This biography was published in 1974, less than a decade after homosexuality between consenting adults got legal in Britain, and sometimes, you can tell, in that Halsband gives the impression that previous accounts of Hervey either attacked him as a gay or bisexual man or defended him as a straight man, but that defending him as a bi man whose two most passionate love affairs were with men is new. He uses a lot of primary sources re: Hervey's private life - i.e. letters - , and knows his way around Georgian England; a bit less so in the rest of Europe. I already mentioned elsewhere that Émilie simply shows up as Voltaire's mistress and helpmeet, not as a scientist, and that he he repeats the Horowitz-mocked mistake of relying exclusively on English sources re: the Hannover family relationships, hence George I's illegitimate sister showing up as his mistress. We're also assured that Sophie of Hannover wanted to be Queen of England all her life and missed it barely. Having read the Sophie Charlotte biography by Barbara Beuys which is actually more a Sophie of Hannover biography: not so much. Not least because Sophie was in fact older than Queen Anne and didn't expect to outlive her. Besides, she really wasn't keen of having to move to England in her old age. She had ruled Hannover far more than her husband, the eternally holidaying in Venice Ernst August had done, and Sophie Charlotte was her favourite child; visiting her and having SC visit Hannover was easy, but not so much if she'd been in England. She would have to count on not being back in what had been her home for decades within her life time, and for what? Getting crowned on an island where it rained all the time and where she didn't know anybody because Cousin Anne hadn't wanted any of the Hannovers to set foot on the island as long as she was still alive, then live with her old age rheumatism in those droughty palaces instead in the nice modern one that had been built by her when young? Yeah, no. She was pleased that the claim went down her line and that her son would end up as King, sure. But it's just so very Anglosaxon to iimagine that every would regard becoming Queen of England as the best thing ever.
(Mind you: the Brits of the era did, of course, agree, and that was one reason why they were so upset that Georges 1 and 2 in their turn kept going back to Hannover for part of the year during their respective reigns.)
The reliance on English sources becomes mingled with subject partisanship when it comes to the two family soap operas of this biography, neither of which features a Hohenzollern. Because our hero Jack Hervey, who incidentally started his life as a younger son (his older brothers then died in adulthood, making him Lord Hervey, but he himself died before his father, which is why Dad is Lord Bristol and Hervey is not) , spent his first two decades as the favourite child of both his parents - but when he married, his mother, Lady Bristol, inexplicably (for our biographer Halsband) takes against him and spends the next years until her death not just as the mother-in-law but the mother from hell, going from critisizing her son's wife to critisizing him as well to outright reviling him and bitching whenever he and the wife bring the kids to spend some time at the family seat. (Halsband admits this might be connected to Lady Bristol having 17 children, some of which were still children when Hervey started to produce his own.) This maternal dislike is presented as vile and unreasonable and in no way justified by the biographer.
Meanwhile, the other family soap is of course that of House Hanover. Where Queen Caroline also goes from critiquing to outright loathing Fritz of Wales (unlike in the Bristol-Hervey case, she's here following the example of her husband), cursing him at every opportunity and considering capable of anything, from trying to foist a bought baby on the succession to tying to poison her. In this case, however, Halsband presents this as entirely understandable and justified. When Caroline tells Hervey - according to Hervey - she wishes he was her son and that his horrid mother had Fritz of Wales instead, Halsband goes: HARD SAME. At no point does he mention that Fritz of Wales' enstrangement from his parents might have had something to do with the fact he hadn't seen either of them for fourteen years when at last called to England after George I's death, or that they made it blatantly obvious they would prefer Billy the future Butcher Cumberland as next king. The blatant contradiction between Caroline on the one hand complaining about Fritz of Wales fucking around and on the other telling stories he was impotent is not pointed out. When Fritz of Wales finally marries (the reason why he's not married already is not mentioned anywhere in the biography - the only Hohenzollern mentioned is Fritz of Prussia, and solely in the Algarotti context), and his parents don't like their daughter-in-law, with Caroline considering Augusta as woefully uneducated and not refined enough for a future queen (where have I heard this before?), this is again presented as entirely rational. Unlike Lady Bristol's bitching about Molly Lepel. And at no point does our biographer wonder whether the bad ending of Hervey's three years relationship with Fritz of Wales, as well as his own mother's attitude towards him, might play into how he chooses to remember his conversations with Queen Caroline (who is the only British Royal he likes in his memoirs) when writing down said memoirs in the last few years of his life.
