Frederick II., king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, surnamed “The Great,” grandson of the preceding, and nephew of George I. of England, born at Berlin; the irksome restraints of his early military education induced him to make an attempt, which failed, to escape to England, an episode which incensed his father, and nearly brought him to the scaffold; after his marriage in 1733 he resided at Rheinsburg, indulging his taste for music and French literature, and corresponding with Voltaire; he came to the throne with the ambition of extending and consolidating his power; from Austria, after two wars (1740-1744), he wrested Silesia, and again in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), and in 1778 by force of arms acquired the duchy of Franconia; as administrator he was eminently efficient, the country flourished under his just, if severe, rule; his many wars imposed no debt on the nation; national industries were fostered, and religious toleration encouraged; he was not so successful in his literary attempts as his military, and all he wrote was in French, the spirit of it as well as the letter; he is accounted the creator of the Prussian monarchy “the first,” says Carlyle, “who, in a highly public manner, announced its creation; announced to all men that it was, in very deed, created; standing on its own feet there, and would go a great way on the impulse it got from him and others” (1712‒1786).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Frederick I. * Frederick Charles, Prince