cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 6

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frederick the great

Frederick the Great, discussion post 6

...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

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Alternate History (2)
Alternate Universe (1)
Character Study (1)
Hurt/Comfort (1)
Developing Relationship (1)
Rivalry (1)
POV Female Character (1)
Survivor Guilt (1)
Brother-Sister Relationships (1)
Enemies (1)

Oh MAN. :DDDDDDDD

Wow omgggg. I had meant to check, but it slipped my mind. And I was just thinking today that we needed another post! You are so on top of things.

It makes me sad that none of these fics will be authored by me, but okay. That's why I didn't sign up. There are more fics and I helped and that makes me happy!!

Wait, how do you view the tags for a fic? All I see is "Mystery Work", and I can't figure out where to click to see characters and tags. I see the overall word-cloudy tag thing, but not how tags are associated with individual works.

OH WAIT. It's the filter thing on the side. If you expand it, you get to see the tags. Oh, that's well hidden.

OMG KATTE/FRITZ IN BOTH FICS BE STILL MY HEART. Each of them as characters only in one? But not the same one, which is encouraging. Also Grumbkow. Wow. These are clearly both for your requests, which is awesome.

If I had to guess...a 1729/1730 AU fic, and a secret summit fic, possibly by the same author which we don't know who that is. :P

Omg, I just worked out how to filter the tags to figure out which fic is which, just like the kid I was who would shake the presents to try to figure out what was in them. :PPP

ETA: SPOILER ALERT HAHA, rot13 to decipher. Detective Mildred is ~~a bad person~~ on the case. :PPP

1) BZT, V jnf fgnegvat gb thrff sebz gur fheivibe thvyg gnt cyhf gur nofrapr bs Sevgm va bar svp, naq rfcrpvnyyl uvz naq Xnggr abg orvat va gur fnzr svp, gung bar vf gur "Sevgm qvrf; Jvyuryzvar naq Xnggr rfpncr naq frrx whfgvpr/iratrnapr" svp. Naq V jnf qrqhpvat gung gung jnf gur bar jurer FQ, Tehzoxbj, rgp., jbhyq fubj hc. Gura V svygrerq fbzr zber naq gur "whfgvpr" gnt cbccrq hc, nybat jvgu "tevrs/zbheavat" naq, hu uhu. Purpx guvf bhg: nygreangr havirefr, uheg/pbzsbeg, CBI srznyr punenpgre, nygreangr uvfgbel, fheivibe thvyg, oebgure-fvfgre eryngvbafuvcf, whfgvpr, tevrs/zbheavat, oebgure srryf. Eryngvbafuvcf ner Sevgm/Xnggr naq Sevgm & Jvyuryzvar. Punenpgref ner ZG, Xnggr, Tehzoxbj, FQ, SJ1, Jvyuryzvar, naq Senam Fgrcuna. Lrc, lrc. V pna'g jnvg gb ernq guvf (naq pel). LBH TB, JVYURYZVAR.

2) Fb gung zrnaf gur bgure bar vf...Sevgm, ZG, Jvyuryzvar, Wbfrcu, naq Senam. Bbu, gung zrnaf Senam znl or nyvir sbe gur fhzzvg. Punenpgre fghql, qrirybcvat eryngvbafuvc, evinyel, nygreangr uvfgbel, rarzvrf, Frira Lrnef' Jne (lrc, Senam vf nyvir). Sevgm/Xnggr, Sevgm & Jvyuryzvar, Sevgm & ZG, Sevgm & bgure(f), Senam/ZG. Fb Jvyuryzvar zhfg zrrg hc jvgu/pbeerfcbaq jvgu ZG qhevat gur Frira Lrnef' Jne (cbffvoyl ohg abg pregnvayl ng n fhzzvg vapyhqvat nyy bs gurz), n eryngvbafuvc qrirybcf, Sevgm qbrfa'g yvxr vg (ohg unf na bss-cntr eryngvbafuvc jvgu Xnggr Fve Abg Nccrnevat va guvf Svp? Xnggr yvirf NH be zrzbevrf bs cnfg eryngvbafuvc be nppvqragny gnttvat??), naq jr trg n punenpgre fghql bs ubj Jvyuryzvar qrnyf jvgu orpbzvat OSSf jvgu gur jbzna ng jne jvgu ure orybirq oebgure. (Naq znlor raqf gur jne, znxvat Ibygnver unccl? :P Bbu, naq Urvaevpu vfa'g cerfrag naq gurer'f ab Sevgm/Wbfrcu gnt, orpnhfr Sevgm vf nyernql trggvat ynvq erthyneyl, orpnhfr Xnggr yvirf, naq fb fyvtugyl zber puvyy Sevgm vf bcra gb raqvat gur jne rneyl. *fvyyl*)

Best. Yuletide. Ever. \o/

Not to go all Francis Urquart on you two, but I can't possibly comment on this entry. *studies finger nails*

Feel free to comment here further on my book reviews, though. :)

I've been meaning to share this, i.e. support for Mildred's "everyone had PtSD at each other since the 30 Years War at least" theory.

Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg, The Great Prince Elector: Hi. I'm not yet a King either in or of Prussia, but you might say it all starts with me. By "all", I mean making Prussia awesome and making my family - well. I spent my childhood mostly at Küstrin - yes, that one - because it's a mighty fortress, and the 30 Years War was going on. My parents figured I'd be safe there. Speaking of my parents, I didn't see them for seven years, but hey, we nobles are raised by other people anyway.

So, by the time I started ruling, there wasn't much left to rule. The population was wiped out, two thirds of it. The countryside was destroyed. And we still had the Swedes occupying the country. Whereupon yours truly hit upon a couple of winning ideas.

1. Marry rich, repeatedly. Procreate
2. Invite the Dutch in. They're good at trading. Also, start with a Dutch princess.
3. Invite French Huguenots in. Louis XIV has just kicked them out, they need a new country, I need skilled people who owe me everything. Win win!
4. Invite the Jews in. See above points.
5. Once we have goods to trade with, get involved in the overseas trade. By which I absolutely mean the slave trade as well. Profit!

This worked out for me and Prussia. Alas, my first wife died. I married again. And then there were... difficulties.

Friedrich III of Brandenburg, later Friedrich I IN Prussia: Hi! I'm the much maligned grandpa of that sickly kid I hardly knew. Which is also how you can describe my relationiship with my father. Sickly, that is. I started out as the third son, with three more children after me. My wetnurse dropped me, and for the rest of my life I had an uneven shoulder. No, you don't see it on the portraits. That's not what I paid young Pesne for, after all. But they did call me Humpback Fritz. So, Dad was a bit embarassed of me, but he had my two older brothers at first. Did Dad consider he had enough of us? He did not. Instead, when my adored mother died, he married again. A total bitch who gave him plenty more sons and some daughters. Not to spoil anything, but we hated each other. Once my two older brother's died, we REALLY hated each other. And then my younger brother died, and I point blank accused her of poisoning hiim and refused to see Dad without a guarantee of personal safety and hostage exchange. Dad didn't take that well, but seriously? That woman had already persuaded him to part tiny Prussia into fours, with her sons getting as much territory as me. No way. In case anyone is wondering, I won that one. My stepbrothers later got palmed off calling themselves "Margraves of Swedt". Yep, those Schwedts. Aaaanyway, once I was the Prince Elector, I started plan Make Prussia a Kingdom. Which was expensive. I know my son and grandson were on my case for all the money I spent, but seriously? They'd still have been Margraves if I hadn't done that. Bribing the Emperor is expensive. Dress to impress wasn't just a motto, it was part of the Kingdom Prussia campaign. Now, my first much beloved wife died, and I had to marry again because I didn't have a son already. I got one from wife No. 2, though. Actually, I got two. Our first boy didn't make it beyond a year, but tiny terror FW? Couldn't keep him down.

