When the British parliament produced the Act of Settlement (which made it law that any successor to Anne had to be Sophie or a PROTESTANT descendant of Sophie), Caroline, who definitely had the brains of the marriage, inmmediately started an Anglisation project, learning English, cultivating the increasing number of British visitors now showing up at Hannover, reading up on English literature, and on English history. (She became an early member of Tudor fandom, which the poets cultivating her later noted, pleasing her by comparing her to Elizabeth, not more recent Queens like Anne or Mary II.) Among the Brits showing up at Hannover were the Howards. Charles Howard was a louse, and a physically abusive husband, and his wife, Henrietta, had come here with one aim in mind: get a job from the future British monarchs that would get her away from her husband. Her original idea had been becoming lady in waiting to Caroline, which she did, but she also ended up as future G2's first mistress.
Caroline: ? Sophie (I'm not making this up, she really said this): Look at it this way: It will improve his English.
George Augustus, like FW, had a hell of a time getting his father to permit him to join team Eugene & Marlborough on campain. Unlike FW, this was because George Louis - who'd done ample soldiering in his own father's life time - didn't want his disliked son to distinguish himself. Like FW, eventually permission was granted, and George Augustus got to go soldiering for six months, which included the Battle of Oudenaard and future G2 distinguishing himself by personal bravery - a horse was shot under him and he still went on fighting. This got him praise from Marlborough and some mention from British poets who called him "Young Hannover Brave", a description he would relish for the rest of his life.
Anne: *still not impressed and refusing to allow any Hannover cousins to set foot on British shore while she's alive*
Dennison: I'm with Anne here, not with Sophie. It wasn't personal - Anne knew that any successor in residence would esssentially become a second, alternative court, and she already had to deal with one in Paris courtesy of her father and half brother.
Sophie: Then it wasn't personal on my part, either. You may think it was must wounded vanity that made me roll my eyes at Anne, Dennison, but I've been ruling Hannover whenever my husband did his regular trips to Venice, I know something about governing, and I tell you, if Grandson had been able to take his seat in the House of Lords as Duke of Cambridge, it would have allowed him to learn about Britain and English politics ahead of time, which could only have been good for the country in the long term.
Caroline & motherhood: Dennison points out that in addition to the usual royal set up where a nurse and governess are in charge of the day to day caring of the kids, Caroline got smallpox when Fritz of Wales as six months, and then, barely recoverd, she got pneumonia. During this time, she wasn't allowed any contact with the baby at all for obvious reasons. So there was a disruption of this particular relationship from the get go. Also, while paying lip duties to believing in the highest calling for a woman being a wife and mother, she even according to an admiring and sympathetic observer had a perference for "settling points of controversional divinity" (Caroline was very much interested in philosophical and religious debates and later would be involved in a big Leipniz vs Newton and Clarke clash) over child play. She made sure her children would be educated from the get go, unlike her (lessons in Latin, German, French, Italian and the works ofancient historians were on the schedule), but as for day to day visits even when she was healthy, well...
Quoth Dennison: Caroline's apparant failure to react either swiftly or effectively to the infant Frederick developing rickets suggests negligence, but should be read within the context of contemporary parenting habits and widespread medical ignorance (...) In the event, credit for Frederick's recovery mostly belongs to Sophia, who, by directing that "Fritzchen" spend time outdoors in the gardens at Herrenhausen, exposed him to the light and fresh air which effected a cure around the time of his third birthday. In her lietters, Sophia intimated that her contribution extended to supervising Fritzchen's wetnurse and feeding regimen: first smallpox then pneunomonia had separated Caroline from her baby. (...) Frederick did benefit from the doting ministrations of his still energetic great-grandmother.
(Who took him along on her garden walks, she didn't just tell the nurse to take him outside. You might recall she does mention him a lot in her letters to SD.) All this might still have been recoverable within an 18th century context, but then when "Fritzchen" is seven, the family moves to Britain, except him.
On George Louis' instructions, Frederick stayed behind in Hannover with hish great-uncle, Ernest Augustus. His grandfather had decided that Frederick would serve as the family's permanent representative in the electorate. He was seven years old. Only in January, Sophia had written to Liselotte of his excitement that Christmas. 'I have no doubt that your Prince Fritzchen is absolutely delighted with the Christchild, because I still remember so well how I loved it,' Liselotte replied. To enforce a permanent separation from his parents an dsiblings on so young a child was an act of terrible cruelty, from which neither prince nor parents would recover.
