If this was after the escape attempt, I also completely missed the timing of "SD pissed off at FW; FW hits on lady-in-waiting."
The hitting on the Lady in Waiting wasn't in the same year; according to Wilhelmine, it happened when everyone went to Braunschweig for the Fritz and EC wedding. I just rechecked (in the German edition, the bowlderized English edition doesn't seem to have it), and it will please you to learn that in fact, FW got not slapped, but punched.
Pannewitz had followed the Queen to Braunschweig for my brother's wedding; the King met her on a small stairway leading to the Queen's room. She wanted to leave, he stopped her and wanted to embrace her by putting a hand on her breast. In her indignation, this lady punched him so violently in the face that blood streamed from his mouth and nose. He did not hold it against her afterwards and limited himself to calling her "the bad fairy".
Now, it could of course simply be that Ferdinand was the last child because SD got menopausal or just not that fertile anymore, but I think the timing for this unprecedented attempt by Mr. "No Mistresses! No Whores!" (as an opening paragraph in his political testament, no less) to break his record of marital fidelity after all would indicate a good chance that SD had ended sexuals relations for good by then, and there is an obvious reason. (Also a later less obvious one, except if you're SD. She was thrilled Fritz was out of custody and reinstated, of course, but she still hated the Braunschweig marriage for her son.)
My understanding is that one of the key points of a morganatic marriage is that the kids, while legitimate, are excluded from the succession.
Oh absolutely. (This, btw, doesn't mean some of them didn't make a play for the throne afterwards anyway. Some even succeeded. Manfred, son of Frederick II. the HRE Emperor, managed to, but to be fair he did so only after his non-morganatic brothers had died and he was the olded surviving son.) But the legitimacy itself meant a lot, given the legal stain on bastards in most countries.
Tangentially...
The hitting on the Lady in Waiting wasn't in the same year; according to Wilhelmine, it happened when everyone went to Braunschweig for the Fritz and EC wedding. I just rechecked (in the German edition, the bowlderized English edition doesn't seem to have it), and it will please you to learn that in fact, FW got not slapped, but punched.
Pannewitz had followed the Queen to Braunschweig for my brother's wedding; the King met her on a small stairway leading to the Queen's room. She wanted to leave, he stopped her and wanted to embrace her by putting a hand on her breast. In her indignation, this lady punched him so violently in the face that blood streamed from his mouth and nose. He did not hold it against her afterwards and limited himself to calling her "the bad fairy".
Now, it could of course simply be that Ferdinand was the last child because SD got menopausal or just not that fertile anymore, but I think the timing for this unprecedented attempt by Mr. "No Mistresses! No Whores!" (as an opening paragraph in his political testament, no less) to break his record of marital fidelity after all would indicate a good chance that SD had ended sexuals relations for good by then, and there is an obvious reason. (Also a later less obvious one, except if you're SD. She was thrilled Fritz was out of custody and reinstated, of course, but she still hated the Braunschweig marriage for her son.)
My understanding is that one of the key points of a morganatic marriage is that the kids, while legitimate, are excluded from the succession.
Oh absolutely. (This, btw, doesn't mean some of them didn't make a play for the throne afterwards anyway. Some even succeeded. Manfred, son of Frederick II. the HRE Emperor, managed to, but to be fair he did so only after his non-morganatic brothers had died and he was the olded surviving son.) But the legitimacy itself meant a lot, given the legal stain on bastards in most countries.