ABSTRACT
The not unexpected death of Friedrich Wilhelm I in May of 1740 conferred his crown on his eldest son, Frederick II, who guided the destinies of the kingdom of Prussia until 1786. Considering the circumstances of his childhood and youth, it would not have been altogether surprising had the young king renounced the model of rulership established by his father to lead a life of cultural refinement and easy courtly amusements for which he had shown much affinity as a youngster. Such interests had earned him the suspicion and contempt of his father, whose view of the responsibilities of rulership explicitly forbade time-consuming and expensive indulgence in the ‘frivolities’ of high culture and who was morbidly afraid of raising an effeminate sensualist as a successor. His harsh and clumsy efforts to discipline and toughen the crown prince led to an increasing estrangement between the two which reached its nadir in Frederick’s unsuccessful attempt to escape father and court during a royal tour in 1730. Imprisoned in Küstrin for a time thereafter, where he was forced to observe the execution of his friend and co-conspirator Katte, the prince began to alter his behaviour (and to some degree his thinking as well) to conform to his father’s expectations; indeed, his education in economic and governmental matters really began during his confinement at Küstrin. He eventually obtained his father’s pardon, attained a measure of genuine reconciliation and later received a regimental command in Ruppin (the latter in part as reward for accepting an unwanted marriage to a woman he largely ignored during his lifetime and who bore him no children).
