I also had just a short time for looking at the three volume Arneth bio, or rather, at the preface and the lead up to 1730 and 1730 sections with footnotes. Arneth is writing this very obviously from a defensive position where almost all 19th century readers/writers have adopted the Hohenzollern narrative. Which means not only is he correcting but he sometimes goes over the top in defending. Some examples for both:
Clement affair (remember, the guy had sold FW on a Eugene masterminded scheme where FW gets killed or kidnapped at Wusterhausen and Fritz gets raised as a Catholic and controlled by Vienna): bonkers. Says a lot about FW that he actually believed this, and even after Clement admitted the forgery thought it was more likely Clement recanted out of fear and had originally said the truth. Incidentally, the Clement Affair and another minor issue led to Seckendorff's appointment as envoy in Berlin. Eugene had picked him explicitly to get FW out of his paranoid "Team Habsburg and Eugene wanted to kidnap/assassinate me and raise my kid!" mind frame and back to (at least mostly) supporting his Emperor. Because Seckendorff was a bona fide general (and successful as such), and FW knew and approved of him since Stralsund, and because he was able to keep a poker face and didn't let himself be rattled, Seckendorff was deemed ideal for this tricky job.
FW in general: let's get one thing straight, Prussians. For all your insistence that honest honest poor FW was hoodwinked by Team Austria, "honest" FW kept making contradictory treaties with both sides and kept wavering and also, good lord, that temper. Also, my guy Eugene was an actual military hero who nonetheless didn't shout abuse at people and kick them, he was super generous instead of miserly, and he loved culture. He was the A plus combination of what's best of French and German traits. Whereas FW... Well, okay. He did make Prussia rich and solvent this way and created a good army.
So far, so good. But then.
Bribery: Okay. Yeah. Seckendorff was instructed to bribe everyone, and Grumbkow was the best example, except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon. I do mention sums of everyone else's briberies, because EVERYONE was bribing officials in that century, see Louis offering sum x, Peter the Great sum Y, and also this and also that, and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
Hohenzollern family politics: Look here, Prussians, all these complaints that Seckendorff is to blame for enlarging the rift between FW and his two oldest kids are totally unfair. On the contrary, lemme quote Eugen's letters instructing Seckendorff to get tight with the Crown Prince as well because Eugene knew FW could die of a stroke any time and then it would have been bad to start with an Austria-hating new monarch. Seckendorff was to signal friendliness and willingness to reconcile father and son. Okay, Seckendorff was also instructed to work against the English marriages, but that was politics! Oh, and fyi, shut up with all the "how dare Team Austria intervene with Fritz' and Wilhelmine's marriages, what business was that of theirs" - I never hear you asking "how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!" That never gets quoted by you, does it? Which is why I'm quoting it now. Marriages of future royalty were ALWAYS politics, and so every other monarch minded and commented and pushed. Though btw, why FW thought marrying his kids to the Brits would make them too Brit friendly and why Eugene & Seckendorff thought the same is beyond me, given that FW's own marriage was the primary example of how you can be married to the sister of the King of England and still hate his guts. Speaking of England:
FW/G2 almost duel crisis of 1729:
Eugene: Thumbs up! I like it. That G2 is getting way to big for his breeches and Prince Elector of Hanover. Seckendorff, tell FW if there's war, I'm totally joining in .
FW/G2 reconciliation happens.
Eugene: Go figure. That man is so unreliable. Any news on the "make the kid like us" front, Seckendorff? Seckendorff: Well, he's taking money from me, but if you want my opinion, that kid is evil (böse) and false (falsch) to the core, and if you're hoping for gratitude once FW kicks the bucket, forget it.
Eugene: ...Keep trying to reconcile them anyway. I'm trying to be an optimist here, and he's the future monarch.
(Arneth: SEE!!!!)
Eugene: Still, maybe it can't hurt to make nice with the Brits ourselves.
Brits: We want it in writing that you're never, ever, going to marry MT to Fritz.
Eugene: Perfidious Albion. Firstly, no one in their right mind would believe FW would ever go for such a marriage. But he WOULD be incredibly insulted if such a clause is in a treaty anyway. Secondly, us refusing to include such a clause will undoubtedly be useful as propaganda claiming we intend this marriage. I'm getting too old for this crap.
Arneth: SEEEEEEE!!!!!
Including S's reaction to Katte's execution! Which seems to be a three parter: 1) "I really hope FW listens to 80-yo Grandpa Wartensleben and me and spares Katte's life." 2) "Welp, after all that executing Katte and especially under Fritz's eyes, FW can expect his reputation to take a hit, especially in England." 3) "I just had a look at the Punctae, where Katte tells Fritz to be obedient to his father and not to buy into flattery. Which, if you read between the lines, tells you a lot about what Katte was up to before,"...and then the endless sentence went on and I ran out of time to finish it, but my impression is, "Maybe it was for the best."
Having read it, the later two reactions are from Eugene, not Seckendorff (seems Grumbkow sent a copy of the Punctae to Eugene), but yeah, that's what it amounts to, i.e. the final conclusion is that the Punctae show pre-death sentence Katte must have been a flatterer goading Fritz against his father in an already incindiary situation, and maybe he is better off dead. BTw, did we know Seckendorff pleaded for Katte's life before? I don't think we did.
Letters quoted in the footnotes of interest:
Eugene to Seckendorff, Sept. 20th 1727: ...it would be very good if you'd manage a good standing with the Queen and the Crown Prince, especially the later. Do anything reasonable to win him over, and convert him to good principles bit by bit, but in a decent way, and you'll know to be careful enough not to expose yourself too much with the Queen...
Seckendorff to Eugene, Sept. 14th 1728: The King's discontent about the Crown Prince and the Princess Royal's (Kronprinzessin, not Kronprinz, i.e. Wilhemine) displeasure caused by their Lord Father rises more by the day, for the King doesn't hesitate at public meals to shower the Crown Prince with such titles as the most common and low of men would hesitate to give to his son.
This is nearly two years before the flight attempt, note. In a letter from October to Eugene, Seckendorff claims to have reconciled father and son. Which, well, if he did does not last long, as Seckendorff himself documents. Seckendorff also testifies the famous hair dragging event:
Seckendorff to Eugene, December 3rd 1729: I have to tell your grace in deepest confidence that yesterday in the morning, the King has grabbed the Crown Prince at his hair and dragged him around since (FW) had noticed that (Fritz) hadn't been clean and well dressed enough. After the Crown Prince had been finally released, he talked to Lieutenant Colonel Rochow who has been assigned to him about this with tears in his eyes. Rochow, following my advice, has decided to admonish the King somewhat on this matter. ("dem König Vorstellungen darüber zu machen" is difficult to translate. It's not "chiding", which Rochow can't do to his monarch, but it's stronger than just "talk to him about".)
Anyway, Arneth quotes all this as proof Seckendorff wasn't campaigning to deepen the rift between FW and Fritz but tried to help Fritz. (Not selflessly but in order to gain a good standing with the next monarch, but he did try.) Arneth also has a point that FW's dislike of G2 would have ensured the British marriages would not have happened in any case, even without the Austrians campaigning against them. But what he doesn't say and what is undoubtedly also true is that Team HRE throwing their weight against the British marriages at a point where FW was pro HRE did inevitably contribute to make things worse for Fritz and Wilhelmine since their mother had made the English marriages not only their filial duty to her but presented them as their own possible escape from FW.
Eugene to Seckendorff, September 20th 1730 (i.e. post arrest, pre execution): It is the Emperor's opinion and order that you behave in this matter that has evolved between the King and the Crown Prince as delicatedly and sensibly as possible, to prevent any further escalation, to pour water into the fire, to help and assist the Prince as much as you possibly can...
Seckendorff to Eugene, October 9th 1730 (still before the execution, but after a lot of interrogations): Due to the Crown Prince's very false, secretive and malicious temper, I have little faith regarding a continuation of the Imperial Alliance in the future.
Eugene's reply letter is dated October 31st 1730 and says that while such a temper as Seckendorff ascribes to the Crown Prince probably won't know gratitude, and Fritz is undoubtedly still in the France/England Yay! mindframe he's been indoctrinated with by his mother: "His Imperial Majesty is not deterred by this from insisting on you following the instructions as given through me, for this matter has to end one way or another, and it is therefore better if his Imperial Majesty gets the credit, especially since your Excellency reports that the Queen and the entire Prussian cabinet seems to believe the Emperor alone would be able to mediate and reconcile the Crown Prince with the King, and if this doesn't happen all the evilminded people will spread the word that the Emperor rejoices in this disaster and that he has advised the King to be relentless. Eugene also expresses the hope that even if Seckendorff is right about Fritz now, he's still very young and has years to learn better, and also, he (Eugene, not Fritz) has read the interrogation protocol forwarded to him by Grumbkow & Seckendorf and thoughtt hat: The King's questions were put very sharply, while the Prince's replies were given rather modestly and with short sentences just as the King prefers.
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
You always say you're not going to have time to read, and it's always a lie. :DD
Arneth is writing this very obviously from a defensive position
Obvious, cahn, because Arneth was an Austrian. He was the head of the state archives, and he published reams of historical documentation, including a 10-volume bio of MT and a ton of correspondence, which is how we know MT did not, in fact, write to Madame Pompadour. That's the reason he came to mind when Selena said "collection of Seckendorff's envoy reports and letters to Eugene."
Incidentally, the Clement Affair and another minor issue led to Seckendorff's appointment as envoy in Berlin. Eugene had picked him explicitly to get FW out of his paranoid "Team Habsburg and Eugene wanted to kidnap/assassinate me and raise my kid!" mind frame and back to (at least mostly) supporting his Emperor.
Ahhh! I love when pieces fall together like this.
Also, my guy Eugene was an actual military hero who nonetheless didn't shout abuse at people and kick them, he was super generous instead of miserly, and he loved culture.
Sophie of Hanover is with you on that, Arneth! Alas, Campaign Make Eugene FW's Role Model failed.
except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon.
ARGH and as archivist I know you must have known!
and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
This is very true. When Whitworth, who does not come across as a particularly slimy diplomat--although again, my perspective is skewed by the filter his biographer presented--showed up in Russia, he wrote back home, "Look, you know what the problem is? My predecessors (the tobacco contractors, because actual political representation in Russia wasn't important to the Brits in this period) didn't suck up to Menshikov enough, and they didn't bribe the right ministers. Let me show you how a professional does it."
(Menshikov is Peter the Great's Grumbkow, only they probably had sex.)
never hear you asking "how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!" That never gets quoted by you, does it? Which is why I'm quoting it now.
I had actually run across this, but I forget where. Lavisse, maybe.
Reminder: the 1725 Treaty of Hanover, which formed an alliance between Prussia, France, Britain, and Hanover (later including Sweden and the Netherlands), was in response to the Spanish-Austrian alliance, which was when the MT/Don Carlos marriage idea was tossed around. (Charles VI was never going to do it, but he kept Philip and Isabella dangling with hints, and the rest of Europe was worried he was serious.)
1728: FW defected and signed a secret treaty with Charles. Which:
"honest" FW kept making contradictory treaties with both sides and kept wavering
Yep. All my sources on diplomacy from 1700-1731 show diplomats and heads of state constantly complaining about the unreliable and indecisive FW.
FW/G2 almost duel crisis of 1729:
Eugene: Thumbs up! I like it. That G2 is getting way to big for his breeches and Prince Elector of Hanover. Seckendorff, tell FW if there's war, I'm totally joining in .
Hahaha. This is the one where Suhm offered Saxon mediation, iirc?
that kid is evil (böse) and false (falsch) to the core, and if you're hoping for gratitude once FW kicks the bucket, forget it.
Well spotted!
Eugene: ...Keep trying to reconcile them anyway. I'm trying to be an optimist here
Hope springs eternal, as I always like to say.
Brits: We want it in writing that you're never, ever, going to marry MT to Fritz.
([personal profile] selenak: REALLY? Did I read this?)
It's your karma for doubting the MT series! ;) References to this marriage-that-didn't-happen are going to keep following you around!
Having read it, the later two reactions are from Eugene, not Seckendorff (seems Grumbkow sent a copy of the Punctae to Eugene)
Right, yes, I remember that now! (I remember being surprised that it had made its way all the way to Austria.) This got lost not in translation from German to me, but from my memory to my write-up. The problem with being at the decipherment stage of German is that I have to commit to memory whatever I read that I want to talk about, because I can't glance at the page while writing. One day!
BTw, did we know Seckendorff pleaded for Katte's life before? I don't think we did.
We did! Wilhelmine says so! It's actually the first sentence in her Katte episode:
Sekendorff also attempted to save Katt; but the king remained inflexible.
I remember it in particular because Thiebault's doctored memoirs also opened that way, and as you may recall, I did a line-by-line textual criticism comparison of the passages before realizing Thiebault's were doctored:
Seckendorf also wanted to save Katte, and he was joined by an assortment of people of the highest rank.
(At least *some* texts I can commit to memory!)
Seckendorff also testifies the famous hair dragging event:
Aww, man. I thought that was at Zeithain! The one where he got knocked to the ground and chewed out for hygiene and had to appear on parade in front of everyone in dishevelled hair and uniform. It was a different one? Poor Fritz. Note that he had tried to run with Peter (and not yet Katte) just the month before, and a month later, he'll still be trying to run away and that's why Peter gets sent to Wesel.
Arneth also has a point that FW's dislike of G2 would have ensured the British marriages would not have happened in any case, even without the Austrians campaigning against them.
Fritz/Amalia, maybe not, but you don't think there was a chance for Wilhelmine/FoW? FW seemed more inclined to allow that, as I recall, and it was the Brits insisting on double-or-nothing, and Hotham trying to blacken Grumbkow, that ruined it. (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.)
Though btw, why FW thought marrying his kids to the Brits would make them too Brit friendly and why Eugene & Seckendorff thought the same is beyond me, given that FW's own marriage was the primary example of how you can be married to the sister of the King of England and still hate his guts.
But FW was worried that his kids (esp. Fritz) were Brit-friendly because of their mother, and I could see him worrying that the same would happen with the grandkids. 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).
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
Ahahaha. 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. ;)
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?
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.
Yeah, it's been on my Trello list since you first mentioned it, because I agree. The obstacle has been that it's been spread across a number of not-very-searchable posts ("marriage"? "MT"? neither of those is going to narrow it down) that I no longer remember what they all are.
I was actually planning to ask you to help me flesh out my memory on what our sources are.
- Hinrichs for Katte saying he had to help his boyfriend escape the evil Catholic plot. - Förster for the Seckendorff and Eugene correspondence on Fritz's 1731 marriage proposal. - Zimmermann for how it would have been totally awesome. - Nicolai interviewing Muller Jr. who was all, "Fritz would NEVER!"
What else? I think as late as 1732 or even 1733 Fritz was writing "The Empress should give me her daughter rather than her niece," but to whom? Grumbkow?
And I feel like I'm missing something else, possibly several something elses. Help me out here.
Once I have the sources, it'll be easier for me to put the post together. I mean, possibly after RMSE (Peter Keith essay also currently on hold), but still.
What else? I think as late as 1732 or even 1733 Fritz was writing "The Empress should give me her daughter rather than her niece," but to whom? Grumbkow?
Grumbkow, and as far as I recall it was but the last of a whole series of such suggestions to Grumbkow, starting with the one which might even have been in late 1731, not 1732, where Fritz woke up his small Küstrin entourage to have them all sign on a letter to Grumbkow suggesting a him/MT match and Grumbkow wrote horrified WTF? letters to both Eugene and to one of the Küstrin guys. I also remember first coming across one of the "Fritz suggests marrying MT to Grumbkow" letters in one of the German editions, possibly the one which also has the letter of Fritz mentioning Katte to Grumbkow (which as I recall wasn't in the French Trier letters) in the context of his ditching Manteuffel.
