FORE:Wilhelmina says that her grandpapa George was intolerably proud after he had attained the dignity of King of England, and that he was much disposed to look down upon her father, the King of Prussia, as occupying a very inferior position. Vexatiously he delayed signing the marriage treaty, to which he had given a verbal assent, evading the subject and presenting frivolous excuses. The reputation of the English Fred was far from good. He had attained eighteen years of age, was very unattractive in personal appearance, and extremely dissolute. George I., morose and moody, was only rendered more obstinate by being pressed. These delays exasperated Frederick William, who was far from being the meekest of men. Poor Sophie Dorothee was annoyed almost beyond endurance. Wilhelmina took the matter very coolly, for she declared that she cared nothing about her cousin Fred, and that she had no wish to marry him.
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FORE:The audacious duplicity of this ambitious young king was still more conspicuously developed by his entering into a secret correspondence with the court of Austria, through certain generals in the Austrian army. And that he might the more effectually disguise his treachery from his allies, the French, he requested Lord Hyndford to write dispatches to various courts292to Presburg, to England, to Dresdencomplaining that Frederick was deaf to all proposals; that nothing could influence him to enter into terms of reconciliation with Austria. It was to be so arranged that the couriers carrying these dispatches of falsehood should be captured by the French, so that these documents should be carried to the French court.Frederick, thus urged, leaving the main body of his army, as258 he supposed, in utter rout, with a small escort, put spurs to his steed in the attempt to escape. The king was well mounted on a very splendid bay horse. A rapid ride of fifteen miles in a southerly direction brought him to the River Neisse, which he crossed by a bridge at the little town of Lowen. Immediately after his departure Prince Leopold dispatched a squadron of dragoons to accompany the king as his body-guard. But Frederick fled so rapidly that they could not overtake him, and in the darkness, for night soon approached, they lost his track. Even several of the few who accompanied him, not so well mounted as the king, dropped off by the way, their horses not being able to keep up with his swift pace.