Fritz, why must you be so good at insights and so bad at applying them?
Added to which, he seems to have done a good paternal/avuncular job with Henricus Minor and Wihelmine Minor... but then FW had been a far better father to AW as well. Seems the mutual positive feedback loop strikes again. Future FW2 was the successor with all the expectations that carried, Henricus Minor was not, and of course Wilhelmine Minor wasn't, either. And as Hohenzollerns went, FW2 was avarage, which might have been a disappointment of its own. He wasn't stupid, but he didn't have the eagerness for knowledge Fritz and most of his siblings had (though how much of this was due to it being forced down his throat as a toddler, who knows - I mean, if you're given a top mathematician (Beguilin) as a teacher on Maupertuis' advice when you're four years old, and you're not the scholarly equivalent of Mozart, you're not going to deliver good school results). And he was just okay as a military man, either. Considering the last time Fritz took over the education of a younger relation, this had been Henricus Major who for all their difficulties then delivered on both the hunger for knowledge and the military talent front, it must have felt like a let down.
I wouldn't be surprised if poor future FW2 made him extra angry for being what FW1 had thought Fritz would be - more interested in girlfriends and fun than hard work as a teen and young man, open to the influence of of people flattering him. (Hence Fritz eventually caving and acknowledging Wilhelmine Encke as Prussia's first maitresse en titre since F1's days, because she at least had no political interests and provided FW2 with affection without seeming to want anything but a secure position and comfort out of it.) It's as if being given a distorted portrait - this is how your father saw you - which makes for extra anger.
BTW, Borck the strict Steward/governor eventually lost Fritz' favour and got fired. Why? Because he'd told young FW that his key principle as a ruler should be: "A state can be made happier through the preservation of peace than through the conduct of a successful war." This in the year 1763, I kid you not.
Re: Lehndorff and children
Added to which, he seems to have done a good paternal/avuncular job with Henricus Minor and Wihelmine Minor... but then FW had been a far better father to AW as well. Seems the mutual positive feedback loop strikes again. Future FW2 was the successor with all the expectations that carried, Henricus Minor was not, and of course Wilhelmine Minor wasn't, either. And as Hohenzollerns went, FW2 was avarage, which might have been a disappointment of its own. He wasn't stupid, but he didn't have the eagerness for knowledge Fritz and most of his siblings had (though how much of this was due to it being forced down his throat as a toddler, who knows - I mean, if you're given a top mathematician (Beguilin) as a teacher on Maupertuis' advice when you're four years old, and you're not the scholarly equivalent of Mozart, you're not going to deliver good school results). And he was just okay as a military man, either. Considering the last time Fritz took over the education of a younger relation, this had been Henricus Major who for all their difficulties then delivered on both the hunger for knowledge and the military talent front, it must have felt like a let down.
I wouldn't be surprised if poor future FW2 made him extra angry for being what FW1 had thought Fritz would be - more interested in girlfriends and fun than hard work as a teen and young man, open to the influence of of people flattering him. (Hence Fritz eventually caving and acknowledging Wilhelmine Encke as Prussia's first maitresse en titre since F1's days, because she at least had no political interests and provided FW2 with affection without seeming to want anything but a secure position and comfort out of it.) It's as if being given a distorted portrait - this is how your father saw you - which makes for extra anger.
BTW, Borck the strict Steward/governor eventually lost Fritz' favour and got fired. Why? Because he'd told young FW that his key principle as a ruler should be: "A state can be made happier through the preservation of peace than through the conduct of a successful war." This in the year 1763, I kid you not.