Unfortunately, me and the wife got into arguments about how to educate him. What to emphasize and the like. You might say we sent mixed signals. Which is why he had a time out in Hannover with his cousins. I mean, it seemed like a good idea at the time! Kids his age! He'd make future friends! Did he ever. When he wasn't beating up his cousins, he was swalling golden shoe laces. We had to take him back. And then he freaked me out by having his own balance book, noting money expenses. I mean, which kid does that! Kid ask you for MORE money, they don't try to figure out how their household could spend less. May have been the result of making a strict Calvinist his teacher who scared the hell out of him with the predestination doctrine, but look, that kid had to be brought under control.

I was being an encouraging Dad, though. When he was ten, I gave him Wusterhausen. And would you believe it, but he turned that into a self sustaining estate. A plus achievement, son. I might have had trouble communicating this, though, because welll, he was just somewhat embarassing to look at, not wanting to get into the proper baroque representation spirit. So I thought, hey, marriage will do the trick! One can always rely on the ladies to encourage a man to dress well and look his best. Since I had done nicely in that regard with his mother, a Hannover princess, I thought, might as well go for another one of those for my boy. And hey, maybe it would make the Hannover in laws get over the fact he beat up his other cousin as a kid! Win win!

Look, I know his dress sense remained abysmall, but one thing you can't accuse me of: lack of trying. After all, we all want only the best for our kids.

So, my take on Fredersdorf, and Fritz/Fredersdorf, based on very little data - I mean, I haven't even read a single complete letter, for God's sake, let alone several, only quotes of same. So I might be very mistaken.

What I find fascinating from the get go is that he's from a different background than nearly everyone else in this 18th century soap opera. I mean, we may never learn the name of Marwitz the hot page, but we do know he's part of a noble Prussian family. Ditto for almost everyone else. Minor or major noble can differ, but they have this particular background. They speak the same cultural language, literally so. The non Prussians like Algarotti or Voltaire come from a completely different background, too, but they have the superb education and their respective artistic skills, and their very Italian and Frenchness is a plus.

Meanwhile, Fredersdorf is a commoner. And while him loving music is one of the reasons why he ever was allowed near Fritz to begin with, he evidently doesn't speak French, or not enough of it to correspond fluently in. Given how efficient he proves himself to be in the next two decades at picking up new skills, adminstrative and otherwise, I'm sure he's good at learning, but still, that should be a minus right from the get go. Might not be a problem if he were just a potentional one night stand, a pretty face and no more, but whatever else he is, he's someone whom Fritz remains close two for a long time, goes out of his way to have him around. When Fredersdorf should remind him of the worst time of his life, both because that's when and where they met, and because Fredesdorf's language of choice or nature or necessity is the very one his father tried to force down Fritz' throat during that very year, which he'll resent for the rest of his life. Why isn't Fredesdorf dumped the moment Fritz is free of Küstrin and has other options, or shortly thereafter? Why does he instead make the effort he doesn't make for anyone else, communicating in an idiom he resents otherwise, risking sounding clumsy, unabashedly emotional, without even the pretense of irony about it?

You could say "human security blanket", and I'm sure it's that, too, but again: there are other options. Plus: Fritz is distrustful (for a reason) and will only get more so through the years. Why doesn't he resent, even retrospectively, being managed by being given the company of an attractive music-playing soldier?

Tentative conclusion: Fredersdorf must have been able to convince him - at least until the marriage - that irrespective of the reasons for their original getting together, he cares for Fritz, and that he's worth the risk of caring about him in return. Possibly because he's seen Fritz at his most powerless and desperate and been there for him, but again, that could just as well have worked against him, not for him, once Fritz starts to regain power and then become top of his world. And I'm reminded now of Fritz actually could be kind, if he wanted to, not just as a one time gesture but consistently as seen in the case of Louise and three of her children. I suggest kindness is something you need to experience first before becoming capable of it, and the first 18 years of his life were in pretty short supply of it. Therefore, my current speculation is that this might have been Fredersdorf's secret (in terms of why he endured instead of being dumped early on): that he was consistently kind. (In addition to being musical and hot, and efficient at organizing.) And that he was so without being naive; you don't survive being naive at the Prussian court for twenty years as the male and Prussian version of Madame de Pompadour. Especially if almost everyone's default setting is "a commoner? Sneer!"

All of which doesn't mean they both necessarily got all they wanted from each other. I mean, Fredersdorf's marriage could have had any number of reasons. Maybe he just wanted financial independence that relied on not just Fritz alone, since his wife was a wealthy heiress. Maybe he wanted children. (That he didn't eventually have any doesn't mean he couldn't have wanted them.) Maybe after two decades with Fritz, he was emotionally worn out and wanted someone to take care of him for a change. Or he could have felt sincerely attracted. However much or little of the gossip about Fritz and various pages and soliders is true, it doesn't sound like they were exclusive on Fritz' side, and while women were socialized to accept a double standard in that regard, men weren't so much. We also can't underestimate that not to marry was by far the most unusual option in those days if you weren't a Catholic priest. (Most of Heinrich's more long term boyfriends ended up married, too, or were already so.)

But we're still left with twenty plus years together when the odds were against them. Thus I submit: perfect it was not, but I'd say chances are it was mutual love.

I absolutely agree with virtually all of this. That's why I immediately had to reply to "you think he was holding on to him, hmm, socially/politically and possibly sexually, but not emotionally" to clarify, "well, no, all the options in my head involve a great deal of emotional holding on, and that aspect is mutual." That part is inarguable as far as I'm concerned, and that may not have come across in my speculations about what they might *not* have been getting from each other.

Especially the part about consistent kindness. I would say the consistency on several fronts was key: kindness, discretion, loyalty, competence, and so on. "If I give him something to do, it'll get done and done well." "If I entrust him with money or secrets, he won't betray them to someone else." "If I let my guard down around him, he'll be kind. He won't hurt me." Etc.

There are lots of different kinds of emotional security that Fritz must have been getting from Fredersdorf, for them to have the kind of relationship they did--like you said, for Fritz to speak the hated German language *poorly* to him, just to be able to communicate with him, and to Du him to show that it wasn't just another case of speaking German to one's grooms because they don't know any better.

"Human security blanket" is a wonderful term and I think a part of it, but no, I agree, not all.

We also can't underestimate that not to marry was by far the most unusual option in those days if you weren't a Catholic priest.

Exactly. It tells us *nothing* about his relationship with Fritz. There are a lot of reasons to get married to women even if you're not attracted to them, and even if you are, that doesn't tell us anything about how you feel about men. (This is part of how there is frustratingly so little data on Fredersdorf.)

chances are it was mutual love.

Agree, agree, agree. This is why my term for their relationship is queerplatonic: more than friendship, not conventional romance. This was a super important emotional relationship that Fritz must have relied on for a long time. All I was getting at in my post that approached it from a negative angle was that there may have been other needs left over that it couldn't meet, whether that was inherent in the relationship, that it was never going to be romantic (and that's fine, many extremely important relationships are not; our modern-day Western society tends to drive far too hard a divide between romance and "just" friendship), or because the situation was so complicated that they went as far as they could without risking it falling apart. (And I think precisely because it was working so well and was so important, they might not have been inclined to mess with it even if it had the potential to go in a different direction.)

To

cahn's point about the employer/employee imbalance, I don't think it necessarily has to be a dealbreaker for romantic security in all such cases, but in this case, I have opinions about how Fritz's issues might have limited his ability to get certain needs met in a relationship of this particular dynamic. But I think this relationship did everything it could within those bounds, and the significance of that should not be underestimated.

