FREDERICK WILLIAM II. , king of Prussia, son of Augustus William, second son of King Frederick William I. and of Louise Amalie of Brunswick, sister-in-law of Frederick the Great, was born at Berlin on Sept. and became heir to the throne on his father's death in 1757. Although the prince had a numerous family, he was completely under the influence of his mistress, Wilhelmine Enke, afterwards created Countess Lich tenau, a woman of strong intellect and much ambition. He was a handsome man, and devoted to the arts—Beethoven and Mozart enjoyed his patronage and his private orchestra had a European reputation. Frederick the Great, who had employed him in various services—notably in an abortive confidential mission to the court of Russia in 1780—openly expressed his misgivings as to the character of the prince and his surroundings.
The misgivings were justified by the event. Frederick William's accession to the throne on the death of the great Frederick (Aug. 17, 1786) was, indeed, followed by a series of measures for light ening the burdens of the people, reforming the oppressive French system of tax-collecting, and encouraging trade by the diminution of customs dues and the making of roads and canals. The educated classes were pleased by his removal of Frederick's ban on the Ger man language by the admission of German writers to the Prussian Academy, and by the active encouragement given to schools and universities. But these reforms were vitiated in their source. In 1781 Frederick William, then prince of Prussia, had joined the Rosicrucians, and had fallen under the influence of the fanatical Johann Christof Wollner (1732-180o), and by him the royal policy was inspired. On Aug. 26, 1786 Wollner was appointed privy councillor for finance (Geheimer Oberfinanzrath). Though not in name, in fact he was prime minister, and the fiscal and economic reforms of the new reign were the application of his theories. Bischoffswerder, another Rosicrucian, was also called into the king's counsels; by 1789 he was already an adjutant-general. In 1788 Wollner became privy councillor of state and of justice and head of the spiritual department for Lutheran and Catholic affairs. War was at once declared on what—to use a later term- we may call the "modernists." On July 9 was issued the edict forbidding ministers to teach anything not contained in the letter of their official books, proclaiming the necessity of protecting the Christian religion against the "enlighteners" (Auf kldrer), and placing educational establishments under the supervision of the orthodox clergy. On Dec. 18, a new censorship law was issued, to secure the orthodoxy of all published books; and finally, in 1791, a sort of Protestant Inquisition was established at Berlin (Im mediat-Examinations-commission) to watch over all ecclesiastical and scholastic appointments. The effects of this policy of blind obscurantism outweighed any good that resulted from economic and financial reform ; and even this reform was but spasmodic and partial. Far more fateful for Prussia was the king's attitude towards the army and foreign policy. Frederick William, who had no taste for military matters, put his authority as "War-Lord" into commission under a supreme college of war (Oberkriegs Collegium) under the duke of Brunswick and General von Mollen dorf. . It was the beginning of the process that ended in 18o6 at Jena.
The Dutch campaign of 1787, entered on for purely family reasons, was indeed successful; but Prussia received not even the cost of her intervention. An attempt to intervene in the war of Russia and Austria against Turkey failed of its object ; Prussia did not succeed in obtaining any concessions of territory from the alarms of the Allies, and the dismissal of Hertzberg in 1791 marked the final abandonment of the anti-Austrian tradition of Frederick the Great. For, meanwhile, the French Revolution had entered upon alarming phases, and in Aug. 1791 Frederick William, at the meeting at Pillnitz, arranged with the emperor Leopold to join in supporting the cause of Louis XVI. A formal alliance was signed on Feb. 7, 1792, and Frederick William took part personally in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793. A subsidy treaty with the sea powers (April 19, filled his coffers; but the insurrection in Poland that followed the partition of 1793, and the threat of the isolated intervention of Russia, hurried him into the separate treaty of Basle with the French Republic (April 5, 1795), which was regarded by the great monarchies as a betrayal, and left Prussia morally isolated in Europe on the eve of the revolutionary era. Prussia had paid a heavy price for the vast territories ac quired at the expense of Poland in 1793 and 1795, and when, on Nov. 16, Frederick William died, he left the state in bank ruptcy and confusion, the army decayed and the monarchy discredited.
Frederick William II. was twice married: (1) in 1765 to Eliza beth of Brunswick (d. 1841), by whom he had a daughter, Frederika, afterwards duchess of York, and from whom he was divorced in 1769; (2) in 1769 to Frederika Louisa of Hesse Darmstadt, by whom he had four sons, Frederick William III., Louis (d. 1796), Henry and William, and two daughters, Wilhel mina, wife of William of Orange, afterwards William I., king of the Netherlands, and Augusta, wife of William II., elector of Hesse. Besides his relations with his maitresse en titre, the countess Lichtenau, the king—who was a frank polygamist—con tracted two "marriages of the left hand" with Fraulein von Voss and the countess Donhoff.
See article by von Hartmann in Allgem. deutsche Biog. (Leipzig, 1878) ; Stadelmann, Preussens Konige in ihrer Tdtigkeit f iir die Landes kultur, vol. iii. "Friedrich Wilhelm II." (Leipzig, 1885) ; Paulig, Friedrich Wilhelm II., sein Privatleben u. seine Regierung (Frankfurt an-der-Oder, 1896).