ABSTRACT
The Crown Princess Victoria, who almost excelled her mother-in-law Augusta in imperiousness waiting over there in England for the throne of a mother who did not do him the favour of dying till she was eighty-two years of age. The Crown Prince’s vicegerency lasted a bare six months, and even so he was hampered and constrained by the Emperor’s continual interference from the background. The future Emperor Frederick III, however, took far less pleasure than did his eldest son, William II, in the dignity, magnificence, and solemnity of ceremonious occasions of the kind. Frederick’s other activities as patron of the Arts and Sciences were probably principally designed to win the admiration of his beloved “Vicky.” King Frederick William IV and his Queen Elizabeth, childless themselves, had established an almost parental relationship with little Frederick William. Between William I and Frederick William, the Crown Prince, there was a lack of communicativeness that disconcerted even Bismarck.