I suggest kindness is something you need to experience first before becoming capable of it, and the first 18 years of his life were in pretty short supply of it.

The second part of this is the only part I disagree with. I would suggest that kindness was in huge supply in the first 18 years of his life; it's that the kind people had very limited power at best, or none. All they could do was mitigate the trauma, never prevent it. In addition to the two big sources of love and affection from someone older and protective--mother and older sister--we have a million examples of "FW tells someone to abuse Fritz; they play along with the letter of the rules but violate the spirit, and/or they help him sneak around behind FW's back" from Fritz's childhood. That was true even at Küstrin (Fredersdorf was hardly the only example). I think we'd see a very different Fritz if kindness had been in short supply in his formative years.

I think FW being the exception in Fritz's life in so many ways accounts for how Fritz came out of his childhood. Both the "Dad says French and music are effeminate; but all the *other* men I know speak French and love music, including the well respected soldiers and generals," and the "Dad is awful, but other people are nice to me on like a daily basis, even at risk to themselves."

The first, in my view, accounts for why he was able to hang on to his values, the reading and the music and all of that. And the second for why he's so simultaneously capable of trust and distrust, kindness and heartlessness, aloofness and clinginess: he learned that kind people exist but are largely impotent, and that other people having power over him comes with trauma.

What Fredersdorf must have been able to do was convince him that letting him have some kind of power was safe. And I think Fredersdorf's consistency on several fronts, including but not limited to kindness, was key in that respect. (I think there were other factors as well.)

Good lord. Also, I love his voice in this. You do such good character voices. (Trenck's "protesting too much" was brilliant!)

mostly at Küstrin - yes, that one - because it's a mighty fortress

Yep. Mighty fortresses are useful for when you want to keep anyone from hurting your kid, and also for when you want to keep them from rescuing your kid while you hurt him.

tiny terror FW? Couldn't keep him down

LOLOLOL You have a way with words.

So, Dad was a bit embarassed of me
he was just somewhat embarassing to look at

*grimace*

Mildred's "everyone had PtSD at each other since the 30 Years War at least" theory.

I'm just applying an actualfax historian's theory; I wish I had come up with it. The moment I stopped to think about it in those terms, I was like, well, yeah, at what point in history have people regularly *not* been surrounded by war, poverty, and disease? We only got epidemics under control, in parts of the world, in the last century. Poverty is a bigger producer of PTSD than child abuse. Shakespeare does a pretty good depiction of PTSD in a warrior returning home. And exactly when does having PTSD make good parenting easier? Individual good parents with PTSD, absolutely. Widespread PTSD weighting the scales in favor of good parenting on a species level? Hell no.

That view of history caused me to read this passage from Diana Gabaldon (an interesting but not always accurate writer of time-travel historical fiction--if you haven't read her books, you may know her work from the TV show Outlander) in a completely new light. The viewpoint character was born in 1917, during WWI and the year before the Spanish flu. The man she's talking to was born in the 1700s.

“Brianna was born seven years after penicillin came into common use. She was born in America—not this one”—I nodded toward the window again—“but that one, that will be. There, it isn’t usual for lots of people to die of contagious illness.”

“Do you remember the first person you knew of who had died?”

His face went blank with surprise, then sharpened, thinking. After a moment, he shook his head.

“My brother was the first who was important, but I kent others before him, surely.”

“I can’t remember, either.” My parents, of course; their deaths had been personal—but born in England, I had lived in the shadow of cenotaphs and memorials, and people just beyond the bounds of my own family died regularly; I had a sudden vivid memory, of my father putting on a homburg and dark coat to go to the baker’s wife’s funeral.

Mrs. Briggs, her name had been. But she hadn’t been the first; I knew already about death and funerals. How old had I been then—four, perhaps?

“I think Frank’s was the first death Brianna ever experienced personally [her father when she was about eighteen]. Maybe there were others; I can’t be sure. But the point is—”

“I see the point.”

Mildred asked me over in the other post about my Elizabeth Taylor comparison re: the very het Catherine and the very gay Heinrich hitting it off so well.

Okay, focusing on just one aspect on ET's long and colorful life from her early child star days onwards: that she turned out to be the first Hollywood star to talk about AIDS and fight for AIDS patients in the 80s, when it was a taboo subject otherwise, wasn't a coincidence. All her life, she had passionate friendships with gay men, in addition to her stormy marriages and love affairs to straight (or at least supposedly so) ones. Rock Hudson, whose death of AIDS was certainly one trigger for her engagement, was one case, but the most important relationship in this regard was to Montgomery Clift. ("She likes me," said Richard Burton, two time husband and stormy-het- love-of-life, "but she loves you, Monty.") They had met when she was 18 and he wasn't much older, they were arguably the two most beautiful young uns of Hollywood, on the set of their first movie together, and became firm friends. It was the kind of friendship where she literally saved his life. This is a good description of the event, which involves her getting into a bloody, smoking car wreck with him in it, finding him chocking on his own teeth, several of which had been knocked down his throat, pulling the teeth out of his throat one by one with her hands (no time to wait for an ambulance, which in any event would arrive only an hour later) and, when the inevitable paparazzi arrived, putting the fear of god into them, successfully preventing them from taking pictures of his bloody face.

She remained the friend you want to have in your corner; when Montgomery Clift, years later, had been so damaged by drug taking the studios didn't want to hire him anymore, she got him work regardless, on "no Monty, no Liz!" basis (and since she was still at the height of her career, this was an effective tool). Clift, whose nickname for her was "Bessie Mae", adored her, too. (In fact, he once told another of her gay friends, Roddy McDowall, who'd been her fellow child star in the Lassie movies and would go on playing Octavian in Cleopatra, that if he were to switch teams, it would only be for "Bessie Mae", but she didn't want him to.)

And gay and bi men certainly loved Elizabeth Taylor back, not just Clift, McDowall and Hudson. James Dean was famously "troubled" (read: jerkish) to everyone on the set of Giants, except for her; she basically was a force of nature, and as much as her romances sooner or later crashed, friendships brought out the best in her. One of nature's Queens and a Diva in the best sense of the word.

ETA: As one of the obituaries when she died put it, re: Elizabeth Taylor:

Unlike Marilyn, Liz survived. And it was that survival as much as the movies and fights with the studios, the melodramas and men (so many melodramas, so many men!) that helped separate Ms. Taylor from many other old-Hollywood stars. She rocketed into the stratosphere in the 1950s, the era of the bombshell and the Bomb, when most of the top female box-office draws were blond, pneumatic and classifiable by type: good-time gals (Betty Grable), professional virgins (Doris Day), ice queens (Grace Kelly). Marilyn Monroe was the sacrificial sex goddess with the invitational mouth. Born six years before Ms. Taylor, she entered the movies a poor little girl ready to give it her all, and did.

Ms. Taylor, by contrast, was sui generis, a child star turned ingénue and jet-setting supernova, famous for her loves (Eddie & Liz, Liz & Dick) and finally for just being Liz. “I don’t remember ever not being famous,” she said. For her, fame was part of the job, neither a blessing (though the jewels were nice) nor a curse. Perhaps that’s why she never looked defeated, unlike those who wilt under the spotlight. In film after film she appears extraordinarily at ease: to the camera born. She’s as natural in “National Velvet,” the 1944 hit that made her a star at 12, as she is two decades later roaring through “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” proving once again that beauty and talent are not mutually exclusive, even in Hollywood.(…)

She was a lovely actress and a better star. She embodied the excesses of Hollywood and she transcended them. In the end, the genius of her career was that she gave the world everything it wanted from a glamorous star, the excitement and drama, the diamonds and gossip, and she did it by refusing to become fame’s martyr.

Edited 2019-12-04 11:35 (UTC)

You do such good character voices. (Trenck's "protesting too much" was brilliant!)