Early on, Caroline kept asking British visitors to the continent who'd been in Hannover to tell her how her son was doing, and to be fair, future G2 made at least two attempts to persuade his father to let "Fritzchen" join the the rest of the clan in said early years. But at some point, at the very latest when his brother William was born, they emotionally cut him off in their minds and hearts, and for good. Dennison points out that both Caroline and her oldest son were passionate letter writers, child!Fritz of Wales was definitely able to write letters to other relations (we have some of his letters to his sister Anne, for example) and yet no letter from Caroline during the 14 years the absence would eventually last exists. This could be because the correspondence was lost, or destroyed when mother and son became enemies, but even in the case of the only three years of Hervey/Fritz of Wales relationship, who were in the same country and the same town most of the time, some letters survive the subsequent breakdown, so Dennison speculates that Caroline may have never written, either because she could cope better this way or because there was something performative in her motherhood to "Fritzchen" from the get go, acting how she thought she ought to feel (a doting mother, asking questions about her child) rather than how she actually felt (not having been bonded with her oldest due to unfortunate circumstance).
Relations between George Louis and George Augustus had never been warm - Dennison thinks that maybe because of George Augustus' physical resemblance to the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea the Older -, though like FW with AW, George Louis could be a doting parent - to his illegitimate children with Melusine von der Schulenburg. Whereas with his two legitimate ones, he was cool, and after everyone moved to Britain, things between him and his son got steadily worse, which very much affected Caroline.
It has to be praised here that Dennison doesn't repeat old English clichés about G1. Who like grandson Fritz didn't like being undressed and dressed by his courtiers, so he changed this ceremonial, cut the office of the "Groom of the stool" entirely, and kept as his personal servants his two Turkish valets Mohammed and Mustafa. (Remember, his sister Sophie Charlotte, Figuelotte, also had brought two Turkish servants with her to Berlin from Hannover, and they were the last people she talked to on her death bed - "Adieu Ali, adieu Hassan".)
Brits: What kind of foreign weirdo keeps Turks around him? Who does he think he is, a sultan? No talking to Turks on our part. Mohammed & Mustafa: Have it your way. We're not shopping in London, then, we're still ordering G1's wardrobe in Hannover. G1: Which is how I like it. Mustafa, I'm ennobling you. You're allowed to choose your title. Mustafa: Count von Königstreu.
Unlike G1, who was too set in his ways, Caroline and George Augustus cultivated the English which was very much Caroline's idea and strategem. She only kept two German ladies-in-waiting and otherwise appointed only British nobility. She and future G2 with and without their younger children were seen regularly taking strolls through St. James Park by the population. (Such a wholesome family, unlike the last Stuarts!). She and George Augustus learned English country dances and danced them at balls to the amazement of the nobility and delight of the population. Caroline became a patron of poets and artists. That all this enthusiasm for all things British was on G2's part not entirely sincere would only be revealed once he got on the throne, but for now, it was a very effective way to become popular and seen as the opposite of Dear Old Dad with his German mistress and Turkish valets and German officials and regular trips to Hannover. Oh, and this also happened:
1715 Jacobite rising: *happens*
George Augustus: Sounds like a job for me! I'm Young Hannover Brave, remember!
George Louis: I do remember. You're staying in London. Argyll, Supreme Command of my army is yours. Deal with the Jacobites.
George Augustus: I hate you.
Things escalate to the point where, when Caroline gives birth to another son (not yet Cumberland, but another William who will die as a baby just a few months later), we get the infamous quarrel at Westminster Abbey because George Louis changes the godfather George Augustus wanted, and George Augustus and the unwanted new godfather almost come to blows. This ends with future G2 and Caroline first locked up and then kicked out of the palace, with access to their children forbidden to them. Caroline is told by G1 she can stay but only if she takes his part. Caroline replies that while she loves her children, she loves her husband more and will go with him.
(Dennison points this may have been true but was also the only thing she could do in the long term, as G2 would not have forgiven her siding with Dad against him, and he was the one she lived with and who would survive G1.)
This treatment of Caroline has the effect that Europe, which might otherwise have sided with the patriarch, now sides with the young couple, because cutting off Caroline from her children just because she's a loyal wife looks terrible. It also does lasting damage. Caroline's relationships to her first three daughters won't ever be as close again as with the three children born after this event who grow up entirely with her. And she really did try to keep the contact, always sending little notes to the girls (which are preserved) and wearing G1 down to permitting weekly visits. She and George Augustus settled down in Leicester House, which was owned by Elizabeth Stuart the Winter Queen in the last months of her life when she had finally returned to England to die, and hence was owned by the Hannover clan. Caroline gives birth to three more children, two girls and William the future butcher of Cumberland. Who will spend seven years as the de facto only son, petted and adored, and will resent the ultimate arrival of his older brother only slightly less than Caroline and George Augustus.
Caroline: ? Sophie (I'm not making this up, she really said this): Look at it this way: It will improve his English.
HA.
So there was a disruption of this particular relationship from the get go. Also, while paying lip duties to believing in the highest calling for a woman being a wife and mother, she even according to an admiring and sympathetic observer had a perference for "settling points of controversional divinity" (Caroline was very much interested in philosophical and religious debates and later would be involved in a big Leipniz vs Newton and Clarke clash) over child play.
