1. Their countries are allied. 2. Whitworth's under orders from Chief Minister Stanhope to work in concert with Rottembourg. 3. The two instances of him and Rottembourg working in concert are Rottembourg helping *him* rather than the other way around:
Aha, I chased down one of the sources of the Whitworth volume, and apparently, according to Whitworth, Rottembourg said that during the episode in which he got his hands on a draft of the proposed secret treaty between Prussia and Russia, he told Ilgen that if it contained anything against the king of England, according to his instructions from Versailles, he would have to tell Whitworth.
And Whitworth wrote all this to Stanhope and requested extreme secrecy, because if word got out that Rottembourg was passing him info, R would be compromised and unable to pass any more info on.
Also, apparently Rottembourg was in his bed and half asleep when he got the delivery meant for the Russian minister, saw what it was, closed it again, and sent it to the Russian minister.
I've sent a request to Royal Patron for a download of this pdf, which is George I and the Northern War, 1909, by James Chance, and which I can read and search but not download. Sigh. I can see it has Løvenørn!
Whitworth, biographer, btw, says Rottembourg was born in Italy, but then also says he was a Brandenburger who entered French service, when the Chance volume agrees with all my other sources that it was his father who did that. So grain of salt.
Oh, hey! I was searching Rottembourg's name (it is conveniently likely to turn up him and no one else, unlike *some* names I could mention), and I found the source for a story I'd encountered in several places: the memoirs of Marshal Villars (French commander at Malplaquet) say that it was Rottembourg who reported that FW beat Fritz for a "surprising reason": FW had ordered his family to eat with iron forks with two prongs, and he caught Fritz eating with a three-pronged silver fork, which enraged him and caused him to beat Fritz. This is 1727, btw, in case anyone tries to tell you FW only beat him in 1730. He'd been beating Fritz for quite some time at that point.
Re: The other diplomatic revolution(s): Addendum
2. Whitworth's under orders from Chief Minister Stanhope to work in concert with Rottembourg.
3. The two instances of him and Rottembourg working in concert are Rottembourg helping *him* rather than the other way around:
Aha, I chased down one of the sources of the Whitworth volume, and apparently, according to Whitworth, Rottembourg said that during the episode in which he got his hands on a draft of the proposed secret treaty between Prussia and Russia, he told Ilgen that if it contained anything against the king of England, according to his instructions from Versailles, he would have to tell Whitworth.
And Whitworth wrote all this to Stanhope and requested extreme secrecy, because if word got out that Rottembourg was passing him info, R would be compromised and unable to pass any more info on.
Also, apparently Rottembourg was in his bed and half asleep when he got the delivery meant for the Russian minister, saw what it was, closed it again, and sent it to the Russian minister.
I've sent a request to Royal Patron for a download of this pdf, which is George I and the Northern War, 1909, by James Chance, and which I can read and search but not download. Sigh. I can see it has Løvenørn!
Whitworth, biographer, btw, says Rottembourg was born in Italy, but then also says he was a Brandenburger who entered French service, when the Chance volume agrees with all my other sources that it was his father who did that. So grain of salt.
Oh, hey! I was searching Rottembourg's name (it is conveniently likely to turn up him and no one else, unlike *some* names I could mention), and I found the source for a story I'd encountered in several places: the memoirs of Marshal Villars (French commander at Malplaquet) say that it was Rottembourg who reported that FW beat Fritz for a "surprising reason": FW had ordered his family to eat with iron forks with two prongs, and he caught Fritz eating with a three-pronged silver fork, which enraged him and caused him to beat Fritz. This is 1727, btw, in case anyone tries to tell you FW only beat him in 1730. He'd been beating Fritz for quite some time at that point.