Thank you. :) Mind you, I had assistance from Trenck himself, who protests a lot of how innocent and naive he was. Well, his description of the second Silesian War was just poor poor Fritz gallantly wanting to save the poor robbed of his Homeland Karl Abrecht of Wittelsbach certainly is… innocent… yeah.

Incidentally, so what do you think we have here? Another case of Fritz lusting after someone who has something with one of his younger siblings? Fritz sincerely thinks Trenck sold him out to the Austrians despite being until then a favored and trusted officer? Fritz jumps on that excuse? Trenck, despite having a sweet deal going on in Prussia, DID spy for the Austrians? I certainly think it's possible; he protests such an awful lot, he was young and adrenaline addicted, that's a good condition for doing stupid things. Also all this "you owe me!" insistence to the Habsburgs later - what exactly did they owe him, if he wasn't spying? Those few years of service between Glatz and Danzig didn't involve any great efforts, other than going to Russia and having another affair.

I do suspect one reason why Fritz was a very bad enlightened monarch and didn't even give him a proper trial - which even FW did for Katte, only to override the sentence, to be sure, but he did give him a trial first - was because he thought Trenck the bragger wouldn't be able to resist bringing up Amalie. And regardless of how much or little Fritz felt for his youngest sister at that point, that would have wrecked her marriage chances for good. That she would never marry at all was not something anyone could have foreseen back then. Though it's interesting that Fritz never forced her to. Question: If Wilhelmine hadn't already been married when FW died, would Fritz have married her off? Or would the combination of her being in her early 30s - and thus for her contemporaries no longer desirable marriage material, though the occasional match for royal women at that age did still happen - and her being his favourite sister have meant a life time in Prussia?

Mighty fortresses are useful for when you want to keep anyone from hurting your kid, and also for when you want to keep them from rescuing your kid while you hurt him.

They're also useable for one's nieces-in-law. Was somewhat stunned to discover this bit from the fallout of FW2's first marriage, you know, the one where Fritz briefly discovers his inner feminist. To recapitulate:

Young future FW2: *in love with Wilhelmine Encke, daughter of trumpetter*
Fritz: You're the crown prince, so of course I ridicule you in public and bully you. And marry you off to a Braunschweig girl. Your aunt Charlotte's daughter Elisabeth is even beautiful and spirited, so consider yourself lucky.

FW 2 & Elisabeth: *dislike on sight*

FW2: *cheats, continues affair with Wilhelmine Encke*

Elisabeth: *cheats, has affairs with various officers because fuck that, she's not going to take this lying down like her precedessors as crown princess*

Friederike, baby of uncertain paternity: *is born

Elisabeth: *pregnant again*

Heinrich: *throws a mask ball*

Courtier to future FW during said masked ball, i.e. at a public occasion": So, your wife? Total ho!

FW: Uncle Fritz, watch me show of the education you gave me. "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. I am sadly forced to ask you to allow me to divorce my wife.

Fritz: Dear Charlotte, it's all our idiot nephew's fault for neglecting his wife's charms, I mean, what kind of royal bastard does that to his wife? But anyway. Literal bastards are a no go for the line of succession, so divorce it'll have to be. Mind taking your daughter back?

Charlotte: I do mind. She's disgraced me and my family. Do with her what you want, I am not taking her back.

(Me: Ooookay. Definitely your parents' daughter here, Charlotte.)

Fritz: Küstrin comes to mind for some reason. Elisabeth, sorry, I actually like you, but you're going to spend some months there to cool off. Then you're allowed to go to Stettin and retire to a country mansion, but you'll have to stay there. Also, Louise is going to raise your kid Friederike. You can keep the other one.

Elisabeth: *has miscarriage in Küstrin, then goes off to Stettin*

*flash forward to FW2 ascending to the throne*

FW2: Dear Liz, seeing as you are the mother of my eldest daughter and I'm no longer married to you but to another wife I didn't want, I think enough is enough. You can come to the capital if you like. Or go home to Braunschweig if you want.

Elisabeth: Thanks but no thanks. I like it here in Stettin. As for Braunschweig, when I eventually die at 92, outliving you all, there will be a clause in my Last Will stating that under no circumstances is my dead body going to lie among that lot, because fuck you, Mom, for not taking me back. Hohenzollern are the worst, forever and ever.

Diana Gabaldon: have read the first of those novels, know who she is, have even seen her in person at a Bavarian book festival.

So, Dad was a bit embarassed of me
he was just somewhat embarassing to look at

*grimace*

Trust you to catch that. When I learned about F1 being dropped as a baby and as a result spending his life with a broken shoulder, being called "der schiefe Fritz" by his people, I thought that illustrates how you can never trust court paintings, among so many other things. Him being on such bad terms with his father that he wanted a guarantee he wouldn't get murdered the last time he visited him was a non-surprise, too.

And he *wanted* better quality relationships, including with various members of his family (not including EC), and couldn't always figure out how.

(From your reply to my Heinrich comment in the earlier post.)

This is as good a place as any to discuss this: what did he want out of his family relationships? I mean, emotionally; the political aspects - AW as crown prince, the sisters as useful for alliances, Heinrich turning out to be a gifted general and diplomat - are clear and would have been there for any King of and in Prussia, they weren't Fritz specific. Since he must have figured out rather early on he would not have children of his own, did he see them - given the huge age gap between him and the younger ones especially - mostly as the kids he wouldn't have and wanted them to treat him as a replacement father (only better)? Did he seek out the kind of companionship he had with Wilhelmine when they were children and tried to recreate it with them? Both? Either? What?

Edited 2019-12-04 11:00 (UTC)

I would suggest that kindness was in huge supply in the first 18 years of his life; it's that the kind people had very limited power at best, or none.

You're right, that's true, point taken.

To cahn's point about the employer/employee imbalance, I don't think it necessarily has to be a dealbreaker for romantic security in all such cases, but in this case, I have opinions about how Fritz's issues might have limited his ability to get certain needs met in a relationship of this particular dynamic. But I think this relationship did everything it could within those bounds, and the significance of that should not be underestimated.

Agreed. To pick just one aspect, I could see the fact that Fredersdorf, as opposed to foreigners like Algarotti, Darget or the various Rheinsberg guys could not leave without Fritz' permission since he's both a Prussian subject and personally employed work in both directions - on the one hand, there's the guarantee that short of sickness and death, he won't take off. On the other hand, how does Fritz know Fredersdorff wouldn't take off if he had the liberty to do so at any point?

For what comparisons with different characters in different circumstances are worth: I don't think it's a coincidence that the more successful and long term relationships royals and princes have in the later 17th and early 19th century are with middle class people as opposed to (born) members of the nobility. (Examples: FW2/Wihelmine Encke, Louis XV/Pompadour, William IV (brother of "Prinny" George IV)/Dorothea Jordan, Wiilhelm II of Hesse-Kastel/Emilie Ortlöpp.

All of these are royal/commoner pairings that last for at least two decades and in most cases until the death of one party. Because starting in the later 17th century, the middle class develops a new confidence, and it also comes equipped with a different set of standards. Aristocrats aren't raised to expect love in marriage, or fidelity, either emotional or sexual; these commoners, otoh, are starting to expect and offer just that. They hail from the same country but are raised so very differently that there's a certain "other" factor that makes them interesting, they are not part of a any aristocratic clique and faction they were practically born into, their loyalty therefore is entirely directed at the royal in question, and: there is no possible way a rival to their affection would be able to compete with the royal in social standing. All of which makes those commoners very attractive to the royals. (From the commoner's pov, things at times must have looked different. I mean, poor Dora Jordan was dropped stone cold after two decades and ten illigitimate children once William finally made it to the throne at the age of 64.)

