Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

[cahn]

So for anyone who is reading this and would like to learn more about Frederick the Great and his contemporaries, but who doesn't want to wade through 500k (600k?) words worth of comments and an increasingly sprawling comment section:

We now have a community, rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

Comments

Re: But what is really going on here?: The Austrian Dossier (Seckendorff III)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Agree that it's unlikely that Fritz authorized someone else fathering an heir. I never did think it was even possible, until I saw that "she can do what she wants" letter. Which, you know, might well have been what he thought before it was time for an actual practical application of "my wife sleeping with everyone but me."

Wrt to a), though, I would present the following data points for the sake of argument:

1) If you believe schemer Seckendorff (if!), Fritz had to be bullied by FW into joining EC on his wedding night in the first place, and he skedaddled as soon as he could. Now, that might just be common gossip and not the report from the horse's (FW) mouth, but if it's true, it suggests Fritz was willing to let the marriage go unconsummated. Might be worth checking Förster to see if he's got that Seckendorff report to Vienna, because MacDonogh cites Jessen for both this quote and the Eugene quote that turned out to be in Förster. So Förster might be Jessen's source.

2) By September 1736, when he moves into Rheinsberg and actually starts living with his wife for the first time, Fritz is already preparing everyone for the possibility that he's not going to have any heirs, and explaining how that's super not a problem. He writes to Manteuffel:

I'm very obliged to you for your wishes concerning my procreation, and I have the same destiny as the deer, which are currently rutting. In nine months, it could turn out the way you hope. I don't know if this would be a good or a bad thing for our nephews and great-nephews. Kingdoms always find successors, and there's no example of a throne that stayed empty.

So, yes, he's *claiming* he's sleeping with her, but he's basically telling everyone to stay chill if no kid shows up, which makes me side-eye his claim so hard. More to the point, he evidently doesn't mind drawing Manteuffel's attention to AW as possible future father of the heir to the kingdom, even if he doesn't want AW or Heinrich getting any money or leverage from Saxony, and even if your interpretation is correct that as late as 1739, there were rumors about FW choosing AW as the heir.

Fritz might not have felt fathering an heir was worth the added security, after all. Or, maybe in those first three years he tried, but had given up by 1736 (and was trying to set expectations correctly now that he was living with her, which he can't have enjoyed the prospect of).

Oh, btw, looking these quotes up in Blanning finally identified for me *which* Wartensleben was one of the 6 "I have loved the most": Friedrich von Wartensleben, who other Seckendorf was friendly with, whom you've referred to in the diary, and who was part of the Rheinsberg circle. Or at least narrowed it down by giving me a first name.

Because assuming it's Grandpa Wartensleben's line, he has two sons named Friedrich, both born around the same time: 1707 and 1709, who are still alive into the 70s and 80s, and hence in 1736. I said elsewhere that Friedrich was Katte's first cousin on his mother's side, but I was wrong, he must be one of the uncles, who was actually Katte's age, because Grandpa Wartensleben was fathering some 17 kids over the course of 32 years. (Which I had noted before.)

Anyway, Friedrich Wartensleben as possible candidate for fathering the heir? He's around at the right place and time, he's Prussian, he's got the right bloodline, i.e. old prestigious noble family close to the king--I was joking about Katte's cousin and thinking of the Katte side of the family, but hey! bonus points for favoring Katte's family--he's the right age, and he's evidently trusted by Fritz. :P Trusted enough to not blackmail him, idk, I don't know the first thing about this guy, but it's a thought.

I still think it's unlikely! But without knowing anything about him, I think he's more likely than Fredersdorf (totally out of the question, I agree), or Suhm the Saxon Sugar Daddy.