Hinrichs also in "Der Kronprinzenprozess" has Fritz repeatedly denying ever telling Katte of the Evil Catholic Marriage Plot, remember, and both quotes - from Katte and from Fritz - are really important since this is the one issue where their testimonies diverged.
Nicolai isn't a witness, but he does express - in his refutation of Zimmermann's "Fritz didn't want to escape to England or France, he totally wanted to go to Austria to marry MT!" - the in retrospect insightful opinion that the Katte who wrote such good Protestant Christian last letters would never have signed on to such a project (of Fritz marrying a Catholic Archduchess).
Thanks! I've added these to my notes and will do a post someday.
Grumbkow, and as far as I recall it was but the last of a whole series of such suggestions to Grumbkow, starting with the one which might even have been in late 1731, not 1732, where Fritz woke up his small Küstrin entourage to have them all sign on a letter to Grumbkow suggesting a him/MT match and Grumbkow wrote horrified WTF? letters to both Eugene and to one of the Küstrin guys.
I think that might have been the April 1731 episode, which I remember Grumbkow being involved in.
Hinrichs also in "Der Kronprinzenprozess" has Fritz repeatedly denying ever telling Katte of the Evil Catholic Marriage Plot, remember, and both quotes - from Katte and from Fritz - are really important since this is the one issue where their testimonies diverged.
Yes, I remember! I was taking that as said when I included Hinrichs in the list of sources.
Nicolai isn't a witness, but he does express - in his refutation of Zimmermann's "Fritz didn't want to escape to England or France, he totally wanted to go to Austria to marry MT!" - the in retrospect insightful opinion that the Katte who wrote such good Protestant Christian last letters would never have signed on to such a project (of Fritz marrying a Catholic Archduchess).
Oh, right, I'd forgotten that! And we commended him for figuring that out without access to the archival sources!
Incidentally, given how bad the Punctae made Katte look in the eyes of someone like Eugene, and if that "The tyrant demands blood" quote was real, and given that the Punctae wasn't even in his handwriting, I still wish I knew whose idea it was, what they said to Katte (assuming it was someone else's idea), and what he was thinking when he wrote it. Like, I've come around to believing he wasn't faking the piety at the end, but how repentant was he about the escape attempt, actually? Maybe he felt like Dad: okay, shouldn't have done it, but the punishment was really disproportionate?
Like, I've come around to believing he wasn't faking the piety at the end, but how repentant was he about the escape attempt, actually? Maybe he felt like Dad: okay, shouldn't have done it, but the punishment was really disproportionate?
That would be my guess, because I do think the "the tyrant demands blood" quote is authentic, not least because this is Katte talking to a regiment comrade whom he can be reasonably sure won't report it to either his father or FW, and also because all the other reports of Katte walking to his death puts such a heavy emphasis on Katte's Christian fortitude and bravery - it's not the kind of story you'd make up if you were basing your idea of Katte on what was available to the public at the time, i.e. the Pamphlet with the last letters.
Whose idea the Punctae were: my money is on Müller, with maybe FW having given strong hints to Müller when charging him with the task. Given that the phrasing of the Punctae re: flattery is (in the negative) almost identical with how FW puts it both in his known letters and on the occasion of the August 1731 public submission - that Fritz only listened to flatterers goading him against his father and telling him what he wanted to hear, and never to people (read: FW) who had his actual welfare in mind -, I think that some kind of FW nvolvement is more than likely. Not in the sense that he actually dictated the Punctae to Müller who got Katte to sign off on them, but in the sense of saying that if Katte was truly repentant and wanted to do a good thing before he died, he should encourage Fritz to see things his father's way etc. And then Müller said something like "Young man, if you want to do one last thing for your friend, this would help reconcile him to his father and would also show the King you did repent your deed."
However, playing devil's advocate: all the editorial chiding of Wilhelmine for having been a bad daughter I encountered these last years underlined to me again just how big the taboo of a child going against their (male) parent was in the historical patriarchy, and Katte was when all is said and done a child of his time, who in addition to said taboo may have felt guilty for the military part of his "misdeamanour", because of the Prussian Kool-Aid, i.e.: as many a FW defender pointed out, as a part of the army he was guilty of attempted desertion, betraying his supreme commander by not reporting Fritz' plans in the first place, and conspiracy with foreign powers (the Dickens conversations). Now the FW essay collection had I think Kloosterhuis arguing again that given FW's state of health and the fact Fritz was his successor, you could even argue that the whole thing counted as an attempted coup against the government. I don't think so, but FW most certainly did, and by November 1730, Katte, who lived in a society FW had imprinted with his mindset to a degree at least, had been talking for months with people argueing that view as well. I mean, Fritz pre Katte's execution sounds defiant in his letters to Wilhelmine, and certainly not broken or believing he'd done wrong (other than by getting caught and causing Katte go get caught). But Katte is in a somewhat different psychological position. Fritz is absolutely convinced (with reason) FW won't execute him, and he knows how unbearable his treatment has been. Katte is increasingly sure he will die, he also - if he says the truth re: that in his interrogation and didn't massage it somewhat for FW - has known from the start this was a bad idea and yet eventually signed on anyway, and if he dies, he's going to face divine judgment for having acted both against the law and against his own better knowledge. True, after his death at least one preacher will write to his father in a way that casts Katte as a martyr who has been unjustly slain. But before his death, he's more likely to have heard from any FW approved preacher that he could end up in hell for his sins (leaving completely aside whether or not he and Fritz were lovers, and whether Katte feels guilty on that count as well) if he doesn't repent.
So: as advocatus diaboli, I could make a psychological case that Katte did truly repent. However, as not to spoil your Sunday, let me add this: our friend Peter Keith was just as much a child of the 18th century and raised with the Prussian Kool-Aid. I haven't seen any indication he ever felt guilty for either deserting or conspiring with Fritz or keeping secrets from his sovereign. He may have felt survivor's guilt later, but that's our interpretation. What we don't from him is a quote along the lines of "yeah, really shouldn't have done that!" So it's just as possible Katte felt himself justified in the Lutheran sense because he'd acted on both his friend's and his future sovereign's behalf, and he had seen to much not to believe that helping Fritz in this particular situation was the only thing he could have done, in the end. After all, this is the man who minutes before his death tells Fritz there is nothing to forgive and he dies gladly for him. (Which is a different thing than dying for his sins.)
Whose idea the Punctae were: my money is on Müller
Agreed, that's my thought as well..
with maybe FW having given strong hints to Müller when charging him with the task.
Maybe, but FW wrote Müller a letter saying, "I've never met you, but I've heard good things. Please try to make my son repentant, but be careful and make sure he's *really* repentant, because he's a lying liar who lies." Now, the letter (in Youth Documents in the library) ends with "...", so there may well be "and make Katte write a last letter" stuff that the editor didn't see fit to include, or there may be another letter, but I'm inclined to think FW didn't give him this task explicitly, because I would have thought the editor would include it, since it would be too relevant to Fritz to omit.
What occurs to me is that FW confronted Katte in person at his arrest, and started yelling and hitting him. I mean, I forget if that's from a reliable source, but I think it is?
He may have been yelling about flattery and Absalom and stuff to Katte, and Katte may have been inclined to try to appease FW's fears in the last letter. So it's possible he got his insights into what FW was thinking from the horse's mouth.
Katte was when all is said and done a child of his time, who in addition to said taboo may have felt guilty for the military part of his "misdeamanour", because of the Prussian Kool-Aid
Yeah, I always got the impression Katte was a partial Kool-aid drinker--like, it went against his nature but the societal forces were strong, and he was susceptible to them. The part where didn't want to join the army but did, went AWOL in England and thoght about staying but then decided to come back (and got reprimanded for going AWOL!), and tried to talk Fritz out of escaping/deserting (probably less than he claimed he did, but enough that Fritz felt the need to lie to him) but then went along with it.
Ditto Peter, who was gung-ho about escaping, went for it without hesitation, and lived a civilian life in exile, but then decided he wanted to join the British navy. But then decided he hated the navy, but liked the climate in Portugal, so he got what appears to have been a nominal position in the army while using his time to study Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian and read books. And then by 1742, had broken under the weight of Prussian Kool-aid enough to ask to be allowed to go to war, but it's not clear that he ever did, and quite clearly seems to have focused on his civilian career rather than his still as-nominal-as-possible-in-Prussia military one. (I still wonder what Peter's responsibilities as Lt. Col. in peacetime actually were: I would assume regimental parade duties, but he had to be invited specially by Fritz to attend the top-secret military parade in Spandau in 1753 as a spectator, so...)
So: as advocatus diaboli, I could make a psychological case that Katte did truly repent. However, as not to spoil your Sunday
Hahaha, no, no worries. I've always had it as my headcanon that Katte's relationship with his own father, in the society in which he was indoctrinated, was such that he felt that you *should* obey your father even if he was strict; that some of Katte's reluctance to join the cause of desertion was because he partially blamed Fritz for provoking FW; and that it took him a while for the "this is not normal strict Prussian Hausvater behavior like my father's" to outweigh "but honor thy father!" in the scales for him.
So it's just as possible Katte felt himself justified in the Lutheran sense because he'd acted on both his friend's and his future sovereign's behalf, and he had seen to much not to believe that helping Fritz in this particular situation was the only thing he could have done, in the end. After all, this is the man who minutes before his death tells Fritz there is nothing to forgive and he dies gladly for him. (Which is a different thing than dying for his sins.)
Yes, I'm always struck by the fact that Katte's final priorities were wanting to visit Fritz the night before, wanting to reassure him of his blamelessness, and wanting to blow kisses at him. It's evidence relevant not just to the question of how much he repents, but also for the nature of his relationship to Fritz: while I'm sure he was all, "Sweet, I'm all set to be in the next king's good graces like my father with Fritz's father and my grandfather with Fritz's grandfather, and it's going to pay off," he really had nothing to gain from blowing kisses at Fritz at the last minute. I mean, unless he's thinking Fritz is going to do what he would end up doing for HH and Ludolf in the 1740s, but if you were only sucking up to a royal for the benefits, I'd think you'd be a little more resentful when that sucking up led you to get your head cut off.
You know, there's the Lavisse take on it: FW had no right to try to beat Fritz's personality out of him, but teenage Fritz had no right to defy his father in return and conspire against him. If that was Katte's attitude, that would be consistent with sympathy for the abused boyfriend at very the end and also the "never do it again" Punctae.
What occurs to me is that FW confronted Katte in person at his arrest, and started yelling and hitting him. I mean, I forget if that's from a reliable source, but I think it is?
I dimly recall this as well, but alas not the source.
Yes, I'm always struck by the fact that Katte's final priorities were wanting to visit Fritz the night before, wanting to reassure him of his blamelessness, and wanting to blow kisses at him. It's evidence relevant not just to the question of how much he repents, but also for the nature of his relationship to Fritz
Indeed, and I agree, while it's entirely plausible early on Katte, while truly liking Fritz, also imagined himself as the next King's right hand man or at least very much in his favor, by the time he died this part of it had become irrelevant. Mind you, I imagine back in 1729 he hoped for more than the (good) deal Hans Heinrich had gotten, because that involved working hard away from the royal presence. (Hans Heinrich wasn't actually with FW that often, was he? Given his governing in East Prussia.) If anyone from the previous generation, he might have seen himself as more Fritz' Grumbkow or Old Dessauer in years to come. But once he finally decided to go with the escape plan, he must have been ready to say goodbye to those dreams for at least the remainder of FW's life time, and be ready for the life of a penniless exile depending on the help of his family. (Both of them, assuming they'd have reached Britain, where in a best case scenario G2 would have supported Fritz' living expenses and Aunt Melusine those of Katte.) Unless they did a Eugene and offered their military service to another sovereign, earning their living that way, and since neither was keen on the army at this point, I'm assuming this hadn't been the plan. But Katte must have at least considered the possibility Uncle George would go "yeah, no" instead, and that Melusine and Petronella would have him as a guest only for a limited time, not forever. So at this point, affection certainly trumped ambition.
(Unless they really thought G2 would go "Fritz! You poor boy, marry Emily, have Hannover for your income, I'm looking forward to go mano a mano with your Dad AT LAST!" But surely Dickens told them this wasn't likely?)
Lavisse's take: it would be, and also with the way many an 18h century and 19th century writer interpreted King Fritz' own take on his past. I mean, even SECOND Chamberhussar calls him a model follower of the "Honor thy father" commandment in his memoirs. Voltaire is something of an outlier there with his "FW: an abusive fright" take in pamphlets and memoirs and letters, with no indication he thinks Crown Prince Fritz did anything wrong when rebelling and trying to escape, and even he doesn't claim this was Fritz' opinion (though it's clearly Voltaire's).
I dimly recall this as well, but alas not the source.
I'm pretty sure it's in Wilhelmine, but what I think I'm remembering is that we later found it backed up in one of the documentary sources, just not which one, or if I'm remembering correctly at all.
Mind you, I imagine back in 1729 he hoped for more than the (good) deal Hans Heinrich had gotten, because that involved working hard away from the royal presence.
Agreed, but I think what Katte would have had as his framework is "royal favor for the family, however that pans out in any given generation," and the real example he would have had before his eyes was Grandpa Wartensleben. Who, may I remind everyone else who needs it, was one of the three chief ministers for F1, who was *not* a micromanaging workaholic like his son and grandson, so the ministers had actual power. And I assume that in Katte's mind would have been the fact that if he had that kind of royal favor *and* he and Fritz were also lovers or at least close friends, as was not the case for HH and FW, then he could parlay that into a nice position that allowed him to spend time with Fritz, while also reaping in the rewards.
But as you say, the actual choices he made were to systematically distance himself from that possibility while drawing ever closer to Fritz, down to the last handkiss as he knelt in the sand.
where in a best case scenario G2 would have supported Fritz' living expenses and Aunt Melusine those of Katte.
And Queen Caroline Peter Keith's, as it played out in real life. ;)
Incidentally, Peter did not end up fabulously wealthy in exile, but he also got to be a gentleman of leisure and study and attend salons indefinitely, so that ended up being a pretty sweet deal. Maybe less so if he wanted to start a family and leave them well off, but as a bachelor in his twenties, that was a pretty good outcome for him financially.
(Unless they really thought G2 would go "Fritz! You poor boy, marry Emily, have Hannover for your income, I'm looking forward to go mano a mano with your Dad AT LAST!" But surely Dickens told them this wasn't likely?)
Indeed--in July, at least, and possibly earlier, Dickens was like, "Please don't run away. Your uncle really doesn't want you showing up. We'll give you money for your debts to keep you from running away."
And Fritz is like, "Okay, if Dad doesn't take me on the trip out west and leaves me behind, I promise not to run away while he's gone."
Later, to Katte, "Hahaha, I left a loophole for if he did take me on the trip, and also I told him I had twice as many debts as I do, so now we've got some money. Let's run away!"
But yeah, they definitely knew they weren't wanted, and if they did show up, they were going to have to push for whatever they got, and they had no way of knowing what that would be. (Peter, without any relatives in England to take him in *or* rich family back home to send him money, really took a gamble.)
it would be, and also with the way many an 18h century and 19th century writer interpreted King Fritz' own take on his past.