Partisanship thus established, I still thought this was a very readable biography, doing a good job explaining all the inner English political machinations and literary feuds that take up much of Hervey's life and giving a good impression of Hervey's personality and those around him. It's also defensive against centuries of both satire and moral censure. A good example of Halsband's attitude is the opening sentence and its footnote. Opening sentence:
This world consists of men, women, and Herveys', a remark by his friend Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, indicates Lord Hervey's uniqueness, his complex and enigmatic character.* * A variant of the phrase by Horace Walpole is more limited and more provocative - that there were three sexes : men, women, and Herveys.
John "Jack" Hervey starts out as a clever but sickly child, as opposed to his healthy siblings, which accounts for some of the parental doting, which is also a great contrast to how things later developed with his mother (though Dad remained doting): His feeble health made his parents dote on him all the more. When Hervey (père) had to be at Newmarket he asked his wife not to let ‘pretty Jack forgett his affectionate papa'. Solicitously she moved into the nursery to be near him at night when he was not sleeping well. She reported to Hervey one day their son called for his dear Papa; he cryd and would not be quiet in the morning till they carried him into your dressing-room , and then he went directly to your closet door, knocking and calling upon you to let him in '.
It was Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (again, from The Favourite, who got Hervey Senior the peerage that made him Lord Bristol, and the Herveys were loyal whigs thereafter, committing themselves to Team Hannover in the succession early on (Lord Bristol bought a golden medallion of Sophie of Hannover, and gifted Georg Ludwig with a racehorse, that kind of thing). Young Jack had the traditional upper class upbringing, complete with public school (Westminster) . Now, as mentioned elsewhere, when George I. arrived in England he had no Queen, so the all courtly appointments for ladies of the nobility had to limit themselves to his daughter-in-law, Caroline, and Lady Bristol managed to become a lady of the bedchamber, thus starting the Herveys/Hannovers family association. Small detail that cracked me up; when when of Caroline's German ladies in waiting said to the new English ones that should held up their heads, stand straights and held out their breasts instead of looking downwards all the time, she got the disdainfull reply: We show our Quality by our Birth and Titles, Madam , and not by sticking out our Bosoms".
("Brust raus, Bauch rein" was even said in my childhood. It's a thing! But not in England.)
While the Hannover soap starts (remember, George I and future G2 hated each other just like G2 and Fritz of Wales later would), which means rival courts, young Jack goes on the Grand Tour, and, being a good future courtier, after months in Paris does a stop in Hannover where he takes the time to meet and make much of little Fritz (not yet of Wales, because future G2 was G of Wales). As does Lady Mary, who is there at the same time, remember, en route to Turkey. Kid Hannover Fritz gets a way better press from Hervey and Halsband than later Fritz of Wales, for: The princeling, nine years old when Hervey met him ,was an agreeable-looking boy, with the light blond hair of his mother. He was surprisingly quick and polite in conversation , and seemed to have an abundance of wit and good sense far beyond his years. Hervey had been sent to Hanover simply to ingratiate himself with the Prince . As his father put it: 'when you see and are sure ye foundation in Prince Frederick’s favour ... is laid as indelibly as you know I woud have it, and I know you are capable of contriveing, you may think of returning homewards.'
Jack actually wanted to go to Italy next, but Dad insisted he should come home, and Dad was paying, so home he went, and fell in love with Maria "Molly" Lepel, a maid of honor: She evidently charmed everyone at court, where she bore the nickname of Schatz ( treasure), a sign that the German contingent thought well of her too. (Molly's father had come to England as part of George of Denmark's entourage - he had been Queen Anne's husband - and remained there after his master's death. He was, in fact, a cousin to Lepel the Küstrin commander.) Why do we know it was a love match? Because neither of his parents approved, though Dad came around (while noting he'd have preferred Jack to marry someone rich, like the daughter of the Duke of Rutland). At first, Hervey was very honeymoon-minded, as the eyerolling testimony of his friend Lady Mary in a letter to her sister Frances testifies, where she talks of the 'ardent affection that Mrs. Hervey and her dear spouse took to me. They visited me twice or thrice a day , and were perpetually cooing in my rooms.
Molly gets pregnant, produces a first child, and Jack makes the acquaintance of one William Pulteney, up and coming politician in the Whig party. This is a a fateful event because eventually Jack will have to decide between Pulteney and rival up and coming political star Robert Walpole, and will go for Walpole. Which Pulteney takes very badly indeed; there's a duel ahead. But first Jack has to go into politics for real because older brother Carr has lost the Hervey parliamentary seat, and Jack needs to win it back. Which he does. Meanwhile, Carr invests in the ruinous "South Sea Bubble" (financial speculation desaster of the era), ends up broke, and dies young. Which makes Jack Lord Hervey.
