Free Dearest Vicky, Darling Fritz by John Van der Kiste Page B

enlightened couple were denied the chance to play the role for which they had been so well prepared, of helping to create the political climate for a more liberal united Germany, which would take its place as one of the leading nations of Europe in an era of unprecedented peace and stability.
    On 25 January 1858, it had all seemed so well within their grasp. But, by the time Fritz ascended the throne a little over thirty years later as Emperor, he was already mortally ill. Ironically, the man who had struggled all his life to find a voice in the affairs of his nation died voiceless, robbed of speech by cancer of the larynx. His reign lasted a mere three months, whereupon such political importance as his wife ever possessed ceased abruptly; and, for her remaining thirteen years, she was reluctantly tolerated and often abused by a son under whose rule she found no political satisfaction and only a degree of personal contentment.
    Was Vicky a courageous, grossly maligned woman determined to do the best for her adopted Prussia – and later Germany – without regard to the personal consequences for herself; or was she the tactless, domineering Englishwoman, a pampered Princess who remained a slavish disciple of her long-dead father, refusing to accept that there was any other way than the English one? Was Fritz an enlightened Prince who realized that the political mood in Germany was changing, and that the royal house had to change with it; or was he a dreamy, weak-willed depressive who allowed his wife to dominate him? As The Times of London had noted presciently when discussing their betrothal back in 1855, these two complex, ultimately tragic characters surely deserved ‘a better fate’.

Bibliography
    All titles are published in London unless stated otherwise
    I MANUSCRIPTS
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    Napier Letters. Letters from Crown Princess Frederick William, later Empress Frederick, and Count Götz von Seckendorff to Lord Napier of Magdala. India Office Library and Records, European Manuscripts, British Museum
    Salisbury Papers. Steward’s Diary; letters from Crown Prince and Princess Frederick William to the Marquess of Salisbury. Hatfield House
    II BOOKS
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    —— Recollections of Three Kaisers , Herbert Jenkins, 1929
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    —— The English Empress: a study in the relations between Queen Victoria and her eldest daughter, Empress Frederick of Germany , Cassell, 1957
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    Eyck, Erich. Bismark and the German