I had almost finished them the last time, but here are a few more quotes. The big climax of the memoirs and their finale are Queen Caroline's death and the immediate aftermath. Hervey ends his memoirs there, and like the essay says, for all that their title refers to the reign of George II, they should really be titled "reign of Caroline", for she is the central character in his narrative. She died a terrible death: Since her last pregnancy, Caroline had suffered from an umbilical hernia, or a hole in her belly, and couldn’t bear to have anything tight around her middle. Nor could she bear to have anyone know about such an embarrassing disorder, and she always kept on her shift when being undressed by her ladies. Finally, in 1737, a bit of her bowel popped out through that hole, and she could not disguise the fact that she was seriously ill. Her doctors should have pushed that loop of bowel back inside and hoped that the hole would heal, but instead they made a terrible error. They cut it off. Now Caroline’s digestive system was destroyed, and she took ten days to die. Incidentally, I had to look up the medical details, because our Victorian editor childes Hervey for providing them (about a lady! and a Queen!) and proudly announces he protects us readers from them as much as he can. What's still there is all the surrounding drama, which took place shortly after Fritz of Wales had that big break with his parents due to way his first legitimate daughter was born. When he heard about the Queen's state of health, he tried to see her, but no dice. Hervey of course thinks he was probably popping the champagne in anticipation and faking all filial feelings. FoW's parents heartily agree, as mentioned in my write-up of the Halsband biography. Here's a passage from shortly before Caroline's illness is discovered:
Lord Hervey took occasion upon this subject, among many other things, to say, he did not believe there ever was a father and a son so thoroughly unlike in every particular as the King and the Prince, and enumerated several points in which they differed, as little to the advantage of the Prince as to the dispraise or displeasure of the King. The King said he had really thought so himself a thousand times, and had often asked the Queen if the beast was his son. Lord Hervey said that question must be to very little purpose, for to be sure the Queen would never own it if he was not. The King said the first child generally was the husband's, "and therefore," says he, "I fancy he is what in German we call a Weckselbalch; (Hervey's spelling; it's actually "Wechselbalg") I do not know," continued he, " if you have a word for it in English : it is not what you call a foundling, but a child put in a cradle instead of another." " That is a changeling," replied Lord Hervey. The King was extremely pleased with this translation, and said, " I wish you could prove him a changeling in the German sense of the word as easily as anybody can prove him so in the other ;—though the Queen was a great while before her maternal affection would give him up for a fool, and yet I told her so before he had been acting as if he had not common sense." Lord Hervey said the Queen had often last year done the honours of his Royal Highness's understanding to him, and was very loth to give it quite up, but that of late he had not perceived she had any hope left of disguising it. "My dear Lord," replied the Queen, ' " I will give it you under my hand, if you are in any fear of my relapsing, that my dear first-born is the greatest ass and the greatest liar, and the greatest canaille, and the greatest beast in the whole world, and I that I most heartily wish he was out of it."
And so on, and so forth. Now, you may recall G2 had had a terrible relationship with his own father, G1, so FoW and/or his advisors get the idea to publish some letters between G1 and future G2 when G2 was Prince of Wales, with the implication: Hypocrite much? Considering most of said letters were burned by Caroline when G2 became King, the Royals think that Fritz must have gotten those letters from the Duchess of Kendal. (Aka Aunt Melusine to Katte, mistress of G1.) Otoh, Hervey thinks Fritz must have a spy in the palace, because the letters published are just those three not burned. In any event, he thinks they just demonstrate that G1 was a way harsher father, since he temporarily took G2's children from him during their biggest argument, while G2 generously declared he wouldn't do that to FoW.
During Caroline's ten days of dying, Hervey and the Royals, minus Fritz and Augusta who aren't allowed access, spend most at the time in Caroline's bed room or next door. This temporarly makes Hervey soften on the King, but not so much is second least favourite Hannover offspring, Emily/Amalia, quondam intended for Fritz of Prussia. An illustration in the following scene (re: storm - G2 and Emily are referencing G2 during his most recent return from Hannover being caught in a tempest across the channel):
One night whilst the Queen was ill, as (G2) was sitting in his nightgown and nightcap in a great chair, with his legs upon a stool, and nobody in the room with him but the Princess Emily, who lay upon a couch, and Lord Hervey, who sat by the fire, he talked in this strain of his own courage in the storm and his illness, till the Princess Emily, as Lord Hervey thought, fell fast asleep, whilst Lord Hervey, as tired as he was of the present conversation and this last week's watching, was left alone to act civil auditor and adroit courtier, to applaud what he heard, and every now and then to ask such proper questions as led the King into giving some more particular detail of his own magnanimity. The King, turning towards Princess Emily, and seeing her eyes shut, cried, "Poor good child! her duty, affection, and attendance on her mother have quite exhausted her spirits." And soon after he went into the Queen's room. As soon as his back was turned. Princess Emily started up, and said, " Is he gone ? How tiresome he is!" Lord Hervey, who had no mind to trust her Royal Highness with his singing her father's praises in duetto with her, replied only, " I thought your Royal Highness had been asleep." " No," said the Princess Emily ; " I only shut my eyes that I might not join in the ennuyant conversation, and wish I could have shut my ears too. In the first place, I am sick to death of hearing of his great courage every day of my life ; in the next place, one thinks now of Mama, and not of him. Who cares for his old storm ? I believe, too, it is a great lie, and that he was as much afraid as I should have been, for all what he says now ; and as to his not being afraid when he was ill, I know that is a lie, for I saw him, and I heard all his sighs and his groans, when he was in no more danger than I am at this moment. He was talking, too, for ever of dying, and that he was sure he should not recover." All this, considering the kind things she had heard the King say the minute before, when he imagined her asleep. Lord Hervey thought a pretty extraordinary return for her to make for that paternal goodness, or would have thought it so in anybody but her ; and looked upon this openness to him, whom she did not love, yet less to be accounted for, unless he could have imagined it was to draw him in to echo her, and then to relate what he said as if he had said it unaccompanied. Whilst she was going on with the panegyric on theKing which I have related, the King returned, upon which she began to rub her eyes as if she had that instant raised her head from her pillows, and said, "I have really slept very heartily. How long had Papa been out of the room ?" The King, who had very little or rather no suspicion in his composition, took these appearances for realities, and said, " It is time for us all to take a little rest. We will all go to bed, for by staying here we do the poor Queen no good, and ourselves hurt." And so dismissing Lord Hervey, they all retired.