The honeymoon period with his wife was over. She was still considered a beauty, and it was noted she didn't take a lover (unlike him); Charles Hanbury Williams (future envoy and Fritz disliker) said that she was incapable of love; her ' total, real indifference to mankind has hindered her ever having a lover'. But, says Halsband: this is too worldly, too Chesterfieldian, an explanation for her not taking a lover. Instead , it proves her consistency ofcharacter; since she had married Hervey for love she remained faithful to him .
Meanwhile, Hervey had met one young Henry Fox. And fell for him. Henry liked Hervey a lot but "charmingly rebuffed him" as a lover, which was lucky for Hervey, because then he met Henry's brother Stephen and really fell for him. Stephen Fox turned out to be his most enduring male relationship, and he was certainly, unabashedly, passionately in love. (He remained friends with Henry as well, though, until his relationships with both Foxes fell apart in the last few years of his life.) What Halsband quotes from the letters also show how a gay relationship between two upper class men (both MPs) develops:
But he reveals himself as more than an epistolary virtuoso in his letters to Stephen . “ For my own Part,' he later confessed to him , “my Mind never goes naked but in your territorys. 'I won't tell you,' he continues in his letter of 1 June ), “how I feel every time I goe through St. James's Street because I don't love writing unintelligibly ; & the more faithful the description was, the farther one of your temper way of thinking would be from comprehending what it meant. I might as well talk to a blind man of Colours, an Atheist of Devotion , or an Eunuch of f-." And then , teasing Stephen more directly : “ That regret for the Loss of any body one loves & likes is a sort of Sensation you have merit enough to teach , tho ' I believe you'll never have merit enough to learn it.' His intent was obviously to encourage Stephen to deny that accusation ; and, as can be judged by the rapid progress of their friendship , Stephen was willing both to love and to like.
This then turns into: “I must see you soon ," he impatiently writes (on 15 November ); 'I can't live without You ; Choice, tast [e], Habit, prejudice , Inclination , Reason & every thing that either does or ought to influence one's thoughts or one's actions makesmine center in & depend on You. Adieu , le plus aimable & le plus aimé qu'il y est au monde.'
Since Hervey is still sickly -one reason why he becomes a vegetarian and swears by milk - he uses this to go on another continental tour, this time to Italy, but not alone: Stephen went with him. (Molly remained at home with an increasing amount of kids and the mother-in-law from hell.) En route back from Italy, Hervey renews his friendship with Voltaire (whom he'd met earlier when Voltaire had been in England); this includes showing Voltaire his poetry and asking his opinion of it. (I sense a theme.) Coming back to England, things get even better for Hervey, because G1 has died, and not only does Hervey become now Queen Caroline's Chamberlain but he also is asked by her to keep an eye on Fritz of Wales, summoned to England at last. Fritz of Wales takes to Hervey like a duck to water; but Horowitz was wronging Hervey when saying Hervey put his relationship with Stephen on hold for that, because he continues to write beautiful love letters to Stephen. He just writers letters to Fritz of Wales signed "your Hephaistion" as well. (And Fritz of Wales writes "'My Dear Hervey , I reciev'd Sunday evening your Letter from Salisbury, & am mighty sensible that fatigue at one Side, & pleasures, Balls , and fine Ladys at another side did not make you forget Orestes, the warm Orestes, to his Dear Pilades.') (Not bad English for a guy who until recently spent his entire life in Hannover, btw.)
and knows his way around Georgian England; a bit less so in the rest of Europe
Reminds me of all the biographers of Prussians relying on Prussian sources (read: propaganda) for Russian politics, which I side-eye heavily. I'm not familiar with Russian sources, but at least I *know* that I'm not.
But it's just so very Anglosaxon to iimagine that every would regard becoming Queen of England as the best thing ever.
Indeed.
when when of Caroline's German ladies in waiting said to the new English ones that should held up their heads, stand straights and held out their breasts instead of looking downwards all the time, she got the disdainfull reply: We show our Quality by our Birth and Titles, Madam , and not by sticking out our Bosoms".
Hee!
("Brust raus, Bauch rein" was even said in my childhood. It's a thing! But not in England.)
Is it just for women, or equal opportunity? I.e. is it about showing off your cleavage, or about good posture?