I know he said to Mitchell that he had no right to limit his bridal choices by promising in writing never to marry anyone but Emily, and I forget what non-Catt sources we have for other expressions of "I was young and stupid," but I definitely get that vibe from Fritz at least partially.
Voltaire is something of an outlier there with his "FW: an abusive fright"
Voltaire is something of an outlier there with his "FW: an abusive fright" take in pamphlets and memoirs and letters, with no indication he thinks Crown Prince Fritz did anything wrong when rebelling and trying to escape, and even he doesn't claim this was Fritz' opinion (though it's clearly Voltaire's).
Heh. Yeah, he's definitely the exception to the rule of "don't criticize one's parents," right? Voltaire is just about the only guy who is like "yeah, my dad sucked and you can suck rocks if you don't like it," so I guess it makes sense that he's totally okay with criticizing other people's parents and thinking that it's totally okay to try to rebel/escape.
As both Fritz and G2 would tell you, that's completely DIFFERENT. :)
I don't think we have a canon opinion on who was in the right and wrong from Fritz re: G1 vs G2, and G2 vs Fritz of Wales, just a general "that family is SO screwed up in their father/son relationships, how fortunate that we Hohenzollerns aren't like that at all". (Mitchell: MEANWHILE, on the Silesian Front...). G2, otoh, when Fritz of Wales published those letters from G2 to G1 when G2 was Prince of Wales was all indignation and "of course that was different! I was in the right then towards Dad, just as I'm in the right now towards that wretch Fritz!"
A bit more seriously, Hervey reports that Caroline and G2 did talk about how much better G2 treated Fritz of Wales than G1 had treated them, because G1 after the big bust up with G2 apropos the Christening had for a time not allowed G2 and Caroline to see their (Britain-based) children as a punishement. Whereas, says G2, he hadn't done this to Fritz of Wales and Augusta because HE would never separate a parent from their children. Which makes him the way better father than G1.
...You know, it didn't occur to me when reading Hervey's memoirs last year, but it did occur to me a month ago when reading all the Sophie stuff: G2, of course, had BEEN a child separated from his mother - by G1. So he's not just referencing the ten days or so separation G1 inflicted on him and Caroline after the baptizing scandal until he relented.
Hahaha, no, no worries. I've always had it as my headcanon that Katte's relationship with his own father, in the society in which he was indoctrinated, was such that he felt that you *should* obey your father even if he was strict; that some of Katte's reluctance to join the cause of desertion was because he partially blamed Fritz for provoking FW; and that it took him a while for the "this is not normal strict Prussian Hausvater behavior like my father's" to outweigh "but honor thy father!" in the scales for him.
I mean, I have thought about this far less than you :P but as someone who grew up at least partially in a culture that stresses filial piety as well as a religion that also greatly stresses family (though less specifically filial duty), I agree that all of this is quite plausible. As well as plausible that, as you proposed earlier, he did think that the escape attempt was all a terrible idea (mostly because of all the upbringing stuff, but maybe also because, well, getting caught wasn't going to be good, though worse than he thought) but thought the punishment was disproportionate.
Yes, I'm always struck by the fact that Katte's final priorities were wanting to visit Fritz the night before, wanting to reassure him of his blamelessness, and wanting to blow kisses at him. It's evidence relevant not just to the question of how much he repents, but also for the nature of his relationship to Fritz... if you were only sucking up to a royal for the benefits, I'd think you'd be a little more resentful when that sucking up led you to get your head cut off.
Ooh, that's a good point. Yeah, I'd think so too. That makes a lot of sense.
Mea culpa, but it's so like you to recall every detail of her Katte relevant statements. :)
Hahaha, well, there is something to be said for the deep dive into the sources I did (and shanghaied you into helping me with, a thousand handkisses to your august readerly self).
(So much for "FW was just acting like a normal German Hausvater".)
And I think it was Seckendorff who wrote that Fritz was so worn down trying to live up to FW's expectations that he was exhausted and moved like an old man, at the age of maybe 12. Note, Seckendorff thinks that normal 12-year-olds aren't treated like that.
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?
Good question. I feel like I've run across relevant material, but the details are escaping my memory atm. As for the Seckendorff outburst, it's mostly about how S is objectively a terrible person (although a good general), but there is this:
After all, I pity him: it is true that a continued prosperity had rendered Seckendorf in supportable; it is true also, that all the chagrin he caused me merited retribution.
If you want the full quotes, this is the first passage from Fritz to Suhm:
You are undoubtedly informed of the fall of Seckendorf,* a just punishment for the wicked and bad actions he has committed. He has his turn at last; and after having long been the idol of fortune, he is become in decrepitude, the prey of his enemies. He is accused of horrid things, all very likely to be true, as they accord perfectly with his character! he is accused of letting the whole Imperial army want necessaries, to satisfy his sordid avarice. There is no exaction which is not imputed to him; his enemies lay to his charge the ill success of the last campaign, and the priesthood animates all the devotees against him on account of religion.
After all, I pity him: it is true that a continued prosperity had rendered Seckendorf insupportable; it is true also, that all the chagrin he caused me merited retribution; it is possible, that all the accusations brought against him may be well founded; but that, does not disprove that he has great and excellent military talents, and that he has it in his power more than any other person whatsoever, to render signal services to the Emperor. I suppose we shall soon know his fate.
Passage 2:
You speak of the recall of Seckendorf, and I add the news of his detention. He is actually arrested at Vienna. His enemies accuse him of an infinite number of malversations. The principal heads of the accusation are, the illicit means which he made use of to enrich himself during the last campaign. His friends give out here, that he will find the means of clearing himself from all these imputations, and that he will come as white as snow from his trial. For my part I doubt of it; for it is known that avarice was always his reigning vice. One thing is certain, and upon which you may rely, that his career is ended, and that the name of Seckendorf, will never more be heard spoken of.--- The Cardinal Nepote [Other Seckendorff, nephew of this Seckendorff, as discussed] has left Berlin, and is going to enter the service of Anspach.
What vicissitude! What rapid changes from the most brilliant fortune, to the most unexpected wretchedness! should an eloquent orator exclaim in this place-in fact he would not do amiss. Compare for a moment the situation of the Count Seckendorf in the year 1728, and the year 1729, with the one he is in at present. He was the arbiter of Germany; he regulated every thing, and in the most absolute and imperious manner in the world: he made treaties, reconciled or set powers at variance according to his good pleasure, and saw Princes and sovereigns debase themselves even so far as to make their court to him.
In the spring of the present year he governed at Vienna the whole Council of the Emperor; he conducted events as he thought proper, and disposed sovereignly of his whole army: six months are passed, and this man, whom a continued prosperity had elevated to the summit of the wheel of fortune, is at once precipitated from his sphere, without foreseeing the impetuosity of the stroke which bore him down; nothing remains to him but the hatred of the army which he commanded; and it may that the public waited but for the moment of his fall to declare themselves his enemy.
It is certain, that the intrigues of the Jesuits have contributed not a little, to his loss. I believe that Liechenstein contributed to it a good deal on his part; but it is certain that the P. de Dessau had his share in the business. This is one glaring example of the instability of fortune. Seckendorf has been its idol during his whole life, and now he is on the decline, in decrepitude, she turns her back to him. The King pities him much. For my part I feel for him, in case of his being innocent; but if he be culpable, I think him scarcely worthy of compassion.
And of course the passage from the memoirs with which you're familiar, as quoted by the editor of the Suhm correspondence in the footnotes:
The immortal author of the Memoirs of Brandenbourgh, speaks of him as follows: “The Count de Seckendorf, came to Berlin, immediately after the succession of George II. He served as General to the Emperor, and Saxony, at the same time; he was sordid; his manners were rude and very clownish; lying was so habitual to him, that he had lost the use of truth. He had the soul of an usurer, which passed at one time into the body of a military man, and at others, into that of a negociator. It was nevertheless this personage who was an instrument in the hands of Providence to break the treaty of Hanover, 1727. He took possession of the mind of the King, Frederick William, with so much address, that he prevailed on him to sign at Wusterhausen, a treaty with the Emperor."
See my discussion upthread of the Treaty of Hanover and the subsequent Treaty of Berlin (signed at Wusterhausen).
So yeah, I would say a whole lot of resentment, some grudging respect, and attempt to be fair.
One thing is certain, and upon which you may rely, that his career is ended, and that the name of Seckendorf, will never more be heard spoken of.
You wish, Fritz. MT is going to release him in just a few years, and then he'll become the main commander of the same Wittelsbach Emperor you're supporting, which means you have to team up with him repeatedly. He'll also arrange the negotations between MT and Maximilian of Wittelsbach leading to the Wittelsbachs resigning their claim to the HRE and getting Bavaria back.
Princes and sovereigns debase themselves even so far as to make their court to him
He's talking about himself, I guess? Also possibly August the Strong, but as far as I recall, August's main contact in Berlin were his envoy du jour, i.e. first Manteuffel, then Suhm, FW himself and Grumbkow, not Seckendorff, and if August wanted to negotiate with Vienna and the Emperor, there was an extra envoy in Saxony. But I can't think of any other prince who tried to court Seckendorff; it was Seckendorff doing the courting (and bribing). So basically Fritz is the only prince I can think of who abased himself in Seckendorff's direction.
lying was so habitual to him, that he had lost the use of truth
Takes one to know one. Seriously though, it amuses me that both Seckendorff and Fritz describe each other als lying liars who lie as a primary character trait. BTW, this is how Arneth describes Seckendorff:
Seckendorff was eminently suited to accomplish such a task. A rather small, insignificant man with ugly facial traits, with an almost repellent voice and manner of speaking, he still know how to make people almost forget his less than charming exterior through his unusual mental gifts. He connected a scientific education which was very unusual for a soldier of this time with a very sharp gaze with which he judged the political situations as well as the individuals who most influenced these situations. Added to this was the talent he had to compliment the different personalities and their quircks in a way that men with very different ways of thinking believed to recognize in him the man of their choice. That he was favored by Eugene of Savoye and Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia at the same time is the best proof for the rightness of this claim.
It was especially the King whom he was able to manage maybe better than anyone before or after him ever could. Seckendorff knew how to hide his savvy under a mask of being a bluff soldier. Through relentless joining in the King's military exercises, the exhausting hunts and the meals as well as the then world famous "Tobacco Parliament", he had managed to make his company indespensible to the King. Thus, he won such an influence on the King of Prussia - bit by bit - , as was probably only paralleled in the one exerted by individual envoys of the Kings of Spain from the older line of the Habsburgs which had been sent to the court of Vienna.
Seckendorff's dazzling qualities were darkened by exaggarated avarice and austerity. However, this was not a flaw in the eyes of a King who as everyone knows loved, other than his soldiers, only money and the gain of territory. Moreover, he valued the accomplished general in Seckendorff and didn't like diplomats who were civilians.
Like Suhm, which is why Manteuffel - who had never, ever, served in any army - was such a notable exception to this rule, but then, he also could adopt a "bluff, honest straight-talker" persona for FW.
Obvious, [personal profile] cahn, because Arneth was an Austrian. He was the head of the state archives, and he published reams of historical documentation, including a 10-volume bio of MT and a ton of correspondence, which is how we know MT did not, in fact, write to Madame Pompadour. That's the reason he came to mind when Selena said "collection of Seckendorff's envoy reports and letters to Eugene."
Oh, okay! Thanks as usual for connecting the dots for me :D
It is always so lovely (and extremely entertaining!) to get your writeups! :D
Bribery: Okay. Yeah. Seckendorff was instructed to bribe everyone, and Grumbkow was the best example, except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon. I do mention sums of everyone else's briberies, because EVERYONE was bribing officials in that century, see Louis offering sum x, Peter the Great sum Y, and also this and also that, and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
Lol! I can sense salon gnashing its teeth :D So is the conclusion then that Seckendorff's bribes were way bigger than everyone else's?
"how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!"
Ha! Okay, I must ask: which Don Carlos is this? (European royalty, WHY must you name all your kids the same thing??) (I know it's not the one Schiller/Verdi referenced, but I don't know the rest of them.)
([personal profile] selenak: REALLY? Did I read this?)
AHAHAHAHA yeah, like mildred says, you are cursed for your doubts! :D
for the King doesn't hesitate at public meals to shower the Crown Prince with such titles as the most common and low of men would hesitate to give to his son.
eeeeeek. Oh Fritz :( When Seckendorff thinks you're going too far...
Rochow, following my advice, has decided to admonish the King somewhat on this matter. ("dem König Vorstellungen darüber zu machen" is difficult to translate. It's not "chiding", which Rochow can't do to his monarch, but it's stronger than just "talk to him about".)
Ugh, again! (Although as usual I appreciate your translation notes!)
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
So is the conclusion then that Seckendorff's bribes were way bigger than everyone else's?
Well, we DON'T KNOW, because Arneth WON'T TELL US. :PPP *gnashing of teeth*
Okay, I must ask: which Don Carlos is this? (European royalty, WHY must you name all your kids the same thing??) (I know it's not the one Schiller/Verdi referenced, but I don't know the rest of them.)
I'm glad you asked! He keeps coming up in my reading, and I was planning to tell you about him.
Now, the story of Don Carlos, later Charles III of Spain, gets really confusing, because it's 20 years of shifting alliances, succession wars, and minor territories passing from one ruler to another. It's like Europe playing musical chairs, but musical territories instead. The thing to keep in mind here is that the ultimate goal is balance of power.
Don Carlos is the eldest son that Philip V (he who memorably thought he was a frog) had with Isabella Farnese. The problem is that Isabella was the second wife, and Philip had sons from his first wife (poor Marie Louise who died young). So Don Carlos and his younger brothers aren't exactly set for life here.
So Isabella, who, remember, is from Parma, devotes much of her considerable energy to trying to get her own sons, especially Don Carlos, territories to inherit. This involves maintaining a Spanish presence in Italy, trying to regain lost territory by invading, making alliances with MT's dad (Charles VI) while trying to get Don Carlos married to "one of the archduchesses (like MT)", and asserting her family's claims to be next in line after the ruling families of Tuscany and Parma die out.
After a decade and a half of invasions, diplomacy, and low-key wars that didn't get Isabella what she wanted, an alliance shift in 1731 takes place, and suddenly it becomes super easy to get territories in Italy. Ironically. In 1731, the major powers of Europe decide that Don Carlos gets to be Gian Gastone's heir in Tuscany, and also Grand Duke of Parma and Piacenza.
Gian Gastone, reluctantly acknowledging Don Carlos as his heir because he's in no position to fight this decision, quips, "Now you will see an old man of sixty become the father of a bouncing boy."
Don Carlos enters Tuscany, where he's pretty well received, and Gian Gastone takes a liking to him. But why stop with Tuscany and Parma? Sicily and Naples were lost to Spain in the Peace of Utrecht at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, not 20 years ago. Philip and Isabella tried for a reconquest and briefly occupied them again in 1717-1718. That triggered the War of the Quadruple Alliance, and Spain lost them again.
So now it's the 1730s, and Isabella and her son Don Carlos definitely want Sicily and Naples back. The War of the Polish Succession kicks off in 1733 (remember, when August the Strong dies not long after his drinking bout with Grumbkow, and his son wants to be August III, while Stanislas Leszczynski wants to be Polish king again).
Part of the War of the Polish Succession, despite its name, is Austria and Spain duking it out in Italy. (Ditto the earlier War of the Spanish Succession and the later War of the Austrian Succession.)
So in 1734, Don Carlos invades Naples and Sicily, and takes them both within about 6 months.
