Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (16 August 1763 – 5 January 1827) was the second son of George III of Britain and was a general of Great Britain during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Biography[]
Frederick was the son of King George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg, born into the House of Hanover. He was gazetted Colonel at the age of seventeen in 1780 and he lived in Hanover from 1781 to 1787, studying with his brothers. Frederick was made Duke of York in 1784, as the second-in-line to the British throne. He was also Bishop of Osnabruck, a less-important title bestowed upon him while he was only six months old.
On 12 April 1793 Frederick was made a General and was sent to Flanders to fight along Austrian prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg during the First Coalition of the French Revolutionary Wars. He lost the Battle of Tourcouing and left in April 1795, nearly exactly two years after his arrival in the Austrian Netherlands. In August 1799 he took part in the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland during the Second Coalition War, and he captured some of the Dutch ships, but was defeated due to poor planning.
Although he held poor generalship skills, he was said to be the man who had the most effect on the transformation of the British Army in its whole history. He became the heir presumptive to the British throne after George III's death in 1820 and after the death of George IV's daughter, but he died of dropsy in 1827.