be sent into the country.” The problem before Frederick William, whose wrath increased as he experienced the difficulty of laying to his son’s account any definite crime, was to crush his heir without imperilling Prussia. On October 11th Frederick declared to the commission that he was ready to renounce the succession. On October 16th the King avowed in writing his desire to make his second son his heir. But to do this while Frederick lived was dangerous, and on what charge could he be put to death? Assassination, though it might rectify the succession to Philip of Spain or Peter of Russia, was to a Hohenzollern simply impossible. And Frederick William was not entirely sovereign over his son. It was true that a Prussian subject had no longer any right of appeal from the decrees of the Prussian King. But the Prussian King was also Elector of Brandenburg, and therefore a vassal of the Emperor. The heir to the Electorate of Brandenburg was equally a prince of the Empire and as such could appeal unto Cæsar. Moreover, no proof could be found that Frederick was a traitor. He had neither acted nor tried to act in collusion with any foreign Power. His father suspected that England was at the bottom of the plot, but no evidence of this could be found. By no severity could his son be brought to confess more than a design to run away. Foreign sovereigns protested against violence which degraded the royal caste. It is difficult to see with what hope the baffled King insisted on a quibble which might make out his son to be technically a criminal. Frederick, by no choice of his own, was a colonel in the Prussian army. On October 25th a military court met at the King’s bidding to try him and his accomplices for desertion.