cahn | Frederick the Great and Other 18th-C Characters, Discussion Post 31

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frederick the great

Frederick the Great and Other 18th-C Characters, Discussion Post 31

And in this post:

-

luzula is going to tell us about the Jacobites and the '45!

-I'm going to finish reading Nancy Goldstone's book about Maria Theresia and (some of) her children Maria Christina, Maria Carolina, and Marie Antoinette, In the Shadow of the Empress, and

selenak is going to tell us all the things wrong with the last four chapters (spoiler: in the first twenty chapters there have been many, MANY things wrong)!

-

mildred_of_midgard is going to tell us about Charles XII of Sweden and the Great Northern War

(seriously, how did I get so lucky to have all these people Telling Me Things, this is AWESOME)

-oh, and also there will be Yuletide signups :D

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

This is so greeeeat, I'm so glad you were able to read this! :D And glad that Fletcher seems trustworthy! And also glad that Alessandro seems not to have been the total villain that he was painted; I realize I'm a sucker for books but that absolutely lovely book he gave to Margaret made me want him to be a better person than that :P

This leaves him with Ippolito now no longer available to function as secular future head of the Medici line, and only then does Alessandro get favored (which never stops).

....okay, this is super interesting!

It seems kind of amazing to me that no one really knows anything about his mother, but I guess that just goes to show, well, me, how great things were for women, especially "peasant women" :P

(Fletcher thinks the reason why Ippolito writes "peasant" rather than "servant" was that he was after Margaret himself, and of course Margaret's mother had been a servant, too.)

Ha! It's now my headcanon, anyway.

On the one hand, this story comes from his assassin, Lorenzino de' Medici (aka Lorenzaccio), as part of his justication in his apologia where he writes of how Alessandro was totally the modern Caligula. Otoh, Lorenzino had been a friend and confidant of Alessandro's, and thus would actually have been in a position to know. And Lorenzino claims that when Ippolito wanted to present the "dirty peasant woman" who was Alessandro's mother to Charles in order to show how unsuitable a match for Margaret he was, Alessandro had her killed.

Okay, I hit this bit and was like WOW. (And haha, way to raise the tension there :P It's like you know how to keep my attention or something! :D )

(where Lorenzino claims he lured Alessandro to his doom by claiming a hot lady was awaiting him)

Lorenzino, wow.

Something the Margaret of Parma biography I had read didn't include: the marriage was definitely consumated, since Margaret got pregnant, though she lost the baby in the third or fourth month or so. Let's hope Alessandro did it as gently as possible.

Geesh. When she was FOURTEEN? (...my daughter is almost twelve. Eeek.) I can also see though that he might have felt the need to do so as soon as it was at all possible, if he was afraid Charles might change his mind. But yeah, hopefully he was reasonably gentle :(

(Fletcher observes re: the famous story about Margaret's second wedding night, with Ottavio Farnese, where he "only wet himself" according to her, that aside to whatever she thought about Ottavio Farnese, teen Margaret had a very good reason for not wanting to consumate the marriage - presumably she did not want another pregnancy until she was a few years older herself.)

ARGH.

The Ippolito vs Alessandro feud finally erupted into Ippolito attempting to have Alessandro killed (and failing) and Alessandro attempting to have Ippolito killed (and succeeding).

Woooow. Okay, this really needs to be a TV miniseries or a novel ~~or a Yuletide fic, I'm just SAYING that someone might request Margaret of Parma and so Alessandro would also be fair game~~

Note: it lasted four days. As opposed to the more fictional deaths which happen at once.)

That sounds... unpleasant.

So, what was it about Lorenzino the assassin?

YES, WHAT WAS IT?! I've been waiting for this since point (2)! :D Wow, I had no idea there was so much drama! But I guess these are the Medicis, so...

Lorenzino/Alessandro as an example of lovers falling out? This is the theory I'm amazed no one mentions.

...I mean, now that you mention it, this would explain everything, right?! Why there are all these rumors of debauchery but no women linked to him... Alessandro being a hit with men (well, at least, older powerful men, but hey, why not younger cute men too?)... them getting along for years and then surprise assassination! It even explains Lorenzino's explanation being "Lorenzino having had the master plan to ingratiate himself with evil Alessandro until he could strike a blow for freedom" which... now that I'm looking at it from this angle, does have an air of the "my ex, he was always THE WORST!"

...And wait, even Lorenzino saying that he lured him there with a "hot lady"... mm-hmm. Sounds like what he'd say if he didn't want to actually say whose hotness was luring him there, if you know what I mean ;) It explains everything! :D

Wow, this was really cool, thank you as always for your wonderful reading and summaries!