You already know the famous "Marry again after my death"/ "No, I will have mistresses!" exchange in French between Caroline and G2, for which Hervey is the source. G2 was truly distraught upon her death, and mistresses or not, remained so. Caroline's coffin and later his own are of the kind where you can draw one of the walls back once both are laid next to each other; he wanted their dust to mingle. (Caroline died in 1737; G2 in 1761). Grieving Caroline together makes him bond with Hervey (enough so Hervey ends up being appointed Lord Privy Seal), and thus Hervey gets treated to G2's reflections on his German relations. Which brings us back to our main points of interest again. A reminder: G2's mother was Sophia Dorothea the older, locked up for 30 years for her affair with (probably murdered) Count Königsmarck, and dying in prison. The "Reminscences" are by Horace Walpole, son of Sir Robert Walpole and the other great bitchy memoirist of the Georgian era:
The King often said, and to many people at this time, that not only he and his family should have a great loss in the Queen's death, but the whole nation: and would instance occasions where he owned her good sense and good temper had kept his passions within bounds which they would otherwise have broken. And during this retirement (in which he was infinitely more talkative than I ever knew him at any other time of his whole life) he discoursed so constantly and so openly of himself, that if anybody had had a mind to write the memoirs of his life from his cradle to the present moment, the Princesses and Lord Hervey could have furnished them with materials of all the occurrences, transactions, and anecdotes, military, civil, amorous, foreign, and domestic, that could be comprehended in such a work, from his own lips : excepting what related to his mother, whom on no occasion I ever heard him mention, not even inadvertently or indirectly, any more than if such a person had never had a being. (*)
*Footnote by Victorian editor Croker: This is remarkable, and seems hardly reconcilable with the strong opinion of her innocence and the affectionate regard for her person attributed to him in the Reminiscences. "The second George loved his mother as much as he hated his father ; and purposed, it was said, if she had survived, to have brought her over and declared her Queen-Dowager. Lady Suffolk told me her surprise on going to the new Queen the morning after George I.'s death, at seeing hung up in the Queen's dressrng-room the whole-length of a lady in royal robes, and in the bed-chamber a half-length of the same person, which Lady Suffolk had never seen before." They were of his mother, which the Prince had till then kept concealed.
And now for the Prussians. G2's aunt was Sophie Charlotte, not just mother of FW but foster mother of Caroline, praised as not just one of the most beautiful but definitely one of the best educated and smartest women of her time, which is why I find this statement, err, interesting: Of his aunt, the Queen of Prussia, too he spoke well, who, by what I heard from others, and particularly the Queen, was a very vain, good-for-nothing woman.
Et tu, Caroline? You owe your education to her, among other things. I feel let down. G2's sister is of course Sophia Dorothea the younger, wife of FW, and on her, grieving G2 apparantly had this to say in 1737:
For his sister, the present Queen of Prussia, he had the contempt she deserved, and a hatred she did not deserve.
WTF? For both Hervey and G2. Hervey having zilch interest in the Prussians per se, and dying when Fritz is still busy conquering Silesia, I don't see how he'd have any motive to make this up. But see: Hervey never met SD. He visited Hannover only once, as a young man on his Grand Tour (when he first encountered nine years old Fritz of Wales), and I don't think she was visiting Hannover as well on that occasion. Prussia, he didn't visit at all. So what is this estimation - that SD deserved contempt but not hate - based on? Perhaps all that begging for the English marriages struck him as pathetic, even if he didn't care enough to note it down, but that's the only thing I can think of.
(Now of course SD with her own treatment of her children provides enough reasons to dislike her, but Hervey seems to know nothing about this.)
As to why G2 should have contempt and hate for his sister: search me. It's not like she was madly in love with FW and rejecting her family of birth, au contraire. I'm almost starting to come around to Fritz' pov on Hannover versus Hohenzollern, but luckily your Ziebura read through reminds me this would be wrong. The rest of the Prussian pasage:
What he thought and said of the King of Prussia was much the same as what the King of Prussia thought and said of him ; that he was a proud, brutal, tyrannical, wrong-headed, impracticable fellow, who loved nobody and would use everybody ill that was in his power. How far these two Kings were in the right in this point, or how little they were so in every other, is not my business here to determine.
Meaning: peas in a pod. Again, based on all this, my speculation re: G2 pleading with the other European monarchs for Fritz' life is that it was mostly because if he didn't get to kill his son, FW certainly wouldn't. And speaking of murder: if Fritz and Wilhelmine had made those marriages, do want to place any bets on when things would have gotten violent? (Provided most circumstances stay the same.) Would Fritz of Prussia have had the fatal relationship and fallout with Hervey instead of Fritz of Wales? Would Caroline and G2 have accused Wilhelmine, too, of faking her pregnancy because their oldest surely can't sire a child? Would Fritz of Prussia have killed Fritz of Wales for taking Wilhelmine in labor for a one and a half hour drive because he didn't want his parents to be present at the birth? Place your bets!
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
I'm on vacation, she says. I won't be able to do write-ups, she says. :D
Seriously, you are the best, and this is very in-character of you.
Her doctors should have pushed that loop of bowel back inside and hoped that the hole would heal, but instead they made a terrible error. They cut it off. Now Caroline’s digestive system was destroyed, and she took ten days to die.
Oooh nooooo! That sounds like the *worst*. Did they know it was a bowel? 'Cause this would make sense if they thought it was some random growth.
our Victorian editor childes Hervey for providing them (about a lady! and a Queen!) and proudly announces he protects us readers from them as much as he can.
*sigh*
I am really looking forward to Smith and Taylor's new and improved post-Victorian edition.
Considering most of said letters were burned by Caroline when G2 became King, the Royals think that Fritz must have gotten those letters from the Duchess of Kendal. (Aka Aunt Melusine to Katte, mistress of G1.) Otoh, Hervey thinks Fritz must have a spy in the palace, because the letters published are just those three not burned.
Hmmm. Reading between the lines, does this mean Melusine (lover of G1 and possibly therefore not a fan of G2?) and Fritz of Wales were on good terms?
G1 was a way harsher father, since he temporarily took G2's children from him during their biggest argument, while G2 generously declared he wouldn't do that to FoW.
Fritz of Prussia: And I'm with you on that! My younger siblings don't know how good they have it.
the famous "Marry again after my death"/ "No, I will have mistresses!" exchange in French between Caroline and G2, for which Hervey is the source
Hervey is the British Lehndorff counterpart in another way: our source for all these anecdotes we know!
The "Reminscences" are by Horace Walpole, son of Sir Robert Walpole and the other great bitchy memoirist of the Georgian era:
Which you will not be surprised to find in the library. They're so incredibly short the editor feels the need to apologize and flesh them out with a supplement of collected letters in order to make it long enough to be a short book instead of a long essay.
Et tu, Caroline? You owe your education to her, among other things. I feel let down.
But where would this family be without everyone bitching at everybody else?
So what is this estimation - that SD deserved contempt but not hate - based on? Perhaps all that begging for the English marriages struck him as pathetic, even if he didn't care enough to note it down, but that's the only thing I can think of.
The only thing I can think of is Wilhelmine's description of her that she gives the appearance of having more intellectual and artistic depth than she actually has, but 1) given that she's a queen, I'm not sure that more is expected of her? 2) I'm not sure how much Hervey would care about that. It is the sort of thing he could have picked up with out meeting her, though.