But that's too much Italian territory for one Spaniard to have, in the minds of the rest of Europe, when the 1735-1738 peace negotiations ensue. Deep breath for the outcome here:
* August III is acknowledged king of Poland. * Which means Stanislas has to give up his claims to Poland. * In return, Stanislas gets the Duchy of Lorraine, which will revert to France after his death. * Which means FS, current Duke of Lorraine, has to give up Lorraine. * But FS gets to be future Holy Roman Emperor, and the French recognize the Pragmatic Sanction. * FS also gets Tuscany, having enough Medici ancestors in his family tree that he can assert a plausible claim. * That means Don Carlos has to give up Tuscany to FS, but he gets Naples and Sicily from the Austrians instead. * The same happens with Parma: Don Carlos gives it to the Habsburgs.
Gian Gastone is not happy about this. Taking a rare interest in international politics, he tries to push for favorable terms such that Tuscany doesn't become a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, but he loses. He does manage to make it so that it won't become part of the hereditary Austrian Habsburg domains, and that if FS becomes emperor, Tuscany has to be passed onto his younger son. This is called the practice of secundogeniture. That's why when FS dies in 1765, Leopold gets to be sole Grand Duke of Tuscany, while HRE Joseph is still just co-regent with MT in Austria.
Gian Gastone also manages to get out of Tuscany recognizing the Pragmatic Sanction (which ends up being a moot point, since he dies in 1737 and MT's dad Charles VI not until 1740, but hey, he tried), and he successfully makes it so Tuscany can pass through the female line if there are no male heirs.
He liked Don Carlos and really doesn't like the HRE, so he's not happy about this, but being the kind of person who would rather make a joke than fight a battle, he ends up asking humorously, "whether the monarchs [of Spain] would make him a third heir to his dominions, requesting to know what child France and the Empire would next beget for him."
So now Don Carlos is king of Naples and Sicily. He lives in Naples, the first king to do so in a couple hundred years of viceroys. (Naples and Sicily have been in the hands of various foreign powers for quite some time now.)
He marries Maria Amalia of Saxony, the daughter of August III of Saxony/Poland in 1738. Like his father Philip V, he enters into an arranged marriage with a thirteen-year-old, falls in love, sleeps in the same bed with her, and is faithful to her. Unlike his father, he refuses to remarry after she dies (and he also doesn't take a mistress, unlike George II).
The two of them are quite active in the ruling of Naples (less so Sicily). Lots and lots of building, transforming the cityscape of Naples. I was amused that Carlos had the San Carlo Opera House built, "although opera bored him stiff." They leave the country more prosperous than they found it. He built an institution to house, feed, and educate the poor.
He tried very hard to bring the Jews back! (I admit, I was impressed.) They had been kicked out as part of the Decree of Alhambra in 1492, by Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. cahn, you may remember them from school as the ones who had to complete the reconquista of Spain, driving out the Moors, before they could sponsor Columbus. (You may remember "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue"--did you have to learn that too?)
Anyway, 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella = "drive out all the infidels", 1740 Carlos = "bring them back!" Unfortunately, this only lasted a few years, because: - The Jews were a bit reluctant to leave the place they'd been living for 250 years and come back to a place where everyone *except* the monarch hated them, so there wasn't a huge influx. - The locals did in fact hate them. - The Jesuits told Carlos that he would never get a male heir as long as there was a single Jew in the place.
So in 1747, after just 7 years of tolerance, Carlos reluctantly banned them again. :(
In 1759, Carlos' older brother Ferdinand died. He had been Ferdinand VI of Spain since Philip V died, he was the son of Philip and Marie Louise, and he apparently inherited his father's depression: staying in bed and refusing to shave. That said, he and his wife managed to get a lot of work done and leave Spain better off than they found it, including finally ending the autos-da-fé that shocked the rest of 18th century Europe so much. (Philip V had apparently attended at least one, which involved burning heretics alive.)
Since they've died without leaving an heir, Carlos of Naples & Sicily is now Carlos III of Spain. So he sets off from Naples to Spain. Since part of the deal is that just like Tuscany, Naples & Sicily follow the principle of secundogeniture so that they never merge with Spain, Carlos has to give up Naples & Sicily. His oldest son, Philip, is mentally disabled and totally incapable of ruling. (Part of the way his parents established this was by having priests test to see if he understood the articles of the Catholic faith. When word got out that he didn't, members of Protestant and freethinking Europe milked this episode for all the humor it was worth, joking, "Well, maybe that means he's highly intelligent, since I don't understand them either!")
In any case, it was clear he would need care all his life and couldn't rule. So second son Carlos (future Carlos IV) is taken along to Spain, to be the crown prince. And third son, Ferdinand, is left behind in Naples and Sicily.
Ferdinand we've met before. He was the one who married Maria Carolina, daughter of MT, and was the completely out of control brother-in-law that Joseph met and reported had slapped him enthusiastically on the behind in public. ("Walking, talking embarrassment to everyone; groper of butts", as selenak described him.) Unlike his oldest brother, he was not unintelligent, but instead completely uneducated and undisciplined, and he basically behaved like a child--romping around, tickling envoys, etc.--for his entire life.
Ferdinand and Maria Carolina were the hosts of Sir William Hamilton (stationed as envoy here, remember) and Emma Hamilton, and Emma Hamilton and Maria Carolina were BFFs. And then Nelson showed up and Emma became his mistress.
Carlos, meanwhile, went off to Spain and started putting into practice his 25 years of experience ruling Naples. He saw himself as an enlightened despot, sponsored the arts, improved commerce, etc.
He finished the process of turning Spain from a collection of semi-independent provinces into a nation state. This had really bothered Philip V, who was constantly fighting with his subjects over his desire to have an efficient, centralized government with their desire to keep their province's ancient privileges, laws, and traditions, as had been part of the conditions on which they had originally agreed to be ruled by the same king as their neighboring provinces, and not be ruled by outsiders from Madrid.
Carlos III died in 1788, leaving the throne to his second son.
Among other things, I've been reading the 17th-18th century chapters from a history of Sicily that I bought years ago to get information on a different period. The book is by John Julius Norwich, who is another opinionated writer of readable, almost novelistic, popular history. And I hit Don Carlos a couple days ago and was planning on reporting, because I knew that because of Verdi, you would want to know who this Don Carlos was. ;)
I'm sorry the politics is so complicated; there's even more changing of hands of Sicily during our period that I spared you. I tried to give you repetition of things we'd encountered before and some connect-the-dots.
Thank you for all the Don Carlos intel, which is way more than I could have said even if I wasn't hassled by Darth Real life!
Well, we DON'T KNOW, because Arneth WON'T TELL US. :PPP *gnashing of teeth*
Precisely so, though if Seckendorff really was by nature as miserly as FW, all that bribing must have hurt his soul. (Unless he took a huge percentage for himself without telling Vienna, but in that case, he wouldn't have been as successful with Grumbkow now, would he?)
Incidentally, re: bribery, a reminder that young Manteuffel, after having to sell his silverware and being unable to pay his laundress in Denmark, his first envoy assignment, because his salary doesn't arrive for eons and his Dad has sworn he won't support him financially as long as the Wartenberg insult trial is still pending, comes to the conclusion that letting yourself bribed by foreigners is cool as long as you don't rob and fleece your own government, which even the disapproving of his two biographers that I've read says he'll stick to. (Of course, in later years he'll inherit the family estate and be wealthy enough to build places called Kummerfrey...)
(Or Kummer, frey?)
(Naples and Sicily have been in the hands of various foreign powers for quite some time now.)
Depending on how you define "foreign", "quite some time" can even stretch millennia.
Because Sicily:
Olden Times when the Greeks were settling "like frogs across a pond" around the Mediterrenean, as an ancient writer puts it: settled/conquered by Greeks
New city state Rome becomes expansive conquering Republic Rome, muscling its way across the Italian Peninsula: ends up conquering Sicily (not a happy event for famous mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse)
Failing Empire Rome centuries later: *shrinks and shrinks*
Sicily (and Naples): Conquered by Normans, intermingled with
Sicily: Conquered by Saracens
Until the late 12th century, when:
Sicily: married into and due to rebellion subsequently conquered by Germans (when Heinrich von Hohenstaufen, son of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, married Constance d'Hautevill)
Other Frederick the Second, Stupor Mundi: *born from that union*
Germans: ruling Sicly (and Naples) until a few years after Federico's death (in 1250), which is when:
Pope: Hey, French Anjou people! The Church is officially tired of constantly duking it out with Frederick and his spawn. We excommunicated him twice and it didn't take. No more chances for his offspring. If you can get rid of them any military means, Sicily and Naples are yours.
Charles d'Anjou: I hear you.
Tragedy of the last Hohenstaufen: *happens, complete with the kids of Manfred of Hohenstaufen locked up in inhuman - literally, they were chained like dogs - conditions in what was once their grandfather's favorite castle, I mentioned this when we talked about Iwan IV.*
French rule of Sicily and Naples: *gives Verdi another opera subject with one bloody uprising, Les Vespres Siciliennes
Many a complicated plot point later: House of Aragon (from Spain): gets Sicily and Naples
Renaissance French Kings: Hang on! Ferrante of Aragon is a bastard! Not because he's mummifying his enemies and sitting them at his table, because he's illigitame! That means he and his kids aren't legitimate heirs, which means it's our turn again!
Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander: I'm not allied with you yet, so I disagree and get one of the kids for my daughter Lucrezia. This will prove inconvenient when I do ally with you later, but that's why Cesare kills his brother-in-law.
Ferdinand of Aragon: I'm one half of the Reconquista power couple and I say my family gets to keep Sicily & Naples
Fast forward to the 18th century:
Savoy, Austria, Spain: take their turns with Sicily & Naples
In conclusion: when exactly did Sicilians rule Sicily, or what even are "Sicilians" if not a wild mix of immigrants?
I was amused that Carlos had the San Carlo Opera House built, "although opera bored him stiff."
And a beautiful opera it is, too, I have pictures. More to the point, him building it shows local savvy, because the Neapolitans were justly proud of their musicians and opera skills. Naples was THE top training place for singers in the 18th century. Remember those 400 boys per annum getting castrated in the hopes they might become opera superstars? In Naples, they find out whether they do. All the famous Castrati of the 18th century - Farinelli, Caffarelli, Salimenbeni - were trained there. And because it wasn't part of church territory, women could sing there, too - as they couldn't in Rome or Bologna, for example - which means many of the famous female sopranos at least spend some years there, too. If you wanted to endear yourself to your Neapolitan subjects, then sponsoring a new opera house was definitely one way to do it.
including finally ending the autos-da-fé that shocked the rest of 18th century Europe so much
I believe you about Ferdinand doing it, but when Napoleon invades decades later, one big selling point of his propaganda will be "we'll finally end those barbaric auto-da-fés and enlighten the poor Spaniards". (This only worked on his French audience in any case, though. The Spaniards weren't impressed.)
comes to the conclusion that letting yourself bribed by foreigners is cool as long as you don't rob and fleece your own government
And as I remember saying at the time, I think Fritz's rationale was along the same lines when it was him being bribed!
Depending on how you define "foreign", "quite some time" can even stretch millennia.
In conclusion: when exactly did Sicilians rule Sicily, or what even are "Sicilians" if not a wild mix of immigrants?
Oh, definitely, but I was following Norwich, and I can tell you where Norwich was coming from: in "foreign powers", "powers" is the operative word. That is, ruled by a foreign government appointing a viceroy in Sicily and treating it as a province whose purpose is to make another kingdom richer. That's plausibly different than the local ruler being of foreign extraction, but Sicily or Sicily + southern Italy being an autonomous entity. During those millennia, various rulers of foreign origin were resident in places like Palermo or at least Naples, and that's what Norwich was getting at when he said that Don Carlos was the first resident ruler in a couple centuries of viceroys.
For example, Normans like Robert Guiscard and Roger may have been foreigners, but Sicily was not being ruled by Normandy during the Norman period. And during the Aragonese period, there was some secundogeniture that's exactly comparable to the Don Carlos situation: the younger son lives in Sicily and/or Naples and rules independently, and when he ends up inheriting the throne in Spain after all, he passes on Sicily to someone else. (Or is supposed to; the new Aragonese monarch didn't always want to let go.)
Many a complicated plot point later: House of Aragon (from Spain): gets Sicily and Naples
Here's an entertaining complicated plot point for cahn:
When Pedro III of Aragon is driving out Charles of Anjou, they challenge each other to a duel!
The date for the great contest was fixed for Tuesday, June 1, 1283; unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—the precise hour was not specified. The Aragonese arrived early in the morning, to find no sign of Charles. Peter accordingly announced that his was the victory, his cowardly opponent having failed to put in an appearance. Charles rode up a few hours later and claimed that, as there was now no sign of Peter, the victory was his. The two never met. The cost to both, in time as well as money, was considerable; but honor was saved on both sides.
Another Pedro III anecdote from his conquest. He meets Machalda, wife of one of the Sicilian barons:
As an excuse for her presence she had brought him the keys of Catania; but it was soon all too clear that her real purpose was to audition for the part of royal mistress. Poor Peter had an acutely embarrassing evening. He escaped only with a long disquisition on his love for and loyalty to Queen Constance—which was not, we are told, an argument that Machalda found attractive. Henceforth she made no secret of her jealousy of the Queen, and did all she could to influence her husband against the royal couple.
Now, Norwich is prone to repeating popular legends that have since been disproved, so who knows, but I found both of these entertaining.
I believe you about Ferdinand doing it, but when Napoleon invades decades later, one big selling point of his propaganda will be "we'll finally end those barbaric auto-da-fés and enlighten the poor Spaniards". (This only worked on his French audience in any case, though. The Spaniards weren't impressed.)
Perhaps that's why? :P Honestly, I don't know when it was ended, I'm just repeating a less than scholarly source. What Spanish Wikipedia says is:
According to Emilio La Parra and María Ángeles Casado, the last general auto-da-faith held in Spain took place in Seville in 1781...It is often said that the last auto-da-fé was the one celebrated in Valencia in 1826 in which Ruzafa's teacher Cayetano Ripoll was sentenced to be executed by hanging and later burned as a heretic, but at that time the Inquisition did not exist because the king Fernando VII had not restored it after its abolition by the Liberals during the Triennium (1820-1823).
1781 would be Carlos III, not his older brother Ferdinand VI, but maybe it's like Fritz abolishing torture: it happened gradually.
French rule of Sicily and Naples: *gives Verdi another opera subject with one bloody uprising, Les Vespres Siciliennes
zdenka told me that this opera was originally based on the Duke of Alba (and Flanders) which I find hilarious :D
And a beautiful opera it is, too, I have pictures. More to the point, him building it shows local savvy, because the Neapolitans were justly proud of their musicians and opera skills. Naples was THE top training place for singers in the 18th century. Remember those 400 boys per annum getting castrated in the hopes they might become opera superstars? In Naples, they find out whether they do. All the famous Castrati of the 18th century - Farinelli, Caffarelli, Salimenbeni - were trained there. And because it wasn't part of church territory, women could sing there, too - as they couldn't in Rome or Bologna, for example - which means many of the famous female sopranos at least spend some years there, too. If you wanted to endear yourself to your Neapolitan subjects, then sponsoring a new opera house was definitely one way to do it.
I never thanked you for this, thank you! (And as always thank you for the repetition and the connect-the-dots :) )
I do know about Ferdinand and Isabella! Probably from both getting it from school (I also learned about 1492) and also getting it from a book Orson Scott Card wrote about Columbus (which has sadly aged badly, but was pretty great at the time). (This is also the book that talked about Juana going mad, btw!)
I am impressed by his bringing back the Jews too! Pity it didn't stick.
