Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 30
Sep. 8th, 2021 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnIn which, despite the title, I would like to be told about the English Revolution, which is yet another casualty of my extremely poor history education :P :)
Also, this is probably the place to say that RMSE opened with three Fritz-fics, all of which I think are readable with minimum canon knowledge:
The Boy Who Lived - if you knew about the doomed escape-from-Prussia-that-didn't happen and tragic death of Fritz's boyfriend Hans Hermann von Katte, you may not have known about Peter Keith, the third young man who conspired to escape Prussia -- and the only one who actually did. This is his story. I think readable without canon knowledge except what I just said here.
Challenge Yourself to Relax - My gift, I posted about this before! Corporate AU with my problematic fave, Fritz' brother Heinrich, who's still Fritz's l'autre moi-meme even in corporate AU. Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with the corporate world and the dysfunctions thereof.
The Rise and Fall of the RendezvousWithFame Exchange - Fandom AU with BNF fanfic writer Voltaire, exchange mod Fritz, and the inevitable meltdown. (I wrote this one and am quite proud of the terrible physics-adjacent pun contained within.) Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with fandom and the dysfunctions thereof :P
Also, this is probably the place to say that RMSE opened with three Fritz-fics, all of which I think are readable with minimum canon knowledge:
The Boy Who Lived - if you knew about the doomed escape-from-Prussia-that-didn't happen and tragic death of Fritz's boyfriend Hans Hermann von Katte, you may not have known about Peter Keith, the third young man who conspired to escape Prussia -- and the only one who actually did. This is his story. I think readable without canon knowledge except what I just said here.
Challenge Yourself to Relax - My gift, I posted about this before! Corporate AU with my problematic fave, Fritz' brother Heinrich, who's still Fritz's l'autre moi-meme even in corporate AU. Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with the corporate world and the dysfunctions thereof.
The Rise and Fall of the RendezvousWithFame Exchange - Fandom AU with BNF fanfic writer Voltaire, exchange mod Fritz, and the inevitable meltdown. (I wrote this one and am quite proud of the terrible physics-adjacent pun contained within.) Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with fandom and the dysfunctions thereof :P
Re: The English Civil War: C2 - Most Famous Escape Story of the War
Date: 2021-09-11 04:40 am (UTC)I mean, I like the competent! :D
One big problem. As in, a huge problem. You, C2, are a man so tall that unborn FW's heart would beat faster and he'd conscript you immediately.
LOOOOOL
C2: *has bleeding and sore feet very quickly, but manages to keep going for three days before getting somewhere where it was possible to bind them and get other shoes*
AND he's persistent. This escape attempt, as you say below, really does have everything!!
England, Scotland and France, if you're wondering.
Yes I was, thank you!
so he has to hide in a "priest hole", one of those hiding places for Catholic priests first established when E1 reigned*
Ohhhhhh! I've read (presumably period) books where priest holes were a thing, but I never knew how they came about or why they were called priest holes!
*there meets also hiding Father Huddleston; when he finally converts to Catholicism on his deathbed, he will do so with said Father Huddleston as his admininstring priest, though how sincere that final conversion was is debated to this day*
OKAY I need more detail here!! Why did he convert?? Was it his mom again?? Why would it or wouldn't have been sincere??
"I told him that if that rogue were taken, he deserved to be hanged more than all the rest, for bringing in the Scots. Upon which he said I spoke like an honest man; and so we parted"
I think this is my favorite part of the BEST ESCAPE STORY, honestly. Charles! Also I absolutely adore that the "disguise person who stands out as servant to hide them because no one ever looks twice at servants" trope, which I love, is here and that it WORKS :D
Cook: What kind of loser servant are you?
C2: I'm the son of people so poor that we hardly ever eat meat! That's why I've never used a roasting jack before!
LOLOLOL omg Charles is the best (okay maybe this is my favorite?? who knows)
Pope the butler, the Jeeves of his time: *forges a letter from Jane's father saying he's seriously ill and she needs to come to him IMMEDIATELY+
no wait THIS is my favorite, omg. Oh, I can't decide. But this is SO COOL.
C2 also visits Stonehenge, because why not*
HAHAHAHA okay sure C2, why not
Fritz: Some people have all the luck!
Oh Fritz, I hate to break it to you, but... it wasn't just luck (although yeah, a lot of luck too). Though I guess C2 was older and more mature -- *checks dates* *blinks* Huh, C2 was only 19 or 20 when all this happened? Well, he certainly had a very different life (and escape trajectory).