As to why G2 should have contempt and hate for his sister: search me.
I feel like with siblings, you don't necessarily need a reason? Sometimes someone just rubs you the wrong way, and with family, it's harder to resort to indifference. Actually, biologist Robert Sapolsky, who studies baboons in the wild, says that there are interpersonal (interbaboonal?) interactions that strike fellow baboons as weird--unless it's between two family members, and then they shrug it off.
I mean, clearly there's *some* kind of reason, and we may come across it, but it doesn't necessarily have to have been significant enough to be obvious to outsiders.
(Provided most circumstances stay the same.) Would Fritz of Prussia have had the fatal relationship and fallout with Hervey instead of Fritz of Wales?
Hmm. If we assume Fritz of Prussia stays in England until FW dies in 1740, instead of Amelia going to Prussia or both of them going to Hannover (maybe a successful esape to England?), then maybe. Only they fight over Algarotti instead of Anne Vane. :P
Algarotti: Guys, there's plenty of me to go around!
Would Caroline and G2 have accused Wilhelmine, too, of faking her pregnancy because their oldest surely can't sire a child?
Would Caroline and G2 have accused Wilhelmine and Fritz of Prussia of incest? It would have explained so much: how Wilhelmine got pregnant, why Fritz was present at the birth, why Fritz carried on the paternal tradition of beating up your first cousin rather than allow Wilhelmine to be moved... (Fritz of Prussia may not be much physically, but I say killer instinct and motivation count for a lot. Look at FW!)
Actually, let's assume Fritz of Prussia, living at close range with his sister's husband, doesn't really get along with Fritz of Wales. Let's further assume that G2 (plus Parliament, I guess) would have had to be pretty strongly pro-Fritz-of-Prussia to let a double marriage happen with Fritz living at the English court. (Husbands don't usually join their wives, especially when they are the heir to a throne. I have to assume successful escape, unless you have a better scenario.)
Also, G2 hates FW, something that Fritz can get behind.
So, G2-Fritz of Prussia alliance? [ETA: Until FW is dead and Fritz doesn't need him anymore, obviously.] This might affect the Wilhelmine treatment. Particularly when Fritz of Prussia beats up Fritz of Wales and father-in-law G2 slaps him on the back and says, "Attaboy." :P
Ah, the eternal soap opera!
Edited 2020-09-22 01:44 (UTC)
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
I'm on vacation, she says. I won't be able to do write-ups, she says. :D
Seriously, you are the best, and this is very in-character of you.
THIS :DDDDD
Hervey is the British Lehndorff counterpart in another way: our source for all these anecdotes we know!
:D
Only they fight over Algarotti instead of Anne Vane. :P
Ha! I... cannot argue with this.
So, G2-Fritz of Prussia alliance? [ETA: Until FW is dead and Fritz doesn't need him anymore, obviously.] This might affect the Wilhelmine treatment. Particularly when Fritz of Prussia beats up Fritz of Wales and father-in-law G2 slaps him on the back and says, "Attaboy." :P
*facepalm* This would totally happen, wouldn't it.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Particularly when Fritz of Prussia beats up Fritz of Wales and father-in-law G2 slaps him on the back and says, "Attaboy." :P
*facepalm* This would totally happen, wouldn't it.
I don't know if it *would* have, but I definitely like imagining it.
"My sister is not getting in a carriage while she's in labor, FIGHT ME."
Also, Fritz *would* be present at the birth.
Seriously, you are the best, and this is very in-character of you.
THIS :DDDDD
I was putting the Palladion write-up in Rheinsberg last night, and I noticed it was written in late April, a couple days after the "real life is taking over, can't perform Royal Reader duties." My reply to the write-up opened with, "I should have guessed that 'don't have time for Royal Reader duties' would amount to "still reading and reporting faster than we can keep up with." ;)" and your reply was "I know, I can't keep up! :)".
:D
We're so spoiled. <3
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
did they know it was a bowel - I suspect as well they originally thought it was a growth.
Hmmm. Reading between the lines, does this mean Melusine (lover of G1 and possibly therefore not a fan of G2?) and Fritz of Wales were on good terms?
You know, I think that's very likely. Because while Fritz of Wales didn't see his parents and siblings for fourteen years, he did see his grandfather G1 whenever G1 was visiting Hannover during his reign, and Melusine was with him on those occasions. Also, Horace Walpole son of Sir Robert Walpole (G2's PM for years and years) claims that Melusine was tight with the opposition to his Dad, who was also a political enemy of FoW's (the more so the more Fritz of Wales drifted towards said opposition).
G2 having contempt and hate for his sister SD: starting Horace Walpole's memoir, I am stunned to discover HW claims that SD, daughter of G1, was "a staunch Jacobite" all her life. Now, this is the first time I've come across this claim - certainly no biographer and memoirist we've come across so far on the German side claims that, and it makes absolutely no sense in terms of SD's most dear ambition (her daughter as Queen of England, Fritz married to a Hannover-British princess and preferably governing Hannover). So I feel safe to say it's not true. However, I'm perfectly willing to believe Horace W. heard it from his primary source of G2 stories, to wit, G2's official English mistress Lady Suffolk. (Who was increasingly deaf, btw.) and didn't question it further, because HW, of a generation later than Hervey, lived until 1791 and when writing his memoir has already outlived Fritz of Prussia (whom he refers to as the late great King of Prussia). Meaning: he probably knew about Fritz favoring the Scottish Keiths, who actually were Jacobites, and the story of sending George Keith as ambassador to Versailles despite the insult to uncle G2. Maybe when that happened G2 said something like "typical! I bet his mother put him up to it!" and thus the English court, unfamiliar with SD as a person for the most part, drew this "aha! SD the Jacobite!" conclusion.
Algarotti: might reconsider Lady Mary as an option, because Hervey vs Fritz of Prussia is bound to get way uglier than his rl triangle. Or maybe he elopes with Andrew Mitchell. :)
Your scenario: sounds very likely except for one thing: what does Fritz of Prussia do the first time G2 disses the Best of All Mothers in his presence?
Edited 2020-09-22 20:47 (UTC)
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Meaning: he probably knew about Fritz favoring the Scottish Keiths, who actually were Jacobites, and the story of sending George Keith as ambassador to Versailles despite the insult to uncle G2. Maybe when that happened G2 said something like "typical! I bet his mother put him up to it!" and thus the English court, unfamiliar with SD as a person for the most part, drew this "aha! SD the Jacobite!" conclusion.
Yeah, this strikes me as being akin to Thiébault claiming FW totally wanted one son to be HRE and the other King in Prussia! It makes perfect sense if you don't know just how relentlessly committed FW was to his religious beliefs.
Speaking of SD's politics, I keep seeing in places like Ziebura and Oster that she was disappointed that Fritz didn't let her influence him politically. Is there evidence for this, or just an assumption?
