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
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