Charles Hanbury Williams (future envoy and Fritz disliker) said that she was incapable of love; her ' total, real indifference to mankind has hindered her ever having a lover'.
Women: damned if they do, damned if they don't.
this includes showing Voltaire his poetry and asking his opinion of it. (I sense a theme.)
Lol! Downsides to being the most famous poet of your age.
And Fritz of Wales writes "'My Dear Hervey , I reciev'd Sunday evening your Letter from Salisbury, & am mighty sensible that fatigue at one Side, & pleasures, Balls , and fine Ladys at another side did not make you forget Orestes, the warm Orestes, to his Dear Pilades.'
So I notice Fritz of Wales goes with the more obvious casting of himself as Orestes and Hervey as Pylades, where as Fritz of Prussia goes with himself as Pylades and Suhm as Orestes.
Is it just for women, or equal opportunity? I.e. is it about showing off your cleavage, or about good posture?
Good posture, which is why boys hear it as well. Well, did hear; not having children of my own, I'm a bit out of the loop as to whether it's still in use.
So I notice Fritz of Wales goes with the more obvious casting of himself as Orestes and Hervey as Pylades, where as Fritz of Prussia goes with himself as Pylades and Suhm as Orestes.
Well, Fritz of Prussia was always the more original. That, or it's another case of his classical allusions being just slightly off thanks to FW having interrupted his lessons. Otoh, Fritz of Wales not having a big enough ego to reply to Hervey's "your Hephaistion" letters with "your Alexander" but to go with the tormented Orestes instead does not speak badly of him.
Really?! Maybe you'll get more out of it than I did. Though I still think the servants book was more interesting, and if you have time, I'd be interested in any comparanda you might have from customs in other countries.
Well, Fritz of Prussia was always the more original. That, or it's another case of his classical allusions being just slightly off thanks to FW having interrupted his lessons.
You know, this is entirely possible, and I hadn't thought of that. But given some of the other language he uses with Suhm, I'm going to go with Fritz wanting an emotionally topping erastes. :D
Otoh, Fritz of Wales not having a big enough ego to reply to Hervey's "your Hephaistion" letters with "your Alexander" but to go with the tormented Orestes instead does not speak badly of him.
Definitely. ETA: Of course, let's also not forget *why* Orestes was tormented: for killing his mother. :P
Maupertuis: I can see what you mean, because it's really very dry, but if one looks carefully, it contains such gems as:
Fritz-Maupertuis-Mollwitz: Happens.
Terrel the biographer: Now actually Maupertuis after a few days was identified as an international celebrity, sent to Vienna, where MT and FS were super nice to him, and contrary to Prussian propaganda sent back without any demands of a prisoner exchange. However, he was painfully awaret this whole affair had a funny side if one looked for it.
Voltaire: You think? *proceeds to tell stories about Maupertuis' war adventure making Maupertuis sound like a cross of Sancho Pancha and Candide*
Fritz: Ha! I can do that, too! *also makes jokes about Maupertuis' war adventures in letters which duly make the rounds in Paris.
Maupertuis: This is so mean and wrong, I'm quitting your service, for now. And you, Parisian sniggeres: ACTUALLY MT asked me "Is it true that the Queen of Prussia is the most beautiful Queen of the world?" and I bowed and said "So I believed until I met your majesty!" And FS gave me his own golden watch to replace the one stolen from me! That's how gallant everyone was to me and I to them!
Voltaire: See, the reason why I'm believed when I get inventive about anecdotes is that everyone sounds IC in my stories.
Of course, let's also not forget *why* Orestes was tormented: for killing his mother. :P
Very true, and that occured to me, but when Fritz of Wales wrote these letters, his mother was alive and well. Remember, this was during the mysterious three years period of his friendship with Hervey which was torn out of Hervey's memoirs by the time they were published.
But it's just so very Anglosaxon to imagine that every would regard becoming Queen of England as the best thing ever.
Well, I mean, if you're Queen of England then you get in all the gazettes, and you don't even have to fight a war for it! ;)
when of Caroline's German ladies in waiting said to the new English ones that should held up their heads, stand straights and held out their breasts instead of looking downwards all the time, she got the disdainfull reply: We show our Quality by our Birth and Titles, Madam , and not by sticking out our Bosoms".