How much childhood trauma did the Margrave have?

You know, this made me finally look up his parents closer than through what I recall from Wilhelmine's memoirs, and you'll never guess, but...

Dad was a stick wielding Ultra Protestant. Hence Bayreuth Friedrich studying eight years in Geneva, btw. Mom, by name of Dorothea, got divorced from Dad for her "crime against marital fidelity" and locked up in the next fortress. Future Margrave was then raised by his grandmother. In 1734, the old Margrave finally allowed his wife to leave her prison but only under the condition that she was to emigrate to Sweden and never ever return, and he made that a condition in his Last Will from 1735, too. After his death, his son, Wilhelmine's husband, heightened his mother's Budget to a generous sum, but he didn't withdraw the banishment from Bayreuth, so she died in Sweden without having seen her son again after the time she first was arrested for adultery.

Weird fact: one of Dorothea's brothers - she was a princess of Schleswig-Holstein - ended up married to the Countess Orzelska!

Wilhelmine's opinion of her father-in-law is probably best summed up by the tale which ended up in his wiki entry: supposedly, when she became pregnant, he first accused her of having made that up in order to get attention. When this was not the case, he said he hoped it would be a daughter since by the marriage contract as signed by him and FW, he was only obliged to bear the financial costs for a son. When Wilhelmine's husband the future Margrave told him not to be a jerk to her, Old Margrave went with a stick at him, and there was a physical father-son brawl.

Also of interest: when Wilhelmine's widower - who had married one of Charlotte's daughters after her death, but that marriage ended up without children - died without a son, Bayreuth went to his uncle Christian. And Uncle Christian was nuts. When Christian had found a hot page in his wife's bedroom, he shot the guy, which is why he ended up spending some time under lock and key in the Plassenburg. (He also divorced his wife.) After Wilhelmine's husband released him, he went to Denmark and served in the army there. Once he inherited Bayreuth from his nephew in the 1760s, he fired all the artists, most of whom ended up going to Fritz.

After all of this, you won't be surprised if I point out the full name of the Bayreuth tribe was "von Brandenburg-Bayreuth", for lo, they were the Franconian branch of the Hohenzollern.

It should be added, though, that jerk or not, the old Margrave evidently did finance a Grand Tour for his son, starting in 1730, the year of doom, which is why future Margrave was able to visit France, improve his French there and learn how to play the flute before being called back with the news he was supposed to marry.

Edited 2019-12-04 17:46 (UTC)

Thank you! This was all new to me. I knew she went through a number of husbands, and that was about it.

Hm. Let me get this straight. So Wilhelmine's husband

- is named Friedrich
- plays the flute
- hates hunting
- forced to drink by FW
- Ultra Protestant Dad
- product of a troubled marriage
- physically attacked by Dad

They must have had a lot to talk about. :P

Young Margrave: good for you for the A- marriage to your wife, under these circumstances!
Old Margrave: good for you for the Grand Tour.

Hohenzollerns: Stop marrying. Into your own family, into other families, into any families. Stop reproducing. Stop overseeing the raising of your siblings and your siblings' kids. Just...stop. ~~Stop trying to get castles back.~~

Incidentally, so what do you think we have here?

Ahahaha, I'm flattered that you think I have anything to contribute, just like I'm flattered you thought I could make sense of the Marwitz letters.

I agree it's far from impossible that Trenck might have been up to *something* for the Austrians. He's always given off shady vibes for me, but, you know, innocent until proven guilty.

I kinda doubt it was *just* Fritz lusting after him. I feel like he had grounds of suspicion (if only in his own head) for Amalie, spying, or both, to get that kind of reaction. But who knows?

*throws up hands*

he thought Trenck the bragger wouldn't be able to resist bringing up Amalie. And regardless of how much or little Fritz felt for his youngest sister at that point, that would have wrecked her marriage chances for good.

This makes perfect sense.

Question: If Wilhelmine hadn't already been married when FW died, would Fritz have married her off?

Remember when we we were discussing the "FW retires to a religious hermit life" AU? And my gut reaction was "I have to imagine step 1 is: Fritz summons Wilhelmine to court for Very Important Reasons and just never lets her go again"? That's still my gut reaction to what happens if Wilhelmine is unmarried when Fritz inherits at whatever age. My guess is Wilhelmine, honorary man that she is, falls into the category of beloved friends who he will be very unhappy about if they start showing interest in being married to anyone except *him*. I mean, unless you think there's a political alliance that Fritz both could have gotten through her and would have wanted badly enough...he *could* be ruthless as king and override his personal wishes. But I think it would take a lot. And as you say, 30+ year-old Wilhelmine doesn't have kings falling all over themselves for her face or her childbearing prospects. I say Fritz keeps her.

FW: Uncle Fritz, watch me show of the education you gave me. "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion."

Fritz: Dear Charlotte, it's all our idiot nephew's fault for neglecting his wife's charms, I mean, what kind of royal bastard does that to his wife?

Elisabeth: fuck you, Mom, for not taking me back. Hohenzollern are the worst, forever and ever.

+1

...and now that I'm reading Lehndorf's diary, I just came across an entry where he's all "our princes are the best! I mean, the Saxons are dumb as nails, Wüttemberg, eh, Palatinate, haven't produced anything interesting in the last century, Braunschweigs I guess I have so say are alright, seeing whom I'm nominally working for, but I immediately add saying they're alright because they're so closely related to ours that you can't judge them as a separate entity, but how wonderful,how superior to all other Germans are the Hohenzollerns!"

Look, I know you've got it bad for Heinrich, Lehndorf, and you're still hoping Fritz will promote you from his wife's Hhousehold into his own, but SERIOUSLY? That's patriotism gone too far.

I mean, *I* always thought the Hohenzollerns were the best, from my safe popcorn-munching remove, but if you have to *live* with them? Hell no, that's crazy talk.

It's like that ancient ~~Chinese~~ German curse goes: may you live with an interesting family.

(Wikipedia tells me it's not actually Chinese.)

ETA: Oh, and in case it's not obvious to

cahn (forgive me if it is), "Braunschweig" is "Brunswick" in English.

Edited 2019-12-05 07:30 (UTC)

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.

Okay, so I’ve managed the first 130 pages. I have to tell you, the introduction is worth reading because that, too, is a document of its times. The Editor (writing in the year 1907) tries to be gentle and prepare his readers for all that rococo shamelessness, saying he’d have cut it but for historical considerations, for lo, it seems that (Fritz-derived) image historians had of the Prussian court only turning sensual and adulterous once FW2 the playboy got on the throne? Is wrong! The Fritzian court was not a bastion of chaste stoic Prussian masculinity after all. On the other hand, we’re told to keep in mind everyone is emo in those days, so Lehndorf bursting into tears when his beloved Heinrich isn’t around for a few days is UTTERLY NORMAL. Oh, and about 800 letters from Heinrich to Lehndorf have never been transcribed. (As of the publication of these journals.) „Doubtlessly,“ the editor tells us, „the King himself bears some of the blame, due to the nature of his married life. We have suppressed some names and cut the worst passages, though.“

Lehndorf had a background which makes it at once apparant why a younger Hohenzollern and he would hit it off: he, like F1, was mishandled as a small child and had a broken foot at age 4 as a result which didn’t properly heal, which meant he was lame for the rest of his life. (This is also why he couldn’t have an army career.) His mother always prefered his „healthy“ older brother. (Dad had died when Lehndorf was still a baby. He and his siblings were first raised by their grandmother as the newly widowed mother couldn’t cope with six kids, but then the grandmother died, too.) He had to go through various painful and ineffective attempts to correct his leg. (BTW, this made me flash forward to Wilhelm II, aka Willy – one of the very few things he has my sympathy for is that he went through hell as a child with all those attempts to correct the arm that had been crippled when he was born, as his mother, Queen Victoria’s daughter of the same name, absolutely couldn’t stand the idea of having a handicaped child. Willy’s dysfunctional relationship with his English relations started right there.)

