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
Catherine the Great: Hanbury-Williams
Date: 2021-09-14 12:19 am (UTC)Reminder that Elizaveta is empress in 1755, the Brits are attempting to keep Russia in their pay, and the Brits are pretty not happy with Prussia:
The previous British ambassador, who had attempted to renew this treaty, had found himself at a loss at Elizabeth’s court, where diplomatic matters were often settled in a quick conversation at a ball or a masquerade. At his own request, this flustered diplomat withdrew, and a new man, considered better equipped to cope with the nuances of the post, was sought. Charles Hanbury-Williams, who never willingly missed a ball or a masquerade, was considered a good choice.
He was not long in St. Petersburg, however, before finding that he could do little better than his predecessor... However much it may have amused Elizabeth to listen to the talk of this sophisticated Englishman, the moment he attempted to speak to her of serious matters, she smiled and walked away. As a woman, she was responsive to any compliment; as empress she was deaf. Since his arrival, Sir Charles had not advanced a step.
So he tries Grand Duke Peter, but finds out that he is (P)RussianPete and trying to convince him to ally against Prussia is a lost cause. He needs a member of the royal family who will 1) do politics, 2) not lick Fritz's feet.
Victory! He hits it off with Catherine. How well? Well...
A cavalier himself in his earlier years, he might briefly have thought of following a romantic path. He quickly confronted reality, however, and recognized that, as a middle-aged widower in less than perfect health, this was no longer open to him. “A man at my age would make a poor lover,” he advised a minister in London who had suggested that approach. “Alas, my scepter governs no more.” He cast himself, instead, as an avuncular, even paternal, figure to whom Catherine could turn for personal or political advice. He left the other path open for his young secretary, Stanislaus Poniatowski.
I did not realize (or had forgotten if Selena told us?) Hanbury-Williams/Catherine was suggested as a potential pairing, but somehow I'm not surprised.
You didn't miss out on anything other than late-stage syphilis, Catherine. Poniatowski was a much better choice.
Re: Catherine the Great: Hanbury-Williams
Date: 2021-09-14 06:15 am (UTC)Anyway, I do wonder about how Hanbury-Williams got all these plum diplomatic assignments in general, given he managed to piss off both Fritz and MT in record time. His one big envoy achievement remains befriending Catherine in St. Petersburg and helping to faciliate the Catherine/Poniatowski romance, but due to the Diplomatic Revolution, this had zero advantages for Britain. Basically, I'm left with concluding he partied with the right people as a young man and in the right circumstances (i.e. if you're a young person needing a confidant, true for both Poniatowski and Catheirne) had a lot of personal charm which he wasn't able to muster for mature monarchs. Or many other non-Brits. (Given that unlike, say, Mitchell, or Valory, or hey, even the Austrian envoy, he didn't make any friends in Berlin or Viennese society, either.)
You didn't miss out on anything other than late-stage syphilis, Catherine. Poniatowski was a much better choice.
No kidding. BTW, how was Hanbury-Williams a widower? According to German wiki, his wife survived him by many years and died in 1781. Now they lived apart for the understandable reason that she never forgave him having infected her with Syphilis as well (and having told her nothing about having it in the first place which he did know), but they weren't divorced, she was alive, and thus he was most definitely not a widower. Bad research, Massie! (Or was it Montefiore?)
Re: Catherine the Great: Hanbury-Williams
Date: 2021-09-14 11:38 pm (UTC)If Massie can be trusted (always questionable), that sounds plausible to me.
BTW, how was Hanbury-Williams a widower? According to German wiki, his wife survived him by many years and died in 1781.
Ooh, I didn't catch that. Hmm, yeah, seems like another mistake by the guy who thought Fritz's wife Sophia was the sister of G2.
Bad research, Massie! (Or was it Montefiore?)
Massie. Everything in my 3 Catherine posts last night is from Massie. Though Massie and Montefiore are so similar it's almost like reading the same book: not just the same facts, but the same quotes, and sometimes the same commentary on them.
Montefiore on Catherine's confession to Potemkin about her previous lovers: "surely the most extraordinary document ever written by a monarch."
Massie on the same document: "It is unique in the annals of written royal confessions; an all-powerful queen attempting to win forgiveness from a demanding new lover for previous actions in her life."
Massie's making a less broad and thus slightly more likely to be accurate (though I still have doubts), but effectively they're both saying so nearly the same thing that I swear one has read the other, or they talk to each other a lot, or something. (I did check back when I got to Massie's remark, and they both cite works by the other, but neither cites the particular volume I'm reading.)
Re: Catherine the Great: Hanbury-Williams
Date: 2021-09-15 08:18 am (UTC)Hmm, yeah, seems like another mistake by the guy who thought Fritz's wife Sophia was the sister of G2.
:) To be fair, his specific focus and forte is Russian history, hence his most famous books being the one about Peter the Great, the one about Nicholas and Alexandra, the last Romanows, and the one about Catherine, and I imagine given the sheer wealth of material means he thought taking shortcuts with the international supporting cast is okay. But then you get such glitches.
Massie's making a less broad and thus slightly more likely to be accurate (though I still have doubts), but effectively they're both saying so nearly the same thing that I swear one has read the other, or they talk to each other a lot
It does sound like this, though yes, Montefiore's phrasing is way too general not to be disproved at once even remaining within the same century. Given that all-powerful Queens are far rarer in history than plain old gender neutral "monarchs", Massie is trickier. Hm. I take it he didn't come across the previous Czarinas (plus Regent) writing anything of the sort? Going back a few centuries or several, there are a few mighty Byzantine Empresses around (like Irene) and some West Romans, too, but we don't have those kind of personal letters for them, and certainly not from the few female pharaos, including Cleopatra. Though we do have the letter from Antony to Octavian where he writes, only slightly paraphrased: "What's it to you that I have sex with the Queen? How about your own sex life? I'd be very surprised if between the time I write this and the time it arrives in Rome, you had sex only with Livia Drusilla and not X, Y., and Z (here Antony listed several Octavian girlfriends)." (This letter is quoted by Suetonius, the old gossip, who as Hadrian's secretary did have access to the Imperial archives.)