This is where Caroline started getting really interesting for me. Not least because I've had some experience in
a) not bonding with one of my children right after birth, and if I had then been separated from that child for years on end, I... well, I made a lot of fun of Caroline back when you were telling us about Lord Hervey's memoirs, but now I can really viscerally see how that could so easily have happened
b) My church culture does a lot of that "highest calling being a wife and mother" thing (fortunately my actual family never did, they were much more of the "yeah, get educated and get a career" variety) and I do feel that being a mother is important to my identity, and at the same time I am, um, not so into child play. To be fair, I know very few mothers who actually enjoy doing quite as much of it as their kids like to :P -- but anyway, so, yeah, suddenly Dennison (and you) are humanizing her a lot more for me.
(Dennison points this may have been true but was also the only thing she could do in the long term, as G2 would not have forgiven her siding with Dad against him, and he was the one she lived with and who would survive G1.)
Maaaan. Caroline. I am so into (well, reading about) women who do the "right" thing (or at least the dramatic thing!) which also happens to be the coldly practical thing, and Caroline seems like she is the master of it! (But also, ugh!)
I can really viscerally see how that could so easily have happened
While I never had kids, same here. Like I said, maybe it still could have been avoided if Fritzchen had grown up with his parents (well, at least in a royal family kind of way), but this initial experience plus so many years separately plus the difficulty that most designated successors in monarchies tend to be at odds with the ruling monarch really wrecked any chance of closeness, and that was before the arguments started.
BTW, Dennison also is very clear on the fact that Caroline convincing herself that Fritz of Wales was impotent really had no factual or even gossipy basis other than her wishful thinking, because she wanted beloved younger son William to become King so badly.
FW: I, on the other hand, would have been full of joy if Wretched Son had ever deigned to give me a grandchild, so I really don't understand where all the criticism comes from!
I am so into (well, reading about) women who do the "right" thing (or at least the dramatic thing!) which also happens to be the coldly practical thing, and Caroline seems like she is the master of it!
She was, and figuring out the degree in which many of her actions were calculation vs genuine feeling (it usually according to Dennison was a mixture of both) was most frustrating for her opponents. In the case of the big G1 vs G2 showdown, her involvement really made all the difference in public opinion. In an age where fathers are by default right (unless they kill their sons a la Peter the Great or kill their sons' lovers a la FW), most people would probably have sided with G1 otherwise. After all, he was King AND the head of the House, so his changing the identity of the godfather would have been seen as his prerogative, and G2 carrying the argument about it well into the baptism and quarelling with the new godfather as terrible manners.
But since none of this had been Caroline's fault, forbidding her to see her children came across as petty, cruel and monstreous, and suddenly everyone was on team Caroline and George Augustus. (Liselotte wrote to her half sister that George Louis had been a cold fish in Germany already, but it seemed the English air had turned him into stone.)
Another example of where it's impossible to tell whether Caroline's motivation were more strategy or mere genuine feeling was the big Leipniz vs Newton (and Jeremy Clarke) clash. Leipniz, due to his years of association with Sophie and Sophie Charlotte, and his having been patronized by House Hannover since decades, and given the fact that he'd been of personal service to Caroline (he'd written her refusal letter to Archduke Charles for her - you bet that Caroline did NOT want this particular letter to laying her open to ridicule for her spelling, handwriting etc.), had a claim on her loyalty, on the one hand. On the other, siding with a German scientist against God of British Science Newton would have gone against all she was hoping to achieve in winning the Brits over and would have inevitably resulted in her being accused of siding with him only due to German bias. Otoh - she might also have found Newton simply more convincing. In any event, she wrote diplomatic letters with Leipniz but sided with Newton; her diplomacy must have been good enough for Leipniz not to feel himself betrayed, though, as he continued to be nice about her in his letters to other people.
FW: I, on the other hand, would have been full of joy if Wretched Son had ever deigned to give me a grandchild, so I really don't understand where all the criticism comes from!
HA.
(it usually according to Dennison was a mixture of both)
Yeah, that sounds very plausible, and I think that's very cool.
In any event, she wrote diplomatic letters with Leipniz but sided with Newton; her diplomacy must have been good enough for Leipniz not to feel himself betrayed, though, as he continued to be nice about her in his letters to other people.
Oh, that's actually really neat -- I feel like the icky bit about the whole Leipniz/Newton thing was how everyone was kind of their worst selves about it all, and it's rather nice to find someone who wasn't.
Sophie (I'm not making this up, she really said this): Look at it this way: It will improve his English.
Lol!
if Grandson had been able to take his seat in the House of Lords as Duke of Cambridge, it would have allowed him to learn about Britain and English politics ahead of time, which could only have been good for the country in the long term
Sophie has a point!