Before I get to the „Heinrich and me: A Rokoko Queer as Folk AU“ aspect of the diaries, some more general tidbits. Before being hired as EC’s chamberlain, young Lehndorff did go and attend Franz Stephan’s coronation in Frankfurt, because Prussian patriot or not, second Silesian War or not, how many imperial coronations can you see in your life time? Also, he’s just into pomp and circumstance and Rokoko parties in general, so it doesn’t surprise me.

Speaking of FS, in later 1753 there’s a rumor he’s taken sick and will die. This immediately causes speculation as to whom MT will try to replace him with as Emperor – money is on his younger brother since Joseph is still a kid, and they don’t see her allowing the Imperial crown slip out of her grasp again. And everyone sees this as an opportunity for another war. They’re having very mixed feelings when it turns out the Austrian spies were wrong and Franzl is alive and well.

Earlier that year, though, Fritz asked the Austrian Ambassador for a MT portrait, I kid you not, and provides one of his own. How that went down in Vienna, I have no idea.

Secretary: …and our ambassador writes the King of Prussia wants to have your portrait. Will send you his own.
MT: To throw darts at?

The selection of the diaries starts in 1750, and there’s a lot of soap opera right from the get go. a) AW’s inammorata Sophie von Pannwitz gets married (since he’s told once and for all by Fritz he won’t be allowed to divorce his wife, and Sophie drew the consequences and got herself an alternate husband), b) Heinrich gets married to Mina, and c) Lehndorf is also supposed to get married, but refuses (this particular candidate, he’ll later cave). Since Lehndorf’s supposed marriage is only his mother’s idea, not that of the King, his refusal stands.

No less soapy is the Voltaire vs Maupertuis saga, aka the warm up for the big Voltaire/Fritz implosion. Lehndorf concludes that a great mind does not prevent one from being a jerk, and is utterly bewildered by Fritz and Voltaire being all buddies again after a previous argumentative bust up.

Lehndorf: I don't get it. Do you?
Heinrich: *studiously says Nothing*

He’s enjoying a lot of the cultural aspects – concerts, theatre, and when he’s with „my beloved/adored/worshipped Prince“, they at times read books to another – but he doesn’t seem to really like any of the big intellectuals as people. Including Algarotti. Yes, this is the first contemporary who finds Algarotti resistable. The relevant entry:
January 4th: Dinner with Prince Heinrich and his table round. In the evening, I visit the opera. There I see the one I was supposed to marry. I don’t regret for a moment having rejected this marriage. I also hear that Count Algarotti will go to Italy. He is an intellectual („Schöngeist“) who has made his fortune at our court. One enjoys hearing him talk but is afraid of seeing him; thus it is with all who are too enamored with their own wit.

Lehndorf hangs out with all three of the Hohenzollern princes so often that one wonders when on earth he’s doing his job with EC. And then you get entries like, when he’s returning from a trip to Rheinsberg: „The Queen is displeased with me. Ah well, no rose without thorns!“

One read thread through the first three years is him becoming unexpected pals with the Countess Bentick, aka the enterprising lady of Mission: Seduce Heinrich fame. She’s married, left her husband and is currently living with her lover (apparantly that’s cool with Fritz as long as you’re not a Hohenzollern), none of which is stopping her from trying to score with L’Autre Moi-Meme. In vain, but it means she and Lehndorf spend a lot of time together, including doing things like climbing on top of the highest Charlottenburg palace tower to enjoy the view, and he actively seeks out her company after a while because she’s clever and fun. And of Course he can empathize with her Heinrich thirst.

In these early stages, he’s careful with his criticism of the actual royals. When „Sulla“, the opera for which Fritz has written the libretto, is premiered apropos SD’s birthday, Lehndorf comments „it is not the best opera I have heard“, which is about the amount of dissing he does re: Fritz and his brothers in the early 50s. He’s a bit more critical about the sisters, though stuff like, say, complaints about Amalie being moody are forgotten when she gives him a letter from Heinrich. (He describes her in general as smart, charming if she wants to be, scathing when not, with intense beautiful eyes and a bit overweight. You can see where all the „she resembles Fritz“ claims hail from.)

ETA: almost forgot: he's most critical of Wilhelmine and her husband when they come to visit. The Margrave may appear as "large and healthy", but he's not really refined in Lehnsdorff's opion. Wilhelmine, otoh, is too refined:

November 12th: The entire Bayreuth court leaves. They say the Margravine would have prefered to stay for the winter. This princess is adored by some and despised by others. She does have qualities for which she deserves to be loved: she is generous, a patroness of scholars and treats her servants well. But she plays at being a wit, thinks herself superior to the rest of humanity and only truly respects her own family; thus, she's always ready to build altars to the King. /and of ETA.

Meanwhile, he practically draws sparkly hearts around Heinrich’s name every time he mentions him. The quotes Mildred already gave are fairly representative. Of course, at some point it dawns to our good Count that Heinrich might favour him with his company but has those other guys besides. If either have you have watched the original UK Queer as Folk: the relationship between Stuart and Vince is what this reminds me most. Have some excerpts from the diary for a conclusion of this comment, all from 1753:

September 9th: the King shows an extraordinary generosity towards all his officers. What pleases all decent folk especially is that Oberstleutnant Keith receives 5000 Taler. It is the very same Keith who when the King was faring badly while being Crown Prince had to escape, and lived at times in the Netherlands, at others in England, at last in Lissabon. It seemed for quite a while that His Majesty had forgotten him; but now he received, in addition to the money, a most gracious letter and the invitation to join his Majesty at the camp.

September 18th: The Queen goes with all her Braunschweig relations to Schönhausen to dine. I am terribly bored.

September 19th: My prince talks most graciously with me, but it is not the tone I am used to hearing from him. In the end, I regard this as a hint from heaven to liberate me from my passion for him.

September 29th: My poor prince is sick, which worries me more than anything else. Oh, how wise would a man be to be content with his position in life and not chase after having something which at first appears beautiful, charming and delicious but in the end causes only pain!

September 30th: At evening with Prince Heinrich again, who is still sick. Oh my God, how much willpower is necessary to tear out a passion of one’s heart which has taken root there so strongly! It is a hard fate, having to make such sacrifices.

December 3rd: We participate in the great hunt. (…) I note with joy how disgusted the Prince of Prussia - aka AW - is by hunting. He says he cannot find joy in attacking creatures which have no chance to defend themselves. Prince Ferdinand shoots carelessly and hits a farmer.

December 10th: I dine alone with my dear Prince Heinrich, whom I love with all my heart.

December 21st: Diner at Prince Heinrich’s. I am surprised to encounter Stillfried here, with whom I used to correspond. He is an amiable young man. I have a long conversation with Prince Heinrich which saddens me. I always find that one moment of pure joy is followed by ten days of grief!

December 22nd. Prince Heinrich arrives in tight riding pants and beautiful like an angel for dinner.

Edited 2019-12-05 09:59 (UTC)

may you live with an interesting family.

Precisely. so, when EC finally seems to lose her patience and reminds Lehnsdorff that his job description isn't "crushing on Prince Heinrich" or "hanging out with the divine trio" and he's supposed to attend her more, and he's mentally all "yeah, but you're boring!", I on the one hand can see where he's coming from: EC is bound to be more dull than Hohenzollern drama. And I know whom I'd rather read about if I must choose. But on the other hand: for God's sake and for the sake of your emotional and mental health, Lehnsdorff, treasure what you have! EC is nice! It's easy money!