Edited 2021-10-20 05:43 (UTC)

When she was FOURTEEN? (

Alas not an exception in those days. Catherine de’ Medici and husband Henri were also both 14 when they were married (and the marriage was consumated immediately, witnessed by the groom’s father Francis I. who commented that “both had been valiant in the joust” to his courtiers afterwards. (BTW, keep in mind here that Francis and Charles were each other’s arch nemesis and main competition for supreme power in Europe. Meaning that Clement had managed to keep a foot in both camps by simultanously marrying his nephew/possible son Alessandro to Charles’ daughter and his definitely niece to Francis’ son.) (No Medici kids for your family members, Henry VIII!) A generation previously, there is the notorious case of even younger, as in, TWELVE YEARS old Margaret Beaufort, who was married to Jasper Tudor, and gave birth to Henry (future VII, the one who won against Richard III at Bosworth Field) Tudor at age 13. Since this Margaret became one of the toughest women of her age, a friend of mine summed this up as “beware the angry pregnant twelve years old”. But yeah. It could have killed her. And note that when her granddaughter Margaret Tudor was married off to the King of Scotland, Margaret Beaufort insisted she was to be kept in England until she was at least 15. Basically, as soon as a girl hit puberty and bled, and was living with her husband, she had no protection against her husband consumating the marriage other than his not wanting to do it.

(To be gender fair: remember, Margaret’s second husband Ottavio was also twelve years old when they were married, and evidently his family did expect him to consumate the marriage, otherwise he wouldn’t have been so insistant he did it, while Margaret was all “did not!”)

Anyway, back to Margaret not yet of Parma: I checked, and Charlie Steen, the author of the biography I’ve read, was in fact insistent that she remained a virgin and had little to nothing to do with evil Alessandro during their brief marriage. (This, and Margaret liking Alessandro’s successor Cosimo, is also his explanation for the fact she retained good memories of Florence for the rest of her life and would go on treasuring her connections there, which you wouldn’t expect from someone supposedly married to the most evil Medici ever.) However, Catherine Fletcher provides quotes from envoys saying Margaret was pregnant, of Alessandro ordering presents and parties in celebration of the good news, and then that she’d lost the baby, and even if this was a mistake - like maybe she didn’t get her period for two or three months? It happens? -, it could not have been made if the marriage hadn’t been consumated. Since non-consumation was such a standard excuse if you wanted to dissolve a marriage, and since Pope Clement had just died (meaning Alessandro had lost his patron and the chief reason why Charles had origInally agreed to the match), it did make sense from his pov to have had sex with her at least once so he could prove the marriage was indeed a marriage.

BTW, Catherine Fletcher speculates that if you assume Lorenzino was at least partially motivated by wanting to bring back the Republic, then you could make a case that one reason why Alessandro was killed not too long after Margaret’s stillbirth was that if Alessandro and Margaret produced a living Medici/Habsburg offspring, then her father would never allow Florence to go back to being a republic again, he’d be majorly invested in securing the duchy for his grandson, and the resent wars in Italy between Charles and Francis had proven to the locals you youldn’t defeat either one of them on your own. But that’s assuming Lorenzino did it for political reasons.

mean, now that you mention it, this would explain everything, right?!

My thoughts precisely. I mean, I’m biased due to lots of fannish tropes, but “this was my master plan all along! I was just PRETENDING to like him!” Doesn’t ring that convincingly true if you’ve been with the guy for years and years, as opposed to a few months, and would have had ample opportunity to off him before. Otoh, Lorenzino did not benefit from Alessandro’s death in ways other than becoming (in)famous all over Italy. I mean, he used to be bff with the Duke of Tuscany, with all the financial advantages this implies, and then he was an exile. Granted, a bestselling pamphlet “Why I did it!” Writing one, but still - no obvious benefit there. If you’re wondering what happened to him: ten years later, Charles had him assassinated. (Charles: must have really liked Alessandro.)

It's too bad there aren't more quotes though!

If you want to get an idea via English translations, here is the English edition Selena mentions, by Wilkins. (The one that Schnath looks down on because the editor was too lazy to travel to Berlin and include the letters Ulrike stole for Fritz.) Königsmarck's first one - while away on campaign - apparently starts with "I am in extremis, and the only thing that can save me is a few lines from your incomparable hand." So, you know. Love letters! The publication is from 1901, rather dramatically presented (Chapter Title: "The Dawn of Passion"), and I have no idea re: trustworthiness of the narration in between the letters, which I have not checked at all, but the author does give you the original Lund letters. (At least as he deciphered them. The chapter before this one talks about the extensive code they used (nicknames and numbers) and gives a few examples of the author's interpretation. (Schnath probably had things to say about that.) But be that as it may, this mostly affects their talk about other people, not so much the back-and-forth about their own feelings.)

ETA: On page 361 is the SD letter that mentions the card houses for the two kids (via another letter she received, because she wasn't there to witness it). Footnote says that this and the next letter by Königsmarck are the only ones that mention little!SD and G2.