C2 granted a variety of annuities and gifts to some of the people who had aided him, including the Pendrell brothers and Jane Lane
Please tell me that Pope the butler got something!
Re: The English Civil War: C2 - Most Famous Escape Story of the War
Date: 2021-09-11 09:10 am (UTC)Priest holes have their own wiki entry, complete with the one Charles was hidden in. (The one at Boscobel House, since there are photos of three examples.) (BTW, Father Huddleston gave him his place (there wasn't room for more than one person in them), which with the Puritans newly victorious really was very noble and potentially self sacrificial.
OKAY I need more detail here!! Why did he convert?? Was it his mom again?? Why would it or wouldn't have been sincere??
No, Mom had nothing to do with it, and not just because she was long since dead. Major reasons for the debate:
1) Like many a king not FW or Fritz, Charles had a cash flow problem, especially after the triple blows of having lost a war with the Dutch, the Plague and the Great Fire of London on the one hand, and being a big spender on the other hand. (Not just on mistresses. He also was a major supporter of the sciences and art. But cheap, this was not.) And remember, Parliament held the strings of the royal purse. Which had been one of the many factors in the Civil War. However, just on the other side of the channel was cousin Louis XIV. The ultra Catholic, absolute, and having no compunction to spend money (as his subjects would find out) on whatever he wanted. Also, Charles' favourite sister Minette, married to Louis' brother Philippe the Gay to their mutual misery, was kind of C2's unofficial ambassador at Versailles. (There were official English envoys, of course, but Minette has the one entrusted with the very very secret thing about to unfold.) So Minette brokered the Treaty of Dover, the official part of which was a mutual aid and assistance contract where Charles promised to side with Louis against the Dutch. (Whom he'd been warring with unsuccesfully before but then had reconciled with, not least because his nephew William of Orange (the most famous to hold that name, the future King of England) had come of age and was rapidly turning into a thorn in Louis' side (as in, no more willing to let Louis run rampant over the Netherlands than his regents had been). The unofficial, secret part of the Treaty of Dover was that in exchange of a considerable yearly pension from Louis, Charles promised to convert to Catholicism "if the state of the Kingdom permitted it" and if the expected uproar would happen would accept Louis' troops to help quell said uproar in England. As it happened, Charles converted about five minutes before he died, after years and years of cash from Louis without converting or making the slightest move to do so, thereby technically fulfilling his promise but as to whether he meant it... BTW, since his subjects couldn't be sure he'd do this, of course had this treaty been known to the public there'd been Civil War, Part II. It was an incredible risky thing to do. (And a reason why this additional clause to the Treaty of Dover was so super secret, not just on the English but also on the French side. Minette and Louis knew, but Philippe did not. (And did majorly resent his wife being sent on diplomatic missions to England anyway.)) However, it did pay off for Charles, not just in terms of having more cash, but having more independence from Parliament.
2.) The story of Charles' death bed conversion was told by brother James the Ultra Catholic fanatic. According to James, he brought Father Huddleston to Charles saying "Sire, this good man once saved your life. He now comes to save your soul", Charles expresses the wish to die the Catholic Faith, Father Huddleston hears his confession and provides Extreme Unction, Charles dies. (Father Huddleston remained with Charles' widow Catherine till his own death.) In James' account, this was an utterly sincere conversion. But then, James both as a hardcore Catholic himself and as a monarch had every reason in the world to present it as such, not as something which had anything to do with the Treaty of Dover. (Let's not forget, cousin Louis XIV was alive and well and would outlive both brothers.)
3.) This said, C2 sincerely respected and was grateful to Huddleston, and all the Catholics who'd risked life and limb to help him, and even after a life time of being the one family member who really was meh personally about religion (either variation) could have felt the wish to convert as he was dying.
4.) Though we're talking about a man who still quipped on his deathbed. In addition to the aforementioned "be good to Portsmouth, and let not poor Nelly starve", there's also, to the rest of the people who like James were surrounding his death bed: He had been, he said, an unconscionable time dying but he hoped that they would excuse it.
Young Fritz and young Charles weren't that much apart in age, true, though in fairness the circumstances of their respective escapes or non-escapes were truly very, very different. Fritz didn't have a small but loyal network of underground Catholics coming to his aide, and he never made it far enough to be aided anyway. Otoh, Fritz wasn't on the run after a lost battle in a country where he was on top of the "WANTED!" list, and he had months to prepare, whereas Charles had to improvise after losing the battle.