John Julius Norwich! I read his History of Byzantium (the short one, not the long one) and enjoyed it a lot, although it was long enough ago that I remember very little and should probably look it up again.
Well, we DON'T KNOW, because Arneth WON'T TELL US. :PPP *gnashing of teeth*
I was just trying to figure out why he wouldn't tell us! If it was just like everyone else's, would he have had any reason *not* to tell us? :)
I was just trying to figure out why he wouldn't tell us! If it was just like everyone else's, would he have had any reason *not* to tell us? :)
Well, he might have told us elsewhere. Just not in the three volume Eugene biography, where, to be fair, it's not a main subject. (Now if he'd written a Seckendorff or Grumbkow biography, I'd expect exact numbers.) While Prussia became an increasing factor in the last two decades or so of Eugene's long life, there were still a lot of other things going, plus Arneth is of course talking in the defensive mode of 19th century historygraphy where most German writing authors had completely adopted the Hohenzollern version of Prussia Yay, Austria Nay. He's publishing his Eugene biography in the early 1860s. This means England hasn't get become the alternate target for national Prussian historians, as it will be when the Wilhelminian guy writing about Sir Charles Hotham's mission somehow gives you the impression the Brits were the only ones to ever read all the envoy mail they could get their hands on and throwing money around. When Arneth is writing, that accusation goes to Austria. So Arneth saying "yeah, we bribed, but so did everyone else!", followed up by numbers for everyone else, he's writing for an audience not that familiar with everyone else bribing.
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Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
Clement affair (remember, the guy had sold FW on a Eugene masterminded scheme where FW gets killed or kidnapped at Wusterhausen and Fritz gets raised as a Catholic and controlled by Vienna): bonkers. Says a lot about FW that he actually believed this, and even after Clement admitted the forgery thought it was more likely Clement recanted out of fear and had originally said the truth. Incidentally, the Clement Affair and another minor issue led to Seckendorff's appointment as envoy in Berlin. Eugene had picked him explicitly to get FW out of his paranoid "Team Habsburg and Eugene wanted to kidnap/assassinate me and raise my kid!" mind frame and back to (at least mostly) supporting his Emperor. Because Seckendorff was a bona fide general (and successful as such), and FW knew and approved of him since Stralsund, and because he was able to keep a poker face and didn't let himself be rattled, Seckendorff was deemed ideal for this tricky job.
FW in general: let's get one thing straight, Prussians. For all your insistence that honest honest poor FW was hoodwinked by Team Austria, "honest" FW kept making contradictory treaties with both sides and kept wavering and also, good lord, that temper. Also, my guy Eugene was an actual military hero who nonetheless didn't shout abuse at people and kick them, he was super generous instead of miserly, and he loved culture. He was the A plus combination of what's best of French and German traits. Whereas FW... Well, okay. He did make Prussia rich and solvent this way and created a good army.
So far, so good. But then.
Bribery: Okay. Yeah. Seckendorff was instructed to bribe everyone, and Grumbkow was the best example, except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon. I do mention sums of everyone else's briberies, because EVERYONE was bribing officials in that century, see Louis offering sum x, Peter the Great sum Y, and also this and also that, and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
Hohenzollern family politics: Look here, Prussians, all these complaints that Seckendorff is to blame for enlarging the rift between FW and his two oldest kids are totally unfair. On the contrary, lemme quote Eugen's letters instructing Seckendorff to get tight with the Crown Prince as well because Eugene knew FW could die of a stroke any time and then it would have been bad to start with an Austria-hating new monarch. Seckendorff was to signal friendliness and willingness to reconcile father and son. Okay, Seckendorff was also instructed to work against the English marriages, but that was politics! Oh, and fyi, shut up with all the "how dare Team Austria intervene with Fritz' and Wilhelmine's marriages, what business was that of theirs" - I never hear you asking "how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!" That never gets quoted by you, does it? Which is why I'm quoting it now. Marriages of future royalty were ALWAYS politics, and so every other monarch minded and commented and pushed. Though btw, why FW thought marrying his kids to the Brits would make them too Brit friendly and why Eugene & Seckendorff thought the same is beyond me, given that FW's own marriage was the primary example of how you can be married to the sister of the King of England and still hate his guts. Speaking of England:
FW/G2 almost duel crisis of 1729:
Eugene: Thumbs up! I like it. That G2 is getting way to big for his breeches and Prince Elector of Hanover. Seckendorff, tell FW if there's war, I'm totally joining in .
FW/G2 reconciliation happens.
Eugene: Go figure. That man is so unreliable. Any news on the "make the kid like us" front, Seckendorff?
Seckendorff: Well, he's taking money from me, but if you want my opinion, that kid is evil (böse) and false (falsch) to the core, and if you're hoping for gratitude once FW kicks the bucket, forget it.
Eugene: ...Keep trying to reconcile them anyway. I'm trying to be an optimist here, and he's the future monarch.
(Arneth: SEE!!!!)
Eugene: Still, maybe it can't hurt to make nice with the Brits ourselves.
Brits: We want it in writing that you're never, ever, going to marry MT to Fritz.
(
Eugene: Perfidious Albion. Firstly, no one in their right mind would believe FW would ever go for such a marriage. But he WOULD be incredibly insulted if such a clause is in a treaty anyway. Secondly, us refusing to include such a clause will undoubtedly be useful as propaganda claiming we intend this marriage. I'm getting too old for this crap.
Arneth: SEEEEEEE!!!!!
Including S's reaction to Katte's execution! Which seems to be a three parter: 1) "I really hope FW listens to 80-yo Grandpa Wartensleben and me and spares Katte's life." 2) "Welp, after all that executing Katte and especially under Fritz's eyes, FW can expect his reputation to take a hit, especially in England." 3) "I just had a look at the Punctae, where Katte tells Fritz to be obedient to his father and not to buy into flattery. Which, if you read between the lines, tells you a lot about what Katte was up to before,"...and then the endless sentence went on and I ran out of time to finish it, but my impression is, "Maybe it was for the best."
Having read it, the later two reactions are from Eugene, not Seckendorff (seems Grumbkow sent a copy of the Punctae to Eugene), but yeah, that's what it amounts to, i.e. the final conclusion is that the Punctae show pre-death sentence Katte must have been a flatterer goading Fritz against his father in an already incindiary situation, and maybe he is better off dead. BTw, did we know Seckendorff pleaded for Katte's life before? I don't think we did.
Letters quoted in the footnotes of interest:
Eugene to Seckendorff, Sept. 20th 1727: ...it would be very good if you'd manage a good standing with the Queen and the Crown Prince, especially the later. Do anything reasonable to win him over, and convert him to good principles bit by bit, but in a decent way, and you'll know to be careful enough not to expose yourself too much with the Queen...
Seckendorff to Eugene, Sept. 14th 1728: The King's discontent about the Crown Prince and the Princess Royal's (Kronprinzessin, not Kronprinz, i.e. Wilhemine) displeasure caused by their Lord Father rises more by the day, for the King doesn't hesitate at public meals to shower the Crown Prince with such titles as the most common and low of men would hesitate to give to his son.
This is nearly two years before the flight attempt, note. In a letter from October to Eugene, Seckendorff claims to have reconciled father and son. Which, well, if he did does not last long, as Seckendorff himself documents. Seckendorff also testifies the famous hair dragging event:
Seckendorff to Eugene, December 3rd 1729: I have to tell your grace in deepest confidence that yesterday in the morning, the King has grabbed the Crown Prince at his hair and dragged him around since (FW) had noticed that (Fritz) hadn't been clean and well dressed enough. After the Crown Prince had been finally released, he talked to Lieutenant Colonel Rochow who has been assigned to him about this with tears in his eyes. Rochow, following my advice, has decided to admonish the King somewhat on this matter. ("dem König Vorstellungen darüber zu machen" is difficult to translate. It's not "chiding", which Rochow can't do to his monarch, but it's stronger than just "talk to him about".)
Anyway, Arneth quotes all this as proof Seckendorff wasn't campaigning to deepen the rift between FW and Fritz but tried to help Fritz. (Not selflessly but in order to gain a good standing with the next monarch, but he did try.) Arneth also has a point that FW's dislike of G2 would have ensured the British marriages would not have happened in any case, even without the Austrians campaigning against them. But what he doesn't say and what is undoubtedly also true is that Team HRE throwing their weight against the British marriages at a point where FW was pro HRE did inevitably contribute to make things worse for Fritz and Wilhelmine since their mother had made the English marriages not only their filial duty to her but presented them as their own possible escape from FW.
Eugene to Seckendorff, September 20th 1730 (i.e. post arrest, pre execution): It is the Emperor's opinion and order that you behave in this matter that has evolved between the King and the Crown Prince as delicatedly and sensibly as possible, to prevent any further escalation, to pour water into the fire, to help and assist the Prince as much as you possibly can...
Seckendorff to Eugene, October 9th 1730 (still before the execution, but after a lot of interrogations): Due to the Crown Prince's very false, secretive and malicious temper, I have little faith regarding a continuation of the Imperial Alliance in the future.
Eugene's reply letter is dated October 31st 1730 and says that while such a temper as Seckendorff ascribes to the Crown Prince probably won't know gratitude, and Fritz is undoubtedly still in the France/England Yay! mindframe he's been indoctrinated with by his mother: "His Imperial Majesty is not deterred by this from insisting on you following the instructions as given through me, for this matter has to end one way or another, and it is therefore better if his Imperial Majesty gets the credit, especially since your Excellency reports that the Queen and the entire Prussian cabinet seems to believe the Emperor alone would be able to mediate and reconcile the Crown Prince with the King, and if this doesn't happen all the evilminded people will spread the word that the Emperor rejoices in this disaster and that he has advised the King to be relentless. Eugene also expresses the hope that even if Seckendorff is right about Fritz now, he's still very young and has years to learn better, and also, he (Eugene, not Fritz) has read the interrogation protocol forwarded to him by Grumbkow & Seckendorf and thoughtt hat: The King's questions were put very sharply, while the Prince's replies were given rather modestly and with short sentences just as the King prefers.
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
Re: Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
Arneth is writing this very obviously from a defensive position
Obvious,
Incidentally, the Clement Affair and another minor issue led to Seckendorff's appointment as envoy in Berlin. Eugene had picked him explicitly to get FW out of his paranoid "Team Habsburg and Eugene wanted to kidnap/assassinate me and raise my kid!" mind frame and back to (at least mostly) supporting his Emperor.
Ahhh! I love when pieces fall together like this.
Also, my guy Eugene was an actual military hero who nonetheless didn't shout abuse at people and kick them, he was super generous instead of miserly, and he loved culture.
Sophie of Hanover is with you on that, Arneth! Alas, Campaign Make Eugene FW's Role Model failed.
except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon.
ARGH and as archivist I know you must have known!
and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
This is very true. When Whitworth, who does not come across as a particularly slimy diplomat--although again, my perspective is skewed by the filter his biographer presented--showed up in Russia, he wrote back home, "Look, you know what the problem is? My predecessors (the tobacco contractors, because actual political representation in Russia wasn't important to the Brits in this period) didn't suck up to Menshikov enough, and they didn't bribe the right ministers. Let me show you how a professional does it."
(Menshikov is Peter the Great's Grumbkow, only they probably had sex.)
never hear you asking "how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!" That never gets quoted by you, does it? Which is why I'm quoting it now.
I had actually run across this, but I forget where. Lavisse, maybe.
Reminder: the 1725 Treaty of Hanover, which formed an alliance between Prussia, France, Britain, and Hanover (later including Sweden and the Netherlands), was in response to the Spanish-Austrian alliance, which was when the MT/Don Carlos marriage idea was tossed around. (Charles VI was never going to do it, but he kept Philip and Isabella dangling with hints, and the rest of Europe was worried he was serious.)
1728: FW defected and signed a secret treaty with Charles. Which:
"honest" FW kept making contradictory treaties with both sides and kept wavering
Yep. All my sources on diplomacy from 1700-1731 show diplomats and heads of state constantly complaining about the unreliable and indecisive FW.
FW/G2 almost duel crisis of 1729:
Eugene: Thumbs up! I like it. That G2 is getting way to big for his breeches and Prince Elector of Hanover. Seckendorff, tell FW if there's war, I'm totally joining in .
Hahaha. This is the one where Suhm offered Saxon mediation, iirc?
that kid is evil (böse) and false (falsch) to the core, and if you're hoping for gratitude once FW kicks the bucket, forget it.
Well spotted!
Eugene: ...Keep trying to reconcile them anyway. I'm trying to be an optimist here
Hope springs eternal, as I always like to say.
Brits: We want it in writing that you're never, ever, going to marry MT to Fritz.
([personal profile] selenak: REALLY? Did I read this?)
It's your karma for doubting the MT series! ;) References to this marriage-that-didn't-happen are going to keep following you around!
Having read it, the later two reactions are from Eugene, not Seckendorff (seems Grumbkow sent a copy of the Punctae to Eugene)
Right, yes, I remember that now! (I remember being surprised that it had made its way all the way to Austria.) This got lost not in translation from German to me, but from my memory to my write-up. The problem with being at the decipherment stage of German is that I have to commit to memory whatever I read that I want to talk about, because I can't glance at the page while writing. One day!
BTw, did we know Seckendorff pleaded for Katte's life before? I don't think we did.
We did! Wilhelmine says so! It's actually the first sentence in her Katte episode:
Sekendorff also attempted to save Katt; but the king remained inflexible.
I remember it in particular because Thiebault's doctored memoirs also opened that way, and as you may recall, I did a line-by-line textual criticism comparison of the passages before realizing Thiebault's were doctored:
Seckendorf also wanted to save Katte, and he was joined by an assortment of people of the highest rank.
(At least *some* texts I can commit to memory!)
Seckendorff also testifies the famous hair dragging event:
Aww, man. I thought that was at Zeithain! The one where he got knocked to the ground and chewed out for hygiene and had to appear on parade in front of everyone in dishevelled hair and uniform. It was a different one? Poor Fritz. Note that he had tried to run with Peter (and not yet Katte) just the month before, and a month later, he'll still be trying to run away and that's why Peter gets sent to Wesel.
Arneth also has a point that FW's dislike of G2 would have ensured the British marriages would not have happened in any case, even without the Austrians campaigning against them.
Fritz/Amalia, maybe not, but you don't think there was a chance for Wilhelmine/FoW? FW seemed more inclined to allow that, as I recall, and it was the Brits insisting on double-or-nothing, and Hotham trying to blacken Grumbkow, that ruined it. (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.)
Though btw, why FW thought marrying his kids to the Brits would make them too Brit friendly and why Eugene & Seckendorff thought the same is beyond me, given that FW's own marriage was the primary example of how you can be married to the sister of the King of England and still hate his guts.
But FW was worried that his kids (esp. Fritz) were Brit-friendly because of their mother, and I could see him worrying that the same would happen with the grandkids. 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).
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
Ahahaha. 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. ;)
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?
MT marriage AU sources
Yeah, it's been on my Trello list since you first mentioned it, because I agree. The obstacle has been that it's been spread across a number of not-very-searchable posts ("marriage"? "MT"? neither of those is going to narrow it down) that I no longer remember what they all are.
I was actually planning to ask you to help me flesh out my memory on what our sources are.
- Hinrichs for Katte saying he had to help his boyfriend escape the evil Catholic plot.
- Förster for the Seckendorff and Eugene correspondence on Fritz's 1731 marriage proposal.
- Zimmermann for how it would have been totally awesome.
- Nicolai interviewing Muller Jr. who was all, "Fritz would NEVER!"