Hee! It's not actually the same thing, but this reminded me of A Little Night Music (have you seen it? I can't vouch for the link, only having spot-watched to make sure it was OK, but it's my favorite Sondheim musical, as to me it balances most perfectly sarcasm and skepticism with good-naturedness, whereas I feel like a lot of his other stuff falls too far on the former side for me) where Madame Arnfeldt says to her granddaughter, "Don't squeeze your bosoms against the chair, dear! It'll stunt their growth, and then where would you be?" Which is something that still gets said in our family...
(Molly remained at home with an increasing amount of kids and the mother-in-law from hell.)
:( Poor Molly :(((((
this includes showing Voltaire his poetry and asking his opinion of it. (I sense a theme.)
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timeasmymeasure
Robert Halsband: Lord Hervey (I)
Date: 2020-09-11 06:27 pm (UTC)(Mind you: the Brits of the era did, of course, agree, and that was one reason why they were so upset that Georges 1 and 2 in their turn kept going back to Hannover for part of the year during their respective reigns.)
The reliance on English sources becomes mingled with subject partisanship when it comes to the two family soap operas of this biography, neither of which features a Hohenzollern. Because our hero Jack Hervey, who incidentally started his life as a younger son (his older brothers then died in adulthood, making him Lord Hervey, but he himself died before his father, which is why Dad is Lord Bristol and Hervey is not) , spent his first two decades as the favourite child of both his parents - but when he married, his mother, Lady Bristol, inexplicably (for our biographer Halsband) takes against him and spends the next years until her death not just as the mother-in-law but the mother from hell, going from critisizing her son's wife to critisizing him as well to outright reviling him and bitching whenever he and the wife bring the kids to spend some time at the family seat. (Halsband admits this might be connected to Lady Bristol having 17 children, some of which were still children when Hervey started to produce his own.) This maternal dislike is presented as vile and unreasonable and in no way justified by the biographer.
Meanwhile, the other family soap is of course that of House Hanover. Where Queen Caroline also goes from critiquing to outright loathing Fritz of Wales (unlike in the Bristol-Hervey case, she's here following the example of her husband), cursing him at every opportunity and considering capable of anything, from trying to foist a bought baby on the succession to tying to poison her. In this case, however, Halsband presents this as entirely understandable and justified. When Caroline tells Hervey - according to Hervey - she wishes he was her son and that his horrid mother had Fritz of Wales instead, Halsband goes: HARD SAME. At no point does he mention that Fritz of Wales' enstrangement from his parents might have had something to do with the fact he hadn't seen either of them for fourteen years when at last called to England after George I's death, or that they made it blatantly obvious they would prefer Billy the future Butcher Cumberland as next king. The blatant contradiction between Caroline on the one hand complaining about Fritz of Wales fucking around and on the other telling stories he was impotent is not pointed out. When Fritz of Wales finally marries (the reason why he's not married already is not mentioned anywhere in the biography - the only Hohenzollern mentioned is Fritz of Prussia, and solely in the Algarotti context), and his parents don't like their daughter-in-law, with Caroline considering Augusta as woefully uneducated and not refined enough for a future queen (where have I heard this before?), this is again presented as entirely rational. Unlike Lady Bristol's bitching about Molly Lepel. And at no point does our biographer wonder whether the bad ending of Hervey's three years relationship with Fritz of Wales, as well as his own mother's attitude towards him, might play into how he chooses to remember his conversations with Queen Caroline (who is the only British Royal he likes in his memoirs) when writing down said memoirs in the last few years of his life.
Partisanship thus established, I still thought this was a very readable biography, doing a good job explaining all the inner English political machinations and literary feuds that take up much of Hervey's life and giving a good impression of Hervey's personality and those around him. It's also defensive against centuries of both satire and moral censure. A good example of Halsband's attitude is the opening sentence and its footnote. Opening sentence:
This world consists of men, women, and Herveys', a remark by his friend Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, indicates
Lord Hervey's uniqueness, his complex and enigmatic character.*
* A variant of the phrase by Horace Walpole is more limited and more provocative - that there were three sexes : men, women, and Herveys.
John "Jack" Hervey starts out as a clever but sickly child, as opposed to his healthy siblings, which accounts for some of the parental doting, which is also a great contrast to how things later developed with his mother (though Dad remained doting): His feeble health made his parents dote on him all the more. When Hervey (père) had to be at Newmarket he asked his wife not to let ‘pretty Jack forgett his affectionate papa'. Solicitously she moved into the nursery to be near him at night when he was not sleeping well. She reported to Hervey one day their son called for his dear Papa; he cryd and would not be quiet in the morning till they carried him into your dressing-room , and then he went directly to your closet door, knocking and calling upon you to let him in '.
