What's up with that, F1? I can believe that she didn't like the one that was born when she was one and died when she was two, especially since he got all the attention that she didn't, but she's being falsely accused of things that happened before she was born!
I wonder if F1's having a memory lapse here, or if something else is going on.
It probably was a memory lapse. My other guess would be projection, but projection of what? The baby Sophie Charlotte had before FW, one Friedrich August, died before FW was born, and she never had any more children. As for F1's own childhood, he was son no.3 himself, with two brothers ahead of him, one of whom died before F1 was born. (The other - Karl Emil! - was one of those he later suspected his stepmother of killing, along with his younger brother Ludwig. Two more (fullL) siblings died as babies. Then came stepmom and all the Schwedt half siblings.
"Knirps" is a bit old fashioned but still in use today, though mostly used for little children.
Wilhelmine the snob: oh, absolutely. Mind you, I suspect this tendency in her was strengthened via the awareness the Hohenzollern were considered as upstarts (what with the very recent kingly title) by the rest of Europe, and of course SD had it drummed into her that she was meant for higher things and FW was completely undignified and no one was to follow his example from the get go. I could also see child Wilhelmine extra internalizing class bias precisely because of Leti, i.e. this woman had been given power over her and abused her, and she clung to her self confidence by telling herself "I'm still better than you, Italian lowlife!"
Which, btw, leads into what you say about servants and the chains of abuse and neglect. Governesses also had this weird in between status - not really part of the servants, but also not really on a level with the family that gets talked about a lot in any book about the Brontes. Presumably Leti had had her own experiences, too. (And as Oster points out at the very least must have been well educated, because she did give Wilhelmine a first class education in terms of knowledge, see also the difference between child Wilhemine's letters to child AW's letters to FW in style and maturity.)
I'm also reminded that Byron (the poet) was sexually abused by a nurse when he was ten or eleven. She was also a strict Calvinist who altered between punishing him, groping him and quoting the bible at him. It's not surprising adult Byron didn't care much for religion, and scandalized the country.
Yeah, since F1 isn't exactly taking care of tiny babies, he probably remembers that Wilhelmine didn't like Bb!Fritz2, and of course the number 2 was burned into his brain, as in the number of prospective heirs that have died, and he conflated the two.
I'm just impressed that within the space of about a page, Oster manages to report all these dates and quote this letter and never notice the contradiction!
Wilhelmine the snob: oh, absolutely. Mind you, I suspect this tendency in her was strengthened via the awareness the Hohenzollern were considered as upstarts
Yep. I forget which biographer said FW's attitude toward all things German vs. French smacks of an inferiority complex, but it makes perfect sense.
I could also see child Wilhelmine extra internalizing class bias precisely because of Leti, i.e. this woman had been given power over her and abused her, and she clung to her self confidence by telling herself "I'm still better than you, Italian lowlife!"
Also makes perfect sense!
Governesses also had this weird in between status - not really part of the servants, but also not really on a level with the family that gets talked about a lot in any book about the Brontes.
Yep, I was thinking of the Brontes. Even today, my wife talks about the class tensions of being middle to upper middle class and being raised largely by poor nannies in Brazil, where labor is still that cheap. When you tell the kids what to do and can punish them, but they're still considered inherently superior to you, and their parents control your life...it can get complicated.
I'm glad Sonsine worked out.
Though after reading the memoirs, I had forgotten just how pro-English marriage Wilhelmine depicts her as being, to the point of scolding Wilhelmine for finally giving in and agreeing to marry into Bayreuth. :/
She was also a strict Calvinist who altered between punishing him, groping him and quoting the bible at him. It's not surprising adult Byron didn't care much for religion, and scandalized the country.
Mind you, the flipside of that is what a relation of one of Charlotte's charges said to Mrs. Gaskell: My cousin Benson Sidgwick, now vicar of Ashby Parva, certainly on one occasion threw a Bible at Miss Bronte! and all that another cousin can recollect of her is that if she was invited to walk to church with them, she thought she was being ordered about like a slave; if she was not invited, she imagined she was excluded from the family circle.