What else? I think as late as 1732 or even 1733 Fritz was writing "The Empress should give me her daughter rather than her niece," but to whom? Grumbkow?
And I feel like I'm missing something else, possibly several something elses. Help me out here.
Once I have the sources, it'll be easier for me to put the post together. I mean, possibly after RMSE (Peter Keith essay also currently on hold), but still.
Re: MT marriage AU sources
Grumbkow, and as far as I recall it was but the last of a whole series of such suggestions to Grumbkow, starting with the one which might even have been in late 1731, not 1732, where Fritz woke up his small Küstrin entourage to have them all sign on a letter to Grumbkow suggesting a him/MT match and Grumbkow wrote horrified WTF? letters to both Eugene and to one of the Küstrin guys. I also remember first coming across one of the "Fritz suggests marrying MT to Grumbkow" letters in one of the German editions, possibly the one which also has the letter of Fritz mentioning Katte to Grumbkow (which as I recall wasn't in the French Trier letters) in the context of his ditching Manteuffel.
Hinrichs also in "Der Kronprinzenprozess" has Fritz repeatedly denying ever telling Katte of the Evil Catholic Marriage Plot, remember, and both quotes - from Katte and from Fritz - are really important since this is the one issue where their testimonies diverged.
Nicolai isn't a witness, but he does express - in his refutation of Zimmermann's "Fritz didn't want to escape to England or France, he totally wanted to go to Austria to marry MT!" - the in retrospect insightful opinion that the Katte who wrote such good Protestant Christian last letters would never have signed on to such a project (of Fritz marrying a Catholic Archduchess).
Re: MT marriage AU sources
Grumbkow, and as far as I recall it was but the last of a whole series of such suggestions to Grumbkow, starting with the one which might even have been in late 1731, not 1732, where Fritz woke up his small Küstrin entourage to have them all sign on a letter to Grumbkow suggesting a him/MT match and Grumbkow wrote horrified WTF? letters to both Eugene and to one of the Küstrin guys.
I think that might have been the April 1731 episode, which I remember Grumbkow being involved in.
Hinrichs also in "Der Kronprinzenprozess" has Fritz repeatedly denying ever telling Katte of the Evil Catholic Marriage Plot, remember, and both quotes - from Katte and from Fritz - are really important since this is the one issue where their testimonies diverged.
Yes, I remember! I was taking that as said when I included Hinrichs in the list of sources.
Nicolai isn't a witness, but he does express - in his refutation of Zimmermann's "Fritz didn't want to escape to England or France, he totally wanted to go to Austria to marry MT!" - the in retrospect insightful opinion that the Katte who wrote such good Protestant Christian last letters would never have signed on to such a project (of Fritz marrying a Catholic Archduchess).
Oh, right, I'd forgotten that! And we commended him for figuring that out without access to the archival sources!
Incidentally, given how bad the Punctae made Katte look in the eyes of someone like Eugene, and if that "The tyrant demands blood" quote was real, and given that the Punctae wasn't even in his handwriting, I still wish I knew whose idea it was, what they said to Katte (assuming it was someone else's idea), and what he was thinking when he wrote it. Like, I've come around to believing he wasn't faking the piety at the end, but how repentant was he about the escape attempt, actually? Maybe he felt like Dad: okay, shouldn't have done it, but the punishment was really disproportionate?
Katte psychology examined
That would be my guess, because I do think the "the tyrant demands blood" quote is authentic, not least because this is Katte talking to a regiment comrade whom he can be reasonably sure won't report it to either his father or FW, and also because all the other reports of Katte walking to his death puts such a heavy emphasis on Katte's Christian fortitude and bravery - it's not the kind of story you'd make up if you were basing your idea of Katte on what was available to the public at the time, i.e. the Pamphlet with the last letters.
Whose idea the Punctae were: my money is on Müller, with maybe FW having given strong hints to Müller when charging him with the task. Given that the phrasing of the Punctae re: flattery is (in the negative) almost identical with how FW puts it both in his known letters and on the occasion of the August 1731 public submission - that Fritz only listened to flatterers goading him against his father and telling him what he wanted to hear, and never to people (read: FW) who had his actual welfare in mind -, I think that some kind of FW nvolvement is more than likely. Not in the sense that he actually dictated the Punctae to Müller who got Katte to sign off on them, but in the sense of saying that if Katte was truly repentant and wanted to do a good thing before he died, he should encourage Fritz to see things his father's way etc. And then Müller said something like "Young man, if you want to do one last thing for your friend, this would help reconcile him to his father and would also show the King you did repent your deed."
However, playing devil's advocate: all the editorial chiding of Wilhelmine for having been a bad daughter I encountered these last years underlined to me again just how big the taboo of a child going against their (male) parent was in the historical patriarchy, and Katte was when all is said and done a child of his time, who in addition to said taboo may have felt guilty for the military part of his "misdeamanour", because of the Prussian Kool-Aid, i.e.: as many a FW defender pointed out, as a part of the army he was guilty of attempted desertion, betraying his supreme commander by not reporting Fritz' plans in the first place, and conspiracy with foreign powers (the Dickens conversations). Now the FW essay collection had I think Kloosterhuis arguing again that given FW's state of health and the fact Fritz was his successor, you could even argue that the whole thing counted as an attempted coup against the government. I don't think so, but FW most certainly did, and by November 1730, Katte, who lived in a society FW had imprinted with his mindset to a degree at least, had been talking for months with people argueing that view as well. I mean, Fritz pre Katte's execution sounds defiant in his letters to Wilhelmine, and certainly not broken or believing he'd done wrong (other than by getting caught and causing Katte go get caught). But Katte is in a somewhat different psychological position. Fritz is absolutely convinced (with reason) FW won't execute him, and he knows how unbearable his treatment has been. Katte is increasingly sure he will die, he also - if he says the truth re: that in his interrogation and didn't massage it somewhat for FW - has known from the start this was a bad idea and yet eventually signed on anyway, and if he dies, he's going to face divine judgment for having acted both against the law and against his own better knowledge. True, after his death at least one preacher will write to his father in a way that casts Katte as a martyr who has been unjustly slain. But before his death, he's more likely to have heard from any FW approved preacher that he could end up in hell for his sins (leaving completely aside whether or not he and Fritz were lovers, and whether Katte feels guilty on that count as well) if he doesn't repent.
So: as advocatus diaboli, I could make a psychological case that Katte did truly repent. However, as not to spoil your Sunday, let me add this: our friend Peter Keith was just as much a child of the 18th century and raised with the Prussian Kool-Aid. I haven't seen any indication he ever felt guilty for either deserting or conspiring with Fritz or keeping secrets from his sovereign. He may have felt survivor's guilt later, but that's our interpretation. What we don't from him is a quote along the lines of "yeah, really shouldn't have done that!" So it's just as possible Katte felt himself justified in the Lutheran sense because he'd acted on both his friend's and his future sovereign's behalf, and he had seen to much not to believe that helping Fritz in this particular situation was the only thing he could have done, in the end. After all, this is the man who minutes before his death tells Fritz there is nothing to forgive and he dies gladly for him. (Which is a different thing than dying for his sins.)
Re: Katte psychology examined
Agreed, that's my thought as well..
with maybe FW having given strong hints to Müller when charging him with the task.
Maybe, but FW wrote Müller a letter saying, "I've never met you, but I've heard good things. Please try to make my son repentant, but be careful and make sure he's *really* repentant, because he's a lying liar who lies." Now, the letter (in Youth Documents in the library) ends with "...", so there may well be "and make Katte write a last letter" stuff that the editor didn't see fit to include, or there may be another letter, but I'm inclined to think FW didn't give him this task explicitly, because I would have thought the editor would include it, since it would be too relevant to Fritz to omit.
What occurs to me is that FW confronted Katte in person at his arrest, and started yelling and hitting him. I mean, I forget if that's from a reliable source, but I think it is?
He may have been yelling about flattery and Absalom and stuff to Katte, and Katte may have been inclined to try to appease FW's fears in the last letter. So it's possible he got his insights into what FW was thinking from the horse's mouth.
Katte was when all is said and done a child of his time, who in addition to said taboo may have felt guilty for the military part of his "misdeamanour", because of the Prussian Kool-Aid
Yeah, I always got the impression Katte was a partial Kool-aid drinker--like, it went against his nature but the societal forces were strong, and he was susceptible to them. The part where didn't want to join the army but did, went AWOL in England and thoght about staying but then decided to come back (and got reprimanded for going AWOL!), and tried to talk Fritz out of escaping/deserting (probably less than he claimed he did, but enough that Fritz felt the need to lie to him) but then went along with it.
Ditto Peter, who was gung-ho about escaping, went for it without hesitation, and lived a civilian life in exile, but then decided he wanted to join the British navy. But then decided he hated the navy, but liked the climate in Portugal, so he got what appears to have been a nominal position in the army while using his time to study Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian and read books. And then by 1742, had broken under the weight of Prussian Kool-aid enough to ask to be allowed to go to war, but it's not clear that he ever did, and quite clearly seems to have focused on his civilian career rather than his still as-nominal-as-possible-in-Prussia military one. (I still wonder what Peter's responsibilities as Lt. Col. in peacetime actually were: I would assume regimental parade duties, but he had to be invited specially by Fritz to attend the top-secret military parade in Spandau in 1753 as a spectator, so...)
So: as advocatus diaboli, I could make a psychological case that Katte did truly repent. However, as not to spoil your Sunday
Hahaha, no, no worries. I've always had it as my headcanon that Katte's relationship with his own father, in the society in which he was indoctrinated, was such that he felt that you *should* obey your father even if he was strict; that some of Katte's reluctance to join the cause of desertion was because he partially blamed Fritz for provoking FW; and that it took him a while for the "this is not normal strict Prussian Hausvater behavior like my father's" to outweigh "but honor thy father!" in the scales for him.
So it's just as possible Katte felt himself justified in the Lutheran sense because he'd acted on both his friend's and his future sovereign's behalf, and he had seen to much not to believe that helping Fritz in this particular situation was the only thing he could have done, in the end. After all, this is the man who minutes before his death tells Fritz there is nothing to forgive and he dies gladly for him. (Which is a different thing than dying for his sins.)
Yes, I'm always struck by the fact that Katte's final priorities were wanting to visit Fritz the night before, wanting to reassure him of his blamelessness, and wanting to blow kisses at him. It's evidence relevant not just to the question of how much he repents, but also for the nature of his relationship to Fritz: while I'm sure he was all, "Sweet, I'm all set to be in the next king's good graces like my father with Fritz's father and my grandfather with Fritz's grandfather, and it's going to pay off," he really had nothing to gain from blowing kisses at Fritz at the last minute. I mean, unless he's thinking Fritz is going to do what he would end up doing for HH and Ludolf in the 1740s, but if you were only sucking up to a royal for the benefits, I'd think you'd be a little more resentful when that sucking up led you to get your head cut off.
You know, there's the Lavisse take on it: FW had no right to try to beat Fritz's personality out of him, but teenage Fritz had no right to defy his father in return and conspire against him. If that was Katte's attitude, that would be consistent with sympathy for the abused boyfriend at very the end and also the "never do it again" Punctae.
Re: Katte psychology examined
I dimly recall this as well, but alas not the source.
Yes, I'm always struck by the fact that Katte's final priorities were wanting to visit Fritz the night before, wanting to reassure him of his blamelessness, and wanting to blow kisses at him. It's evidence relevant not just to the question of how much he repents, but also for the nature of his relationship to Fritz
Indeed, and I agree, while it's entirely plausible early on Katte, while truly liking Fritz, also imagined himself as the next King's right hand man or at least very much in his favor, by the time he died this part of it had become irrelevant. Mind you, I imagine back in 1729 he hoped for more than the (good) deal Hans Heinrich had gotten, because that involved working hard away from the royal presence. (Hans Heinrich wasn't actually with FW that often, was he? Given his governing in East Prussia.) If anyone from the previous generation, he might have seen himself as more Fritz' Grumbkow or Old Dessauer in years to come. But once he finally decided to go with the escape plan, he must have been ready to say goodbye to those dreams for at least the remainder of FW's life time, and be ready for the life of a penniless exile depending on the help of his family. (Both of them, assuming they'd have reached Britain, where in a best case scenario G2 would have supported Fritz' living expenses and Aunt Melusine those of Katte.) Unless they did a Eugene and offered their military service to another sovereign, earning their living that way, and since neither was keen on the army at this point, I'm assuming this hadn't been the plan. But Katte must have at least considered the possibility Uncle George would go "yeah, no" instead, and that Melusine and Petronella would have him as a guest only for a limited time, not forever. So at this point, affection certainly trumped ambition.
(Unless they really thought G2 would go "Fritz! You poor boy, marry Emily, have Hannover for your income, I'm looking forward to go mano a mano with your Dad AT LAST!" But surely Dickens told them this wasn't likely?)
Lavisse's take: it would be, and also with the way many an 18h century and 19th century writer interpreted King Fritz' own take on his past. I mean, even SECOND Chamberhussar calls him a model follower of the "Honor thy father" commandment in his memoirs. Voltaire is something of an outlier there with his "FW: an abusive fright" take in pamphlets and memoirs and letters, with no indication he thinks Crown Prince Fritz did anything wrong when rebelling and trying to escape, and even he doesn't claim this was Fritz' opinion (though it's clearly Voltaire's).
Re: Katte psychology examined
I'm pretty sure it's in Wilhelmine, but what I think I'm remembering is that we later found it backed up in one of the documentary sources, just not which one, or if I'm remembering correctly at all.
Mind you, I imagine back in 1729 he hoped for more than the (good) deal Hans Heinrich had gotten, because that involved working hard away from the royal presence.
Agreed, but I think what Katte would have had as his framework is "royal favor for the family, however that pans out in any given generation," and the real example he would have had before his eyes was Grandpa Wartensleben. Who, may I remind everyone else who needs it, was one of the three chief ministers for F1, who was *not* a micromanaging workaholic like his son and grandson, so the ministers had actual power. And I assume that in Katte's mind would have been the fact that if he had that kind of royal favor *and* he and Fritz were also lovers or at least close friends, as was not the case for HH and FW, then he could parlay that into a nice position that allowed him to spend time with Fritz, while also reaping in the rewards.
But as you say, the actual choices he made were to systematically distance himself from that possibility while drawing ever closer to Fritz, down to the last handkiss as he knelt in the sand.
where in a best case scenario G2 would have supported Fritz' living expenses and Aunt Melusine those of Katte.
And Queen Caroline Peter Keith's, as it played out in real life. ;)
Incidentally, Peter did not end up fabulously wealthy in exile, but he also got to be a gentleman of leisure and study and attend salons indefinitely, so that ended up being a pretty sweet deal. Maybe less so if he wanted to start a family and leave them well off, but as a bachelor in his twenties, that was a pretty good outcome for him financially.
(Unless they really thought G2 would go "Fritz! You poor boy, marry Emily, have Hannover for your income, I'm looking forward to go mano a mano with your Dad AT LAST!" But surely Dickens told them this wasn't likely?)
Indeed--in July, at least, and possibly earlier, Dickens was like, "Please don't run away. Your uncle really doesn't want you showing up. We'll give you money for your debts to keep you from running away."
And Fritz is like, "Okay, if Dad doesn't take me on the trip out west and leaves me behind, I promise not to run away while he's gone."
Later, to Katte, "Hahaha, I left a loophole for if he did take me on the trip, and also I told him I had twice as many debts as I do, so now we've got some money. Let's run away!"