Edited 2021-10-20 12:14 (UTC)

IDK, I just find it super amusing that the female nobles are all "rats, he already has mistress, no job for us I guess."

Well, to be fair: it was the additional problem to the main problem that there was no queen, which meant no ladies of the bedchamber and other offices in the queen's household traditionally given to the most prominent/valued female nobility. If one of them had been G1's mistress, this would have compensated somewhat, but the mistress job was also already taken. Now, Caroline as the new Princess of Wales made a point of dismissing all her German ladies except one and hiring English ladies for her personal household, which did help to make her popular, but "lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Wales" wasn't the same as "lady-in-waiting to the Queen", especially if the Prince of Wales and the King, as became rapidly apparant, had a mutual hate-on going on, which meant that if you positioned yourself in the household of the Waleses you ensured you and your family would have no influence on the King for the time being.

(Reminder: Caroline cultivating English ladies by hiring them included hiring Hervey's mother, Lady Bristol, who'd later become massively enstranged from her son, and Sarah Churchill, the late Queen Anne's ex-favourite, Duchess of Marlborough, who hadn't become any softer in her old age and called Caroline "Madame Ansbach", whereupon Caroline nicknamed the Churchills "The Imperial Family", which still amuses me.)

An anecdote to demonstrate how highly political being a lady of the bedchamber to the Queen was even a century later, when the royals had lost some more power and the PMs had gained it: when young Queen Victoria lost her first PM, Melbourne ("Lord M"), due to his party getting voted out of office, and Sir Robert Peel took over as PM, this also meant Victoria had to replace her ladies of the bedchamber (until then from Melbourne's party, the Whigs), with Tory ladies. She did not want to and refused, seeing it as her business who got to be in her personal household. The indignant Tories insisted. Melbourne ended up having to explain and soothe the young Queen until she accepted the Tory ladies.

Oh, awesome! Thanks for the further context :D

(Heh, thanks for the repetition! I think part of my issue is that so many different people are named the same thing! I knew there was some Elizaveta whose death triggered the second miracle of the House of Brandenburg and locked up people related to EC, but is it this one?? I'm always unsure! Eventually I will get how things fit together; it's happening slowly...)

and the marriage was consumated immediately, witnessed by the groom’s father Francis I. who commented that “both had been valiant in the joust” to his courtiers afterwards.

OMG.

Basically, as soon as a girl hit puberty and bled, and was living with her husband, she had no protection against her husband consumating the marriage other than his not wanting to do it.

But didn't Charles say that it wasn't to be consummated for a while?

it could not have been made if the marriage hadn’t been consumated.

I was about to say that I would be up for the Alessandro-woobification fic where he and Margaret connive to make it look like she's pregnant then has a miscarriage, which gets her no sex and him able to argue that the marriage's been consummated, which makes everyone happy, right? Except that I guess it would be pretty obvious if she were menstruating, so I guess that wouldn't work.

I mean, I’m biased due to lots of fannish tropes

Surely this is a plus for this explanation :D

Granted, a bestselling pamphlet “Why I did it!” Writing one, but still - no obvious benefit there.

Heh, maybe he really wanted to be a best-selling author...

If you’re wondering what happened to him: ten years later, Charles had him assassinated. (Charles: must have really liked Alessandro.)

Yes I was, and I forgot to ask, thank you!

Oh, this is great, thank you! Ha, those are love letters :D

...Wikipedia references Britannica as saying that they might be forgeries? Britannica references include this English edition (in full: Briefwechsel des Grafen Königsmark und der Prinzessin Sophie Dorothea von Celle, edited by W. F. Palmblad (Leipzig, 1847); A. Köcher, “Die Prinzessin von Ahlden,” in the Historische Zeitschrift (Munich, 1882); and W. H. Wilkins, The Love of an Uncrowned Queen (London, 1900)) -- is this online people being untrustworthy again??

The "forgeries" claim has long since been dismissed. It was originally made by the later Hannovers on the British throne for obvious reasons, and the online Britannica articles are decades, if not centuries behind. But seriously, by the 1920s and Schnath's time it was already generally accepted that the letters were the real deal.

(BTW, Fritz and Ulrike had no doubt about that just a measly few decades after the event, either.)

OMG.

No kidding. And it got worse for Catherine de' Medici from there, since as you might recall her husband was already firmly in love with his two-decades-older mistress Diane de Poitiers, which never changed. Whatever happened between Margaret and Alessandro, at least she didn't have to perform on the wedding night with his or her parent in the freaking room! (Though Alessandro had a long-term mistress, too, but Alessandro didn't parade Taddea in front of her, or direct everyone else to treat Taddea as the true wife.)

