 Frederick wrote, or inspired the writing of, the Histoire du prince Titi, a book containing offensive caricatures of both king and queen; and losing no opportunity of irritating his father, “he made,” says Lecky, “his court the special centre of opposition to the government, and he exerted all his influence for the ruin of Walpole.” After a marriage between the prince and Lady Diana Spencer, afterwards the wife of John, 4th duke of Bedford, had been frustrated by Walpole, Frederick was married in April 1736 to Augusta (1719-1772), daughter of Frederick II., duke of Saxe-Gotha, a union which was welcomed by his parents, but which led to further trouble between father and son. George proposed to allow the prince £50,000 a year; but this sum was regarded as insufficient by the latter, whose appeal to parliament was unsuccessful. After the birth of his first child, Augusta, in 1737, Frederick was ordered by the king to quit St James’ Palace, and the foreign ambassadors were requested to refrain from visiting him. The relations between the two were now worse than before. In 1745 George II. refused to allow his son to command the British army against the Jacobites. On the 20th of March 1751 the prince died in London, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He left five sons and two daughters. The sons were George (afterwards King George III.), Edward Augustus, duke of York and Albany (1739-1767), William Henry, duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1743-1805), Henry Frederick, duke of Cumberland (1745-1790), and Frederick William (1750-1765); the daughters were Augusta (1737-1813), wife of Charles William Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick, and Caroline Matilda (1751-1775), wife of Christian VII., king of Denmark.
See Lord Hervey of Ickworth, Memoirs of the Reign of George II., edited by J. W. Croker (London, 1884); Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II. (London, 1847); and Sir N. W. Wraxall, Memoirs, edited by H. B. Wheatley, vol. i. (London, 1884).
[1] Frederick was never actually created duke of Gloucester, and when he was raised to the peerage in 1736 it was as duke of Edinburgh only. See G. E. C(okayne), Complete Peerage, sub “Gloucester.”
FREDERICK WILLIAM I. (1688-1740), king of Prussia, son of Frederick I. by his second marriage was born on the 15th of August 1688. He spent a considerable time in early youth at the court of his grandfather, the elector Ernest Augustus of Hanover. On his return to Berlin he was placed under General von Dohna and Count Finkenstein, who trained him to the energetic and regular habits which ever afterwards characterized him. He was soon imbued with a passion for military life, and this was deepened by acquaintance with the duke of Marlborough (1709), Prince Eugene, whom he visited during the siege of Tournai, and Prince Leopold of Anhalt (the “Old Dessauer”). In nearly every respect he was the opposite of his father, having frugal, simple tastes, a passionate temper and a determined will. Throughout his life he was always the protector of the church and of religion. But he detested religious quarrels and was very tolerant towards his Catholic subjects, except the Jesuits. His life was simple and puritanical, being founded on the teaching of the Bible. He was, however, fond of hunting and somewhat given to drinking. He intensely disliked the French, and highly disapproved of the imitation of their manners by his father and his court. When he came to the throne (February 25, 1713) his first act was to dismiss from the palace every unnecessary official and to regulate the royal household on principles of the strictest parsimony. The greater part of the beautiful furniture was sold. His importance for Prussia is twofold: in internal politics he laid down principles which continued to be followed long after his death. This was a province peculiarly suited to his genius; he was one of the greatest administrators who have ever worn the Prussian crown. His foreign policy was less successful, though under his rule the kingdom acquired some extension of territory.