Say what you want about Seckendorff, but he definitely was up to the task. That is, I suspect FW never entirely was able to let go of the suspicion a dastardly scheme against him was foiled in 1719, but Seckendorff certainly had his hear more often than not until the last minute turnaround on the English/Braunschweig marriage projects in 1733, which wasn't Seckendorff's fault. so: good choice of envoy, Eugene!
Sophie of Hanover is with you on that, Arneth! Alas, Campaign Make Eugene FW's Role Model failed.
Arneth's "compare and contrast" of FW and Eugene at times was so close to Sophie's letters that I wondered whether he read them, but if so, he'd have to read them in the Prussian State Archive, as they hadn't been published yet. BTW, the way he sees FW's attitude to Eugene is:
Crown Prince FW: Hero worship because 'twas the era for fanboying Eugene. Young King FW: *hears a Eugene critique about promised Pussian support showing up, is insulted* =>cooling down, but still respect. Arneth says FW was constitutionally incapable of ever accepting he might have done something wrong, of course. FW in Clement Plot era and shortly thereafter: ET TU, EUGENE? I see through you now! FW post Seckendorff's arrival through the 1730s: Eugene: still the man... I guess. I'm sending animals for his menagerie as presents and tokens of respect because he won't accept any money, jewelry or silver drinking cups like August. But much as he's a military legend, he's also a Catholic, and I'm still not sure whether he wouldn't have kidnapped and assassinated me back in 1719 to get his hands on Fritz...
Eugene's attitude to FW throughout: I respect him as a monarch who actually works. But as I am the type of general who thinks parades are boring, I don't get his thing for them. As for his much praised army, I suspect the first time they see actual battle instead of parades and maneuvres, a full third of them will desert. And good lord, that temper!
All my sources on diplomacy from 1700-1731 show diplomats and heads of state constantly complaining about the unreliable and indecisive FW.
Which is why you can feel Arneth's frustration that the Prussians succesfully grabbed the narrative and made everyone pity poor, honest FW whose unrequited loyalty to his Emperor gets constantly exploited by the evil and slimy Austrians. Or by perfidioius Albion, if the writers are closer to the end of the 19th century and the German/British rivalry is heating up. But either way, the image is "FW might have been shouty and brutal, but he was Prussian honesty and reliability personified! Most honest man of the 18th century"
This is the one where Suhm offered Saxon mediation, iirc?
And Manteuffel went WTF?!? at him for it, yes.
It's your karma for doubting the MT series! ;) References to this marriage-that-didn't-happen are going to keep following you around!
Evidently. Which reminds me, someone still ought to do a separate Rheinsberg entry on the implication of Katte and Fritz diverging in their testimony on this one particular point and how now one ever seems to have realized this means Fritz point blank lied to Katte as part of persuading him to join the escape plan.
We did! Wilhelmine says so!
Mea culpa, but it's so like you to recall every detail of her Katte relevant statements. :)
Aww, man. I thought that was at Zeithain!
Me too, but evidently FW did it more than once. It's also interesting and telling about the social norms of the time that Seckendorff, who isn't a fan of young Fritz, still considers both the earlier verbal abuse ("titles worse than the most low-born man would shower his son with") and the hair dragging and chewing out beyond the pale. (So much for "FW was just acting like a normal German Hausvater".)
Both parties had everything to gain from a future queen on the throne of the other country, and little to gain from limiting the possibilities for alliances for their own heir.