It was Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (again, from The Favourite, who got Hervey Senior the peerage that made him Lord Bristol, and the Herveys were loyal whigs thereafter, committing themselves to Team Hannover in the succession early on (Lord Bristol bought a golden medallion of Sophie of Hannover, and gifted Georg Ludwig with a racehorse, that kind of thing). Young Jack had the traditional upper class upbringing, complete with public school (Westminster) . Now, as mentioned elsewhere, when George I. arrived in England he had no Queen, so the all courtly appointments for ladies of the nobility had to limit themselves to his daughter-in-law, Caroline, and Lady Bristol managed to become a lady of the bedchamber, thus starting the Herveys/Hannovers family association. Small detail that cracked me up; when when of Caroline's German ladies in waiting said to the new English ones that should held up their heads, stand straights and held out their breasts instead of looking downwards all the time, she got the disdainfull reply: We show our Quality by our Birth and Titles, Madam , and not by sticking out our Bosoms".
("Brust raus, Bauch rein" was even said in my childhood. It's a thing! But not in England.)
While the Hannover soap starts (remember, George I and future G2 hated each other just like G2 and Fritz of Wales later would), which means rival courts, young Jack goes on the Grand Tour, and, being a good future courtier, after months in Paris does a stop in Hannover where he takes the time to meet and make much of little Fritz (not yet of Wales, because future G2 was G of Wales). As does Lady Mary, who is there at the same time, remember, en route to Turkey. Kid Hannover Fritz gets a way better press from Hervey and Halsband than later Fritz of Wales, for: The princeling, nine years old when Hervey met him ,was an agreeable-looking boy, with the light blond hair of his mother. He was surprisingly quick and polite in conversation , and seemed to have an abundance of wit and good sense far beyond his years. Hervey had been sent to Hanover simply to ingratiate himself with the Prince . As his father put it: 'when you see and are sure ye
foundation in Prince Frederick’s favour ... is laid as indelibly as you know I woud have it, and I know you are capable of contriveing, you may think of returning homewards.'
Jack actually wanted to go to Italy next, but Dad insisted he should come home, and Dad was paying, so home he went, and fell in love with Maria "Molly" Lepel, a maid of honor: She evidently charmed everyone at court, where she bore the nickname of Schatz ( treasure), a sign that the German contingent thought well of her too. (Molly's father had come to England as part of George of Denmark's entourage - he had been Queen Anne's husband - and remained there after his master's death. He was, in fact, a cousin to Lepel the Küstrin commander.) Why do we know it was a love match? Because neither of his parents approved, though Dad came around (while noting he'd have preferred Jack to marry someone rich, like the daughter of the Duke of Rutland). At first, Hervey was very honeymoon-minded, as the eyerolling testimony of his friend Lady Mary in a letter to her sister Frances testifies, where she talks of the 'ardent affection that Mrs. Hervey and her dear spouse took to me. They visited me twice or thrice a day , and were perpetually cooing in my rooms.
Molly gets pregnant, produces a first child, and Jack makes the acquaintance of one William Pulteney, up and coming politician in the Whig party. This is a a fateful event because eventually Jack will have to decide between Pulteney and rival up and coming political star Robert Walpole, and will go for Walpole. Which Pulteney takes very badly indeed; there's a duel ahead. But first Jack has to go into politics for real because older brother Carr has lost the Hervey parliamentary seat, and Jack needs to win it back. Which he does. Meanwhile, Carr invests in the ruinous "South Sea Bubble" (financial speculation desaster of the era), ends up broke, and dies young. Which makes Jack Lord Hervey.
The honeymoon period with his wife was over. She was still considered a beauty, and it was noted she didn't take a lover (unlike him); Charles Hanbury Williams (future envoy and Fritz disliker) said that she was incapable of love; her ' total, real indifference to mankind has hindered her ever having a lover'. But, says Halsband: this is too worldly, too Chesterfieldian, an explanation for her not taking a lover. Instead , it proves her consistency ofcharacter; since she had
married Hervey for love she remained faithful to him .
Meanwhile, Hervey had met one young Henry Fox. And fell for him. Henry liked Hervey a lot but "charmingly rebuffed him" as a lover, which was lucky for Hervey, because then he met Henry's brother Stephen and really fell for him. Stephen Fox turned out to be his most enduring male relationship, and he was certainly, unabashedly, passionately in love. (He remained friends with Henry as well, though, until his relationships with both Foxes fell apart in the last few years of his life.) What Halsband quotes from the letters also show how a gay relationship between two upper class men (both MPs) develops:
But he reveals himself as more than an epistolary virtuoso in his letters to Stephen .