Re: The English Civil War: C2 - Most Famous Escape Story of the War
Date: 2021-09-12 05:31 am (UTC)Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-12 08:38 pm (UTC)Agreed. The biggest difference is that Fritz was never out of FW's direct power--even the remnants of a beaten army gives you a head start over your pursuers that Fritz never had. Who was actually *lucky* was Peter Keith, stationed in Wesel, far away from FW, when this happened.
Similar to Charles II's escape story in this respect--lost a battle, had to flee the country, had a network of Catholic supporters, hunted by the enemy, had narrow escapes, is his great-nephew, one hundred years later, in Scotland. Like C2 and unlike Fritz, great-nephew made it.
Great-nephew,
So after James II lost his throne to William and Mary in the Glorious Revolution, *he* had to flee overseas (are you seeing a Stuart theme here?). He, his son, and then his grandson BPC kept trying to get the British throne back with foreign (Catholic) support, meaning some combination of France, Spain, and the Pope, depending on whose interest they could get on a given year.
After the War of the Spanish Succession forced France to recognize the Hanoverian succession and kick out the Stuarts, they went to live in Rome, the last place that would actually have them. (They were kind of a huge political liability; being nice to them would piss off powerful Britain, and not one of them inspired great confidence that they could actually pull off a successful revolution.) Foreign support usually consisted of "Well, we're at war with Britain already for other reasons, so let's stage an invasion of Britain to attempt a Stuart revolution. Not because we think there's more than a very slim chance, but because an invasion at home will force the British to pull troops off the Continent, which will help us in our wars! Stuarts, what Stuarts?
So in 1745, France is at war with Britain because of the War of the Austrian Succession. BPC has appeared in France to bug Louis XV. "Can I have money and troops and ships to land me in Scotland, can I can I can I?"
To summarize the complicated developments that ensued, the final response was, "You can have a ship to take you there, and then if it looks like you're actually going to win, we'll send you more money. Have fun storming the castle!"
Literally everyone: "BPC, this is not the stuff of which successful rebellions are made. Stay where you are, get a pension from Louis, get your head out of the clouds and stop dreaming about how you're going to make your dad King of England."
BPC: "No, it'll be great, it's my destiny, what could go wrong! Divine right of kings FTW!"
BPC: *invades Scotland with 7 friends*
Local Scots: *OMG, you promised French support! Go home, go home!"
BPC: "Sir, I am come home." (Famous quote.)
Through a small miracle, he actually manages to raise an army and start the most successful Jacobite Rebellion of them all, the Forty-Five aka the 45. Oh, "Jacobite" = "supporters of James", because "Jacobus" is the Latin for James.
But after some initial success, the Jacobites end up losing the Battle of Culloden, in April of 1746. This is the last land battle to be fought on the island of Great Britain.
Opposite BPC is the Duke of Cumberland, favorite son of G2 and Caroline of Ansbach, the one they really wanted to make their heir over Fritz of Wales.
The battle turns into a slaughter. The British adopt a take-no-prisoner attitude even after the battle: wounded and surrendering Jacobites are killed on sight. The army occupies the Highlands and imposes martial law. Various high-ranked members of the army are taken prisoner, transported to London, and publicly executed. Parliament passes various laws to oppress the culture of the Scottish Highlands: no wearing kilts, for example. William, Duke of Cumberland, earns the nickname "Butcher Billy," and is hated by Scots to this day.
So now BPC is fleeing for his life. He goes into hiding in the Highlands, and he isn't betrayed despite the occupying army, the price on his head, the fact that Jacobite resistance is effectively over at this point; BPC, despite his delusions to the contrary, will never have enough support to raise an army again.
It was an eventful escape, but it's been 20 years since I studied it and none of my Jacobite books made it through the book cullings of my several moves since then, so the only things I remember are:
1. Cluny's Cage, a cave/hole in the ground where he hid out in the mountains with Cluny of MacPherson, who was also being hunted by the Hanoverians.
2. Flora MacDonald, who went down in history as one of the most romantic figures of the rebellion. She risked her neck helping smuggle BPC in a boat over to the Isle of Skye, where BPC could be picked up by a ship that would take him to safety in France.
The most entertaining part of this episode is that BPC was disguised as Flora's lady's maid and going by the name of Betty Burke. Yes, this escape attempt has disguises via cross-dressing.