Algarotti: might reconsider Lady Mary as an option, because Hervey vs Fritz of Prussia is bound to get way uglier than his rl triangle. Or maybe he elopes with Andrew Mitchell. :)
Ha. I advise eloping. The farther the better.
Lady Mary: Will go to Japan as long as you're coming too!
what does Fritz of Prussia do the first time G2 disses the Best of All Mothers in his presence?
I did think of that when I was writing that up, and I'm not sure. Part of it depends on what G2 says, and how G2 responds when Fritz starts defending her, and I just don't know.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Speaking of SD's politics, I keep seeing in places like Ziebura and Oster that she was disappointed that Fritz didn't let her influence him politically. Is there evidence for this, or just an assumption?
I've seen this, too, starting with good old Preuß and Koser, but never with a footnote saying "see letter X" or "memoirs y", or "ambassadorial report Z". So until I see a citation, I'm going with "assumption", based on the fact that SD had these political battles with FW for all those years and, I suspect, also a very 19th century moralistic desire to see her punished in some fashion. "She got what she wanted, only to find out her son wasn't her puppet at all but his father's worthy successor and our national hero!", that kind of thing. (Because SD is the outright villain in Der Vater, that's certainly how this novel plays it.) But, you know, I never had the impression SD cared about Prussian politics as such, other than "English marriages for my kids, Grumbkow & Seckendorff defeated". The marriages were none-issues by the time Fritz became King, Grumbkow was dead, and Seckendorff far away, and Fritz made it very clear that SD, not EC was the first lady of Prussia, so my impression was she revelled in this and was otherwise an admiring mother (to Fritz) applauding his mighty deeds, bossy only when it came to his wardrobe.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Her doctors should have pushed that loop of bowel back inside and hoped that the hole would heal, but instead they made a terrible error. They cut it off. Now Caroline’s digestive system was destroyed, and she took ten days to die.
EEK. Ow ow ow. That... is not a way I'd like to die. (I mean, I suppose there aren't really good ways to die, but this seems like a particularly bad one.) Exhibit seventeen thousand or so on Why I Am Glad I Don't Live Then.
Wikipedia: "Over the next few days she was bled, purged, and operated on, without anaesthetic, but there was no improvement in her condition." Uh-huh.
"My dear Lord," replied the Queen, ' " I will give it you under my hand, if you are in any fear of my relapsing, that my dear first-born is the greatest ass and the greatest liar, and the greatest canaille, and the greatest beast in the whole world, and I that I most heartily wish he was out of it."
Maaaaan :( IDK, someone here is really awful. Not sure whether it's Hervey or Caroline or both, but... yeah.
In the first place, I am sick to death of hearing of his great courage every day of my life ; in the next place, one thinks now of Mama, and not of him.
Ahahahaha this... makes me like Princess Emily more rather than less :P I vote this Princess Emily and Princess Amalie of Prussia should get together!
I'm almost starting to come around to Fritz' pov on Hannover versus Hohenzollern, but luckily your Ziebura read through reminds me this would be wrong.
LOL
What he thought and said of the King of Prussia was much the same as what the King of Prussia thought and said of him ; that he was a proud, brutal, tyrannical, wrong-headed, impracticable fellow, who loved nobody and would use everybody ill that was in his power. How far these two Kings were in the right in this point, or how little they were so in every other, is not my business here to determine.
HAHAHAHA okay, Hervey, you get points for this, this is hilarious.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Every time someone thinks that just because history is a passion of mine, I'd want to live in the past (any past), I can only conclude that someone knows nothing of history, verily.
Maaaaan :( IDK, someone here is really awful. Not sure whether it's Hervey or Caroline or both, but... yeah.
Granted, Caroline's mother totally neglected her so she had to learn how to read and write by herself when she was 10 until Sophie Charlotte got a hold on her, and Hervey's mother did a turnaround from "my favourite child" to "you scum of the Earth" which his biographer can't explain other than note it starts with his marriage, so the constant "Fritz of Wales is worse than Tiberius and Nero put together and I wish he was dead" outbursts coupled with "that ungrateful beast, I'm sure he wants me dead, how monstrous is that?" happen with that emotional background. (Plus Hervey quotes her as saying, which I included already in my write up of the Halsband biography, that she wishes Hervey was her son and that evil FoW had Hervey's horrible mother; the writers of the "Hephaistion and Alexander: Hervey and FoW" essay think all the constant harping on Hervey as the alternate son is stretching things a bit, since he was only 13 years younger than Caroline. But imo it's still possible that they fulfilled that emotional need for each other, and it's noticable that Caroline's actual other son and fave, future Billy the Butcher, Duke of Cumberland, gets next to no page time in these memoirs. He's at her death bed in one scene and gets told he's her sole hope for the British future, and there's just one mention elsewhere when both Hervey and the editor in footnotes discuss the periodically raised and abandoned idea of splitting Hannover and Great Britain up again so Billy the Butcher can inherit one of the two. But that's it. Methinks whatever is true of Caroline, I wouldn't be surprised if Hervey did come to see her as a replacement mother and that this provided him with additoinal ire fuel against Fritz of Wales. (Cumberland he couldn't rationally object to since he hadn't done anything at that point when Hervey writes, so he just edits him out as much as he can.)
Mind you, courtesy of Victorian editor Croker's footnotes, I got reminded again that G2 and Caroline for the first time considered the Britain/Hannover split when FoW really hadn't done anything yet they could object to but lived his parentless life in Hannover. They really wanted English born Bill for King, and if that was absolutely impossible, then they wanted him to have Hannover. So by the time Fritz of Wales rejoined the family in Britain as an adult, he already knew his parents very much prefered the younger brother he didn't even know. Incidentally, the reason why G2 and Caroline eventually didn't go through with this idea is one Hervey has himself pointing out to them - the Elector of Hannover is a prince of the HRE, which means the succession can only be altered with the Emperor's consent as well as the consent of the two princes in question (remember, this came up as to why FW couldn't change the succession without Fritz agreeing to it), and, speculates Hervey, the Emperor won't want to, because as long as the King of GB is also the Elector of Hannover, it means that Britain as a state is beholden to him.
(Sidenote: could be that MT's Dad was thinking that, but as we know, it didn't work out that way once G2's government teamed up with Fritz in 1756...)
I vote this Princess Emily and Princess Amalie of Prussia should get together!
They certainly would have had things in common. When reading this passage, I also rolled my eyes at Hervey none too subtly complaining he'd had to play the perfect courtier for G2 despite being worn out and exhausted from attending Caroline, yet otoh writing the story to demonstrate Emily's "falseness" towards her father. Of course, Emily isn't saying this to G2's face, any more than Amalie would say something like this to Fritz, for all her famous bluntness. You don't do that towards the person who has the power to lock you up in a heartbeat, or at the very least deprive you of income and all creature comforts.