It bears repeating, though: the question of consumation (or lack of same) was always highly political. Just think of the six years it took between Henry VIII. first asking for an annulment and then deciding to become his own Pope instead, much of it revolved around the question as to whether or not his older brother Arthur had consumated his marriage with Catherine of Aragon.

(Incidentally, in this particular case, though, Catherine's mother Isabella the Catholic had thoughtfully secured a dispensation for Catherine and Henry to marry even if the earlier Catherine/Arthur marriage had been consumated. Evidentally Isabella didn't trust the Tudors an inch.)

But didn't Charles say that it wasn't to be consummated for a while?

He did, expressedly so in his letter to her governess Madame de Lannoy, which was one of several reasons why after Pope Clement insisting that Margaret was to be raised in Italy, not the Netherlands, if she was to become Duchess of Florence, he had her sent to Naples (which was under Spanish, i.e. his, rule), not Florence, thereby complying with Clement's request but ensuring Margaret wasn't yet in Medici hands. Bear in mind that Margaret and Alessandro had been married in absentia as was usually the case for princely marriages in their respective countries of origin, with another person standing in for the groom/bride. Technically, eleven-years-old-Margaret was already Alessandro's wife. But it was a marriage Charles could have easily reneged on as long as it had not been consumated.

I'm currently reading very good German biographies of Margaret of Austria and Mary of Hungary by the same biographer, and they include examples of child marriages, too. Margaret herself (Charles' aunt Margaret, that is, whom his daughter was named after, just like Margaret of Austria had been named after Margaret of York the beloved stepmother of her mother Mary of Burgundy) had been married as a child to the French Dauphin, and her husband, who was a few years older (so he'd been a child when they married but was grown up before her) had no trouble getting that marriage annuled when he wanted to marry Anne de Bretagne instead. Mary of Hungary (Charles' sister) was married as a child to the future King of Hungary (also a child) in one of Emperor Maximilian's double marriages projects at the same time as Hungarian princess Anna (the future King's sister) was married to one of Maximilian's grandsons, either Charles or Ferdinand, with Maximilian standing in for one of his grandsons (he really did not specify which one, keeping his options open) at the ceremony. (In the end, it was of course Ferdinand; Charles married Isabella of Portugal.) Mary was nine then and Anna wasn't much older; both girls were however raised at Innsbruck, not Hungary, meaning the marriages didn't get consumated until Mary at age 15 came to Hungary while Ferdinand (who, remember, had been growing up in Spain, and was a year younger than Anna) was coming to Austria.(The Ferdinand/Anna marriage would turn out to be a happy one; the Mary/Lajos marriage didn't last long since he died young, but I haven't gotten there yet.)

I was about to say that I would be up for the Alessandro-woobification fic where he and Margaret connive to make it look like she's pregnant then has a miscarriage, which gets her no sex and him able to argue that the marriage's been consummated, which makes everyone happy, right? Except that I guess it would be pretty obvious if she were menstruating, so I guess that wouldn't work.

Not unless her washerwoman is also a confidant. Mind you, Margaret wouldn't have been under such detailed observation as a Queen. (For example, with Elizabeth I. all the envoys from different countries trying to get her to marry one of their candidates were constantly bribing her washerwomen so they'd know whether she still menunstrated, i.e. was capable of bearing children, once she was in her later 30s, and we also know when Catherine of Aragon stopped menunstrating (which wasn't so coincidentally shortly before Henry became serious about Anne Boleyn. Florence, lovely as it is, and Tuscany weren't on the same scale of interest, but they were both important enough to warrant envoys who did share the gossip in their letters home (hence us knowing about the miscarriage, for example). And Alessandro did let Margaret keep her own household after the wedding - they didn't live together in the same palace, though he saw her regularly at day time events and sent little gifts now and then, but the idea was that she wouldn't move in with him, so to speak, until two more years, which is one reason why her earlier biographer Charlie Steen was able to argue that the marriage remained unconsumated till Alessandro died.

Mind you, you can fanwank that a sympathetic, well-paid washerwoman would be relatively easy to come by for young Margaret, especially since while pissing the Duke of would have been bad, doing a favor for the Duke would have been good for the woman and her family.

Oh, something I had forgotten: among the masques and plays staged for young Margaret when she came to Florence was one of Hades and Persephone. Now, if there is any story one would not think appropriate for a wedding, it would be that of the King of the Underworld kidnapping a young maiden, one would think. Especially if the groom is mixed race and his cousin has been campaigning against this marriage (and for his own marriage with the lady instead) with the argument that said groom is the very devil. Catherine Fletcher, wondering as to what was Alessandro thinking to either comission or at least granting this particular masque (and he did have to okay it, it wasn't snuck past him), comes up with the theory based on the fact he also (on other occasions, not his wedding, at other masques) dressed up in costume as a Turk or a slave, that this was a kind of "I know exactly what you're all thinking, so there, haters!" black humor.