Caroline's apparant failure to react either swiftly or effectively to the infant Frederick developing rickets suggests negligence, but should be read within the context of contemporary parenting habits
This reminds me of SD being the last to notice that Wilhelmine was being beaten by her governess.
exposed him to the light and fresh air which effected a cure around the time of his third birthday.
Yay vitamin D!
G1: Which is how I like it. Mustafa, I'm ennobling you. You're allowed to choose your title. Mustafa: Count von Königstreu.
George Augustus: Sounds like a job for me! I'm Young Hannover Brave, remember!
George Louis: I do remember. You're staying in London.
Lol, Hanover dysfunction is fun.
Man, I'm remembering Classical dysfunction now, when one royal father-son pair was so close that one time the son came back from hunting carrying his spear, and he ran into his father, and they sat down and chatted together, and then the father was like, "See! I trust my son so much that I let him into my presence fully armed!" ...Which says a lot about the cultural norms of the time. (This is Antigonus and Demetrius, anecdote from Plutarch, for those of you to whom that means anything. We'll do Classics salon someday. :D)
It also does lasting damage. Caroline's relationships to her first three daughters won't ever be as close again as with the three children born after this event who grow up entirely with her.
Caroline gives birth to the William whose birth (and early death) triggered the crisis: November 1717.
January 1718: G1 starts legal proceedings, enquiring from the judges whether "the Education and Care of the Prsons of HIs Majesty's Grandchildren, and ordering the Place of their Abode, & Appointing their Governors, Governesses and other Instructors, Attendants and servant, and the Care and Approbation of their Marriages when grown up, belong of right to his Majesty, as King of this Realm, or not?" Unsurprisngly, a majority of judges decides damn well they do.
(Prussian war tribunals apparantly are made of sterner stuff when it comes to refusing monarchs the judgment they want to have.)
At first, Caroline's fave the Countess (Schaumburg-Lippe-)Bückeburg who is the girls' governess is allowed to visit her each evening to report on the kids. And then G1 fires her as governess (she was Caroline's bff) and replaces her by Lady Portland.
(G2 and Caroline hated Lady Portland accordingly and fired her as soon as G1 had breathed his last, but since the girls once grown up kept corresponding with her, one can say they grew attached and she evidently wasn't an evil cliché.)
(Lady Mary who met the fired Lady Portland shortly after the firing gave a witty though heartless description of her in her letters since Lady P had taken the firing to heart: "Her funereal appearance represented very finely an Egyptian Mummy embroider'd with hieroglyphics.")
On a similar note, G2 unsurprisingly fired the bulk of his father's servants and attendants after G1's death. Otoh, Fritz of Wales once finally arriving in London hired most of those who were still there and out of a job (remember, it took over a year between the death and Fritz of Wales' kidnapping, err, invite) into his personal service. Given he'd likely known many of them from Hannover, that makes sense and wasn't yet an anti-Dad gesture.)
Summer of 1720: G1 returns to Hannover. For this occasion, he allows the three princesses to rejoin their parents.
Anyway: as you might recall, when G2 later when at the height of his war against Fritz of Wales gets reminded of his own quarrel with his father, he doesn't just retort "This is different, I was in the right then and am in the right now!", he also emphasizes how much better he treats FoW than his father has treated him because he doesn't take his children from him, even though he could, because he knows what it's like. Now G2 would never win a parent of the year award, but I think he wasn't being disingeneous here but meant both these statements, in his G2 way, and he and Caroline couldn't understand why Fritz of Wales wasn't properly grateful.
January 1718: G1 starts legal proceedings, enquiring from the judges whether "the Education and Care of the Prsons of HIs Majesty's Grandchildren, and ordering the Place of their Abode, & Appointing their Governors, Governesses and other Instructors, Attendants and servant, and the Care and Approbation of their Marriages when grown up, belong of right to his Majesty, as King of this Realm, or not?" Unsurprisngly, a majority of judges decides damn well they do.
(Prussian war tribunals apparantly are made of sterner stuff when it comes to refusing monarchs the judgment they want to have.)
Geesh. Yeah, this does highlight how the Prussian war tribunal was not... doing the safe thing. (Also I always have to shoutout to my faves the pastors!) Though to be fair I think G1's legal proceeding does have a bit more merit to it (even if I generally disagree).
he also emphasizes how much better he treats FoW than his father has treated him because he doesn't take his children from him, even though he could, because he knows what it's like. Now G2 would never win a parent of the year award, but I think he wasn't being disingeneous here but meant both these statements, in his G2 way, and he and Caroline couldn't understand why Fritz of Wales wasn't properly grateful.
Ooooof yeah. Like Fritz treats Heinrich so much better than FW treated him, and why isn't Heinrich properly grateful! Sigh.