Hervey on G2 and FW really was a goldmine of quotable lines. Never mind Zeithain and FW meeting August(us) the Strong, the summit we want to see is FW and G2 as adults clashing as a spectacle to all and sunder.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Methinks whatever is true of Caroline, I wouldn't be surprised if Hervey did come to see her as a replacement mother and that this provided him with additoinal ire fuel against Fritz of Wales.
*nods* That makes sense.
(Cumberland he couldn't rationally object to since he hadn't done anything at that point when Hervey writes, so he just edits him out as much as he can.)
Hee! Yeah, that makes sense too.
But, right, also given the circumstances I can see G2 and Caroline not really having parental feelings for Fritz of Wales, and not really seeing him as a kid of theirs, so any insults, etc. maybe didn't really register to them as all that bad (and then, as you pointed out earlier, there's the part where Caroline didn't exactly have good role models to begin with).
I also rolled my eyes at Hervey none too subtly complaining he'd had to play the perfect courtier for G2 despite being worn out and exhausted from attending Caroline, yet otoh writing the story to demonstrate Emily's "falseness" towards her father.
Ha! I didn't quite get there (I mostly just thought she had a point, lol) so I'm glad you pointed that out :)
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Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Lord Hervey took occasion upon this subject, among many other things, to say, he did not believe there ever was a father and a son so thoroughly unlike in every particular as the King and the Prince, and enumerated several points in which they differed, as little to the advantage of the Prince as to the dispraise or displeasure of the King. The King said he had really thought so himself a thousand times, and had often asked the Queen if the beast was his son. Lord Hervey said that question must be to very little purpose, for to be sure the Queen would never own it if he was not. The King said the first child generally was the husband's, "and therefore," says he, "I fancy he is what in German we call a Weckselbalch; (Hervey's spelling; it's actually "Wechselbalg") I do not know," continued he, " if you have a word for it in English : it is not what you call a foundling, but a child put in a cradle instead of another."
" That is a changeling," replied Lord Hervey. The King was extremely pleased with this translation, and said, " I wish you could prove him a changeling in the German sense of the word as easily as anybody can prove him so in the other ;—though the Queen was a great while before her maternal affection would give him up for a fool, and yet I told her so before he had been acting as if he had not common sense."
Lord Hervey said the Queen had often last year done the honours of his Royal Highness's understanding to him, and was very loth to give it quite up, but that of late he had not perceived she had any hope left of disguising it. "My dear Lord," replied the Queen, ' " I will give it you under my hand, if you are in any fear of my relapsing, that my dear first-born is the greatest ass and the greatest liar, and the greatest canaille, and the greatest beast in the whole world, and I that I most heartily wish he was out of it."
And so on, and so forth. Now, you may recall G2 had had a terrible relationship with his own father, G1, so FoW and/or his advisors get the idea to publish some letters between G1 and future G2 when G2 was Prince of Wales, with the implication: Hypocrite much? Considering most of said letters were burned by Caroline when G2 became King, the Royals think that Fritz must have gotten those letters from the Duchess of Kendal. (Aka Aunt Melusine to Katte, mistress of G1.) Otoh, Hervey thinks Fritz must have a spy in the palace, because the letters published are just those three not burned. In any event, he thinks they just demonstrate that G1 was a way harsher father, since he temporarily took G2's children from him during their biggest argument, while G2 generously declared he wouldn't do that to FoW.
During Caroline's ten days of dying, Hervey and the Royals, minus Fritz and Augusta who aren't allowed access, spend most at the time in Caroline's bed room or next door. This temporarly makes Hervey soften on the King, but not so much is second least favourite Hannover offspring, Emily/Amalia, quondam intended for Fritz of Prussia. An illustration in the following scene (re: storm - G2 and Emily are referencing G2 during his most recent return from Hannover being caught in a tempest across the channel):
One night whilst the Queen was ill, as (G2) was sitting in his nightgown and nightcap in a great chair, with his legs upon a stool, and nobody in the room with him but the Princess Emily, who lay upon a couch, and Lord Hervey, who sat by the fire, he talked in this strain of his own courage in the storm and his illness, till the Princess Emily, as Lord Hervey thought, fell fast asleep, whilst Lord Hervey, as tired as he was of the present conversation and this last week's watching, was left alone to act civil auditor and adroit courtier, to applaud what he heard, and every now and then to ask such proper questions as led the King into giving some more particular detail of his own magnanimity. The King, turning towards Princess Emily, and seeing her eyes shut, cried, "Poor good child! her duty, affection, and attendance on her mother have quite exhausted her spirits." And soon after he went into the Queen's room. As soon as his back was turned. Princess Emily started up, and said, " Is he gone ? How tiresome he is!"
Lord Hervey, who had no mind to trust her Royal Highness with his singing her father's praises in duetto with her, replied only, " I thought your Royal Highness had been asleep." " No," said the Princess Emily ; " I only shut my eyes that I might not join in the ennuyant conversation, and wish I could have shut my ears too. In the first place, I am sick to death of hearing of his great courage every day of my life ; in the next place, one thinks now of Mama, and not of him. Who cares for his old storm ? I believe, too, it is a great lie, and that he was as much afraid as I should have been, for all what he says now ; and as to his not being afraid when he was ill, I know that is a lie, for I saw him, and I heard all his sighs and his groans, when he was in no more danger than I am at this moment. He was talking, too, for ever of dying, and that he was sure he should not recover." All this, considering the kind things she had heard the King say the minute before, when he imagined her asleep. Lord Hervey thought a pretty extraordinary return for her to make for that paternal goodness, or would have thought it so in anybody but her ; and looked upon this openness to him, whom she did not love, yet less to be accounted for, unless he could have imagined it was to draw him in to echo her, and then to relate what he said as if he had said it unaccompanied.
Whilst she was going on with the panegyric on theKing which I have related, the King returned, upon which she began to rub her eyes as if she had that instant raised her head from her pillows, and said, "I have really slept very heartily. How long had Papa been out of the room ?" The King, who had very little or rather no suspicion in his composition, took these appearances for realities, and said, " It is time for us all to take a little rest. We will all go to bed, for by staying here we do the poor Queen no good, and ourselves hurt." And so dismissing Lord Hervey, they all retired.
