Instead, FW forces Fritz to marry FW's ideal wife, and SD does her level best to force Wilhelmine to marry SD's ideal husband, because nobody is allowed to live their best lives here. Hohenzollerns. Hannovers. Sigh.
Yep. Relatedly, Wilhelmine biographer Uwe Oster thinks that one reason why she dragged out telling Fritz or anyone else why she wanted Marwitz (female) married and preferably gone was that SD (and Charlotte) had kept harping on the "beggar prince" she'd married during that home visit in 32/33, and she herself knew that Bayreuth was a tiny principality, nothing to write home about, but she could tell herself (and told the family during said disastrous visit)that at least she had a husband who loved her and was devoted to her, and that they were happy with each other. (As opposed to, err, most other Hohenzollern marriages, especially Mom's.) That they were happy together. Admitting Margrave/Marwitz was taking that away, so she keeps silent about it and instead insists that Marwitz continues to be her good friend and she's just deserving of a good husband (who happens to be Austrian) and of course that makes it all worse.
(I mean, I don't think Fritz would have been thrilled about a Prussian noble & Austrian marriage in any case, especially during war time, and would have taken offense, but presumably much less so if she's explained about the affair first?)
SD and AW: from I could gather, there's not much data there to say. I mean, what I learned from biographies and later letter references is:
1.) The story where she makes him plead for the deserter. Does involve the threat he'd get spanked with a rod if he doesn't do it, and the person explaining to little AW what "hanged" means when he asks isn't SD, so not great pedagogy there, but okay, a man's life is at stake.
2.) Pöllnitz' description, rendered in Fontane's Oranienburg chapter of the Wanderungen, and also in Ziebura's AW biography, about how after AW had gotten Oranienburg from Fritz and had it ready for reopening (remember, F1 palace shut down for decades during FW's time), he threw a three day party for his mother with all those baroque court masques and ceremonies and big fireworks spelling out her name at the end which FW would have hated and she adored. Biographies mention she enjoyed her time in Oranienburg so much that she kept going there each summer for a while for every year from this time onwards. (Biographies don't say whether AW also had to throw a party this big every year, but I wouldn't be surprised, because according to Lehndorff during the peace years parties and court masques etc. were a thing for the divine trio.
3.) AW's memorandum on how he'd distribute the budget money if he were King which he wrote when trying to make himself useful on economic matters at least since foreign policy was not an option contains the interesting factoid when it comes to budget for the royal family, in that he thinks the reigning Queen should get more money for her household than the Queen Mother. Now, as we know he wasn't any more in love with Louise than Fritz was with EC, but apparantly he did think that something was off there.
4.) When she's dead, AW's (as recorded in letters to Ferdinand) reaction is the same as the one from all the other Hohenzollern sibs - "we no longer have a mother", terrible blow, sadness, etc.". (When Lehndorff catches up with him in January/February 1758, he mentions they talk a bit about the late SD, too.) (Definitely a safer topic than the very much alive Fritz for Lehndorff to raise, I'd think.)
The problem is that from FW, we have all the letters to various tutors and stewards on how to raise the kid, we have little AW's letters to him (as we have little Wilhelmine's and Fritz'), and we have anecdotes from observers like the Pastor Freilinghausen who reports the "pleading for deserter" story or the envoys who mostly focus on FW (not least because all that indulgent cuddling and joking is such a contrast to you know what). If there are comparative letters from SD to the tutors, or from young AW to SD, then either they weren't archived or if they were the biographers haven't used them. You can only speculate based on what isn't there. For example, how come it takes older brother Fritz in the later 1730s to notice young AW is severely behind in his education and to encourage him that books are cool? I mean, it's obvious why FW doesn't mind, as long as AW likes playing with toy canons as a small child and succeeds in all the drilling he gets as a Hohenzollern prince later on, FW is happy and on the contrary thrilled that there's a son he doesn't have to worry about secretly getting himself educated in ways he doesn't approve of.
But the thing is, Ziebura notes that before he starts corresponding with Big Bro, it's notable AW's French vocabulary and spelling is way less certain than that of his siblings at a comparable age. (He then catches the improve yourself educationally bug, and works on it; it's not that he's more stupid than the rest, it's that his tutor, who probably was scared as hell of FW and had the example of Fritz' tutors in mind, didn't try to push his student to any kind of learning.) And that is something that SD should have noted and objected to, as a matter of pride as much as because of affection, what with French as the international court language and language of all "refined" people. (Later, she is down on her Braunschweig daughters in law precisely because they're not educated enough.)
Now perhaps she was simply worn out from the Fritz and Wilhelmine related battles with FW. But if Fritz via a long distance relationship manages to inspire his younger brother to grab a book or two and improve on his French letter writing by, well, letter writing, you'd think SD could have managed at closer range. So it's possible she basically was relieved here was one child who didn't cause any argument with her husband and made him happy, but it didn't make her feel close to the child in question, especially since while FW was alive she seems to have developed a siege mentality along with "you can only love one of us". (And AW definitely loved Dad back, because why wouldn't he?)
There is, of course, also the way all the boys were educated to consider. The girls remained with her longer, but the boys starting with age 4 got their own household, at by the time they are 12 were treated as junior members of the army complete with drills. So of course we have far more data on how the boys interacted with their father and/or each other. And all four never said a critical word about her and come across as venerating her all their lives. (Remember, when Heinrich during the last years of his life moves into Wusterhausen, he puts up a portrait of SD along with a portrait of AW in his bedroom.) So again, it's equally possible that SD was very fond of AW, and we just are lacking lost letters etc. to back that up in quotes.