BPC made it to safety, having spent about 5 months on the run from Hanoverian supporters. He then faded into a lifetime of alcoholism and obscurity on the Continent.
Flora, who was imprisoned and interrogated by the Brits, but later released unharmed, eventually migrated to the American colonies. During the revolution, like many survivors of the Forty-Five who had seen what happens when you stand up to the British government, she was on the Tory side. Oops. So after being on the losing side of this war, she had to move back to Scotland.
3. BPC saying goodbye to Flora was immortalized in art, and is now a popular image to put on shortbread containers. If you've ever seen this, that's BPC and Flora MacDonald. And next time you're in a grocery store, you can look for this bit of 18th century history.
(No, they didn't have an affair. He did have an affair with another, very obscure and known only to students of the Jacobite rebellions, woman while in Scotland, but not Flora.)
4. Lots and lots of popular culture romanticizing the rebellion. "The Skye Boat Song" aka "Over the Sea to Skye" is one of the most well-known pieces of music to come out of his escape. (I typed "attempt" out of sheer muscle memory, lol, poor Fritz.)
(Watch me resist the urge to tell you the whole '45. :P I may at some point, but rn too many other things to do.)
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-13 08:17 am (UTC)1.) This is the period around which a lot of successful fiction featuring noble Scots and dastardly Englishmen is centred, notably Outlander. Also two flashback episodes from Highlander: The TV Series.
2.) The one and only time I did research at the Scottish National Library (about a 19th century painter whose diaries were stored there), I had next to me in the reading room a middle aged guy who looked like he was a biker - jeans, white haired pony tail, tattoos - and whom did he research? Flora MacDonald!
3.) Can't be sure, because my Boswell diaries are in Munich and I am in Bamberg, but I think he and Dr. Johnson met Flora MacDonald on that one and only Scotland & Hebrides trip Boswell talked Johnson into.
4.) C2 didn't have an affair with Jane Lane, either, as far as anyone knows. (And we do have some affectionate and respectful letters from him to her from later in life indicating the nature of their relationship.) However, I bet that as with BPC and Flora MacDonald, this didn't stop anyone bent on imagining romance in fiction, due to the very romantic circumstances.
5.) Reminder of karma waiting for Butcher Billy (who at first got the national hero treatment in England: old Händel even composed a song praising him for saving Britain) in the 7 Years War: faced not with underarmed Highlanders but with professional French soldiers, he fared terribly and even gave up Hannover itself to Voltaire's old schoolmate Richelieu-not-that-one. Caroline was dead by then, but G2 was incensed, William stopped being his fave and was never forgiven for this. Nor did he get a command again. They were on non-speaking terms when G2 died.
6.) Given the complete repression of Scottish culture post 1745, including the kilt order, it's an irony that what led to the lasting love affair between British Royals and Scotland and the general popularity of Highlanders in Britain (they sure as hell weren't in the 18th century, I quoted to you the Boswell diary entry where he witnesses a London theatere crowd booing and hissing "No Scots!" at some Highlander soldiers freshly returned from defending English rule in the American Colonies) was a) Sir Walter Scott's novels, and b) Sir Walter Scott stage managing G4's trip to Scotland and even getting him to wear a kilt. G4, the former Prince Regent, was probably the most loathed Hannover king of all, but that still was a huge booster.
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-13 11:58 pm (UTC)I have to give Gabaldon some credit for dastardly Scots and noble Englishmen, but yeah. :)
Also two flashback episodes from Highlander: The TV Series.
Oh, gosh, I remember that now! (Highlander aired while I was in my Jacobite fandom, which was when I lived with my television-owning parents, and was thus one of the three things I would watch in high school: Highlander, Star Trek, and the History Channel (back when it still showed history).)
I had next to me in the reading room a middle aged guy who looked like he was a biker - jeans, white haired pony tail, tattoos - and whom did he research? Flora MacDonald!
Hee!
Can't be sure, because my Boswell diaries are in Munich and I am in Bamberg, but I think he and Dr. Johnson met Flora MacDonald on that one and only Scotland & Hebrides trip Boswell talked Johnson into.
Wikipedia says yes:
The writer and Jacobite sympathiser Samuel Johnson met her in 1773 during his visit to the island, and later described her as "a woman of soft features, gentle manners, kind soul and elegant presence". He was also author of the inscription on her memorial at Kilmuir: "a name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour".
