the feast was celebrated early* because Seckendorff has to leave for Saxony
Seckendorff to the other envoys: And this, kids, is why you are all amateurs compared with me. Did FW or Fritz rearrange their funtime schedule for your benefit, eh? I'm telling you, that man loved me.
"Well, it could have been much worse, all sounds very just and noble to me..."
Richard Wolff (editor): This is why the Stratemann gives us the real FW, not the unlovingly and harshly drawn distortion the Margravine as a bad daughter drew in her memoirs.
Stratemann, see what you did with your Disney AU!
He conveniently died in 1739, so he never got to know King Fritz. Or the kind of Queen EC ended up as being.
Though Ziebura, if I'm remembering correctly, says EC for a long time thought that things would go back to normal after Fritz was done with his glorious conquests...
Well, given that she kept expecting him to send for her as late as the 7 Years War, I don't doubt it. In 1740, she probably told herself "Well, he's busy with all this new workload, but once that's settled with...", and when the first Silesian War kicked off in the December, she could tell herself "well, of course he's busy with his glorious conquests, but once he comes back..."
I mean, EC might have been the sole person who hadn't heard Fritz pre marriage had dragged his feet as long as he could and had not wanted her on any level, let alone that he told Grumbkow the marriage would be over once he was King. They had lived together in Rheinsberg, he'd been happy, and had written kind, considerate letters to her, praising her, even, when he was elsewhere. Yes, they probably did not have much of a sex life, if any, but she had no reason to assume they wouldn't continue living like this once he was King.
Then again: if her father did show her some of Stratemann's reports to prepare her for her new family, she must have figured out these were, err, just an aspect of the truth as soon as she met her future in-laws and SD and the sisters started sniggering. No wonder she hardly said a word.
It's also how Boswell introduces this anecdote in "Life of Johnson". Incidentally, I just realised that the same Mr. Croker who proudly censored the already censored Lord Hervey's memoirs some more in his edition also published the edition of Boswell's Life that Macauly pours much scorn on (only some of which is for Boswell himself) for not only censoring Boswell's Georgian frankness but interpolating Boswell's text with other Johnson biographies. Croker: the Henri de Catt of Victorian editors, clearly. It's a good thing Boswell's diaries weren't published until the 20th century.
Re: Stratemann
Seckendorff to the other envoys: And this, kids, is why you are all amateurs compared with me. Did FW or Fritz rearrange their funtime schedule for your benefit, eh? I'm telling you, that man loved me.
"Well, it could have been much worse, all sounds very just and noble to me..."
Richard Wolff (editor): This is why the Stratemann gives us the real FW, not the unlovingly and harshly drawn distortion the Margravine as a bad daughter drew in her memoirs.
Stratemann, see what you did with your Disney AU!
He conveniently died in 1739, so he never got to know King Fritz. Or the kind of Queen EC ended up as being.
Though Ziebura, if I'm remembering correctly, says EC for a long time thought that things would go back to normal after Fritz was done with his glorious conquests...
Well, given that she kept expecting him to send for her as late as the 7 Years War, I don't doubt it. In 1740, she probably told herself "Well, he's busy with all this new workload, but once that's settled with...", and when the first Silesian War kicked off in the December, she could tell herself "well, of course he's busy with his glorious conquests, but once he comes back..."
I mean, EC might have been the sole person who hadn't heard Fritz pre marriage had dragged his feet as long as he could and had not wanted her on any level, let alone that he told Grumbkow the marriage would be over once he was King. They had lived together in Rheinsberg, he'd been happy, and had written kind, considerate letters to her, praising her, even, when he was elsewhere. Yes, they probably did not have much of a sex life, if any, but she had no reason to assume they wouldn't continue living like this once he was King.
Then again: if her father did show her some of Stratemann's reports to prepare her for her new family, she must have figured out these were, err, just an aspect of the truth as soon as she met her future in-laws and SD and the sisters started sniggering. No wonder she hardly said a word.
It's also how Boswell introduces this anecdote in "Life of Johnson". Incidentally, I just realised that the same Mr. Croker who proudly censored the already censored Lord Hervey's memoirs some more in his edition also published the edition of Boswell's Life that Macauly pours much scorn on (only some of which is for Boswell himself) for not only censoring Boswell's Georgian frankness but interpolating Boswell's text with other Johnson biographies. Croker: the Henri de Catt of Victorian editors, clearly. It's a good thing Boswell's diaries weren't published until the 20th century.