I would have to check to be sure, but I do know it was 21 for the longest time. (Not for Kings, though. They got to rule earlier.)
Also, remind me what our evidence is for Hans Hermann not being great at money management?
I'd have to reread Klosterhuis, but I dimly recall something about having debts as a student. (Though that's par the course for noble students.) I guess aiding and abetting Fritz' debt-making doesn't really count, because what's one to do if the King is so miserly towards his son, etc., but: given Grandpa Wartensleben was a key influence on his life, and Grandpa Wartensleben, unlike Dad, was a F1 period big spending nobleman...
So can Hans Heinrich just write a will and say everything goes to the younger son and that has legal validity?
He didn't leave everything to him (aside from the older son, there were also the daughters! and the wife!), but apparantly he wanted him to be the main heir and get Wust. So I guess primogeniture wasn't a must for Prussian nobility. Son #2 wasn't disinherited, he just wasn't to be the designed successor.
There's one bit about Prussian inheritances I do know a bit about, and that's because of Wilhelmine. The case isn't exactly comparable, but: think of the three Marwitz sisters Wilhelmine took with her when she left Prussia. She had to promise FW none of the three would marry a non-Prussian. (We talked about neither FW nor Fritz wanting the nobility to marry outside the country because of potentially foreigners having legal claims to Prussian territory.) As Wilhelmine later during the big Marwitz affair (female version) pointed out, she kept her word while FW was still alive. Then the youngest Marwitz sister ran off to get married. Her father was pissed, and wanted his other daughters back. The middle Marwitz sister did go back and obediently got married to a Podewils. (I.e. Prussian family, several memmbers in Fritz' service.) The oldest remained and had her affair with the Margrave as we know, leading to marriage with an Austrian and one more step in the big Fritz/Wilhelmine crisis of the 1740s. Now, what Dad Marwitz could do was leaving most of the money only to the obedient daughter, but what he couldn't do was disinhereting the two disobedient ones altogether. They still had claim to a "Pflichtteil", their "share of duty" from the Marwitz inheritance after he died. We know this because later, post reconciliation, when Wihelmine finally came clean with Fritz about why she wanted her quondam friend and lady-in-waiting out of Bayreuth, she told him Female Marwitz' condition was that Fritz releases her Pflichtteil to her, which he previously had refused to do (as King, he could sit on the inheritance as long as he wanted). (Fritz then agreed to this and Female Marwitz moved to Vienna.)
If Dad Marwitz could not disinherit his daughters altogether, I'm pretty sure Hans Heinrich could not have disinherited his son even if he'd wanted to. He could, however, decide who was to get the lion's share.
...how he'd have decided in a scenario where Hans Herrmann survives and is now the new King's favorite is another question altogether...
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Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-18 11:44 am (UTC)I would have to check to be sure, but I do know it was 21 for the longest time. (Not for Kings, though. They got to rule earlier.)
Also, remind me what our evidence is for Hans Hermann not being great at money management?
I'd have to reread Klosterhuis, but I dimly recall something about having debts as a student. (Though that's par the course for noble students.) I guess aiding and abetting Fritz' debt-making doesn't really count, because what's one to do if the King is so miserly towards his son, etc., but: given Grandpa Wartensleben was a key influence on his life, and Grandpa Wartensleben, unlike Dad, was a F1 period big spending nobleman...
So can Hans Heinrich just write a will and say everything goes to the younger son and that has legal validity?
He didn't leave everything to him (aside from the older son, there were also the daughters! and the wife!), but apparantly he wanted him to be the main heir and get Wust. So I guess primogeniture wasn't a must for Prussian nobility. Son #2 wasn't disinherited, he just wasn't to be the designed successor.
There's one bit about Prussian inheritances I do know a bit about, and that's because of Wilhelmine. The case isn't exactly comparable, but: think of the three Marwitz sisters Wilhelmine took with her when she left Prussia. She had to promise FW none of the three would marry a non-Prussian. (We talked about neither FW nor Fritz wanting the nobility to marry outside the country because of potentially foreigners having legal claims to Prussian territory.) As Wilhelmine later during the big Marwitz affair (female version) pointed out, she kept her word while FW was still alive. Then the youngest Marwitz sister ran off to get married. Her father was pissed, and wanted his other daughters back. The middle Marwitz sister did go back and obediently got married to a Podewils. (I.e. Prussian family, several memmbers in Fritz' service.) The oldest remained and had her affair with the Margrave as we know, leading to marriage with an Austrian and one more step in the big Fritz/Wilhelmine crisis of the 1740s. Now, what Dad Marwitz could do was leaving most of the money only to the obedient daughter, but what he couldn't do was disinhereting the two disobedient ones altogether. They still had claim to a "Pflichtteil", their "share of duty" from the Marwitz inheritance after he died. We know this because later, post reconciliation, when Wihelmine finally came clean with Fritz about why she wanted her quondam friend and lady-in-waiting out of Bayreuth, she told him Female Marwitz' condition was that Fritz releases her Pflichtteil to her, which he previously had refused to do (as King, he could sit on the inheritance as long as he wanted). (Fritz then agreed to this and Female Marwitz moved to Vienna.)
If Dad Marwitz could not disinherit his daughters altogether, I'm pretty sure Hans Heinrich could not have disinherited his son even if he'd wanted to. He could, however, decide who was to get the lion's share.
...how he'd have decided in a scenario where Hans Herrmann survives and is now the new King's favorite is another question altogether...