arck, acting through the old
emperor, surrounded the young prince. The mission of these nominees
of the chancellor was to counteract the influence of the then crown
prince and crown princess over their eldest son, and this was achieved
by setting the boy against his parents. Every direction or command
given by Frederick or by his consort to their son was made the subject
of critical discussion by the personages with whom Bismarck had
surrounded him, until the latter became convinced that the judgment of
his parents was at fault in almost everything that could be imagined,
and that all their views, political as well as social, were thoroughly
out of keeping with Prussian traditions and German patriotism.

This in itself was bad enough: but what made matters infinitely worse,
was that whenever William was subjected to any reproof or discipline
by either his father or mother, those composing his immediate
_entourage_ at once impressed upon the royal youth that he was the
victim of the most gross and unpardonable injustice, that both
his father and mother were inordinately jealous of his striking
individuality, that the unmerited severity to which he was subjected
was brought about by their consciousness that his intellect was
superior to theirs, and that his ideas were too thoroughly Prussian to
constitute anything but a serious danger to their English liberalism.
The effect of influences such as these upon a high-spirited and
impulsive youth, at the time entirely devoid of experience or of
knowledge of the world, may readily be conceived. It naturally led to
an increase of what his parents regarded as his presumptuousness and
forwardness of manner, and consequently to a growth of their severity
towards him. He, on the other hand, became more and more embittered
by the unduly harsh and rather unjust treatment to which he was being
subjected by both his father and his mother.

The persons in attendance on the imperial family, with the conspicuous
exceptions of Count Seckendorff and Countess Hedwig Bruehl, were
careful to fan the embers of bitterness rankling in the bosom of young
William whenever any opportunity offered, and thus it happened that
when Emperor Frederick, while still crown prince, was discovered to be
suffering from that cancer of the larynx which ultimately carried him
off, the relations between parents and son were so strained as to give
rise to the very widespread belief that William was the ally of his