The Emperor’s father, Frederick III, second German Emperor, was affectionately known to his people as “unser Fritz,” because of his liberal sympathies and of his high and kindly character.  To most Englishmen he is perhaps better known as the husband of the Princess, afterwards Empress, Adelaide Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, and mother of the Emperor.  Frederick III had no great share in the political events which were the birth-pangs of modern Germany, unless his not particularly distinguished leadership in the war of 1866 and that with France be so considered.  The greater part of his life was passed as Crown Prince, and a Crown Prince in Germany leads a life more or less removed from political responsibilities.  He succeeded his father, William I, on the latter’s death, March 9, 1888, reigned for ninety-nine days, and died, on June 15th following, from cancer of the throat, after an illness borne with exemplary fortitude.

To what extent the character of his parents affected the character of the Emperor it is impossible to determine.  The Emperor seldom refers to his parents in his speeches, and reserves most of his panegyric for his grandfather and his grandfather’s mother, Queen Louise; but the comparative neglect is probably due to no want of filial admiration and respect, while the frequent references to his grandfather in particular are explained by the great share the latter took in the formation of the Empire and by his unbounded popularity.  The Crown Prince was an affectionate but not an easy-going father, with a passion for the arts and sciences; his mother also was a disciplinarian, and, equally with her husband, passionately fond of art; and it is therefore not improbable that these traits descended to the Emperor.  As to whether the alleged “liberality” of the Crown Prince descended to him depends on the sense given to the word “liberal.”  If it is taken to mean an ardent desire for the good and happiness of the people, it did; if it is taken to mean any inclination to give the people authority to govern themselves and direct their own destinies, it did not.

The mother of the Emperor, the Empress Frederick, had much of Queen Victoria’s good sense and still more of her strong will.  A thoroughly English princess, she had, in German eyes, one serious defect:  she failed to see, or at least to acknowledge, the superiority of most things German to most things English.  She had an English nurse, Emma Hobbs, to assist at the birth of the future Emperor.  She made English the language of the family life, and never lost her English tastes and sympathies; consequently she was called, always with an accent of reproach, “the Englaenderin,” and in German writings is represented as having wished to anglicize not only her husband, her children, and her Court, but also her adopted country and its people.  A chaplain of the English Church in Berlin, the Rev. J.H.  Fry, who met her many times, describes her as follows:—­