(Of course, it doesn't help that when he took the job he did so under the delusion he'd see lots of the King whom he's very curious about and wants to serve directly. Naturally, then he has to find out that working for the Queen is a guarantee to see as little of the King as possible.)

:( 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.

They must have had a lot to talk about.

What I thought. Mind you, all kidding about Fritz parallels aside, there are of course important differences in temper; the young Margrave seems to have been mostly reactive in temper, without agression (unless direly provoked by Dad) or sarcasm, more of a people pleaser than someone burning with ambition. Maybe we have the grandmother to thank for that?

Oh, but then I must dish some more, not least because the Burton/Taylor saga can actually compete with the Hohenzollern in charismatic fucked upness. For Starters, an old book review:

Sam Kashner & Nancy Schoenberger: Furious Love. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the marriage of the century. I don't know about "marriage of the century", but this book about the Taylor/Burton relationship certainly makes a case for the larger than life epicness of its subjects without losing sight of their humanity. The writers have the advantage of being access by Elizabeth Taylor in the last year of her life to the Richard Burton's letters to her and the unplublished parts of her memoirs, and they know how to tell a good story.

Amazingly, they also manage to remain bi partisan throughout (and never bash or demonize third parties, either). This isn't self-evident, because there are two extreme positions you can take on the phenomenon the paparazzi dubbed "Liz and Dick", and they were taken by some of their respective friends - that Burton ruined his chance to become the Heir-of-Olivier and the greatest British actor of his generation by entering a life of superstardom with Taylor, or that Burton was only after Taylor's fame and in the process managed to derail and ruin her film career. Meanwhile, our authors point out that Burton learned a great deal about screen acting from Taylor (if you compare his pre-Elizabeth films with his post-Elizabeth performance in Becket, you know immediately what they mean), while she would never have taken a role like Martha in Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf? (arguably her greatest on screen performance) without his encouragement. That the book while delivering on the off screen antics never loses sight these two were actors and as passionate about their work (most of the time) as they were about everything else is one of its great qualities. Whatever was in their minds when they entered the relationship, they ended up absolutely besotted with each other and remained so arguably for the rest of their lives, in a real life case from can't-live-with-can't-live-without. Those letters and diary excerpts are intense, sensual (by no means only in the getting-to-know-you period but also when they were divorcing many years later - sex was never the problem) and in retrospect heartbreaking to read. Another thing the book does justice to and doesn't glamourize is the alcoholism (and that was a problem because they encouraged it in each other, and also because for the longest time they were in denial about it); but also to something usually overlooked in the Burton-and-Taylor saga, the fact they were parents (Elizabeth Taylor had two children from Wilding, one from Todd, she and Burton adopted a daughter together and he had two daughters from his first marriage) and crazy life style or not, this took a great deal of their attention, and they managed to make a reasonably good job of it.

Then of course you have the fact these were two witty people in real life who didn't need scriptwriters to feed them good lines. When Burton, after being nominated for The Spy who came in from the cold, lost of all the people to Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou, he quipped "What do you think they're trying to tell me? That Lee Marvin is a better class of drunk?" During the shoot of "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" - a film where of the four actors only Elizabeth lacked a stage background - there was a set visit by Marlene Dietrich, who cattily remarked to Taylor: "Darling, everyone is so fantastic! You have a lot of guts to perform with real actors!", E.T. replied: "Yes, I do. And when I get home, Marlene, Richard and I are going to fuck like bunnies." And when she threw herself into campaigning for AIDS research (something she did at a point when AIDS was still being ignored and not being talked about by society and goverment alike), this included many visits at hospitals with AIDS patients; at one point she cheered one up with joking they should get together: "It's the perfect relationship! I don't want to get married again, and you're probably not interested in me."

And here are some excerpts from Burton's now published diaries. These are from the 60s, when the big scandal of their original getting together (complete with very public cheating on their previous spouses and ditching same during the shooting of "Cleopatra") was already years behind them:

21 April 1965:

‘E opened her bag and handed me a book. It was an old edition of A Shropshire Lad. With all of those hundreds of people around, to say nothing of store detectives watching for our safety, all of them staring and oohing and aahing over her beauty, she had stolen a book! I burst into a cold sweat. I could see the headlines. “Millionaire Couple Steal Book From Foyles.” “Book not worth more than five bob, says manager”. Christ. I gave her a terrible row but her delight was not to be crushed. It’s the first and last thing she ever stole in her life, except, of course, husbands!’

24 May 1967 – Portofino

E anxious I write about her [in the diary] so here goes: She is a nice fat girl who loves mosquitoes and hates pustular carbuncular Welshmen, loathes boats and loves planes, has tiny blackcurrant eyes and minute breasts and has no sense of humour. She is prudish, priggish and painfully self-conscious.

30 July 1967 – Taormina

A slow day, marking time, with a walk in which we bought sunglasses at a little shop. As we left the crowd which had gathered applauded us. E thought it very sweet, which indeed it was. We dined in somnolence and some self-satisfaction as we compared our ancestors and former wives and husbands.

E has become very slim and I can barely keep my hands off her. It turns out that she’s not that less in weight but, as a result of massage and exercise the weight has been redistributed. She is at the moment among the most dishiest girls I’ve ever seen. The most. I mean dishiest.

19 September 1967

Noël Coward arrived looking very old and slightly sloshed and proceeded to get more sloshed. He embarrassed us both separately and lavished compliments on E about her beauty and her brilliance as an actress. He is a most generous man but he is beginning to lose the fine edge of his wit or perhaps like me he repeats himself when tipsy.

23 October 1968 [Aristotle Onassis married former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy three days earlier] The Onassises have disappeared completely from the front pages. I told Elizabeth they didn’t have our stamina. I also said with great smugness that he had given her a wedding present of only “slightly less than £100,000 [£660,000] of diamonds, precious stones”, etc, whereas I had only recently given a £127,000 [£845,000] diamond ring simply because it was a Tuesday.

[Later] The enemy is insidiously attacking again. Beth read in the papers that Ari Onassis had given Jackie half a million pounds worth of rubies surrounded by diamonds. Missy already has, as a result of former battles against yours truly, one of the greatest diamonds in the world and probably the most breathtaking private collection of emeralds surrounded by diamonds also in the world. Now the Battle of the Rubies is on. I wonder who’ll win.

8 November 1968

After completing yesterday’s entry with milady fast asleep in bed as I thought, I was looking through some scenes in the script when suddenly the bedroom door opened and standing there in a near diaphanous nightgown with one shoulder slipped on to her arm was E. So I went back to bed for 10 minutes. I was unquestionably seduced and I teased her about it for the rest of the day when we talked on the telephone. She was very beautiful. It is a fact that after all these years the girl can still blush. I lost that latter capacity a long long time ago.

13 November 1968 It’s extraordinary how small the Duke and Duchess [of Windsor] are. Two tiny figures like Toto and Nanette that you keep on the mantelpiece.

Chipped around the edges. Something you keep in the front room for Sundays only. Marred royalty. The awful majesty that doth hedge around a king is notably lacking in awfulness. Charming and feckless. [Later] E just reminded me that at one point I said to the Duchess last night, “You are, without any question, the most vulgar woman I’ve ever met.” Waaaaaah!

19 November 1968 – Paris

Famed as we are, rich as we are, courted and insulted as we are, overpaid as we are, centre of a great deal of attention as we are, [we] are not bored or blasé. We are not envious. We are merely lucky.

I have been inordinately lucky all my life but the greatest luck of all has been Elizabeth. She has turned me into a moral man but not a prig, she is a wildly exciting lover-mistress, she is shy and witty, she is nobody’s fool, she is a brilliant actress, she is beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography, she can be arrogant and wilful, she is clement and loving, Dulcis Imperatrix, she is Sunday’s child, she can tolerate my impossibilities and my drunkenness, she is an ache in the stomach when I am away from her, and she loves me!