That is true, though it has to be said that the Princess G2 ended up marrying Fritz of Wales to came from a far less important German principality and brought practically nothing to the table but being impeccably Protestant. Where I'm going with this: while FW might have okay'd Wilhelmine/FoW if the Brits had been willing to take her on her own, one shouldn't discount that one reason why both G2 and Caroline dragged out marrying off their eldest wasn't that they were hoping for a good alliance - honestly, in terms of available Protestant princesses at the time, I think Wilhelmine would have been the best match bar none, even without counting the fact she'd been literally educated from birth with this end goal in mind - but because their relationship with Fritz of Wales got worse and worse, and there was the not so hidden hope he'd die without an heir so favourite son Bill Cumberland would become King after all. I mean, even before FoW had set one foot on British soil, i.e. at a point where he really could not have done anything yet to piss them off, they were investigating possibilities to change the succession or at least split Hannover from Britain so Cumberland could inherit at least one. And if they'd gone ahead and married Wilhelmine to Fritz of Wales, say, in early 1730, the last point when it seemed still possible, this would have strenghtened unfave's FoW's position, especially if FW had given her a decent dowry after all, but even if not. She wasn't a shy wallflower like Augusta would be, she was a top educated woman of whom it could be expected to do well in establishing a rival court (much like Caroline herself had done when G2 had been Prince of Wales), and because her mother had been so fertile, she'd have been considered likely to reproduce at once, too. Paradoxically, all those qualities usually plusses in the royal marriage market might have worked as negatives with parents who really did not like their eldest son and didn't want him as successor.
As I recall, he also said that Amalia was going to encourage Fritz in a love of luxury so she could have things more like she was used to (like SD).
He did. Though having now read the letters of young SD and FW to Sophie and Sophie's to them, I have to say this is FW rewriting the past somewhat. Sure, F1 made much of his new daughter-in-law and surrounded her with luxury, but that was F1. SD herself says she's getting spoiled, i.e. this is not the norm of what she was used to from her Hannover childhood. And Schnath says that G1 as Prince Elector of Hannover wasn't a big money spender. (SD was already married by the time her father became King of England.) Now undoubtedly she was used to a more princely style than what FW would eventually offer, but not to, say, something like what the mistresses of August the Strong got, let alone Versailles.
Well, I'm glad you at least weren't expecting to get the 1730s money back, which makes it true that you weren't a usurer where he was concerned. ;)
This reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask you: since Fritz wasn't privy to these letters between Eugene and Seckendorff - how much did he, personally, blame Seckendorff and Team Vienna in general for his late 1720s/early 1730s miseries? You mentioned his anti-Seckendorff outburst in a letter to Suhm; does this offer a good indication of this?
Re: Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
Say what you want about Seckendorff, but he definitely was up to the task. That is, I suspect FW never entirely was able to let go of the suspicion a dastardly scheme against him was foiled in 1719, but Seckendorff certainly had his hear more often than not until the last minute turnaround on the English/Braunschweig marriage projects in 1733, which wasn't Seckendorff's fault. so: good choice of envoy, Eugene!
Sophie of Hanover is with you on that, Arneth! Alas, Campaign Make Eugene FW's Role Model failed.
Arneth's "compare and contrast" of FW and Eugene at times was so close to Sophie's letters that I wondered whether he read them, but if so, he'd have to read them in the Prussian State Archive, as they hadn't been published yet. BTW, the way he sees FW's attitude to Eugene is:
Crown Prince FW: Hero worship because 'twas the era for fanboying Eugene.
Young King FW: *hears a Eugene critique about promised Pussian support showing up, is insulted* =>cooling down, but still respect. Arneth says FW was constitutionally incapable of ever accepting he might have done something wrong, of course.
FW in Clement Plot era and shortly thereafter: ET TU, EUGENE? I see through you now!
FW post Seckendorff's arrival through the 1730s: Eugene: still the man... I guess. I'm sending animals for his menagerie as presents and tokens of respect because he won't accept any money, jewelry or silver drinking cups like August. But much as he's a military legend, he's also a Catholic, and I'm still not sure whether he wouldn't have kidnapped and assassinated me back in 1719 to get his hands on Fritz...
Eugene's attitude to FW throughout: I respect him as a monarch who actually works. But as I am the type of general who thinks parades are boring, I don't get his thing for them. As for his much praised army, I suspect the first time they see actual battle instead of parades and maneuvres, a full third of them will desert. And good lord, that temper!
All my sources on diplomacy from 1700-1731 show diplomats and heads of state constantly complaining about the unreliable and indecisive FW.
