Chapter III. -- FATHER AND MOTHER: THE HANOVERIAN CONNECTION.

Friedrich Wilhelm, Crown-Prince of Prussia, son of Friedrich I. and
Father of this little infant who will one day be Friedrich II., did
himself make some noise in the world as second King of Prussia; notable
not as Friedrich's father alone; and will much concern us during the
rest of his life. He is, at this date, in his twenty-fourth year: a
thick-set, sturdy, florid, brisk young fellow; with a jovial laugh in
him, yet of solid grave ways, occasionally somewhat volcanic; much given
to soldiering, and out-of-door exercises, having little else to do
at present. He has been manager, or, as it were, Vice-King, on an
occasional absence of his Father; he knows practically what the state
of business is; and greatly disapproves of it, as is thought. But
being bound to silence on that head, he keeps silence, and meddles with
nothing political. He addicts himself chiefly to mustering, drilling and
practical military duties, while here at Berlin; runs out, often enough,
wife and perhaps a comrade or two along with him, to hunt, and take his
ease, at Wusterhausen (some fifteen or twenty miles [English miles,--as
always unless the contrary be stated. The German MEILE is about five
miles English; German STUNDE about three.] southeast of Berlin), where
he has a residence amid the woody moorlands.

But soldiering is his grand concern. Six years ago, summer 1706,
[Forster, i. 116] at a very early age, he went to the wars,--grand
Spanish-Succession War, which was then becoming very fierce in the
Netherlands; Prussian troops always active on the Marlborough-Eugene
side. He had just been betrothed, was not yet wedded; thought good to
turn the interim to advantage in that way. Then again, spring 1709,
after his marriage and after his Father's marriage, "the Court being
full of intrigues," and nothing but silence recommendable there, a
certain renowned friend of his, Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, of
whom we shall yet hear a great deal,--who, still only about thirty, had
already covered himself with laurels in those wars (Blenheim, Bridge
of Casano, Lines of Turin, and other glories), but had now got into
intricacies with the weaker sort, and was out of command,--agreed
with Friedrich Wilhelm that it would be well to go and serve there as
volunteers, since not otherwises. [Varnhagen von Ense, _ Furst Leopold
von Anhalt-Dessau _ (in _ Biographische Denkmale, _ 2d edition,