Sonsine being pro English marriage: well, to be fair, of all the matches available at that time, it was definitely the toppermost of the poppermost. The only comparable match would have been to Louis XV. of France, and good old Stanislav Lescynsky got there first. (P)RussianPete was still HolsteinPete in blissful ignorance of his future and also years younger, even Ulrike's future husband was still HolsteinAdolf and not yet Crown Prince of Sweden, and since the Polish crown wasn't inheritable but went by vote, there was no guarantee August the Strong's son - who'd have matched Wilhelmine's age far better than August - would have succeeded him as King of Poland as well as Elector of Saxony. If you were a Princess of Wilhelmine's age and generation, the future King of England (not that he'd ever be, but no one knew that) was the big marital price to be had. Especially if your own father was only the second king of his line and his tiny kingdom brandnew.
...whereas all the Margraves FW considered as matches for his daughters meant they were marrying down. Within FW's life time, Charlotte did best with a duke (of Braunschweig), lending some strength to the argument that among the daughters, she was his fave, but Wilhelmine, Friederike and Sophie really were not making good matches in terms of rank, power and splendor.
Sonsine being pro English marriage: well, to be fair, of all the matches available at that time, it was definitely the toppermost of the poppermost.
Oh, no question! And advocating for this as the marriage Wilhelmine should make is one thing. But after she's already agreed to marry into Bayreuth through the application of force majeure by the absolute monarch, scolding her that she did a bad thing tells you something about Sonsine's priorities. That's the part that came as a surprise to me.
Yeeeeah. We had a couple of nannies for the kids when we needed childcare but they were too young to go to preschool, and it was... interesting, because of this tension. The whole experience taught me, looking back on it, that for a weird job like this where you're all but living with the family, personality fit (and maybe even more specifically, communication style??) with parents is way more important a component than one might realize (or at least than I realized), and a nanny can be great with the kids and yet both adult parties can be unhappy through no fault (or at least, not much fault) of the individual parties.
Governesses also had this weird in between status - not really part of the servants, but also not really on a level with the family that gets talked about a lot in any book about the Brontes.
Huh, I hadn't thought to make that connection, but having just read Dark Quartet, ...yeah.
I'm also reminded that Byron (the poet) was sexually abused by a nurse when he was ten or eleven. She was also a strict Calvinist who altered between punishing him, groping him and quoting the bible at him. It's not surprising adult Byron didn't care much for religion, and scandalized the country.
*blinks* My Brit Lit teacher didn't tell us that part! That's really... something. Definitely not surprising he didn't care much for religion, wow.
Re: Byron, here's the evidence, re the nurse May Grey. (Btw, google tells me that an entry on Byron by a Scottish tourist website - since Byron spent his early childhood in Aberdeen- calls her "Agnes Grey", which, speak of the Brontes. But really, it was May.) John Hanson had already been the lawyer of Byron's mother, and later was Byron's lawyer. Since Byron died at age 36, he survived him.
After Byron's death, the lawyer, John Hanson, informed Byron's friend John Cam Hobhouse, of the lustful attentions of his (Byron's) nurse. Hobhouse writes later:
When nine years old at his mother's house a free Scotch girl used to come to bed to him and play tricks with his person.
And Byron himself writes in Detached Thoughts (a serious of diary-like notes published years after his death under that title): in 1821: My passions were developed very early - so early, that few would believe me, if I were to state the period, and the facts which accompanied it.
John Hanson informed Byron's mother of May Gray's unacceptable conduct towards the young lord in a letter dated 1st September 1799, suppressing his knowledge of the sexual play:
... her conduct towards your son while at Nottingham was shocking, and I was persuaded you needed but a hint of it to dismiss her... My honourable little companion (Byron) ... told me that she was perpetually beating him, and that his bones sometimes ached from it; that she brought all sorts of Company of the very lowest Description into his apartments; that she was out late at nights, and he was frequently left to put himself to bed; that she would take the Chaise-boys into the Chaise with her, and stopped at every little Ale-house to drink with them. But, Madam, this is not all, she has even --- traduced yourself. (Prothero, Rowland E (ed), The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol I, p 17)
The two parter about Byron in which Johnny Lee Miller played Lord B. used this story - Byron tells it to his sister and lover Augusta (they were half siblings who didn't grow up together and only got to know each other as teenagers) in this excerpt (at 1.45) - at what is probably his most vulnerable moment in the two parter.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - young Wilhelmine
Date: 2020-09-27 04:58 am (UTC)I wonder if F1's having a memory lapse here, or if something else is going on.
