Frederick the Great, discussion post 6

[cahn]

...I think we need another one (seriously, you guys, this is THE BEST) and I'd better make it now before I disappear into the wilds of music performance.

(also, as of this week there are two Frederician fics in the yuletide archive and eeeeeeeeeee)
(huh, only one of them is actually tagged with Frederick the Great even though two with Maria Theresia and Wilhelmine, eeeeeee this is awesome I CAN'T WAIT)

Frederick the Great masterpost

Comments

Lehndorff

[mildred_of_midgard]

Also, Lehndorff fell in love with an English aristocrat, Sir. Charles Hotham, and wanted to join him in England. But as a Prussian, he had to ask the King's permission to leave the country. Fritz said no. "I cry, and I cry, and I cry," Lehndorff writes. No reason given for the refusal, but I think we all know the real reason is: "If *I* can't go to England with my lover, *nobody* gets to go to England with their lover."

So I knew the name Hotham was ringing a bell, and I thought I recognized it from the English double marriage negotiations. Sure enough, it was Sir Charles Hotham, 5th Baronet of Scorborough, who makes so many appearances in Wilhelmine's memoirs as the English envoy, and who in the end fails to convince FW to let Fritz and Wilhelmine to marry their cousins. Judging by the dates, Lehndorff's Sir Charles Hotham must have been the 8th baronet, the nephew of the 5th, bearing the same name.

Oh, Fritz.

Re: Lehndorff

[selenak]

:( Yeah, this.

On a more cheerful note, must share this latest detail: remember when I mentioned Wilhelmine had composed an opera version of Voltaire's play Semiramis (that he shopped around for a while before it could get staged)? What the content was?

Now, see below, in 1753, SD got the premiere performance of her son's opera "Sulla" for her Birthday. In 1754... she gets Wilhelmine's "Semiramis".

Writes Lehndorff: "What a strange choice for a birthday celebration. The opening image is that of a tomb, and it is about a son murdering his mother in revenge."

Fritz uses his younger siblings for self therapy. Wilhelmine clearly uses operas. That is so marvellously passive-aggressive, I have no words. And of course lost on Lehnsdorff entirely.

Re: Lehndorff

[cahn]

HAHAHAHA omg that is amazing, I am totally dying at the opera-for-self-therapy-and-passive-aggressive-insulting. And also at the totally oblivious narrator.

Re: Lehndorff

[selenak]

Amalie: *high fives Big Sis*