At a guess, Oster trusting Catt is your explanation for four years old Heinrich being declared FW's fave by him; Catt, remember, claims he was. Now of course I'm prepared to be wrong and to have missed something/misremember, but I don't recall that babysitting story during SD's labor from Wilhelmine's memoirs, and a quick cursory check on my kindle copy doesn't give me that story. With your recent far more thorough reading of the year 1730 in her memoirs, do you recall anything like it? So unless Oster provides a different source citation for the anecdote - say, an ambassadorial report (by Guy Dickens or Hotham the older, presumably), I'm going with my "faith in Catt strikes again" guess.
At any event: why would Wilhelmine need to supervise Heinrich during SD's labor and ensueing lying-in anyway? That's what the staff is for. Heinrich having joined AW's household as of his fourth birthday in January, he wasn't even staying with his mother's household anymore. Note that in the letters from eight years old AW to FW which Cahn could read, which describe what the boys do all day, there's no mention of Mom or their oldest sister anywhere, just of Heinrich and their tutors.
Magdeburgers: would have to look it up.
SD trying to forestall a marriage she doesn't want by arguing that Wilhelmine's too young and will reproach her parents someday if she ends up unhappily married...that's pretty brazen, considering the quote at the beginning of the book where SD is writing about two-year-old FoW asking about his future bride, aka TWO-MONTH-OLD Wilhelmine.
No kidding. It really shows how soon she got fixated on that idea.
FW wanting to marry her to August the Strong: probably not, says Oster, no external evidence, and surely SD would freak out.
On the one hand, yes, on the other there's the Fritz letter from Dresden to Wilhelmine which gives her a "hot or not?" report on August the Strong. Now maybe it's just because Fritz assumes his sister would want to know more about their host, but date wise, it works with when the memoirs say the match was talked about, i.e. between FW's short lived "am gonna abdicate and live the true Christian life with my wife and daughters at Wusterhausen" idea and the Dresden visit. Maybe it wasn't as serious a possibility as she presents it in her memoirs, but what I do think is possible that Grumbkow, who was after all the FW/August liason, put it out there in some drunken rounds, and FW didn't immediately say no, which would have been enough for rumors to start and filter through to Wilhelmine and Fritz.
I take back what I said long ago about this marriage going better than the EC marriage.
Fritz: Franz Stephan, I am not. I'm also an expert in marital warfare even at this tender age. Bring it on.
LOL. And Amelia/Emily comes across as way more strong willed than EC, too. Mind you, her own experience with royal marriage would have been with Caroline managing G2 by pretending to worship to the ground he tread on but manipulating him into accepting all her ideas as his.
I wouldn't wish such a fate on Wilhelmine, but wooow, can you imagine Lord Hervey recording how this went down??
Quite. And Fritz of Prussia would have done him the favor of always talking in French when insulting the Hannover clan, too.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - marriage negotiations
At any event: why would Wilhelmine need to supervise Heinrich during SD's labor and ensueing lying-in anyway? That's what the staff is for. Heinrich having joined AW's household as of his fourth birthday in January, he wasn't even staying with his mother's household anymore. Note that in the letters from eight years old AW to FW which Cahn could read, which describe what the boys do all day, there's no mention of Mom or their oldest sister anywhere, just of Heinrich and their tutors.
Magdeburgers: would have to look it up.
SD trying to forestall a marriage she doesn't want by arguing that Wilhelmine's too young and will reproach her parents someday if she ends up unhappily married...that's pretty brazen, considering the quote at the beginning of the book where SD is writing about two-year-old FoW asking about his future bride, aka TWO-MONTH-OLD Wilhelmine.
No kidding. It really shows how soon she got fixated on that idea.
FW wanting to marry her to August the Strong: probably not, says Oster, no external evidence, and surely SD would freak out.
On the one hand, yes, on the other there's the Fritz letter from Dresden to Wilhelmine which gives her a "hot or not?" report on August the Strong. Now maybe it's just because Fritz assumes his sister would want to know more about their host, but date wise, it works with when the memoirs say the match was talked about, i.e. between FW's short lived "am gonna abdicate and live the true Christian life with my wife and daughters at Wusterhausen" idea and the Dresden visit. Maybe it wasn't as serious a possibility as she presents it in her memoirs, but what I do think is possible that Grumbkow, who was after all the FW/August liason, put it out there in some drunken rounds, and FW didn't immediately say no, which would have been enough for rumors to start and filter through to Wilhelmine and Fritz.
I take back what I said long ago about this marriage going better than the EC marriage.
Fritz: Franz Stephan, I am not. I'm also an expert in marital warfare even at this tender age. Bring it on.
LOL. And Amelia/Emily comes across as way more strong willed than EC, too. Mind you, her own experience with royal marriage would have been with Caroline managing G2 by pretending to worship to the ground he tread on but manipulating him into accepting all her ideas as his.
I wouldn't wish such a fate on Wilhelmine, but wooow, can you imagine Lord Hervey recording how this went down??
Quite. And Fritz of Prussia would have done him the favor of always talking in French when insulting the Hannover clan, too.