Re: Lorenzino's own death, while it was always known he died in a vendetta for Alessandro, it was usually assumed Alessandro's successor Cosimo ordered the hit, and the discovery it had been Charles instead is relatively recent, as in, 2015, according to this article.

Some more Leigh and/or Olivier related links to old posts of mine:

A Streetcar Named Desire

My week with Marylin

Tea with the Dames

And here's a shipper's vid proving, if nothing else, that they were a gorgeous couple: In my life

Interesting to read about the political positions available for women at the court. Thanks! : )

cahn, I'm so glad we have you to keep the discussion going when I'm dropping the ball.

In related news, I have finished the reading that I need to do in order to present on the Great Northern War. There are more things I want to read, but they're all more advanced, so they're not required for this part, and they're pdfs, so I'm waiting on my tablet so I can have a better pdf-reading setup.

Since it is A LOT to remember, I think what I'll do next is skim the most useful things I read and take notes, then start putting together write-ups. They probably won't be as elaborate as the Spanish Succession write-ups, due to time pressure, but keep asking questions and commenting and I'll do the best I can. :)

In other news, I made good progress in the last couple weeks on getting at least the facts and citations related to Fredersdorf, Pfeiffer, and Kiekemal down, so that I have them in one place in case I ever get around to turning that into an article. I want to do a little more, and then you may hear from me,

selenak, with specific questions about the Wegfraß volume.

And I'd like to stop procrastinating on doing the same for Peter Keith!

luzula, I find this fascinating, thank you! Would a mistress also have had some sort of ladies that would have given jobs to other women?

Huh, that story about Queen Victoria does rather make it evident how political the whole thing is! Interesting that Melbourne got the job of explaining it to her; makes sense that he'd be the one who could actually do it. But it seems like that would have been a funny conversation between Peel and Melbourne, or whoever convinced him to do it.

Oh, excellent. I should certainly have been suspicious of an article whose latest citation was from 1900... :)

(Though Alessandro had a long-term mistress, too, but Alessandro didn't parade Taddea in front of her, or direct everyone else to treat Taddea as the true wife.)

Yeah, I mean, I could see that I might not myself (as a twenty-first-century woman) necessarily want to be married to Alessandro, but she could have done a lot worse :P

I'm currently reading very good German biographies of Margaret of Austria and Mary of Hungary by the same biographer,

I can't imagine why :D

and her husband, who was a few years older (so he'd been a child when they married but was grown up before her) had no trouble getting that marriage annuled when he wanted to marry Anne de Bretagne instead.

Ooh, I read that bit in Game of Queens! But I'm just at the edge of history-understanding where things in that book don't stay in my brain unless I get them reinforced, so thank you for reinforcing it :)

and we also know when Catherine of Aragon stopped menunstrating (which wasn't so coincidentally shortly before Henry became serious about Anne Boleyn.

...oh! Huh! (Haven't gotten there in Game of Queens yet!)

Mind you, you can fanwank that a sympathetic, well-paid washerwoman would be relatively easy to come by for young Margaret, especially since while pissing the Duke of would have been bad, doing a favor for the Duke would have been good for the woman and her family.

All right, this is now my headcanon :P

Catherine Fletcher, wondering as to what was Alessandro thinking to either comission or at least granting this particular masque (and he did have to okay it, it wasn't snuck past him), comes up with the theory based on the fact he also (on other occasions, not his wedding, at other masques) dressed up in costume as a Turk or a slave, that this was a kind of "I know exactly what you're all thinking, so there, haters!" black humor.

Yeah, I buy that.

Re: Lorenzino's own death, while it was always known he died in a vendetta for Alessandro, it was usually assumed Alessandro's successor Cosimo ordered the hit, and the discovery it had been Charles instead is relatively recent, as in, 2015, according to this article.

Huhhhh! That sounds like it might be an interesting book.

Heh, that was a bit of whiplash there! :D Thank you, together that was kind of a neat grouping. And the lyrics were quite useful :)

Would a mistress also have had some sort of ladies that would have given jobs to other women?

Not on the same scale. I mean, evidently she would have had servants, ladies' maids, dressing women, etc., maybe also readers and musicians, depending on her cultural inclinations, but she would not have had the same kind of representative job a Queen had, and definitely no ladies-in-waiting or ladies of the bedchamber. However, naturally the other noble ladies (and gentlemen) would have made a point of befriending her or at least to win her as a patron so they could win lucrative offices and possibly estates through her. This was an option with a German mistress like Melusine, too, but with someone like Sarah Churchill, you'd have known her and her family and her husband's family for eons, their alliances, their strengths and weaknesses. Melusine von Schulenburg and G1's half sister Sophia von Kielmannsegg were completely new factors, and you had to polish up your French to even talk to them, which evidently not a lot people managed to do well enough to figure out how the later was related to G1.