I quoted to you the Boswell diary entry where he witnesses a London theatere crowd booing and hissing "No Scots!" at some Highlander soldiers
Gah, I meant to pre-empt you mentioning this, but I forgot, so it's good that I knew that you would if I didn't. ;)
irony that what led to the lasting love affair between British Royals and Scotland and the general popularity of Highlanders in Britain
Yup. First you have to crush the Other so that they're not a threat any more, then you can romanticize them. Not the first or last time this scenario has played out.
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-14 08:06 am (UTC)Still separated from my Boswell books, but employing google fu, I came up with these tidbits and illustrations:
Painting showing Dr. Johnson, Flora MacDonald and James Boswell plus Flora's husband, MacDonald of Kinsburgh, who according to Boswell was a snappy dresser defying the Hannover ban on Scottish clothing:
“Kingburgh … had its tartan plaid thrown about him, a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribband like a cockade, a brown short coat of a kind of duffil, a tartan waistcoat with gold buttons and gold button holes, a bluish philibeg and Tartan hose.”
(Quote from a website who says it's from Boswell's "Journal of a Journey to the Hebrides".) The painting is from the 19th century, i.e. made when everyone concerned was dead, hence the portrait of BPC in the background which probably didn't hang there in rl, and now hangs in Dr. Johnson's house in London.
Actual 18th century portrait of Flora:
And yet another website has the exact day and says: "On Sunday, the 12th of September, 1773, Flora received the visit of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. Boswell was to write of that rainy day, “To see Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great champion of the English Tories, salute Miss Flora MacDonald in the Isle of Sky, was a striking sight.”
Yup. First you have to crush the Other so that they're not a threat any more, then you can romanticize them. Not the first or last time this scenario has played out.
Alas yes. BTW, the way Cumberland Bill was originally celebrated as the savior of England for Culloden, complete with Händel anthem, tells you something about just how threatened by the 45 rising not just G2 must have felt. Given the vast difference in numbers and arms, one wouldn't think so, but I guess your avarage Englishman actually believed in the possibility of French military support and correspondingly Civil War (or English/Scottish warfare, depending on your pov) in GB?
BTW, regarding the clothing restrictions, googling reminded me Boswell mentions a couple of people ignoring it and wearing tartans and kilts in the 1770s on that journey. And of course in his diary entries from Berlin, there's the one where he and Mitchell's secretary dress up in Highland gear to tease Mitchell in 1764. (Meaning they must have possessed it in the first place - you hardly can shop for it easily in Berlinl.) But then, all three people in this case were Scots - Boswell, Mitchell's Secretary and Mitchell -, whereas when Boswell insisted to be introduced as a Scot, not an Englishman, to future FW2, it made Mitchell's secretary nervous.
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-16 05:29 am (UTC)Oh, I didn't know that's when Outlander was set! (I never watched Highlander.) Although I did know about Flight of the Heron! (Which I actually know nothing more about, except that
2.) The one and only time I did research at the Scottish National Library (about a 19th century painter whose diaries were stored there), I had next to me in the reading room a middle aged guy who looked like he was a biker - jeans, white haired pony tail, tattoos - and whom did he research? Flora MacDonald!
That is awesome!
faced not with underarmed Highlanders but with professional French soldiers, he fared terribly and even gave up Hannover itself to Voltaire's old schoolmate Richelieu-not-that-one. Caroline was dead by then, but G2 was incensed, William stopped being his fave and was never forgiven for this.
Woooow. Karma indeed. (Also, I am charmed that it was Richelieu that he gave up Hanover to, and find it hilarious that Richelieu is now Richelieu-not-that-one :D )
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-16 08:28 am (UTC)G2 and FW: truly birds from a feather, weren't they?
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-16 09:17 pm (UTC)Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-17 07:31 am (UTC)Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-18 04:29 am (UTC)OMG, that makes SO much sense.
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-18 06:08 pm (UTC)Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-18 04:29 am (UTC)Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-16 05:22 am (UTC)and not one of them inspired great confidence that they could actually pull off a successful revolution
...I can see why!
The most entertaining part of this episode is that BPC was disguised as Flora's lady's maid and going by the name of Betty Burke. Yes, this escape attempt has disguises via cross-dressing.
okay this is AWESOME!
If you've ever seen this, that's BPC and Flora MacDonald.
Oh! I think I have seen this! But maybe when I was a kid? (We don't usually buy shortbread, but I think my mom sometimes did.)
