Emperor of Germany during which time he was a voiceless invalid, dying of throat cancer. Although influenced by liberal, constitutional, and middle-class ideas, he retained a strong sense of the Hohenzollern royal and imperial dignity.
The son of the future king and emperor William I and Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, he was the first Prussian prince to attend a university; he received a thorough military education as well. In 1858 he married the British princess royal, Victoria (1840–1901; from 1888 called the “empress Frederick”). Despite the influence of his wife’s liberal ideas, he favoured a strong central government and at times exceeded the prime minister and chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in willingness to exert pressure on the allied German princes.
As crown prince from 1861, Frederick spent 27 years chiefly in waiting to do something. Thanks to his chief of staff, Leonhard von Blumenthal, he was a successful commander in the Danish War of 1864, the Seven Weeks’ War of 1866, and the Franco-German War of 1870–71. Although Frederick supported Bismarck in the war of 1866, in general the “blood and iron” aspects of Bismarck’s domestic and international policies were alien to him.
In 1887 Frederick showed symptoms of cancer of the throat. Although the disease was correctly diagnosed as such by German doctors, the British specialist Sir Morell Mackenzie advised against an operation (scheduled for May 21, 1887, and cancelled). A tracheotomy in February 1888 was too late. The Crown Prince, who became emperor on March 9, by this time was able to do little.
He died 15 June 1888, Potsdam.

Link to Wikipedia biography