But yeah, they definitely knew they weren't wanted, and if they did show up, they were going to have to push for whatever they got, and they had no way of knowing what that would be. (Peter, without any relatives in England to take him in *or* rich family back home to send him money, really took a gamble.)
it would be, and also with the way many an 18h century and 19th century writer interpreted King Fritz' own take on his past.
I know he said to Mitchell that he had no right to limit his bridal choices by promising in writing never to marry anyone but Emily, and I forget what non-Catt sources we have for other expressions of "I was young and stupid," but I definitely get that vibe from Fritz at least partially.
Voltaire is something of an outlier there with his "FW: an abusive fright"
Voltaire, always an outlier. :D
Re: Katte psychology examined
Heh. Yeah, he's definitely the exception to the rule of "don't criticize one's parents," right? Voltaire is just about the only guy who is like "yeah, my dad sucked and you can suck rocks if you don't like it," so I guess it makes sense that he's totally okay with criticizing other people's parents and thinking that it's totally okay to try to rebel/escape.
Honor thy father
Re: Honor thy father
I don't think we have a canon opinion on who was in the right and wrong from Fritz re: G1 vs G2, and G2 vs Fritz of Wales, just a general "that family is SO screwed up in their father/son relationships, how fortunate that we Hohenzollerns aren't like that at all". (Mitchell: MEANWHILE, on the Silesian Front...). G2, otoh, when Fritz of Wales published those letters from G2 to G1 when G2 was Prince of Wales was all indignation and "of course that was different! I was in the right then towards Dad, just as I'm in the right now towards that wretch Fritz!"
A bit more seriously, Hervey reports that Caroline and G2 did talk about how much better G2 treated Fritz of Wales than G1 had treated them, because G1 after the big bust up with G2 apropos the Christening had for a time not allowed G2 and Caroline to see their (Britain-based) children as a punishement. Whereas, says G2, he hadn't done this to Fritz of Wales and Augusta because HE would never separate a parent from their children. Which makes him the way better father than G1.
...You know, it didn't occur to me when reading Hervey's memoirs last year, but it did occur to me a month ago when reading all the Sophie stuff: G2, of course, had BEEN a child separated from his mother - by G1. So he's not just referencing the ten days or so separation G1 inflicted on him and Caroline after the baptizing scandal until he relented.
Re: Katte psychology examined
I mean, I have thought about this far less than you :P but as someone who grew up at least partially in a culture that stresses filial piety as well as a religion that also greatly stresses family (though less specifically filial duty), I agree that all of this is quite plausible. As well as plausible that, as you proposed earlier, he did think that the escape attempt was all a terrible idea (mostly because of all the upbringing stuff, but maybe also because, well, getting caught wasn't going to be good, though worse than he thought) but thought the punishment was disproportionate.
Yes, I'm always struck by the fact that Katte's final priorities were wanting to visit Fritz the night before, wanting to reassure him of his blamelessness, and wanting to blow kisses at him. It's evidence relevant not just to the question of how much he repents, but also for the nature of his relationship to Fritz... if you were only sucking up to a royal for the benefits, I'd think you'd be a little more resentful when that sucking up led you to get your head cut off.
Ooh, that's a good point. Yeah, I'd think so too. That makes a lot of sense.
Re: Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
Hahaha, well, there is something to be said for the deep dive into the sources I did (and shanghaied you into helping me with, a thousand handkisses to your august readerly self).
(So much for "FW was just acting like a normal German Hausvater".)
And I think it was Seckendorff who wrote that Fritz was so worn down trying to live up to FW's expectations that he was exhausted and moved like an old man, at the age of maybe 12. Note, Seckendorff thinks that normal 12-year-olds aren't treated like that.
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?
Good question. I feel like I've run across relevant material, but the details are escaping my memory atm. As for the Seckendorff outburst, it's mostly about how S is objectively a terrible person (although a good general), but there is this:
After all, I pity him: it is true that a continued prosperity had rendered Seckendorf in supportable; it is true also, that all the chagrin he caused me merited retribution.
If you want the full quotes, this is the first passage from Fritz to Suhm:
You are undoubtedly informed of the fall of Seckendorf,* a just punishment for the wicked and bad actions he has committed. He has his turn at last; and after having long been the idol of fortune, he is become in decrepitude, the prey of his enemies. He is accused of horrid things, all very likely to be true, as they accord perfectly with his character! he is accused of letting the whole Imperial army want necessaries, to satisfy his sordid avarice. There is no exaction which is not imputed to him; his enemies lay to his charge the ill success of the last campaign, and the priesthood animates all the devotees against him on account of religion.
After all, I pity him: it is true that a continued prosperity had rendered Seckendorf insupportable; it is true also, that all the chagrin he caused me merited retribution; it is possible, that all the accusations brought against him may be well founded; but that, does not disprove that he has great and excellent military talents, and that he has it in his power more than any other person whatsoever, to render signal services to the Emperor. I suppose we shall soon know his fate.
Passage 2:
You speak of the recall of Seckendorf, and I add the news of his detention. He is actually arrested at Vienna. His enemies accuse him of an infinite number of malversations. The principal heads of the accusation are, the illicit means which he made use of to enrich himself during the last campaign. His friends give out here, that he will find the means of clearing himself from all these imputations, and that he will come as white as snow from his trial. For my part I doubt of it; for it is known that avarice was always his reigning vice. One thing is certain, and upon which you may rely, that his career is ended, and that the name of Seckendorf, will never more be heard spoken of.--- The Cardinal Nepote [Other Seckendorff, nephew of this Seckendorff, as discussed] has left Berlin, and is going to enter the service of Anspach.
What vicissitude! What rapid changes from the most brilliant fortune, to the most unexpected wretchedness! should an eloquent orator exclaim in this place-in fact he would not do amiss. Compare for a moment the situation of the Count Seckendorf in the year 1728, and the year 1729, with the one he is in at present. He was the arbiter of Germany; he regulated every thing, and in the most absolute and imperious manner in the world: he made treaties, reconciled or set powers at variance according to his good pleasure, and saw Princes and sovereigns debase themselves even so far as to make their court to him.
In the spring of the present year he governed at Vienna the whole Council of the Emperor; he conducted events as he thought proper, and disposed sovereignly of his whole army: six months are passed, and this man, whom a continued prosperity had elevated to the summit of the wheel of fortune, is at once precipitated from his sphere, without foreseeing the impetuosity of the stroke which bore him down; nothing remains to him but the hatred of the army which he commanded; and it may that the public waited but for the moment of his fall to declare themselves his enemy.
It is certain, that the intrigues of the Jesuits have contributed not a little, to his loss. I believe that Liechenstein contributed to it a good deal on his part; but it is certain that the P. de Dessau had his share in the business. This is one glaring example of the instability of fortune. Seckendorf has been its idol during his whole life, and now he is on the decline, in decrepitude, she turns her back to him. The King pities him much. For my part I feel for him, in case of his being innocent; but if he be culpable, I think him scarcely worthy of compassion.
And of course the passage from the memoirs with which you're familiar, as quoted by the editor of the Suhm correspondence in the footnotes:
The immortal author of the Memoirs of Brandenbourgh, speaks of him as follows: “The Count de Seckendorf, came to Berlin, immediately after the succession of George II. He served as General to the Emperor, and Saxony, at the same time; he was sordid; his manners were rude and very clownish; lying was so habitual to him, that he had lost the use of truth. He had the soul of an usurer, which passed at one time into the body of a military man, and at others, into that of a negociator. It was nevertheless this personage who was an instrument in the hands of Providence to break the treaty of Hanover, 1727. He took possession of the mind of the King, Frederick William, with so much address, that he prevailed on him to sign at Wusterhausen, a treaty with the Emperor."
See my discussion upthread of the Treaty of Hanover and the subsequent Treaty of Berlin (signed at Wusterhausen).
So yeah, I would say a whole lot of resentment, some grudging respect, and attempt to be fair.
Re: Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
You wish, Fritz. MT is going to release him in just a few years, and then he'll become the main commander of the same Wittelsbach Emperor you're supporting, which means you have to team up with him repeatedly. He'll also arrange the negotations between MT and Maximilian of Wittelsbach leading to the Wittelsbachs resigning their claim to the HRE and getting Bavaria back.
Princes and sovereigns debase themselves even so far as to make their court to him
He's talking about himself, I guess? Also possibly August the Strong, but as far as I recall, August's main contact in Berlin were his envoy du jour, i.e. first Manteuffel, then Suhm, FW himself and Grumbkow, not Seckendorff, and if August wanted to negotiate with Vienna and the Emperor, there was an extra envoy in Saxony. But I can't think of any other prince who tried to court Seckendorff; it was Seckendorff doing the courting (and bribing). So basically Fritz is the only prince I can think of who abased himself in Seckendorff's direction.
lying was so habitual to him, that he had lost the use of truth
Takes one to know one. Seriously though, it amuses me that both Seckendorff and Fritz describe each other als lying liars who lie as a primary character trait. BTW, this is how Arneth describes Seckendorff:
Seckendorff was eminently suited to accomplish such a task. A rather small, insignificant man with ugly facial traits, with an almost repellent voice and manner of speaking, he still know how to make people almost forget his less than charming exterior through his unusual mental gifts. He connected a scientific education which was very unusual for a soldier of this time with a very sharp gaze with which he judged the political situations as well as the individuals who most influenced these situations. Added to this was the talent he had to compliment the different personalities and their quircks in a way that men with very different ways of thinking believed to recognize in him the man of their choice. That he was favored by Eugene of Savoye and Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia at the same time is the best proof for the rightness of this claim.
It was especially the King whom he was able to manage maybe better than anyone before or after him ever could. Seckendorff knew how to hide his savvy under a mask of being a bluff soldier. Through relentless joining in the King's military exercises, the exhausting hunts and the meals as well as the then world famous "Tobacco Parliament", he had managed to make his company indespensible to the King. Thus, he won such an influence on the King of Prussia - bit by bit - , as was probably only paralleled in the one exerted by individual envoys of the Kings of Spain from the older line of the Habsburgs which had been sent to the court of Vienna.
Seckendorff's dazzling qualities were darkened by exaggarated avarice and austerity. However, this was not a flaw in the eyes of a King who as everyone knows loved, other than his soldiers, only money and the gain of territory. Moreover, he valued the accomplished general in Seckendorff and didn't like diplomats who were civilians.
Like Suhm, which is why Manteuffel - who had never, ever, served in any army - was such a notable exception to this rule, but then, he also could adopt a "bluff, honest straight-talker" persona for FW.
Re: Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
Me too, but evidently FW did it more than once.
Meant to say: abusers gonna abuse. POOR FRITZ.
Re: Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
Oh, okay! Thanks as usual for connecting the dots for me :D
Re: Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
Bribery: Okay. Yeah. Seckendorff was instructed to bribe everyone, and Grumbkow was the best example, except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon. I do mention sums of everyone else's briberies, because EVERYONE was bribing officials in that century, see Louis offering sum x, Peter the Great sum Y, and also this and also that, and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
Lol! I can sense salon gnashing its teeth :D So is the conclusion then that Seckendorff's bribes were way bigger than everyone else's?
"how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!"
Ha! Okay, I must ask: which Don Carlos is this? (European royalty, WHY must you name all your kids the same thing??) (I know it's not the one Schiller/Verdi referenced, but I don't know the rest of them.)
([personal profile] selenak: REALLY? Did I read this?)
AHAHAHAHA yeah, like mildred says, you are cursed for your doubts! :D
for the King doesn't hesitate at public meals to shower the Crown Prince with such titles as the most common and low of men would hesitate to give to his son.
eeeeeek. Oh Fritz :( When Seckendorff thinks you're going too far...
Rochow, following my advice, has decided to admonish the King somewhat on this matter. ("dem König Vorstellungen darüber zu machen" is difficult to translate. It's not "chiding", which Rochow can't do to his monarch, but it's stronger than just "talk to him about".)
Ugh, again! (Although as usual I appreciate your translation notes!)
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
HA.
The 18th century Don Carlos
Well, we DON'T KNOW, because Arneth WON'T TELL US. :PPP *gnashing of teeth*
Okay, I must ask: which Don Carlos is this? (European royalty, WHY must you name all your kids the same thing??) (I know it's not the one Schiller/Verdi referenced, but I don't know the rest of them.)
I'm glad you asked! He keeps coming up in my reading, and I was planning to tell you about him.
Now, the story of Don Carlos, later Charles III of Spain, gets really confusing, because it's 20 years of shifting alliances, succession wars, and minor territories passing from one ruler to another. It's like Europe playing musical chairs, but musical territories instead. The thing to keep in mind here is that the ultimate goal is balance of power.
Don Carlos is the eldest son that Philip V (he who memorably thought he was a frog) had with Isabella Farnese. The problem is that Isabella was the second wife, and Philip had sons from his first wife (poor Marie Louise who died young). So Don Carlos and his younger brothers aren't exactly set for life here.
So Isabella, who, remember, is from Parma, devotes much of her considerable energy to trying to get her own sons, especially Don Carlos, territories to inherit. This involves maintaining a Spanish presence in Italy, trying to regain lost territory by invading, making alliances with MT's dad (Charles VI) while trying to get Don Carlos married to "one of the archduchesses (like MT)", and asserting her family's claims to be next in line after the ruling families of Tuscany and Parma die out.
After a decade and a half of invasions, diplomacy, and low-key wars that didn't get Isabella what she wanted, an alliance shift in 1731 takes place, and suddenly it becomes super easy to get territories in Italy. Ironically. In 1731, the major powers of Europe decide that Don Carlos gets to be Gian Gastone's heir in Tuscany, and also Grand Duke of Parma and Piacenza.
Gian Gastone, reluctantly acknowledging Don Carlos as his heir because he's in no position to fight this decision, quips, "Now you will see an old man of sixty become the father of a bouncing boy."
Don Carlos enters Tuscany, where he's pretty well received, and Gian Gastone takes a liking to him. But why stop with Tuscany and Parma? Sicily and Naples were lost to Spain in the Peace of Utrecht at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, not 20 years ago. Philip and Isabella tried for a reconquest and briefly occupied them again in 1717-1718. That triggered the War of the Quadruple Alliance, and Spain lost them again.
So now it's the 1730s, and Isabella and her son Don Carlos definitely want Sicily and Naples back. The War of the Polish Succession kicks off in 1733 (remember, when August the Strong dies not long after his drinking bout with Grumbkow, and his son wants to be August III, while Stanislas Leszczynski wants to be Polish king again).
Part of the War of the Polish Succession, despite its name, is Austria and Spain duking it out in Italy. (Ditto the earlier War of the Spanish Succession and the later War of the Austrian Succession.)
So in 1734, Don Carlos invades Naples and Sicily, and takes them both within about 6 months.
But that's too much Italian territory for one Spaniard to have, in the minds of the rest of Europe, when the 1735-1738 peace negotiations ensue. Deep breath for the outcome here:
* August III is acknowledged king of Poland.
* Which means Stanislas has to give up his claims to Poland.
* In return, Stanislas gets the Duchy of Lorraine, which will revert to France after his death.
* Which means FS, current Duke of Lorraine, has to give up Lorraine.
* But FS gets to be future Holy Roman Emperor, and the French recognize the Pragmatic Sanction.
* FS also gets Tuscany, having enough Medici ancestors in his family tree that he can assert a plausible claim.
* That means Don Carlos has to give up Tuscany to FS, but he gets Naples and Sicily from the Austrians instead.
* The same happens with Parma: Don Carlos gives it to the Habsburgs.