It probably was a memory lapse. My other guess would be projection, but projection of what? The baby Sophie Charlotte had before FW, one Friedrich August, died before FW was born, and she never had any more children. As for F1's own childhood, he was son no.3 himself, with two brothers ahead of him, one of whom died before F1 was born. (The other - Karl Emil! - was one of those he later suspected his stepmother of killing, along with his younger brother Ludwig. Two more (fullL) siblings died as babies. Then came stepmom and all the Schwedt half siblings.
"Knirps" is a bit old fashioned but still in use today, though mostly used for little children.
Wilhelmine the snob: oh, absolutely. Mind you, I suspect this tendency in her was strengthened via the awareness the Hohenzollern were considered as upstarts (what with the very recent kingly title) by the rest of Europe, and of course SD had it drummed into her that she was meant for higher things and FW was completely undignified and no one was to follow his example from the get go. I could also see child Wilhelmine extra internalizing class bias precisely because of Leti, i.e. this woman had been given power over her and abused her, and she clung to her self confidence by telling herself "I'm still better than you, Italian lowlife!"
Which, btw, leads into what you say about servants and the chains of abuse and neglect. Governesses also had this weird in between status - not really part of the servants, but also not really on a level with the family that gets talked about a lot in any book about the Brontes. Presumably Leti had had her own experiences, too. (And as Oster points out at the very least must have been well educated, because she did give Wilhelmine a first class education in terms of knowledge, see also the difference between child Wilhemine's letters to child AW's letters to FW in style and maturity.)
I'm also reminded that Byron (the poet) was sexually abused by a nurse when he was ten or eleven. She was also a strict Calvinist who altered between punishing him, groping him and quoting the bible at him. It's not surprising adult Byron didn't care much for religion, and scandalized the country.
Food question: I'm with you there.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - young Wilhelmine
Date: 2020-09-27 04:10 pm (UTC)Yeah, since F1 isn't exactly taking care of tiny babies, he probably remembers that Wilhelmine didn't like Bb!Fritz2, and of course the number 2 was burned into his brain, as in the number of prospective heirs that have died, and he conflated the two.
I'm just impressed that within the space of about a page, Oster manages to report all these dates and quote this letter and never notice the contradiction!
Wilhelmine the snob: oh, absolutely. Mind you, I suspect this tendency in her was strengthened via the awareness the Hohenzollern were considered as upstarts
Yep. I forget which biographer said FW's attitude toward all things German vs. French smacks of an inferiority complex, but it makes perfect sense.
I could also see child Wilhelmine extra internalizing class bias precisely because of Leti, i.e. this woman had been given power over her and abused her, and she clung to her self confidence by telling herself "I'm still better than you, Italian lowlife!"
Also makes perfect sense!
Governesses also had this weird in between status - not really part of the servants, but also not really on a level with the family that gets talked about a lot in any book about the Brontes.
Yep, I was thinking of the Brontes. Even today, my wife talks about the class tensions of being middle to upper middle class and being raised largely by poor nannies in Brazil, where labor is still that cheap. When you tell the kids what to do and can punish them, but they're still considered inherently superior to you, and their parents control your life...it can get complicated.
I'm glad Sonsine worked out.
Though after reading the memoirs, I had forgotten just how pro-English marriage Wilhelmine depicts her as being, to the point of scolding Wilhelmine for finally giving in and agreeing to marry into Bayreuth. :/
She was also a strict Calvinist who altered between punishing him, groping him and quoting the bible at him. It's not surprising adult Byron didn't care much for religion, and scandalized the country.
Indeed. Also, *facepalm*.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - young Wilhelmine
Date: 2020-09-28 01:30 pm (UTC)Mind you, the flipside of that is what a relation of one of Charlotte's charges said to Mrs. Gaskell: My cousin Benson Sidgwick, now vicar of Ashby Parva, certainly on one occasion threw a Bible at Miss Bronte! and all that another cousin can recollect of her is that if she was invited to walk to church with them, she thought she was being ordered about like a slave; if she was not invited, she imagined she was excluded from the family circle.