(With G2's English mistress, remember that at first some people did think of cultivating her with a sigh of relief, whereas Sir Robert Walpole, future PM, was smart enough to bet on the right horse from the beginning, i.e. Caroline, as he could see where G2's affection and trust truly were.)

One thing Horowski keeps pointing out is how relatively monocultural the British nobility was as compared to the continental European nobility who was related across countries and often took jobs and offices across countries as well. The Jacobite exiles being an obvious exception to this rule, hence James Keith first working for the Russians and then for Fritz. However, post-Hannover takeover, another trend started which did not make the British aristocracy very happy: for Britihs princes to marry German princesses. The current Queen's Dad was the first one to marry a British aristocrat since G1 got crowned. And all the rest except for Victoria's son Edward/Bertie who had married a Danish princess married Germans. Wilhelmine's childhood including "how to be a future Queen of England" training (including English language, history) became fairly typical for every female German aristocrat just in case even without SD as a mother throughout the 19th century.

Bedchamber Crisis: see the wiki entry here. I had misremembered a bit; Robert Peel actually refused to form a government if the ladies weren't switched, so Melbourne remained PM for a while longer, but in the subsequent year Victoria married Albert, the next election was pro Tory as well, and this time Victoria did as asked. (Victoria: also marrying a German.) (Without whom you wouldn't celebrate Christmas with nice Christmas trees. *g*)

The Bedchamber Crisis scene from the tv show Victoria, first season: Victoria refuses Sir Robert Peel's request.

Meaning not the poet. Like his Katte affair book, this one is primarly a collection of source documents (grouped by aspects) with a lengthy introduction. It does give the impression Kloosterhuis tracked down every Tall Guys related document ever, including a registry of every regiment member ever, but also documents related to their recruitment, clothing, nourishment, living situation, marriages (not primarily with tall women, at least that's not mentioned as a factor), time of service (six years was the agreed upon minimum serving time), etc. Complete with added notes by FW. Incidentally, all this underlines what kind of insane workoholic (and thus role model to Fritz) FW was, because nothing is too minor for him not to comment on, he really read all those documents before approving or rejecting. (This is why however much he drank I'm hesitant to call him an alcoholic like some modern US writers, not just Nancy Goldstone do - I just can't see a full time drinker having the ability to focus as long as it did inevitably take do all this work.)

The introduction is pretty defensive emotionally, on a note of "why are you all down on my guy FW? Everyone else was after tall soldiers, too, including August the Strong and Peter the Great! Also, leftovers from the tall guys covered Fritz' retreat at Kolin so he damm well owed them his life! ALSO, the spectacular beauty of a Prussian drilled army was admired by every contemporary while simultanously sneering at FW for his tall guy fetish! AND we all know who started wars all over the place and who was a good father to his "blue children", NOT starting wars!" It also provides a lot of military data which I must admit made me skip a lot, because it's just not interesting to me.

Anyway, the gist of it as far I could tell that while there were attempts (successfull or not) of desertion, there were also cases of deserted soldiers returning like a guy who even brought his brother with him. When Fritz dissolved the regiment and put the soldiers of into various other army units, Kloosterhuis puts out that he himself got some and Heinrich got some, even little Ferdinand later got some, but Dad's fave AW did not. And given the option, only 14 of the Tall Guys chose to leave when Fritz got on the throne.

Otoh, in all fairness Kloosterhuis also provides the documents as to what happened to those who committed suicide. As I recalled from Strateemann (who mentions this at least twice), they weren't allowed to be buried decently in a cemetary but dragged out of the town and flung on the dungheap (i.e. the Schindanger, the place where criminals were also buried, outside of town), as they had lost their honor.

The recruitment instructions also insist that they were to be without physical blemishes; the term "beautiful" is used repeatedly, whether as in "schön gewachsen" or "schön an Gestalt", which means they didn't have to have Hollywood faces but a perfect physique. BTW, Kloosterhuis says it's slander that FW portrayed every one of them, but he did portray around 30, and also did group pictures.

One chilling aspect not emphasized in other sources is that FW, like many of his contemporaries, shared the fetish for "decorative" black people. These, he didn't recruit or "recruit" (i.e. they were never wooed to come nor kidnapped), he literally bought them, mainly as children, since they were both cheaper this way and with an option of growing into tall guys themselves, and used them mainly as regiment pipers. Where did he buy them? In that great trading place for slaves, Great Britain, of course, via the Prussian resident and a few other Prussians there.

