cahn | Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 23

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cahn

aaaaaand it's time for a new discussion post! :D (you guys are so fast!)

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

IKR? Talk about born into the wrong family... :(

From:

selenak

If someone wants to do a really depressing anthology, children of royal families finding themselves on the wrong side of a power struggle make a good subject. EC's brother and his kinds remind me in this regard of the grandkids of the other Friedrich II. of interest, the medieval Emperor, stupor mundi, who died undefeated but in the middle of yet another power struggle with the papacy. In the subsequent years, most of his sons died, and after the defeat and death of his son Manfred by by the Pope-backed Charles d'Anjou, Manfred's children, Frederick's grandchildren, were locked up under barbaric conditions in, for extra sadism, Frederick's favourite residence, the Castel del Monte in Apulia. To quote wiki: (Manfred's wife )Helena and all her children were captured by Charles of Anjou after Manfred's death in 1266. Helena died in prison in Nocera in 1271. Her three sons with Manfred – the oldest only four years old at the time – were imprisoned in the Castel del Monte until 1299, when Charles II had them unchained and moved to the Castel dell'Ovo. Their living conditions were exceptionally miserable compared to the norm for noble prisoners. Kept in darkness, in heavy chains and with barely enough food to survive they became "blind and half-mad". The stress of the move proved too much for Azzolino, who died soon after (in 1301). Henry survived another eighteen years, dying aged fifty-four on 31 October, 1318, "half-starved, half-mad and probably blind".

Then there are the children of the last two Welsh princes of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffud and his brother Davydd ap Gruffud. After Llywelyn ap Gruffud died and Edward I. had captured Davydd, he invented the punishment of "hanged, drawn and quartered" for Davydd, put Llywelyn's sole daughter and Davydd's daughters who were all small children into nunneries (where they remained for the rest of their lives, but not even the same nunnery, no, they were all separated), and Davydd's sons, also children, were imprisoned in Bristol Castle for their remaining lives. Davydd's widow Elizabeth was not allowed to see any of her children ever again. And Edward made his own son (future Edward II) the first English Prince of Wales to express how thoroughly he had defeated the Welsh. (I could be wrong, but I think Charles, the current Prince of Wales, is the first one to bother learning the Welsh language and show an interest in the culture.)

Moving on a few centuries, following the big who-killed-the-Princes-in-the-Tower debate, there's the not mysterious at all fate of their cousin, the late George of Clarence's son, who was also a child when Richard III died, another Edward by name (and Richard's heir after the death of Richard's own son). Henry (VII) Tudor had little Edward locked up in the Tower until he was an adult and then had him executed under a pretext. (Conspiring with rebels, which is tricky to do if you're locked up in a cell.) Edward's sister Margaret otoh was allowed to live, got married, lived in fact for decades, but the Tudors got her anyway - she sided with Katherine of Aragon in the big Henry VIII divorce struggle, and later Henry accused her of plotting against him thereafter, and Margaret's execution has the dubious honor of being one of the bloodiest and most botched, with her struggling against it - I think the stories differ between seven and eleven (!) strokes with the axe being necessary.

In conclusion: sometimes, one almost believes the kids who were killed instantly were the lucky ones...

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Louis XVII. Even if many of the most graphic accounts of his abuse in prison have to be taken with a grain of salt called "post-restoration royalist bias", after being imprisoned, then separated from his family, having his mother (Marie Antoinette) accused of sexually abusing him, and his parents being executed, he apparently refused to speak in the last months of his life. Supposedly out of protest at how his mother was treated but if you ask me, likely out of trauma. Then died at age 10, still in prison. Still better off than Ivan VI, but sucks to be any of them.

From:

cahn

...yeah, that's no good either :P

From:

cahn

Ugh! Yeah, I am thinking the kids who were killed instantly were the lucky ones :P It's one thing (although still awful) to do it to an adult, and another thing entirely to do this to kids, and their whole lives :(

Also, seven and eleven strokes with the axe?? I am really really hoping she lost consciousness early on and those were autonomic struggles, omg.