Loool, well, I see Wilhelmine isn't the only one who can be savage about her relatives!
No kidding. I do wonder whether he's speaking out of the general assumption any daughter of FW is probably as mad as FW, or whether Wilhelmine was in right in her memoirs that her old governess Leti told Lady Darlington/Gräfin Kielmannsegg all kind of negative things about her, of which the story of her having uneven shoulders (a la grandpa F1) was but one. (But the one which she had to undress in front of Hannover ladies for when Mom wanted to prove she had a straight back.)
Well, those are very different things! I do remember wondering what evidence there was about the plan to sneak off and marry Wilhelmine, it seemed very unlikely. Seems like maybe it was too good to be true? Or maybe the second version was the cover-up story. :P
Since Dennison is a good biographer who does footnotes and source references, I can tell you he has both stories from: Vivian, Frances: A life of Frederick, Prince of Wales, 1707 - 1751: A Connoiseur of the Arts. The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, 2006. He does not mention who Vivian's primary sources were.
ETA: in the AU where Fritz of Wales shows up in Berlin to marry Wilhelmine and asks for asylum from mean Dad and Mom while he's at it, I've already asked how you think FW would respond; now I'm asking how Wilhelmine and Fritz would?
Well, in rl Fritz of Wales arrives in London and gets reintroduced to his (un)loving family at 7 pm on a dark December evening in 1728, so if he'd gone to Berlin instead, it would have been around this time (i.e. say, November 1728?) Of course, back then he didn't know how badly things would get with Mom and Dad, so he wouldn't have sought asylum yet. For that, the perfect year is...drumroll... 1730, when G2 at January 31st is observed by courtiers in public jesting with son William about what a fabulous King he'd make while simultanously refusing to grant Fritz of Wales more than a third of the budget George Augustus himself had had as Prince of Wales, with the argument that FoW isn't married, which doesn't look as if it's about to change soon given G2's enthusiasm for the Prussian marriage project....
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Re: The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- III: Gloriana
Date: 2021-08-01 10:57 am (UTC)No kidding. I do wonder whether he's speaking out of the general assumption any daughter of FW is probably as mad as FW, or whether Wilhelmine was in right in her memoirs that her old governess Leti told Lady Darlington/Gräfin Kielmannsegg all kind of negative things about her, of which the story of her having uneven shoulders (a la grandpa F1) was but one. (But the one which she had to undress in front of Hannover ladies for when Mom wanted to prove she had a straight back.)
Well, those are very different things! I do remember wondering what evidence there was about the plan to sneak off and marry Wilhelmine, it seemed very unlikely. Seems like maybe it was too good to be true? Or maybe the second version was the cover-up story. :P
Since Dennison is a good biographer who does footnotes and source references, I can tell you he has both stories from: Vivian, Frances: A life of Frederick, Prince of Wales, 1707 - 1751: A Connoiseur of the Arts. The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, 2006. He does not mention who Vivian's primary sources were.
ETA: in the AU where Fritz of Wales shows up in Berlin to marry Wilhelmine and asks for asylum from mean Dad and Mom while he's at it, I've already asked how you think FW would respond; now I'm asking how Wilhelmine and Fritz would?
Re: The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- III: Gloriana
Date: 2021-08-01 11:51 pm (UTC)Ooh, that's a really good question. What year is this, remind me?
Re: The First Iron Lady: A life of Caroline of Ansbach- III: Gloriana
Date: 2021-08-02 05:01 am (UTC)