Two typcial documents from the files, one dated Berlin, 19th January 1715:

"Commissioner Fleetman has sent the following bill for the acquisition of three moors: for the Moor Cupido 8 Guinees 10 English Shillings; for the Moor Pampi 20 Guinees, for his silver collar an additional 3 Guinees; for the moor Mercurius 16 Guinees 2 English Shillings. If one trades a Guinee per 11 Dutch Gulden 11 Stüber, this means a complete sum of 549 Fl. 9 Stb. Furtherly, Fleetman paid: for the trader who found the moors, 40 Fl; for the dress of the female moor Marguerite, 36 Fl 18 Stb; for the clothing of the three male moors 48 Fl; for the cost and expenses of their journey from England to Berlin 396 Fl. The King therefore orders that Commissioner Fleetman was to be paid 1.078 Fl. 7 STp for the delivery of the moors from the extraordinarium section of the general finances budget from 1714/1715."

(Silver collar: makes me wonder whether this is the young teenager seen in the background of the Fritz and Wihelmine as toddlers painting.)

Another document, decades later:, from May 8th 1728, letter from FW to London Prussian Resident von Reichenbach:

"Reichensbach is supposed to buy several young moors according to the following measurements, thugh they can be taller, but not smaller than that. They must still be so young that they will yet grow. The resident must look out to acquire the boys for a good bargain. For one, who at least has to be 5 feet 6 inches tall, he may spend approximately 50 Reichstaler. The King hopes for a delivery in November/December. If Reichenbach can't acquire some right now, he may task a person to find the wished for moors. The King also expects another transport of horses and will send stableboys to care for them to Hamburg."

Follow up, FW to Reichenbach, dated June 21st 1728: "The moors announced by Reichenbach in his report from June 11th have allready arrived in Hamburg. As soon as the King has inspected them in person, he will give Reichenbach his opinion on them. Meanwhile, Reichenbach is supposed to organize some more English horses."

FW to Reichenbach, August 16th 1728: "The announced moor has arrived at Potsdam and is in reasonably good shape. Of the horses, only five have arrived, the others have died. Stablemaster Ludwig has never delivered as awful nags as the one he transported now."

These kind of documents with the plain equation of humans with animals underline like nothing else the de-humanisation of the slave trade.

BTW, follow-up document on the three boys from 1715, from the Potsdam baptism registry:

"At the King's orders, two moor boys, having been taught in Christianity, who are serving as pipers with the Red Grenadier Regiment, have been baptized. One of them received the name Adrian Pamphiloff, the other the name Wilhelm Mercurius. As godfathers stood: General Lieutenant Adrian Bernhard von Borcke, General Major David Gottlob von Gorersdorff, and Colonel Joachim Ernst Siegmund von Krummensee."

In 1722, there were seven "moor pipers" baptized and thus entired in the Potsdam baptism registry, with the godfathers including FW himself and the old Dessauer.

On a less chilling but still religious note note: since he had been given or recruited or "recruited" several Russian Long Fellows, FW granted the hiring of a Greek Orthodox preacher so they would have services in their own religion. (This was one Wassily Scherbatsky, thereafter on the Prussian payroll.)

And this is FW's idea of how his tall guys should celebrate their weddings (like I said, no detail to minute for FW):

"To a wedding party, only the following people may be invited: bride and groom, fathers and mothers in law, brothers and sisters of the future spouses, and four additional foreign guests, but no further in laws or more distant relatives. The wedding celebration may only last a day. The otherwise common celebration lasting a second or third day is forbidden. To child baptisms, no more than four godfathers or godmothers may be invited. Afterwards, there may be a shared meal, but not a whole party feast. Music or dancing are strictly forbidden. At funerals, neither soldiers or civilians may invite to a drink or meal afterwards. These servives are supposed to be conducted honorably and quietly!" (Dated Potsdam, July 31st 1728.

All in all, defnitely the book to consult if one were to write about a Tall Guy. (Or a black regiment piper.) But mostly raw data, not a narration on its own.

Yay, thank you! I did have the impression it was mostly raw data with a narrative only in the introduction, and I didn't figure you were going to read 700 pages of raw data. Thank you for summarizing what narrative there was.

marriages (not primarily with tall women, at least that's not mentioned as a factor),

Good to know.

time of service (six years was the agreed upon minimum serving time)

*takes notes*

This is why however much he drank I'm hesitant to call him an alcoholic like some modern US writers, not just Nancy Goldstone do - I just can't see a full time drinker having the ability to focus as long as it did inevitably take do all this work.

Yeah, my take is that he was probably drinking more than was good for him (or the people around him), but he was also functional.

The introduction is pretty defensive emotionally, on a note of "why are you all down on my guy FW?

Hahaha, nothing less than I would expect from Kloosterhuis.

BTW, Kloosterhuis says it's slander that FW portrayed every one of them, but he did portray around 30, and also did group pictures.

Ahahaha, that's great. :D

Anyway, the gist of it as far I could tell that while there were attempts (successfull or not) of desertion, there were also cases of deserted soldiers returning like a guy who even brought his brother with him... And given the option, only 14 of the Tall Guys chose to leave when Fritz got on the throne.