(Watch me resist the urge to tell you the whole '45. :P I may at some point, but rn too many other things to do.)
Lol. Well, I have invited
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-16 09:13 pm (UTC)If you ever want to return to the topic, I greatly recommend Fight for a Throne: the Jacobite '45 Reconsidered by Christopher Duffy. I never paid that much attention to the details of BPC:s escape itself, though I remember reading some of them in The Lyon in Mourning, but I definitely do have the urge to tell
Cluny of MacPherson --> MacPherson of Cluny
BPC:s mistress was Clementine Walkinshaw, btw.
But I can give you a nice mirror-image of BPC:s cross-dressing escape, at least! Margaret Ogilvy, wife of the young Lord David Ogilvy of Airlie, went on campaign with her husband during the '45. She was captured after Culloden and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, but escaped with the help of her sister by dressing as a servant and just walking out of the castle. Failing to escape by ship, she made her way down the length of England dressed as a man. Just before she reached the coast to take ship for the continent, she was stopped by a party of soldiers. She was tall and fair-haired and the soldiers suspected her of possibly being BPC. But she told the officer in charge that she was a noblewoman in debt from gambling, who was in disguise to escape her debtors. The officer asked some women to examine her and then let her go. She was reunited with David in France (he had got away by ship via Bergen) and he got a French colonelcy.
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-17 12:02 am (UTC)Oh no! Both because I'm sorry you have aches in your hands and because I was hoping you would be the one to summarize for
But okay,
Cluny of MacPherson --> MacPherson of Cluny
Gah, typing too fast! Thank you!
Oh, hey. Speaking of escapes via crossdressing. So this memory of something I swear I saw on the History Channel twenty years ago has been bugging me for a long time. Here's how the story goes in my memory: A noble or royal man is taken prisoner and condemned to death. His wife comes to visit with her ladies in waiting. The cell door is left open during the visit. Half a dozen women pace in and out of the room repeatedly, loudly sobbing and praying. Inside the cell, the prisoner hastily changes clothes with one of the ladies in waiting. She stays behind. He leaves as part of the group of women, holding a handkerchief to his face and pretending to be overcome with grief, in order to conceal his features. The guards count that 6 (or however many) women entered the prison/castle at the beginning of the visit, and 6 women left, and no suspicions are aroused.
My memory wants this to be one of the Jameses of Scotland, but Google has no idea what I'm talking about. Do you or
(Speaking of Jameses of Scotland,
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-17 09:11 am (UTC)Re: the escape via cross-dressing, could this possibly be Lady Nithsdale helping her Jacobite husband to escape from the Tower after the '15 by exchanging clothes with him? I don't know about six women, but Wikipedia mentions two other Jacobite ladies and also Lady Nithsdale's maid, so there were at least four...maybe the other two ladies also had maids.
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-18 04:59 am (UTC)Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-18 07:39 am (UTC)Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-18 06:03 pm (UTC)I suggest starting with the '45, since it'll be easier on your hands and easier for
Cahn, you basically just need to know that James II lost the throne in 1688-1689 for being 1) too Catholic 2) not politically savvy enough. His Protestant daughter Mary and son-in-law William of Extremely-Protestant-Orange took it away from him, then his Protestant daughter Anne succeeded them, and Catholics were henceforth forever disbarred from the British throne. (That's how the Hanovers ended up on the throne, because they were descended from the Winter Queen, sister of C1, and they were Protestant.)
Of course, James II tried to get the throne back, then his son tried to get the throne back, then his son (J2's grandson) BPC tried to get the throne back. This meant a series of Jacobite rebellions, culminating in the big famous one, in 1745, the "Forty-Five" aka "the '45", which
Just so it's also in salon and not just email, this is the scribbled family tree I emailed Cahn the other night, with the usual apologies for my handwriting:
Those in the know will see that I left out Henry Benedict. I think he can safely be left out of the beginner's lesson and added in later.
Cahn, you can mentally add C1's grandmother Mary, Queen of Scots to complete the theme. Losing your throne and/or head was kind of a tradition in this family.
Lehndorff: So weird!
J2: At least I escaped in time to keep my head! Unlike Dad.
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-19 08:41 pm (UTC)Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-18 06:05 pm (UTC)Thanks! Now I can stop thinking I imagined it!
Re: Stuarts escaping the British government, reprised
Date: 2021-09-17 07:16 am (UTC)