You already know the famous "Marry again after my death"/ "No, I will have mistresses!" exchange in French between Caroline and G2, for which Hervey is the source. G2 was truly distraught upon her death, and mistresses or not, remained so. Caroline's coffin and later his own are of the kind where you can draw one of the walls back once both are laid next to each other; he wanted their dust to mingle. (Caroline died in 1737; G2 in 1761). Grieving Caroline together makes him bond with Hervey (enough so Hervey ends up being appointed Lord Privy Seal), and thus Hervey gets treated to G2's reflections on his German relations. Which brings us back to our main points of interest again. A reminder: G2's mother was Sophia Dorothea the older, locked up for 30 years for her affair with (probably murdered) Count Königsmarck, and dying in prison. The "Reminscences" are by Horace Walpole, son of Sir Robert Walpole and the other great bitchy memoirist of the Georgian era:
The King often said, and to many people at this time, that not only he and his family should have a great loss in the Queen's death, but the whole nation: and would instance occasions where he owned her good sense and good temper had kept his passions within
bounds which they would otherwise have broken. And during this retirement (in which he was infinitely more talkative than I ever knew him at any other time of his whole life) he discoursed so constantly and so openly of himself, that if anybody had had a mind to write the memoirs of his life from his cradle to the present moment, the Princesses and Lord Hervey could have furnished them with materials of all the occurrences, transactions, and anecdotes, military, civil, amorous, foreign, and domestic, that could be comprehended in such a work, from his own lips : excepting what related to his mother, whom on no occasion I ever heard him mention, not even inadvertently or indirectly, any more than if such a person had never had a being. (*)
*Footnote by Victorian editor Croker: This is remarkable, and seems hardly reconcilable with the strong opinion of her innocence and the affectionate regard for her person attributed to him in the Reminiscences. "The second George loved his mother as much as he hated his father ; and purposed, it was said, if she had survived, to have brought her over and declared her Queen-Dowager. Lady Suffolk told me her surprise on going to the new Queen the morning after George I.'s death, at seeing hung up in the Queen's dressrng-room the whole-length of a lady in royal robes, and in the bed-chamber a half-length of the same person, which Lady Suffolk had never seen before." They were of his mother, which the Prince had till then kept concealed.
And now for the Prussians. G2's aunt was Sophie Charlotte, not just mother of FW but foster mother of Caroline, praised as not just one of the most beautiful but definitely one of the best educated and smartest women of her time, which is why I find this statement, err, interesting:
Of his aunt, the Queen of Prussia, too he spoke well, who, by what I heard from others, and particularly the Queen, was a very vain, good-for-nothing woman.
Et tu, Caroline? You owe your education to her, among other things. I feel let down. G2's sister is of course Sophia Dorothea the younger, wife of FW, and on her, grieving G2 apparantly had this to say in 1737:
For his sister, the present Queen of Prussia, he had the contempt she deserved, and a hatred she did not deserve.
WTF? For both Hervey and G2. Hervey having zilch interest in the Prussians per se, and dying when Fritz is still busy conquering Silesia, I don't see how he'd have any motive to make this up. But see: Hervey never met SD. He visited Hannover only once, as a young man on his Grand Tour (when he first encountered nine years old Fritz of Wales), and I don't think she was visiting Hannover as well on that occasion. Prussia, he didn't visit at all. So what is this estimation - that SD deserved contempt but not hate - based on? Perhaps all that begging for the English marriages struck him as pathetic, even if he didn't care enough to note it down, but that's the only thing I can think of.
(Now of course SD with her own treatment of her children provides enough reasons to dislike her, but Hervey seems to know nothing about this.)
As to why G2 should have contempt and hate for his sister: search me. It's not like she was madly in love with FW and rejecting her family of birth, au contraire. I'm almost starting to come around to Fritz' pov on Hannover versus Hohenzollern, but luckily your Ziebura read through reminds me this would be wrong. The rest of the Prussian pasage:
What he thought and said of the King of Prussia was much the same as what the King of Prussia thought and said of him ; that he was a proud, brutal, tyrannical, wrong-headed, impracticable fellow, who loved nobody and would use everybody ill that was in his power. How far these two Kings were in the right in this point, or how little they were so in every other, is not my business here to determine.
Meaning: peas in a pod. Again, based on all this, my speculation re: G2 pleading with the other European monarchs for Fritz' life is that it was mostly because if he didn't get to kill his son, FW certainly wouldn't. And speaking of murder: if Fritz and Wilhelmine had made those marriages, do want to place any bets on when things would have gotten violent? (Provided most circumstances stay the same.) Would Fritz of Prussia have had the fatal relationship and fallout with Hervey instead of Fritz of Wales? Would Caroline and G2 have accused Wilhelmine, too, of faking her pregnancy because their oldest surely can't sire a child? Would Fritz of Prussia have killed Fritz of Wales for taking Wilhelmine in labor for a one and a half hour drive because he didn't want his parents to be present at the birth? Place your bets!
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Seriously, you are the best, and this is very in-character of you.
Her doctors should have pushed that loop of bowel back inside and hoped that the hole would heal, but instead they made a terrible error. They cut it off. Now Caroline’s digestive system was destroyed, and she took ten days to die.
Oooh nooooo! That sounds like the *worst*. Did they know it was a bowel? 'Cause this would make sense if they thought it was some random growth.
our Victorian editor childes Hervey for providing them (about a lady! and a Queen!) and proudly announces he protects us readers from them as much as he can.
*sigh*
I am really looking forward to Smith and Taylor's new and improved post-Victorian edition.
Considering most of said letters were burned by Caroline when G2 became King, the Royals think that Fritz must have gotten those letters from the Duchess of Kendal. (Aka Aunt Melusine to Katte, mistress of G1.) Otoh, Hervey thinks Fritz must have a spy in the palace, because the letters published are just those three not burned.
Hmmm. Reading between the lines, does this mean Melusine (lover of G1 and possibly therefore not a fan of G2?) and Fritz of Wales were on good terms?
G1 was a way harsher father, since he temporarily took G2's children from him during their biggest argument, while G2 generously declared he wouldn't do that to FoW.
Fritz of Prussia: And I'm with you on that! My younger siblings don't know how good they have it.
the famous "Marry again after my death"/ "No, I will have mistresses!" exchange in French between Caroline and G2, for which Hervey is the source
Hervey is the British Lehndorff counterpart in another way: our source for all these anecdotes we know!
The "Reminscences" are by Horace Walpole, son of Sir Robert Walpole and the other great bitchy memoirist of the Georgian era:
Which you will not be surprised to find in the library. They're so incredibly short the editor feels the need to apologize and flesh them out with a supplement of collected letters in order to make it long enough to be a short book instead of a long essay.
Et tu, Caroline? You owe your education to her, among other things. I feel let down.
But where would this family be without everyone bitching at everybody else?
So what is this estimation - that SD deserved contempt but not hate - based on? Perhaps all that begging for the English marriages struck him as pathetic, even if he didn't care enough to note it down, but that's the only thing I can think of.
The only thing I can think of is Wilhelmine's description of her that she gives the appearance of having more intellectual and artistic depth than she actually has, but 1) given that she's a queen, I'm not sure that more is expected of her? 2) I'm not sure how much Hervey would care about that. It is the sort of thing he could have picked up with out meeting her, though.
As to why G2 should have contempt and hate for his sister: search me.