“ For my own Part,' he later confessed to him , “my Mind never goes naked but in your territorys. 'I won't tell you,' he continues in his letter of 1 June ), “how I feel every time I goe through St. James's Street because I don't love writing unintelligibly ; & the more faithful the description was, the farther one of your temper way of thinking would be from comprehending what it meant. I might as well talk to a blind man of Colours, an Atheist of Devotion , or an Eunuch of f-." And then , teasing Stephen more directly : “ That regret for the Loss of any body one loves & likes is a sort of Sensation you have merit enough to teach , tho ' I believe you'll never have merit enough to learn it.' His intent was obviously to encourage Stephen to deny that accusation ; and, as can be judged by the rapid progress of their friendship , Stephen was willing both to love and to like.
This then turns into: “I must see you soon ," he impatiently writes (on 15 November ); 'I can't live without You ;
Choice, tast [e], Habit, prejudice , Inclination , Reason & every thing that either does or ought to influence one's thoughts or one's actions makesmine center in & depend on You. Adieu , le plus aimable & le plus aimé qu'il y est au monde.'
Since Hervey is still sickly -one reason why he becomes a vegetarian and swears by milk - he uses this to go on another continental tour, this time to Italy, but not alone: Stephen went with him. (Molly remained at home with an increasing amount of kids and the mother-in-law from hell.) En route back from Italy, Hervey renews his friendship with Voltaire (whom he'd met earlier when Voltaire had been in England); this includes showing Voltaire his poetry and asking his opinion of it. (I sense a theme.) Coming back to England, things get even better for Hervey, because G1 has died, and not only does Hervey become now Queen Caroline's Chamberlain but he also is asked by her to keep an eye on Fritz of Wales, summoned to England at last. Fritz of Wales takes to Hervey like a duck to water; but Horowitz was wronging Hervey when saying Hervey put his relationship with Stephen on hold for that, because he continues to write beautiful love letters to Stephen. He just writers letters to Fritz of Wales signed "your Hephaistion" as well. (And Fritz of Wales writes "'My Dear Hervey , I reciev'd Sunday evening your Letter from Salisbury, & am mighty sensible that fatigue at one Side, & pleasures, Balls , and fine Ladys at another side did not make you forget Orestes, the warm Orestes, to his Dear Pilades.') (Not bad English for a guy who until recently spent his entire life in Hannover, btw.)
Re: Robert Halsband: Lord Hervey (I)
Date: 2020-09-12 04:50 pm (UTC)and knows his way around Georgian England; a bit less so in the rest of Europe
Reminds me of all the biographers of Prussians relying on Prussian sources (read: propaganda) for Russian politics, which I side-eye heavily. I'm not familiar with Russian sources, but at least I *know* that I'm not.
But it's just so very Anglosaxon to iimagine that every would regard becoming Queen of England as the best thing ever.
Indeed.
when when of Caroline's German ladies in waiting said to the new English ones that should held up their heads, stand straights and held out their breasts instead of looking downwards all the time, she got the disdainfull reply: We show our Quality by our Birth and Titles, Madam , and not by sticking out our Bosoms".
Hee!
("Brust raus, Bauch rein" was even said in my childhood. It's a thing! But not in England.)
Is it just for women, or equal opportunity? I.e. is it about showing off your cleavage, or about good posture?
Charles Hanbury Williams (future envoy and Fritz disliker) said that she was incapable of love; her ' total, real indifference to mankind has hindered her ever having a lover'.
Women: damned if they do, damned if they don't.
this includes showing Voltaire his poetry and asking his opinion of it. (I sense a theme.)
Lol! Downsides to being the most famous poet of your age.
And Fritz of Wales writes "'My Dear Hervey , I reciev'd Sunday evening your Letter from Salisbury, & am mighty sensible that fatigue at one Side, & pleasures, Balls , and fine Ladys at another side did not make you forget Orestes, the warm Orestes, to his Dear Pilades.'
So I notice Fritz of Wales goes with the more obvious casting of himself as Orestes and Hervey as Pylades, where as Fritz of Prussia goes with himself as Pylades and Suhm as Orestes.
Re: Robert Halsband: Lord Hervey (I)
Date: 2020-09-13 03:44 pm (UTC)Is it just for women, or equal opportunity? I.e. is it about showing off your cleavage, or about good posture?
