FREDERICK LOUIS (I 7o7-1 751), prince of Wales, eldest son of George II., was born at Hanover on Jan. 20, 17 07. After his grandfather, George I., became king of Great Britain and Ire land in 1714, Frederick was known as duke of Gloucester (though never actually created) and made a knight of the Garter. He had been betrothed to Wilhelmina Sophia Dorothea (1709-1758), daughter of Frederick William I., king of Prussia, and sister of Frederick the Great, but the match was prevented by the ill will between the parents. On the accession of George II. in 1727 Fred erick came to England and in 1729 was created prince of Wales; but the relations between father and son were unfriendly, and the king refused to make him an adequate allowance. In 1735 Fred erick wrote, or inspired the writing of, the Histoire du prince Titi, a book containing offensive caricatures of both king and queen; "he made his court" says Lecky, "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 married in April 1736 Augusta (1719-1772), daughter of Frederick II., duke of Saxe Gotha. George proposed to allow the prince £So,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 173 7, Frederick was ordered by the king to quit St. James's Palace, and foreign ambassadors were requested to refrain from visiting him. In 1745 George II. refused to allow his son to command the British army against the Jacobites. On March ?o, 1751, the prince died in London, and was buried in Westmin ster 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 (1745-179o), 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. Wrarall, Memoirs. edited by H. B. Wheatley, vol. i. (London. issA) _