I feel like with siblings, you don't necessarily need a reason? Sometimes someone just rubs you the wrong way, and with family, it's harder to resort to indifference. Actually, biologist Robert Sapolsky, who studies baboons in the wild, says that there are interpersonal (interbaboonal?) interactions that strike fellow baboons as weird--unless it's between two family members, and then they shrug it off.
I mean, clearly there's *some* kind of reason, and we may come across it, but it doesn't necessarily have to have been significant enough to be obvious to outsiders.
(Provided most circumstances stay the same.) Would Fritz of Prussia have had the fatal relationship and fallout with Hervey instead of Fritz of Wales?
Hmm. If we assume Fritz of Prussia stays in England until FW dies in 1740, instead of Amelia going to Prussia or both of them going to Hannover (maybe a successful esape to England?), then maybe. Only they fight over Algarotti instead of Anne Vane. :P
Algarotti: Guys, there's plenty of me to go around!
Would Caroline and G2 have accused Wilhelmine, too, of faking her pregnancy because their oldest surely can't sire a child?
Would Caroline and G2 have accused Wilhelmine and Fritz of Prussia of incest? It would have explained so much: how Wilhelmine got pregnant, why Fritz was present at the birth, why Fritz carried on the paternal tradition of beating up your first cousin rather than allow Wilhelmine to be moved... (Fritz of Prussia may not be much physically, but I say killer instinct and motivation count for a lot. Look at FW!)
Actually, let's assume Fritz of Prussia, living at close range with his sister's husband, doesn't really get along with Fritz of Wales. Let's further assume that G2 (plus Parliament, I guess) would have had to be pretty strongly pro-Fritz-of-Prussia to let a double marriage happen with Fritz living at the English court. (Husbands don't usually join their wives, especially when they are the heir to a throne. I have to assume successful escape, unless you have a better scenario.)
Also, G2 hates FW, something that Fritz can get behind.
So, G2-Fritz of Prussia alliance? [ETA: Until FW is dead and Fritz doesn't need him anymore, obviously.] This might affect the Wilhelmine treatment. Particularly when Fritz of Prussia beats up Fritz of Wales and father-in-law G2 slaps him on the back and says, "Attaboy." :P
Ah, the eternal soap opera!
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Seriously, you are the best, and this is very in-character of you.
THIS :DDDDD
Hervey is the British Lehndorff counterpart in another way: our source for all these anecdotes we know!
:D
Only they fight over Algarotti instead of Anne Vane. :P
Ha! I... cannot argue with this.
So, G2-Fritz of Prussia alliance? [ETA: Until FW is dead and Fritz doesn't need him anymore, obviously.] This might affect the Wilhelmine treatment. Particularly when Fritz of Prussia beats up Fritz of Wales and father-in-law G2 slaps him on the back and says, "Attaboy." :P
*facepalm* This would totally happen, wouldn't it.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
*facepalm* This would totally happen, wouldn't it.
I don't know if it *would* have, but I definitely like imagining it.
"My sister is not getting in a carriage while she's in labor, FIGHT ME."
Also, Fritz *would* be present at the birth.
Seriously, you are the best, and this is very in-character of you.
THIS :DDDDD
I was putting the Palladion write-up in Rheinsberg last night, and I noticed it was written in late April, a couple days after the "real life is taking over, can't perform Royal Reader duties." My reply to the write-up opened with, "I should have guessed that 'don't have time for Royal Reader duties' would amount to "still reading and reporting faster than we can keep up with." ;)" and your reply was "I know, I can't keep up! :)".
:D
We're so spoiled. <3
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Hmmm. Reading between the lines, does this mean Melusine (lover of G1 and possibly therefore not a fan of G2?) and Fritz of Wales were on good terms?
You know, I think that's very likely. Because while Fritz of Wales didn't see his parents and siblings for fourteen years, he did see his grandfather G1 whenever G1 was visiting Hannover during his reign, and Melusine was with him on those occasions. Also, Horace Walpole son of Sir Robert Walpole (G2's PM for years and years) claims that Melusine was tight with the opposition to his Dad, who was also a political enemy of FoW's (the more so the more Fritz of Wales drifted towards said opposition).
G2 having contempt and hate for his sister SD: starting Horace Walpole's memoir, I am stunned to discover HW claims that SD, daughter of G1, was "a staunch Jacobite" all her life. Now, this is the first time I've come across this claim - certainly no biographer and memoirist we've come across so far on the German side claims that, and it makes absolutely no sense in terms of SD's most dear ambition (her daughter as Queen of England, Fritz married to a Hannover-British princess and preferably governing Hannover). So I feel safe to say it's not true. However, I'm perfectly willing to believe Horace W. heard it from his primary source of G2 stories, to wit, G2's official English mistress Lady Suffolk. (Who was increasingly deaf, btw.) and didn't question it further, because HW, of a generation later than Hervey, lived until 1791 and when writing his memoir has already outlived Fritz of Prussia (whom he refers to as the late great King of Prussia). Meaning: he probably knew about Fritz favoring the Scottish Keiths, who actually were Jacobites, and the story of sending George Keith as ambassador to Versailles despite the insult to uncle G2. Maybe when that happened G2 said something like "typical! I bet his mother put him up to it!" and thus the English court, unfamiliar with SD as a person for the most part, drew this "aha! SD the Jacobite!" conclusion.
Algarotti: might reconsider Lady Mary as an option, because Hervey vs Fritz of Prussia is bound to get way uglier than his rl triangle. Or maybe he elopes with Andrew Mitchell. :)
Your scenario: sounds very likely except for one thing: what does Fritz of Prussia do the first time G2 disses the Best of All Mothers in his presence?
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Yeah, this strikes me as being akin to Thiébault claiming FW totally wanted one son to be HRE and the other King in Prussia! It makes perfect sense if you don't know just how relentlessly committed FW was to his religious beliefs.
Speaking of SD's politics, I keep seeing in places like Ziebura and Oster that she was disappointed that Fritz didn't let her influence him politically. Is there evidence for this, or just an assumption?
Algarotti: might reconsider Lady Mary as an option, because Hervey vs Fritz of Prussia is bound to get way uglier than his rl triangle. Or maybe he elopes with Andrew Mitchell. :)
Ha. I advise eloping. The farther the better.
Lady Mary: Will go to Japan as long as you're coming too!
what does Fritz of Prussia do the first time G2 disses the Best of All Mothers in his presence?