[personal profile] cahn, is your German up to that?
My German is not up to recognizing names as plays on words! That being said... my English is often not up to that either. Someone had to point out to me, for example, "Diagon Alley." (This often leads to much hilarity in my household, because at least two other people in it at present are more attuned to puns than I am, with the youngest member diligently striving to get to that point.)
Anyway, thank you for pointing it out, and now I get it :)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- II: People Manager
Date: 2021-07-27 01:51 pm (UTC)Caroline: ?
Sophie (I'm not making this up, she really said this): Look at it this way: It will improve his English.
George Augustus, like FW, had a hell of a time getting his father to permit him to join team Eugene & Marlborough on campain. Unlike FW, this was because George Louis - who'd done ample soldiering in his own father's life time - didn't want his disliked son to distinguish himself. Like FW, eventually permission was granted, and George Augustus got to go soldiering for six months, which included the Battle of Oudenaard and future G2 distinguishing himself by personal bravery - a horse was shot under him and he still went on fighting. This got him praise from Marlborough and some mention from British poets who called him "Young Hannover Brave", a description he would relish for the rest of his life.
Anne: *still not impressed and refusing to allow any Hannover cousins to set foot on British shore while she's alive*
Dennison: I'm with Anne here, not with Sophie. It wasn't personal - Anne knew that any successor in residence would esssentially become a second, alternative court, and she already had to deal with one in Paris courtesy of her father and half brother.
Sophie: Then it wasn't personal on my part, either. You may think it was must wounded vanity that made me roll my eyes at Anne, Dennison, but I've been ruling Hannover whenever my husband did his regular trips to Venice, I know something about governing, and I tell you, if Grandson had been able to take his seat in the House of Lords as Duke of Cambridge, it would have allowed him to learn about Britain and English politics ahead of time, which could only have been good for the country in the long term.
Caroline & motherhood: Dennison points out that in addition to the usual royal set up where a nurse and governess are in charge of the day to day caring of the kids, Caroline got smallpox when Fritz of Wales as six months, and then, barely recoverd, she got pneumonia. During this time, she wasn't allowed any contact with the baby at all for obvious reasons. So there was a disruption of this particular relationship from the get go. Also, while paying lip duties to believing in the highest calling for a woman being a wife and mother, she even according to an admiring and sympathetic observer had a perference for "settling points of controversional divinity" (Caroline was very much interested in philosophical and religious debates and later would be involved in a big Leipniz vs Newton and Clarke clash) over child play. She made sure her children would be educated from the get go, unlike her (lessons in Latin, German, French, Italian and the works ofancient historians were on the schedule), but as for day to day visits even when she was healthy, well...
Quoth Dennison: Caroline's apparant failure to react either swiftly or effectively to the infant Frederick developing rickets suggests negligence, but should be read within the context of contemporary parenting habits and widespread medical ignorance (...) In the event, credit for Frederick's recovery mostly belongs to Sophia, who, by directing that "Fritzchen" spend time outdoors in the gardens at Herrenhausen, exposed him to the light and fresh air which effected a cure around the time of his third birthday. In her lietters, Sophia intimated that her contribution extended to supervising Fritzchen's wetnurse and feeding regimen: first smallpox then pneunomonia had separated Caroline from her baby. (...) Frederick did benefit from the doting ministrations of his still energetic great-grandmother.
(Who took him along on her garden walks, she didn't just tell the nurse to take him outside. You might recall she does mention him a lot in her letters to SD.) All this might still have been recoverable within an 18th century context, but then when "Fritzchen" is seven, the family moves to Britain, except him.
On George Louis' instructions, Frederick stayed behind in Hannover with hish great-uncle, Ernest Augustus. His grandfather had decided that Frederick would serve as the family's permanent representative in the electorate. He was seven years old. Only in January, Sophia had written to Liselotte of his excitement that Christmas. 'I have no doubt that your Prince Fritzchen is absolutely delighted with the Christchild, because I still remember so well how I loved it,' Liselotte replied. To enforce a permanent separation from his parents an dsiblings on so young a child was an act of terrible cruelty, from which neither prince nor parents would recover.
Early on, Caroline kept asking British visitors to the continent who'd been in Hannover to tell her how her son was doing, and to be fair, future G2 made at least two attempts to persuade his father to let "Fritzchen" join the the rest of the clan in said early years. But at some point, at the very latest when his brother William was born, they emotionally cut him off in their minds and hearts, and for good. Dennison points out that both Caroline and her oldest son were passionate letter writers, child!Fritz of Wales was definitely able to write letters to other relations (we have some of his letters to his sister Anne, for example) and yet no letter from Caroline during the 14 years the absence would eventually last exists. This could be because the correspondence was lost, or destroyed when mother and son became enemies, but even in the case of the only three years of Hervey/Fritz of Wales relationship, who were in the same country and the same town most of the time, some letters survive the subsequent breakdown, so Dennison speculates that Caroline may have never written, either because she could cope better this way or because there was something performative in her motherhood to "Fritzchen" from the get go, acting how she thought she ought to feel (a doting mother, asking questions about her child) rather than how she actually felt (not having been bonded with her oldest due to unfortunate circumstance).
