Early Life and Education
Willem Frederik George Lodewijk was born on 11 December 1792 in The Hague. He was the eldest son of King William I of the Netherlands and Wilhelmine of Prussia. His maternal grandparents were King Frederick William II of Prussia and his second wife Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt.
When William was two, he and his family fled to England after allied British-Hanoverian troops left the Republic and entering French troops joined the anti-orangist Patriots. William spent his youth in Berlin at the Prussian court. There he followed a military education and served in the Prussian army. Afterwards, he studied at the University of Oxford.
William II had a string of relations with both men and women. The homosexual relationships that William II had as crown prince and as king were reported by journalist Eillert Meeter. The King surrounded himself with male servants who he could not dismiss because of the "abominable motive" of which he hired them in the first place.
Read more about this topic: William II Of The Netherlands
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or education:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“The proper aim of education is to promote significant learning. Significant learning entails development. Development means successively asking broader and deeper questions of the relationship between oneself and the world. This is as true for first graders as graduate students, for fledging artists as graying accountants.”
—Laurent A. Daloz (20th century)