Re: Tangentially...
Yep. Relatedly, Wilhelmine biographer Uwe Oster thinks that one reason why she dragged out telling Fritz or anyone else why she wanted Marwitz (female) married and preferably gone was that SD (and Charlotte) had kept harping on the "beggar prince" she'd married during that home visit in 32/33, and she herself knew that Bayreuth was a tiny principality, nothing to write home about, but she could tell herself (and told the family during said disastrous visit)that at least she had a husband who loved her and was devoted to her, and that they were happy with each other. (As opposed to, err, most other Hohenzollern marriages, especially Mom's.) That they were happy together. Admitting Margrave/Marwitz was taking that away, so she keeps silent about it and instead insists that Marwitz continues to be her good friend and she's just deserving of a good husband (who happens to be Austrian) and of course that makes it all worse.
(I mean, I don't think Fritz would have been thrilled about a Prussian noble & Austrian marriage in any case, especially during war time, and would have taken offense, but presumably much less so if she's explained about the affair first?)
SD and AW: from I could gather, there's not much data there to say. I mean, what I learned from biographies and later letter references is:
1.) The story where she makes him plead for the deserter. Does involve the threat he'd get spanked with a rod if he doesn't do it, and the person explaining to little AW what "hanged" means when he asks isn't SD, so not great pedagogy there, but okay, a man's life is at stake.
2.) Pöllnitz' description, rendered in Fontane's Oranienburg chapter of the Wanderungen, and also in Ziebura's AW biography, about how after AW had gotten Oranienburg from Fritz and had it ready for reopening (remember, F1 palace shut down for decades during FW's time), he threw a three day party for his mother with all those baroque court masques and ceremonies and big fireworks spelling out her name at the end which FW would have hated and she adored. Biographies mention she enjoyed her time in Oranienburg so much that she kept going there each summer for a while for every year from this time onwards. (Biographies don't say whether AW also had to throw a party this big every year, but I wouldn't be surprised, because according to Lehndorff during the peace years parties and court masques etc. were a thing for the divine trio.
3.) AW's memorandum on how he'd distribute the budget money if he were King which he wrote when trying to make himself useful on economic matters at least since foreign policy was not an option contains the interesting factoid when it comes to budget for the royal family, in that he thinks the reigning Queen should get more money for her household than the Queen Mother. Now, as we know he wasn't any more in love with Louise than Fritz was with EC, but apparantly he did think that something was off there.
4.) When she's dead, AW's (as recorded in letters to Ferdinand) reaction is the same as the one from all the other Hohenzollern sibs - "we no longer have a mother", terrible blow, sadness, etc.". (When Lehndorff catches up with him in January/February 1758, he mentions they talk a bit about the late SD, too.) (Definitely a safer topic than the very much alive Fritz for Lehndorff to raise, I'd think.)
The problem is that from FW, we have all the letters to various tutors and stewards on how to raise the kid, we have little AW's letters to him (as we have little Wilhelmine's and Fritz'), and we have anecdotes from observers like the Pastor Freilinghausen who reports the "pleading for deserter" story or the envoys who mostly focus on FW (not least because all that indulgent cuddling and joking is such a contrast to you know what). If there are comparative letters from SD to the tutors, or from young AW to SD, then either they weren't archived or if they were the biographers haven't used them. You can only speculate based on what isn't there. For example, how come it takes older brother Fritz in the later 1730s to notice young AW is severely behind in his education and to encourage him that books are cool? I mean, it's obvious why FW doesn't mind, as long as AW likes playing with toy canons as a small child and succeeds in all the drilling he gets as a Hohenzollern prince later on, FW is happy and on the contrary thrilled that there's a son he doesn't have to worry about secretly getting himself educated in ways he doesn't approve of.
But the thing is, Ziebura notes that before he starts corresponding with Big Bro, it's notable AW's French vocabulary and spelling is way less certain than that of his siblings at a comparable age. (He then catches the improve yourself educationally bug, and works on it; it's not that he's more stupid than the rest, it's that his tutor, who probably was scared as hell of FW and had the example of Fritz' tutors in mind, didn't try to push his student to any kind of learning.) And that is something that SD should have noted and objected to, as a matter of pride as much as because of affection, what with French as the international court language and language of all "refined" people. (Later, she is down on her Braunschweig daughters in law precisely because they're not educated enough.)
Now perhaps she was simply worn out from the Fritz and Wilhelmine related battles with FW. But if Fritz via a long distance relationship manages to inspire his younger brother to grab a book or two and improve on his French letter writing by, well, letter writing, you'd think SD could have managed at closer range. So it's possible she basically was relieved here was one child who didn't cause any argument with her husband and made him happy, but it didn't make her feel close to the child in question, especially since while FW was alive she seems to have developed a siege mentality along with "you can only love one of us". (And AW definitely loved Dad back, because why wouldn't he?)
There is, of course, also the way all the boys were educated to consider. The girls remained with her longer, but the boys starting with age 4 got their own household, at by the time they are 12 were treated as junior members of the army complete with drills. So of course we have far more data on how the boys interacted with their father and/or each other. And all four never said a critical word about her and come across as venerating her all their lives. (Remember, when Heinrich during the last years of his life moves into Wusterhausen, he puts up a portrait of SD along with a portrait of AW in his bedroom.) So again, it's equally possible that SD was very fond of AW, and we just are lacking lost letters etc. to back that up in quotes.