Relations between George Louis and George Augustus had never been warm - Dennison thinks that maybe because of George Augustus' physical resemblance to the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea the Older -, though like FW with AW, George Louis could be a doting parent - to his illegitimate children with Melusine von der Schulenburg. Whereas with his two legitimate ones, he was cool, and after everyone moved to Britain, things between him and his son got steadily worse, which very much affected Caroline.
It has to be praised here that Dennison doesn't repeat old English clichés about G1. Who like grandson Fritz didn't like being undressed and dressed by his courtiers, so he changed this ceremonial, cut the office of the "Groom of the stool" entirely, and kept as his personal servants his two Turkish valets Mohammed and Mustafa. (Remember, his sister Sophie Charlotte, Figuelotte, also had brought two Turkish servants with her to Berlin from Hannover, and they were the last people she talked to on her death bed - "Adieu Ali, adieu Hassan".)
Brits: What kind of foreign weirdo keeps Turks around him? Who does he think he is, a sultan? No talking to Turks on our part.
Mohammed & Mustafa: Have it your way. We're not shopping in London, then, we're still ordering G1's wardrobe in Hannover.
G1: Which is how I like it. Mustafa, I'm ennobling you. You're allowed to choose your title.
Mustafa: Count von Königstreu.
Unlike G1, who was too set in his ways, Caroline and George Augustus cultivated the English which was very much Caroline's idea and strategem. She only kept two German ladies-in-waiting and otherwise appointed only British nobility. She and future G2 with and without their younger children were seen regularly taking strolls through St. James Park by the population. (Such a wholesome family, unlike the last Stuarts!). She and George Augustus learned English country dances and danced them at balls to the amazement of the nobility and delight of the population. Caroline became a patron of poets and artists. That all this enthusiasm for all things British was on G2's part not entirely sincere would only be revealed once he got on the throne, but for now, it was a very effective way to become popular and seen as the opposite of Dear Old Dad with his German mistress and Turkish valets and German officials and regular trips to Hannover. Oh, and this also happened:
1715 Jacobite rising: *happens*
George Augustus: Sounds like a job for me! I'm Young Hannover Brave, remember!
George Louis: I do remember. You're staying in London. Argyll, Supreme Command of my army is yours. Deal with the Jacobites.
George Augustus: I hate you.
Things escalate to the point where, when Caroline gives birth to another son (not yet Cumberland, but another William who will die as a baby just a few months later), we get the infamous quarrel at Westminster Abbey because George Louis changes the godfather George Augustus wanted, and George Augustus and the unwanted new godfather almost come to blows. This ends with future G2 and Caroline first locked up and then kicked out of the palace, with access to their children forbidden to them. Caroline is told by G1 she can stay but only if she takes his part. Caroline replies that while she loves her children, she loves her husband more and will go with him.
(Dennison points this may have been true but was also the only thing she could do in the long term, as G2 would not have forgiven her siding with Dad against him, and he was the one she lived with and who would survive G1.)
This treatment of Caroline has the effect that Europe, which might otherwise have sided with the patriarch, now sides with the young couple, because cutting off Caroline from her children just because she's a loyal wife looks terrible. It also does lasting damage. Caroline's relationships to her first three daughters won't ever be as close again as with the three children born after this event who grow up entirely with her. And she really did try to keep the contact, always sending little notes to the girls (which are preserved) and wearing G1 down to permitting weekly visits. She and George Augustus settled down in Leicester House, which was owned by Elizabeth Stuart the Winter Queen in the last months of her life when she had finally returned to England to die, and hence was owned by the Hannover clan. Caroline gives birth to three more children, two girls and William the future butcher of Cumberland. Who will spend seven years as the de facto only son, petted and adored, and will resent the ultimate arrival of his older brother only slightly less than Caroline and George Augustus.
Re: The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- II: People Manager
Date: 2021-07-29 05:24 am (UTC)Sophie (I'm not making this up, she really said this): Look at it this way: It will improve his English.
HA.
So there was a disruption of this particular relationship from the get go. Also, while paying lip duties to believing in the highest calling for a woman being a wife and mother, she even according to an admiring and sympathetic observer had a perference for "settling points of controversional divinity" (Caroline was very much interested in philosophical and religious debates and later would be involved in a big Leipniz vs Newton and Clarke clash) over child play.