Good posture, which is why boys hear it as well. Well, did hear; not having children of my own, I'm a bit out of the loop as to whether it's still in use.
So I notice Fritz of Wales goes with the more obvious casting of himself as Orestes and Hervey as Pylades, where as Fritz of Prussia goes with himself as Pylades and Suhm as Orestes.
Well, Fritz of Prussia was always the more original. That, or it's another case of his classical allusions being just slightly off thanks to FW having interrupted his lessons. Otoh, Fritz of Wales not having a big enough ego to reply to Hervey's "your Hephaistion" letters with "your Alexander" but to go with the tormented Orestes instead does not speak badly of him.
Re: Robert Halsband: Lord Hervey (I)
Date: 2020-09-13 06:37 pm (UTC)Really?! Maybe you'll get more out of it than I did. Though I still think the servants book was more interesting, and if you have time, I'd be interested in any comparanda you might have from customs in other countries.
Well, Fritz of Prussia was always the more original. That, or it's another case of his classical allusions being just slightly off thanks to FW having interrupted his lessons.
You know, this is entirely possible, and I hadn't thought of that. But given some of the other language he uses with Suhm, I'm going to go with Fritz wanting an emotionally topping erastes. :D
Otoh, Fritz of Wales not having a big enough ego to reply to Hervey's "your Hephaistion" letters with "your Alexander" but to go with the tormented Orestes instead does not speak badly of him.
Definitely. ETA: Of course, let's also not forget *why* Orestes was tormented: for killing his mother. :P
Re: Robert Halsband: Lord Hervey (I)
Date: 2020-09-14 08:56 am (UTC)Fritz-Maupertuis-Mollwitz: Happens.
Terrel the biographer: Now actually Maupertuis after a few days was identified as an international celebrity, sent to Vienna, where MT and FS were super nice to him, and contrary to Prussian propaganda sent back without any demands of a prisoner exchange. However, he was painfully awaret this whole affair had a funny side if one looked for it.
Voltaire: You think? *proceeds to tell stories about Maupertuis' war adventure making Maupertuis sound like a cross of Sancho Pancha and Candide*
Fritz: Ha! I can do that, too! *also makes jokes about Maupertuis' war adventures in letters which duly make the rounds in Paris.
Maupertuis: This is so mean and wrong, I'm quitting your service, for now. And you, Parisian sniggeres: ACTUALLY MT asked me "Is it true that the Queen of Prussia is the most beautiful Queen of the world?" and I bowed and said "So I believed until I met your majesty!" And FS gave me his own golden watch to replace the one stolen from me! That's how gallant everyone was to me and I to them!
Voltaire: See, the reason why I'm believed when I get inventive about anecdotes is that everyone sounds IC in my stories.
Of course, let's also not forget *why* Orestes was tormented: for killing his mother. :P
Very true, and that occured to me, but when Fritz of Wales wrote these letters, his mother was alive and well. Remember, this was during the mysterious three years period of his friendship with Hervey which was torn out of Hervey's memoirs by the time they were published.
Re: Robert Halsband: Lord Hervey (I)
Date: 2020-09-15 05:01 am (UTC)HAHAHAHA TRUE.
I mean... the orange peel thing does sound like something Fritz would say!
Re: Robert Halsband: Lord Hervey (I)
Date: 2020-09-14 04:37 am (UTC)Well, I mean, if you're Queen of England then you get in all the gazettes, and you don't even have to fight a war for it! ;)
when of Caroline's German ladies in waiting said to the new English ones that should held up their heads, stand straights and held out their breasts instead of looking downwards all the time, she got the disdainfull reply: We show our Quality by our Birth and Titles, Madam , and not by sticking out our Bosoms".
Hee! It's not actually the same thing, but this reminded me of A Little Night Music (have you seen it? I can't vouch for the link, only having spot-watched to make sure it was OK, but it's my favorite Sondheim musical, as to me it balances most perfectly sarcasm and skepticism with good-naturedness, whereas I feel like a lot of his other stuff falls too far on the former side for me) where Madame Arnfeldt says to her granddaughter, "Don't squeeze your bosoms against the chair, dear! It'll stunt their growth, and then where would you be?" Which is something that still gets said in our family...
(Molly remained at home with an increasing amount of kids and the mother-in-law from hell.)
:( Poor Molly :(((((
this includes showing Voltaire his poetry and asking his opinion of it. (I sense a theme.)
Heeeee!
Re: Robert Halsband: Lord Hervey (I)
Date: 2020-09-14 02:45 pm (UTC)