Frederick the Great
Most modern biographers agree that Frederick was primarily homosexual, and that his sexual orientation was central to his life. After a dispiriting defeat on the battlefield, Frederick wrote: “Fortune has it in for me; she is a woman, and I am not that way inclined.”
At age 16, Frederick seems to have embarked upon a youthful affair with Peter Karl Christoph von Keith, a 17-year-old page of his father. Rumors of the liaison spread in the court and the “intimacy” between the two boys provoked the condemnation of even his elder and favorite sister, Wilhelmine, who wrote, “Though I had noticed that he was on more familiar terms with this page than was proper in his position, I did not know how intimate the friendship was.” Rumors fina…
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