This is where Caroline started getting really interesting for me. Not least because I've had some experience in
a) not bonding with one of my children right after birth, and if I had then been separated from that child for years on end, I... well, I made a lot of fun of Caroline back when you were telling us about Lord Hervey's memoirs, but now I can really viscerally see how that could so easily have happened
b) My church culture does a lot of that "highest calling being a wife and mother" thing (fortunately my actual family never did, they were much more of the "yeah, get educated and get a career" variety) and I do feel that being a mother is important to my identity, and at the same time I am, um, not so into child play. To be fair, I know very few mothers who actually enjoy doing quite as much of it as their kids like to :P -- but anyway, so, yeah, suddenly Dennison (and you) are humanizing her a lot more for me.
(Dennison points this may have been true but was also the only thing she could do in the long term, as G2 would not have forgiven her siding with Dad against him, and he was the one she lived with and who would survive G1.)
Maaaan. Caroline. I am so into (well, reading about) women who do the "right" thing (or at least the dramatic thing!) which also happens to be the coldly practical thing, and Caroline seems like she is the master of it! (But also, ugh!)
Re: The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- II: People Manager
Date: 2021-07-29 01:50 pm (UTC)While I never had kids, same here. Like I said, maybe it still could have been avoided if Fritzchen had grown up with his parents (well, at least in a royal family kind of way), but this initial experience plus so many years separately plus the difficulty that most designated successors in monarchies tend to be at odds with the ruling monarch really wrecked any chance of closeness, and that was before the arguments started.
BTW, Dennison also is very clear on the fact that Caroline convincing herself that Fritz of Wales was impotent really had no factual or even gossipy basis other than her wishful thinking, because she wanted beloved younger son William to become King so badly.
FW: I, on the other hand, would have been full of joy if Wretched Son had ever deigned to give me a grandchild, so I really don't understand where all the criticism comes from!
I am so into (well, reading about) women who do the "right" thing (or at least the dramatic thing!) which also happens to be the coldly practical thing, and Caroline seems like she is the master of it!
She was, and figuring out the degree in which many of her actions were calculation vs genuine feeling (it usually according to Dennison was a mixture of both) was most frustrating for her opponents. In the case of the big G1 vs G2 showdown, her involvement really made all the difference in public opinion. In an age where fathers are by default right (unless they kill their sons a la Peter the Great or kill their sons' lovers a la FW), most people would probably have sided with G1 otherwise. After all, he was King AND the head of the House, so his changing the identity of the godfather would have been seen as his prerogative, and G2 carrying the argument about it well into the baptism and quarelling with the new godfather as terrible manners.
But since none of this had been Caroline's fault, forbidding her to see her children came across as petty, cruel and monstreous, and suddenly everyone was on team Caroline and George Augustus. (Liselotte wrote to her half sister that George Louis had been a cold fish in Germany already, but it seemed the English air had turned him into stone.)
Another example of where it's impossible to tell whether Caroline's motivation were more strategy or mere genuine feeling was the big Leipniz vs Newton (and Jeremy Clarke) clash. Leipniz, due to his years of association with Sophie and Sophie Charlotte, and his having been patronized by House Hannover since decades, and given the fact that he'd been of personal service to Caroline (he'd written her refusal letter to Archduke Charles for her - you bet that Caroline did NOT want this particular letter to laying her open to ridicule for her spelling, handwriting etc.), had a claim on her loyalty, on the one hand. On the other, siding with a German scientist against God of British Science Newton would have gone against all she was hoping to achieve in winning the Brits over and would have inevitably resulted in her being accused of siding with him only due to German bias. Otoh - she might also have found Newton simply more convincing. In any event, she wrote diplomatic letters with Leipniz but sided with Newton; her diplomacy must have been good enough for Leipniz not to feel himself betrayed, though, as he continued to be nice about her in his letters to other people.
Re: The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- II: People Manager
Date: 2021-07-31 05:55 am (UTC)HA.
(it usually according to Dennison was a mixture of both)
Yeah, that sounds very plausible, and I think that's very cool.
In any event, she wrote diplomatic letters with Leipniz but sided with Newton; her diplomacy must have been good enough for Leipniz not to feel himself betrayed, though, as he continued to be nice about her in his letters to other people.
Oh, that's actually really neat -- I feel like the icky bit about the whole Leipniz/Newton thing was how everyone was kind of their worst selves about it all, and it's rather nice to find someone who wasn't.
Re: The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- II: People Manager
Date: 2021-07-31 01:26 pm (UTC)Lol!
if Grandson had been able to take his seat in the House of Lords as Duke of Cambridge, it would have allowed him to learn about Britain and English politics ahead of time, which could only have been good for the country in the long term
Sophie has a point!
Caroline's apparant failure to react either swiftly or effectively to the infant Frederick developing rickets suggests negligence, but should be read within the context of contemporary parenting habits
This reminds me of SD being the last to notice that Wilhelmine was being beaten by her governess.
exposed him to the light and fresh air which effected a cure around the time of his third birthday.