I did think of that when I was writing that up, and I'm not sure. Part of it depends on what G2 says, and how G2 responds when Fritz starts defending her, and I just don't know.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
I've seen this, too, starting with good old Preuß and Koser, but never with a footnote saying "see letter X" or "memoirs y", or "ambassadorial report Z". So until I see a citation, I'm going with "assumption", based on the fact that SD had these political battles with FW for all those years and, I suspect, also a very 19th century moralistic desire to see her punished in some fashion. "She got what she wanted, only to find out her son wasn't her puppet at all but his father's worthy successor and our national hero!", that kind of thing. (Because SD is the outright villain in Der Vater, that's certainly how this novel plays it.) But, you know, I never had the impression SD cared about Prussian politics as such, other than "English marriages for my kids, Grumbkow & Seckendorff defeated". The marriages were none-issues by the time Fritz became King, Grumbkow was dead, and Seckendorff far away, and Fritz made it very clear that SD, not EC was the first lady of Prussia, so my impression was she revelled in this and was otherwise an admiring mother (to Fritz) applauding his mighty deeds, bossy only when it came to his wardrobe.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
EEK. Ow ow ow. That... is not a way I'd like to die. (I mean, I suppose there aren't really good ways to die, but this seems like a particularly bad one.) Exhibit seventeen thousand or so on Why I Am Glad I Don't Live Then.
Wikipedia: "Over the next few days she was bled, purged, and operated on, without anaesthetic, but there was no improvement in her condition." Uh-huh.
"My dear Lord," replied the Queen, ' " I will give it you under my hand, if you are in any fear of my relapsing, that my dear first-born is the greatest ass and the greatest liar, and the greatest canaille, and the greatest beast in the whole world, and I that I most heartily wish he was out of it."
Maaaaan :( IDK, someone here is really awful. Not sure whether it's Hervey or Caroline or both, but... yeah.
In the first place, I am sick to death of hearing of his great courage every day of my life ; in the next place, one thinks now of Mama, and not of him.
Ahahahaha this... makes me like Princess Emily more rather than less :P I vote this Princess Emily and Princess Amalie of Prussia should get together!
I'm almost starting to come around to Fritz' pov on Hannover versus Hohenzollern, but luckily your Ziebura read through reminds me this would be wrong.
LOL
What he thought and said of the King of Prussia was much the same as what the King of Prussia thought and said of him ; that he was a proud, brutal, tyrannical, wrong-headed, impracticable fellow, who loved nobody and would use everybody ill that was in his power. How far these two Kings were in the right in this point, or how little they were so in every other, is not my business here to determine.
HAHAHAHA okay, Hervey, you get points for this, this is hilarious.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
Maaaaan :( IDK, someone here is really awful. Not sure whether it's Hervey or Caroline or both, but... yeah.
Granted, Caroline's mother totally neglected her so she had to learn how to read and write by herself when she was 10 until Sophie Charlotte got a hold on her, and Hervey's mother did a turnaround from "my favourite child" to "you scum of the Earth" which his biographer can't explain other than note it starts with his marriage, so the constant "Fritz of Wales is worse than Tiberius and Nero put together and I wish he was dead" outbursts coupled with "that ungrateful beast, I'm sure he wants me dead, how monstrous is that?" happen with that emotional background. (Plus Hervey quotes her as saying, which I included already in my write up of the Halsband biography, that she wishes Hervey was her son and that evil FoW had Hervey's horrible mother; the writers of the "Hephaistion and Alexander: Hervey and FoW" essay think all the constant harping on Hervey as the alternate son is stretching things a bit, since he was only 13 years younger than Caroline. But imo it's still possible that they fulfilled that emotional need for each other, and it's noticable that Caroline's actual other son and fave, future Billy the Butcher, Duke of Cumberland, gets next to no page time in these memoirs. He's at her death bed in one scene and gets told he's her sole hope for the British future, and there's just one mention elsewhere when both Hervey and the editor in footnotes discuss the periodically raised and abandoned idea of splitting Hannover and Great Britain up again so Billy the Butcher can inherit one of the two. But that's it. Methinks whatever is true of Caroline, I wouldn't be surprised if Hervey did come to see her as a replacement mother and that this provided him with additoinal ire fuel against Fritz of Wales. (Cumberland he couldn't rationally object to since he hadn't done anything at that point when Hervey writes, so he just edits him out as much as he can.)
Mind you, courtesy of Victorian editor Croker's footnotes, I got reminded again that G2 and Caroline for the first time considered the Britain/Hannover split when FoW really hadn't done anything yet they could object to but lived his parentless life in Hannover. They really wanted English born Bill for King, and if that was absolutely impossible, then they wanted him to have Hannover. So by the time Fritz of Wales rejoined the family in Britain as an adult, he already knew his parents very much prefered the younger brother he didn't even know. Incidentally, the reason why G2 and Caroline eventually didn't go through with this idea is one Hervey has himself pointing out to them - the Elector of Hannover is a prince of the HRE, which means the succession can only be altered with the Emperor's consent as well as the consent of the two princes in question (remember, this came up as to why FW couldn't change the succession without Fritz agreeing to it), and, speculates Hervey, the Emperor won't want to, because as long as the King of GB is also the Elector of Hannover, it means that Britain as a state is beholden to him.
(Sidenote: could be that MT's Dad was thinking that, but as we know, it didn't work out that way once G2's government teamed up with Fritz in 1756...)
I vote this Princess Emily and Princess Amalie of Prussia should get together!
They certainly would have had things in common. When reading this passage, I also rolled my eyes at Hervey none too subtly complaining he'd had to play the perfect courtier for G2 despite being worn out and exhausted from attending Caroline, yet otoh writing the story to demonstrate Emily's "falseness" towards her father. Of course, Emily isn't saying this to G2's face, any more than Amalie would say something like this to Fritz, for all her famous bluntness. You don't do that towards the person who has the power to lock you up in a heartbeat, or at the very least deprive you of income and all creature comforts.
Hervey on G2 and FW really was a goldmine of quotable lines. Never mind Zeithain and FW meeting August(us) the Strong, the summit we want to see is FW and G2 as adults clashing as a spectacle to all and sunder.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
(Sidenote: could be that MT's Dad was thinking that, but as we know, it didn't work out that way once G2's government teamed up with Fritz in 1756...)
Yeeeeahh. Turns out the Elector of Brandenburg wasn't all that beholden in 1740, and even in the 1730s, only sort of! (Ask Stanislaus.)
the summit we want to see is FW and G2 as adults clashing as a spectacle to all and sunder.
Would pay for tickets. Would bring popcorn.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
*nods* That makes sense.
(Cumberland he couldn't rationally object to since he hadn't done anything at that point when Hervey writes, so he just edits him out as much as he can.)
Hee! Yeah, that makes sense too.
But, right, also given the circumstances I can see G2 and Caroline not really having parental feelings for Fritz of Wales, and not really seeing him as a kid of theirs, so any insults, etc. maybe didn't really register to them as all that bad (and then, as you pointed out earlier, there's the part where Caroline didn't exactly have good role models to begin with).
I also rolled my eyes at Hervey none too subtly complaining he'd had to play the perfect courtier for G2 despite being worn out and exhausted from attending Caroline, yet otoh writing the story to demonstrate Emily's "falseness" towards her father.
Ha! I didn't quite get there (I mostly just thought she had a point, lol) so I'm glad you pointed that out :)