Sonsine being pro English marriage: well, to be fair, of all the matches available at that time, it was definitely the toppermost of the poppermost. The only comparable match would have been to Louis XV. of France, and good old Stanislav Lescynsky got there first. (P)RussianPete was still HolsteinPete in blissful ignorance of his future and also years younger, even Ulrike's future husband was still HolsteinAdolf and not yet Crown Prince of Sweden, and since the Polish crown wasn't inheritable but went by vote, there was no guarantee August the Strong's son - who'd have matched Wilhelmine's age far better than August - would have succeeded him as King of Poland as well as Elector of Saxony. If you were a Princess of Wilhelmine's age and generation, the future King of England (not that he'd ever be, but no one knew that) was the big marital price to be had. Especially if your own father was only the second king of his line and his tiny kingdom brandnew.
...whereas all the Margraves FW considered as matches for his daughters meant they were marrying down. Within FW's life time, Charlotte did best with a duke (of Braunschweig), lending some strength to the argument that among the daughters, she was his fave, but Wilhelmine, Friederike and Sophie really were not making good matches in terms of rank, power and splendor.
Byron: see my reply to Cahn below.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - young Wilhelmine
Date: 2020-09-28 11:50 pm (UTC)Oh, no question! And advocating for this as the marriage Wilhelmine should make is one thing. But after she's already agreed to marry into Bayreuth through the application of force majeure by the absolute monarch, scolding her that she did a bad thing tells you something about Sonsine's priorities. That's the part that came as a surprise to me.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - young Wilhelmine
Date: 2020-10-01 04:08 pm (UTC)Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - young Wilhelmine
Date: 2020-09-28 05:16 am (UTC)Huh, I hadn't thought to make that connection, but having just read Dark Quartet, ...yeah.
I'm also reminded that Byron (the poet) was sexually abused by a nurse when he was ten or eleven. She was also a strict Calvinist who altered between punishing him, groping him and quoting the bible at him. It's not surprising adult Byron didn't care much for religion, and scandalized the country.
*blinks* My Brit Lit teacher didn't tell us that part! That's really... something. Definitely not surprising he didn't care much for religion, wow.
Byron
Date: 2020-09-28 01:09 pm (UTC)After Byron's death, the lawyer, John Hanson, informed Byron's friend John Cam Hobhouse, of the lustful attentions of his (Byron's) nurse. Hobhouse writes later:
When nine years old at his mother's house a free Scotch girl used to come to bed to him and play tricks with his person.
And Byron himself writes in Detached Thoughts (a serious of diary-like notes published years after his death under that title): in 1821:
My passions were developed very early - so early, that few would believe me, if I were to state the period, and the facts which accompanied it.
John Hanson informed Byron's mother of May Gray's unacceptable conduct towards the young lord in a letter dated 1st September 1799, suppressing his knowledge of the sexual play:
... her conduct towards your son while at Nottingham was shocking, and I was persuaded you needed but a hint of it to dismiss her... My honourable little companion (Byron) ... told me that she was perpetually beating him, and that his bones sometimes ached from it; that she brought all sorts of Company of the very lowest Description into his apartments; that she was out late at nights, and he was frequently left to put himself to bed; that she would take the Chaise-boys into the Chaise with her, and stopped at every little Ale-house to drink with them. But, Madam, this is not all, she has even --- traduced yourself. (Prothero, Rowland E (ed), The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol I, p 17)
The two parter about Byron in which Johnny Lee Miller played Lord B. used this story - Byron tells it to his sister and lover Augusta (they were half siblings who didn't grow up together and only got to know each other as teenagers) in this excerpt (at 1.45) - at what is probably his most vulnerable moment in the two parter.
Re: Byron
Date: 2020-10-01 05:34 am (UTC)My passions were developed very early - so early, that few would believe me, if I were to state the period, and the facts which accompanied it.
Yeah, that... is something. I can see how that would shape someone, a lot.