Yay vitamin D!
G1: Which is how I like it. Mustafa, I'm ennobling you. You're allowed to choose your title.
Mustafa: Count von Königstreu.
George Augustus: Sounds like a job for me! I'm Young Hannover Brave, remember!
George Louis: I do remember. You're staying in London.
Lol, Hanover dysfunction is fun.
Man, I'm remembering Classical dysfunction now, when one royal father-son pair was so close that one time the son came back from hunting carrying his spear, and he ran into his father, and they sat down and chatted together, and then the father was like, "See! I trust my son so much that I let him into my presence fully armed!" ...Which says a lot about the cultural norms of the time. (This is Antigonus and Demetrius, anecdote from Plutarch, for those of you to whom that means anything. We'll do Classics salon someday. :D)
It also does lasting damage. Caroline's relationships to her first three daughters won't ever be as close again as with the three children born after this event who grow up entirely with her.
Oof. So how long did this situation go on?
Re: The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- II: People Manager
Date: 2021-08-01 11:21 am (UTC)Caroline gives birth to the William whose birth (and early death) triggered the crisis: November 1717.
January 1718: G1 starts legal proceedings, enquiring from the judges whether "the Education and Care of the Prsons of HIs Majesty's Grandchildren, and ordering the Place of their Abode, & Appointing their Governors, Governesses and other Instructors, Attendants and servant, and the Care and Approbation of their Marriages when grown up, belong of right to his Majesty, as King of this Realm, or not?" Unsurprisngly, a majority of judges decides damn well they do.
(Prussian war tribunals apparantly are made of sterner stuff when it comes to refusing monarchs the judgment they want to have.)
At first, Caroline's fave the Countess (Schaumburg-Lippe-)Bückeburg who is the girls' governess is allowed to visit her each evening to report on the kids. And then G1 fires her as governess (she was Caroline's bff) and replaces her by Lady Portland.
(G2 and Caroline hated Lady Portland accordingly and fired her as soon as G1 had breathed his last, but since the girls once grown up kept corresponding with her, one can say they grew attached and she evidently wasn't an evil cliché.)
(Lady Mary who met the fired Lady Portland shortly after the firing gave a witty though heartless description of her in her letters since Lady P had taken the firing to heart: "Her funereal appearance represented very finely an Egyptian Mummy embroider'd with hieroglyphics.")
On a similar note, G2 unsurprisingly fired the bulk of his father's servants and attendants after G1's death. Otoh, Fritz of Wales once finally arriving in London hired most of those who were still there and out of a job (remember, it took over a year between the death and Fritz of Wales' kidnapping, err, invite) into his personal service. Given he'd likely known many of them from Hannover, that makes sense and wasn't yet an anti-Dad gesture.)
Summer of 1720: G1 returns to Hannover. For this occasion, he allows the three princesses to rejoin their parents.
Anyway: as you might recall, when G2 later when at the height of his war against Fritz of Wales gets reminded of his own quarrel with his father, he doesn't just retort "This is different, I was in the right then and am in the right now!", he also emphasizes how much better he treats FoW than his father has treated him because he doesn't take his children from him, even though he could, because he knows what it's like. Now G2 would never win a parent of the year award, but I think he wasn't being disingeneous here but meant both these statements, in his G2 way, and he and Caroline couldn't understand why Fritz of Wales wasn't properly grateful.
Re: The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- II: People Manager
Date: 2021-08-04 04:59 am (UTC)(Prussian war tribunals apparantly are made of sterner stuff when it comes to refusing monarchs the judgment they want to have.)
Geesh. Yeah, this does highlight how the Prussian war tribunal was not... doing the safe thing. (Also I always have to shoutout to my faves the pastors!) Though to be fair I think G1's legal proceeding does have a bit more merit to it (even if I generally disagree).
he also emphasizes how much better he treats FoW than his father has treated him because he doesn't take his children from him, even though he could, because he knows what it's like. Now G2 would never win a parent of the year award, but I think he wasn't being disingeneous here but meant both these statements, in his G2 way, and he and Caroline couldn't understand why Fritz of Wales wasn't properly grateful.
Ooooof yeah. Like Fritz treats Heinrich so much better than FW treated him, and why isn't Heinrich properly grateful! Sigh.
Re: The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- II: People Manager
Date: 2021-08-04 04:52 am (UTC)My German is not up to recognizing names as plays on words! That being said... my English is often not up to that either. Someone had to point out to me, for example, "Diagon Alley." (This often leads to much hilarity in my household, because at least two other people in it at present are more attuned to puns than I am, with the youngest member diligently striving to get to that point.)
Anyway, thank you for pointing it out, and now I get it :)