Which is why you can feel Arneth's frustration that the Prussians succesfully grabbed the narrative and made everyone pity poor, honest FW whose unrequited loyalty to his Emperor gets constantly exploited by the evil and slimy Austrians. Or by perfidioius Albion, if the writers are closer to the end of the 19th century and the German/British rivalry is heating up. But either way, the image is "FW might have been shouty and brutal, but he was Prussian honesty and reliability personified! Most honest man of the 18th century"
This is the one where Suhm offered Saxon mediation, iirc?
And Manteuffel went WTF?!? at him for it, yes.
It's your karma for doubting the MT series! ;) References to this marriage-that-didn't-happen are going to keep following you around!
Evidently. Which reminds me, someone still ought to do a separate Rheinsberg entry on the implication of Katte and Fritz diverging in their testimony on this one particular point and how now one ever seems to have realized this means Fritz point blank lied to Katte as part of persuading him to join the escape plan.
We did! Wilhelmine says so!
Mea culpa, but it's so like you to recall every detail of her Katte relevant statements. :)
Aww, man. I thought that was at Zeithain!
Me too, but evidently FW did it more than once. It's also interesting and telling about the social norms of the time that Seckendorff, who isn't a fan of young Fritz, still considers both the earlier verbal abuse ("titles worse than the most low-born man would shower his son with") and the hair dragging and chewing out beyond the pale. (So much for "FW was just acting like a normal German Hausvater".)
Both parties had everything to gain from a future queen on the throne of the other country, and little to gain from limiting the possibilities for alliances for their own heir.
That is true, though it has to be said that the Princess G2 ended up marrying Fritz of Wales to came from a far less important German principality and brought practically nothing to the table but being impeccably Protestant. Where I'm going with this: while FW might have okay'd Wilhelmine/FoW if the Brits had been willing to take her on her own, one shouldn't discount that one reason why both G2 and Caroline dragged out marrying off their eldest wasn't that they were hoping for a good alliance - honestly, in terms of available Protestant princesses at the time, I think Wilhelmine would have been the best match bar none, even without counting the fact she'd been literally educated from birth with this end goal in mind - but because their relationship with Fritz of Wales got worse and worse, and there was the not so hidden hope he'd die without an heir so favourite son Bill Cumberland would become King after all. I mean, even before FoW had set one foot on British soil, i.e. at a point where he really could not have done anything yet to piss them off, they were investigating possibilities to change the succession or at least split Hannover from Britain so Cumberland could inherit at least one. And if they'd gone ahead and married Wilhelmine to Fritz of Wales, say, in early 1730, the last point when it seemed still possible, this would have strenghtened unfave's FoW's position, especially if FW had given her a decent dowry after all, but even if not. She wasn't a shy wallflower like Augusta would be, she was a top educated woman of whom it could be expected to do well in establishing a rival court (much like Caroline herself had done when G2 had been Prince of Wales), and because her mother had been so fertile, she'd have been considered likely to reproduce at once, too. Paradoxically, all those qualities usually plusses in the royal marriage market might have worked as negatives with parents who really did not like their eldest son and didn't want him as successor.
As I recall, he also said that Amalia was going to encourage Fritz in a love of luxury so she could have things more like she was used to (like SD).
He did. Though having now read the letters of young SD and FW to Sophie and Sophie's to them, I have to say this is FW rewriting the past somewhat. Sure, F1 made much of his new daughter-in-law and surrounded her with luxury, but that was F1. SD herself says she's getting spoiled, i.e. this is not the norm of what she was used to from her Hannover childhood. And Schnath says that G1 as Prince Elector of Hannover wasn't a big money spender. (SD was already married by the time her father became King of England.) Now undoubtedly she was used to a more princely style than what FW would eventually offer, but not to, say, something like what the mistresses of August the Strong got, let alone Versailles.
Well, I'm glad you at least weren't expecting to get the 1730s money back, which makes it true that you weren't a usurer where he was concerned. ;)
This reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask you: since Fritz wasn't privy to these letters between Eugene and Seckendorff - how much did he, personally, blame Seckendorff and Team Vienna in general for his late 1720s/early 1730s miseries? You mentioned his anti-Seckendorff outburst in a letter to Suhm; does this offer a good indication of this?