Gian Gastone is not happy about this. Taking a rare interest in international politics, he tries to push for favorable terms such that Tuscany doesn't become a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, but he loses. He does manage to make it so that it won't become part of the hereditary Austrian Habsburg domains, and that if FS becomes emperor, Tuscany has to be passed onto his younger son. This is called the practice of secundogeniture. That's why when FS dies in 1765, Leopold gets to be sole Grand Duke of Tuscany, while HRE Joseph is still just co-regent with MT in Austria.
Gian Gastone also manages to get out of Tuscany recognizing the Pragmatic Sanction (which ends up being a moot point, since he dies in 1737 and MT's dad Charles VI not until 1740, but hey, he tried), and he successfully makes it so Tuscany can pass through the female line if there are no male heirs.
He liked Don Carlos and really doesn't like the HRE, so he's not happy about this, but being the kind of person who would rather make a joke than fight a battle, he ends up asking humorously, "whether the monarchs [of Spain] would make him a third heir to his dominions, requesting to know what child France and the Empire would next beget for him."
So now Don Carlos is king of Naples and Sicily. He lives in Naples, the first king to do so in a couple hundred years of viceroys. (Naples and Sicily have been in the hands of various foreign powers for quite some time now.)
He marries Maria Amalia of Saxony, the daughter of August III of Saxony/Poland in 1738. Like his father Philip V, he enters into an arranged marriage with a thirteen-year-old, falls in love, sleeps in the same bed with her, and is faithful to her. Unlike his father, he refuses to remarry after she dies (and he also doesn't take a mistress, unlike George II).
The two of them are quite active in the ruling of Naples (less so Sicily). Lots and lots of building, transforming the cityscape of Naples. I was amused that Carlos had the San Carlo Opera House built, "although opera bored him stiff." They leave the country more prosperous than they found it. He built an institution to house, feed, and educate the poor.
He tried very hard to bring the Jews back! (I admit, I was impressed.) They had been kicked out as part of the Decree of Alhambra in 1492, by Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Anyway, 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella = "drive out all the infidels", 1740 Carlos = "bring them back!" Unfortunately, this only lasted a few years, because:
- The Jews were a bit reluctant to leave the place they'd been living for 250 years and come back to a place where everyone *except* the monarch hated them, so there wasn't a huge influx.
- The locals did in fact hate them.
- The Jesuits told Carlos that he would never get a male heir as long as there was a single Jew in the place.
So in 1747, after just 7 years of tolerance, Carlos reluctantly banned them again. :(
In 1759, Carlos' older brother Ferdinand died. He had been Ferdinand VI of Spain since Philip V died, he was the son of Philip and Marie Louise, and he apparently inherited his father's depression: staying in bed and refusing to shave. That said, he and his wife managed to get a lot of work done and leave Spain better off than they found it, including finally ending the autos-da-fé that shocked the rest of 18th century Europe so much. (Philip V had apparently attended at least one, which involved burning heretics alive.)
Since they've died without leaving an heir, Carlos of Naples & Sicily is now Carlos III of Spain. So he sets off from Naples to Spain. Since part of the deal is that just like Tuscany, Naples & Sicily follow the principle of secundogeniture so that they never merge with Spain, Carlos has to give up Naples & Sicily. His oldest son, Philip, is mentally disabled and totally incapable of ruling. (Part of the way his parents established this was by having priests test to see if he understood the articles of the Catholic faith. When word got out that he didn't, members of Protestant and freethinking Europe milked this episode for all the humor it was worth, joking, "Well, maybe that means he's highly intelligent, since I don't understand them either!")
In any case, it was clear he would need care all his life and couldn't rule. So second son Carlos (future Carlos IV) is taken along to Spain, to be the crown prince. And third son, Ferdinand, is left behind in Naples and Sicily.
Ferdinand we've met before. He was the one who married Maria Carolina, daughter of MT, and was the completely out of control brother-in-law that Joseph met and reported had slapped him enthusiastically on the behind in public. ("Walking, talking embarrassment to everyone; groper of butts", as
Ferdinand and Maria Carolina were the hosts of Sir William Hamilton (stationed as envoy here, remember) and Emma Hamilton, and Emma Hamilton and Maria Carolina were BFFs. And then Nelson showed up and Emma became his mistress.
Carlos, meanwhile, went off to Spain and started putting into practice his 25 years of experience ruling Naples. He saw himself as an enlightened despot, sponsored the arts, improved commerce, etc.
He finished the process of turning Spain from a collection of semi-independent provinces into a nation state. This had really bothered Philip V, who was constantly fighting with his subjects over his desire to have an efficient, centralized government with their desire to keep their province's ancient privileges, laws, and traditions, as had been part of the conditions on which they had originally agreed to be ruled by the same king as their neighboring provinces, and not be ruled by outsiders from Madrid.
Carlos III died in 1788, leaving the throne to his second son.
Among other things, I've been reading the 17th-18th century chapters from a history of Sicily that I bought years ago to get information on a different period. The book is by John Julius Norwich, who is another opinionated writer of readable, almost novelistic, popular history. And I hit Don Carlos a couple days ago and was planning on reporting, because I knew that because of Verdi, you would want to know who this Don Carlos was. ;)
I'm sorry the politics is so complicated; there's even more changing of hands of Sicily during our period that I spared you. I tried to give you repetition of things we'd encountered before and some connect-the-dots.
Footnotes
Well, we DON'T KNOW, because Arneth WON'T TELL US. :PPP *gnashing of teeth*
Precisely so, though if Seckendorff really was by nature as miserly as FW, all that bribing must have hurt his soul. (Unless he took a huge percentage for himself without telling Vienna, but in that case, he wouldn't have been as successful with Grumbkow now, would he?)
Incidentally, re: bribery, a reminder that young Manteuffel, after having to sell his silverware and being unable to pay his laundress in Denmark, his first envoy assignment, because his salary doesn't arrive for eons and his Dad has sworn he won't support him financially as long as the Wartenberg insult trial is still pending, comes to the conclusion that letting yourself bribed by foreigners is cool as long as you don't rob and fleece your own government, which even the disapproving of his two biographers that I've read says he'll stick to. (Of course, in later years he'll inherit the family estate and be wealthy enough to build places called Kummerfrey...)
(Or Kummer, frey?)
(Naples and Sicily have been in the hands of various foreign powers for quite some time now.)
Depending on how you define "foreign", "quite some time" can even stretch millennia.
Because Sicily:
Olden Times when the Greeks were settling "like frogs across a pond" around the Mediterrenean, as an ancient writer puts it: settled/conquered by Greeks
New city state Rome becomes expansive conquering Republic Rome, muscling its way across the Italian Peninsula: ends up conquering Sicily (not a happy event for famous mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse)
Failing Empire Rome centuries later: *shrinks and shrinks*
Sicily (and Naples): Conquered by Normans, intermingled with
Sicily: Conquered by Saracens
Until the late 12th century, when:
Sicily: married into and due to rebellion subsequently conquered by Germans (when Heinrich von Hohenstaufen, son of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, married Constance d'Hautevill)
Other Frederick the Second, Stupor Mundi: *born from that union*
Germans: ruling Sicly (and Naples) until a few years after Federico's death (in 1250), which is when:
Pope: Hey, French Anjou people! The Church is officially tired of constantly duking it out with Frederick and his spawn. We excommunicated him twice and it didn't take. No more chances for his offspring. If you can get rid of them any military means, Sicily and Naples are yours.
Charles d'Anjou: I hear you.
Tragedy of the last Hohenstaufen: *happens, complete with the kids of Manfred of Hohenstaufen locked up in inhuman - literally, they were chained like dogs - conditions in what was once their grandfather's favorite castle, I mentioned this when we talked about Iwan IV.*
French rule of Sicily and Naples: *gives Verdi another opera subject with one bloody uprising, Les Vespres Siciliennes
Many a complicated plot point later: House of Aragon (from Spain): gets Sicily and Naples
Renaissance French Kings: Hang on! Ferrante of Aragon is a bastard! Not because he's mummifying his enemies and sitting them at his table, because he's illigitame! That means he and his kids aren't legitimate heirs, which means it's our turn again!
Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander: I'm not allied with you yet, so I disagree and get one of the kids for my daughter Lucrezia. This will prove inconvenient when I do ally with you later, but that's why Cesare kills his brother-in-law.
Ferdinand of Aragon: I'm one half of the Reconquista power couple and I say my family gets to keep Sicily & Naples
Fast forward to the 18th century:
Savoy, Austria, Spain: take their turns with Sicily & Naples
In conclusion: when exactly did Sicilians rule Sicily, or what even are "Sicilians" if not a wild mix of immigrants?
I was amused that Carlos had the San Carlo Opera House built, "although opera bored him stiff."
And a beautiful opera it is, too, I have pictures. More to the point, him building it shows local savvy, because the Neapolitans were justly proud of their musicians and opera skills. Naples was THE top training place for singers in the 18th century. Remember those 400 boys per annum getting castrated in the hopes they might become opera superstars? In Naples, they find out whether they do. All the famous Castrati of the 18th century - Farinelli, Caffarelli, Salimenbeni - were trained there. And because it wasn't part of church territory, women could sing there, too - as they couldn't in Rome or Bologna, for example - which means many of the famous female sopranos at least spend some years there, too. If you wanted to endear yourself to your Neapolitan subjects, then sponsoring a new opera house was definitely one way to do it.
including finally ending the autos-da-fé that shocked the rest of 18th century Europe so much
I believe you about Ferdinand doing it, but when Napoleon invades decades later, one big selling point of his propaganda will be "we'll finally end those barbaric auto-da-fés and enlighten the poor Spaniards". (This only worked on his French audience in any case, though. The Spaniards weren't impressed.)
Re: Footnotes
I laughed so hard.
comes to the conclusion that letting yourself bribed by foreigners is cool as long as you don't rob and fleece your own government
And as I remember saying at the time, I think Fritz's rationale was along the same lines when it was him being bribed!
Depending on how you define "foreign", "quite some time" can even stretch millennia.
In conclusion: when exactly did Sicilians rule Sicily, or what even are "Sicilians" if not a wild mix of immigrants?
Oh, definitely, but I was following Norwich, and I can tell you where Norwich was coming from: in "foreign powers", "powers" is the operative word. That is, ruled by a foreign government appointing a viceroy in Sicily and treating it as a province whose purpose is to make another kingdom richer. That's plausibly different than the local ruler being of foreign extraction, but Sicily or Sicily + southern Italy being an autonomous entity. During those millennia, various rulers of foreign origin were resident in places like Palermo or at least Naples, and that's what Norwich was getting at when he said that Don Carlos was the first resident ruler in a couple centuries of viceroys.
For example, Normans like Robert Guiscard and Roger may have been foreigners, but Sicily was not being ruled by Normandy during the Norman period. And during the Aragonese period, there was some secundogeniture that's exactly comparable to the Don Carlos situation: the younger son lives in Sicily and/or Naples and rules independently, and when he ends up inheriting the throne in Spain after all, he passes on Sicily to someone else. (Or is supposed to; the new Aragonese monarch didn't always want to let go.)
Many a complicated plot point later: House of Aragon (from Spain): gets Sicily and Naples
Here's an entertaining complicated plot point for
When Pedro III of Aragon is driving out Charles of Anjou, they challenge each other to a duel!
The date for the great contest was fixed for Tuesday, June 1, 1283; unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—the precise hour was not specified. The Aragonese arrived early in the morning, to find no sign of Charles. Peter accordingly announced that his was the victory, his cowardly opponent having failed to put in an appearance. Charles rode up a few hours later and claimed that, as there was now no sign of Peter, the victory was his. The two never met. The cost to both, in time as well as money, was considerable; but honor was
saved on both sides.
Another Pedro III anecdote from his conquest. He meets Machalda, wife of one of the Sicilian barons:
As an excuse for her presence she had brought him the keys of Catania; but it was soon all too clear that her real purpose was to audition for the part of royal mistress. Poor Peter had an acutely embarrassing evening. He escaped only with a long disquisition on his love for and loyalty to Queen Constance—which was not, we are told, an argument that Machalda found attractive. Henceforth she made no secret of her jealousy of the Queen, and did all she could to influence her husband against the royal couple.
Now, Norwich is prone to repeating popular legends that have since been disproved, so who knows, but I found both of these entertaining.
I believe you about Ferdinand doing it, but when Napoleon invades decades later, one big selling point of his propaganda will be "we'll finally end those barbaric auto-da-fés and enlighten the poor Spaniards". (This only worked on his French audience in any case, though. The Spaniards weren't impressed.)
Perhaps that's why? :P Honestly, I don't know when it was ended, I'm just repeating a less than scholarly source. What Spanish Wikipedia says is:
According to Emilio La Parra and María Ángeles Casado, the last general auto-da-faith held in Spain took place in Seville in 1781...It is often said that the last auto-da-fé was the one celebrated in Valencia in 1826 in which Ruzafa's teacher Cayetano Ripoll was sentenced to be executed by hanging and later burned as a heretic, but at that time the Inquisition did not exist because the king Fernando VII had not restored it after its abolition by the Liberals during the Triennium (1820-1823).
1781 would be Carlos III, not his older brother Ferdinand VI, but maybe it's like Fritz abolishing torture: it happened gradually.
Re: Footnotes
And a beautiful opera it is, too, I have pictures. More to the point, him building it shows local savvy, because the Neapolitans were justly proud of their musicians and opera skills. Naples was THE top training place for singers in the 18th century. Remember those 400 boys per annum getting castrated in the hopes they might become opera superstars? In Naples, they find out whether they do. All the famous Castrati of the 18th century - Farinelli, Caffarelli, Salimenbeni - were trained there. And because it wasn't part of church territory, women could sing there, too - as they couldn't in Rome or Bologna, for example - which means many of the famous female sopranos at least spend some years there, too. If you wanted to endear yourself to your Neapolitan subjects, then sponsoring a new opera house was definitely one way to do it.
This is really cool!
Re: The 18th century Don Carlos
I do know about Ferdinand and Isabella! Probably from both getting it from school (I also learned about 1492) and also getting it from a book Orson Scott Card wrote about Columbus (which has sadly aged badly, but was pretty great at the time). (This is also the book that talked about Juana going mad, btw!)
I am impressed by his bringing back the Jews too! Pity it didn't stick.
John Julius Norwich! I read his History of Byzantium (the short one, not the long one) and enjoyed it a lot, although it was long enough ago that I remember very little and should probably look it up again.
Well, we DON'T KNOW, because Arneth WON'T TELL US. :PPP *gnashing of teeth*
I was just trying to figure out why he wouldn't tell us! If it was just like everyone else's, would he have had any reason *not* to tell us? :)
Re: The 18th century Don Carlos
Well, he might have told us elsewhere. Just not in the three volume Eugene biography, where, to be fair, it's not a main subject. (Now if he'd written a Seckendorff or Grumbkow biography, I'd expect exact numbers.) While Prussia became an increasing factor in the last two decades or so of Eugene's long life, there were still a lot of other things going, plus Arneth is of course talking in the defensive mode of 19th century historygraphy where most German writing authors had completely adopted the Hohenzollern version of Prussia Yay, Austria Nay. He's publishing his Eugene biography in the early 1860s. This means England hasn't get become the alternate target for national Prussian historians, as it will be when the Wilhelminian guy writing about Sir Charles Hotham's mission somehow gives you the impression the Brits were the only ones to ever read all the envoy mail they could get their hands on and throwing money around. When Arneth is writing, that accusation goes to Austria. So Arneth saying "yeah, we bribed, but so did everyone else!", followed up by numbers for everyone else, he's writing for an audience not that familiar with everyone else bribing.