25 May 1969

What an extraordinary world it is. How do you live with one person for 13 years, and another for eight and find both as alien as strangers. Elizabeth is an eternal one night stand. She is my private and personal bought mistress. And lascivious with it. It is impossible to tell you what is consisted in the act of love. Well I’ll tell you, E is a receiver, a perpetual returner of the ball! I don’t write about sex very often, because it embarrasses me, but, but…

“28 May 1969
Marlon [Brando] has yet to learn to speak. Christ knows how often I’ve watched Marlon ruin his performance by underarticulation. He should have been born two generations before and acted in silent films.”

6 August 1969

E said this morning that I lacked loyalty. Now she is a bright b----- to talk about loyalty. The list of her dis‑loyalties would fill the yellow pages of the New York Telephone Directory. Except of course to her children. And there she defeats me because I've been disloyal to mine.

8 August 1969

I behaved in a way to make a banshee look kind, good and sweet. Insulting Elizabeth, drunk, periodically excusing myself rather shabbily and then starting the rough treatment all over again. Sometimes I am so much my father’s son that I give myself occasional creeps. He had the same gift for damaging with the tongue, he had the same temporary violence, he had the same fidelity to Mam that I have to Elizabeth, we wave the same admonitory finger at innocence when we know bloody well when we are guilt-ridden, when we have to attack when we know we’re in the defensive position.

2 October 1969 – Geneva

When we came out of the Musée des Beaux Arts the cab driver had vanished, but he returned a few minutes later having very sweetly bought a single rose for Elizabeth. Somewhere between [then] and dinner, brooding set in. Between long silences deadly insults were hurled. At one point E knowing I was in a state of nastiness said to me: “Come on Richard, hold my hand.” Me: “I do not wish to touch your hands. They are large and ugly and red and masculine.” Or words to that effect.

This morning E said that I really must get her the 69-carat ring to make her ugly big hands look smaller and less ugly! Nobody turns insults to her advantage more swiftly or more cleverly than Lady Elizabeth.”

18 November 1969 – Monaco

This morning in the early hours the pot decided to have a go at the kettle and won handle down. E, the pot, gave this particular kettle, me, a savage mauling. I was coldly accused of virtually every sin under the sun. Drunkenness (true) mendacity (true) being boring (true) infidelity (untrue) killing myself fairly quickly (true) pride envy avarice (all true) being ugly (true) having once been handsome (untrue) and any other vice imaginable except homosexuality and ungenerousness.

July 14, 1970:
“[. . . ] Last night I was lying on the bed doing a double-crostic and looked up a quotation in the paperbacked Quotation Dictionary that I carry around with me specifically for that purpose. I immediately became lost in the book and read all the Shakespeare ones right through very slowly. There was hardly a line there that I didn’t immediately know but seeing the miraculous words in print again doomed me to a long trance of nostalgia, a stupor of melancholy, like listening to really massive music, music that moans and thunders and plumbs fathomless depths. I wandered through the book for a long time but no other writer hit me with quite the same impact as William S. What a stupendous God he was, he is. What chance combination of genes went to the making of that towering imagination, that brilliant gift of words, that staggering compassion, that understanding of all human frailty, that total absence of pomposity, that wit, that pun, that joy in words and the later agony. It seems that he wrote everything worth writing and the rest of his fraternities have merely fugued on his million themes. [ . . .]

13 September 1971

I love Larry [Olivier] but he really is a shallow little man with a mediocre intelligence but a splendid salesman.

4 December 1971 [At dinner] My attention was riveted from the first by a man sitting opposite me. He looked like a cadaver. He was eyebrow-less and eyelash-less and atrociously wigged or dyed with snow-white hair at the front of his head and brownish at the back. His face was hideously pasted with make-up and had odd lumps on it, a face made of funny putty by an inept child. [RB’s introduction to Andy Warhol]

(remarriage to ET in South Africa)

7 October 1975 – Johannesburg – Chobe

Grass landing. Slight brush with grim reaper. Left suspension, left wheel packed it in. Guess that we were within 6–8–12 inches from kingdom come. Decided to get married here as soon as possible unless E (or I, for that matter) changes mind. Love her beyond measure and above anything. She fast asleep. Shiver, shiver, shake shake. Can’t wait for E to awaken!

8 July 1980

E made me jealous as vengeance by saying she’d called Marlon [Brando] on the phone and that they had talked for an hour and he had been very solicitous about me. He really is a smugly pompous little b------ and is cavalier about everybody except Black Panthers and Indians. “He’s been keeping tabs on you,” said E. That infuriated me even more. That sober self-indulgent obese f--- being solicitous about me. You can’t get any of those surrounded-by-sycophants one-time-winners on the phone unless they want something from you. Sinatra is the same. Gods in their own mirrors. Distorted mirrors.

August 17, 1980

“Back to random wanderings: The audience reaction to the play: When we were in Toronto and we received without fail standing ovations at every performance I warned the cast not to take it for granted, that it would only happen occasionally, if at all, in NY. But I was wrong. The same thing happens here with unfaltering regularity. I used to get the occasional house to stand up for me in previous plays but now they always do. Will they in Chicago and the rest of the places? It’s a phenomenon that I am puzzled by. Is it nostalgia? The roars I get when I take my second solo calls are almost exultantly savage. Is it a ferocious hunger for the past, a massive ‘hiraeth,’ a sort of murderous longing for ‘home’ and security and simple peace. I don’t know. It cannot be simply the performance. Some nights unavoidably, though I try like the devil to climb to the audience’s expectations every time I play, I am not so good – but the final reaction is exactly the same. Is it that the audience know so much about me – or think they do – from my highly publicized and infamous past? It it because my performance is now truly dynamic but no, it can’t be that because only in the last couple of weeks have I taken absolute control of myself on the stage. Is it a combination of all. I shall never know. But let me say at once that to this little shrinking Welsh violet it is highly gratifying. Today, a glorious one I may say, we have a matinee – a glorious summer Sunday matinee. Will the ovations continue? I will refer to them never again – unless they stop. [ . . .]

Then there's also the letter he wrote to her after their first divorce:

One of these days I will wake up - which I think I have done already - and realize to myself that I really do love. I find it very difficult to allow my whole life to rest on the existence of another creature. I find it equally difficult, because of my innate arrogance, to believe in the idea of love. There is no such thing, I say to myself. There is lust, of course, and usage, and jealousy, and desire and spent powers, but no such things as the idiocy of love. Who invented that concept? I have wracked my shabby brains and can find no answer. But when people die - those who are taken away from us can never come back. Never, never, never, never, never (Lear about Cordelia). We are such doomed fools. Unfortunately, we know it. So I have decided that for a second or two, the precious potential of you in the other room is the only thing in the world worth living for. After your death there shall be only one other and that will be mine. Or I possibly think, vice versa. Ravaged love, And loving Rich.

And in the year before her death, she wrote to a biographer of his: Richard was magnificent in every sense of the word, and in everything he ever did. He was magnificent on the stage, he was magnificent in film, he was magnificent at making love - at least to me. He was the kindest, funniest and most gentle father. All my kids worshipped him. The bond with all of us continued until he drew his last breath. We knew he was absolutely there for us no matter what. In my heart, I will always believe we would have been married a third and final time. From those first moments in Rome we were always madly and powerfully in love. We had more time but not enough.

Edited 2019-12-05 14:01 (UTC)

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Frederick the Great, discussion post 6

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Our Insane Family: The Prequel Years

Fredersdorf

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Elizabeth Taylor

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What do Prussian Kings want?

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Wilhelmine's in-laws

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Lehndorff

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