That is good to know.

When Fritz dissolved the regiment and put the soldiers of into various other army units, Kloosterhuis puts out that he himself got some and Heinrich got some, even little Ferdinand later got some, but Dad's fave AW did not.

Oh, man. Signs of buried resentment even in 1740? Also, it's kind of hilarious that the shorter guys (FW, Fritz, Heinrich) get tall guys, but the tall guy does not. :P Was Ferdinand tall/short/average, do we know?

One chilling aspect not emphasized in other sources is that FW, like many of his contemporaries, shared the fetish for "decorative" black people.

Oof, yeah, I remember when

gambitten taught us this, and I went back and looked at the Fritz/Wilhelmine pic, and there was the silver collar I'd never noticed, and ouch. Not cool, guys!

These kind of documents with the plain equation of humans with animals underline like nothing else the de-humanisation of the slave trade.

Yeah, that is pretty terrible. :/

On a less chilling but still religious note note: since he had been given or recruited or "recruited" several Russian Long Fellows, FW granted the hiring of a Greek Orthodox preacher so they would have services in their own religion. (This was one Wassily Scherbatsky, thereafter on the Prussian payroll.)

That is cool, I didn't know that! It does remind me of how Anhalt!Sophie, when being asked to convert, was convinced by the argument that while Lutheranism and Orthodoxy had different outward rituals, the beliefs were basically compatible. (She then used this argument in a letter to try to get permission from her father--back in Anhalt-Zerbst--to convert. He was *not* happy. I forget whether eventually he gave in or whether she went ahead without his permission.) And then when she was trying to convince her future daughters-in-law to convert, she used the same argument.

And this is FW's idea of how his tall guys should celebrate their weddings (like I said, no detail to minute for FW):

MAN you see where Fritz got it from.

All in all, defnitely the book to consult if one were to write about a Tall Guy.

Hmm. My German is not quite up to this yet (I could read individual sources, but would struggle to find what, out of the whole mass, was interesting), but I'll keep it in mind if that changes.

Thank you for checking this book out and telling us about it! I've been wondering about it for a long time now. (I think ever since we discovered his Katte monograph was a gold mine and I went looking to see what else he'd written.)

You're welcome. Re: Ferdinand's size, I have no idea. I mean, I always imagine him short, but that's mostly a combination of him being the youngest of 14 and of me only knowing the depictions of him as a child plus one of him in old age where he also looks small. This said, since everyone mentions Heinrich being short, I'd guess not just Fritz and AW but also Ferdinand were taller.

MAN you see where Fritz got it from.

Well, quite. I still wonder about the effect on GB if William of Orange had adopted FW and England had had the dubious joy of being ruled first by FW, then Fritz. Could they have micromanaged the British Empire, including the overseas colonies?

but also Ferdinand were taller.

Either that or everyone forgot he existed. :P

I still wonder about the effect on GB if William of Orange had adopted FW and England had had the dubious joy of being ruled first by FW, then Fritz. Could they have micromanaged the British Empire, including the overseas colonies?

No, even Prussia was overstraining Fritz by the end of his lifetime, after he'd expanded it in both territory and population. But it would have been entertaining to see them try!

I wish I could remember who said W3 thinking of adopting FW was a myth that's since been exploded, because I ran into a reference in Hatton's scholarly, archive-oriented, but mid-twentieth-century bio of G1.

According to Hatton, Sophia of Hanover and Sophia Charlotte visited W3 in the Netherlands in October 1700. What she said to him and what she had just written to Stepney, the British representative at the Hague, was that her son G1 was indifferent to the British Crown.

Hatton says everyone in Hanover was appalled, that even if this was true (and there's no sign that it was), it undermined the Hanoverian campaign for electoral status.

No wonder that William began to think of alternative candidates to George (had not Sophia herself invited it?), and that the son of the electress of Brandenburg was now reckoned to be ahead of his uncle.

Unfortunately, she groups her citations at the end of the paragraph, so I can't tell what the specific source for this claim is, but they're all primary, contemporary, archival sources.

Hatton continues:

Sophia's letter to Stepney, which became widely known on both sides of the Channel, caused more permanent damage than her talk. It was neither correct nor politic to stress that George was ‘absolute’ in Hanover and that he would be too set in his ways when the time came for him to be king of England, in contrast to James II's son (whom she referred to as the prince of Wales) who was young enough and keen enough to be moulded into the kind of ruler most Englishmen wanted.

I knew that there was a serious discussion between W3 and Louis XIV about the possibility of making James Francis Edward (future Jacobite "James III", Cahn) William's heir, but that his father, uncompromising James II, said that it was impossible that his son could be king while he was alive, so it never came to anything. But I didn't realize Sophia had supported this!

Thanks to Hatton's citation for the letter to Stepney, I've turned up the letter, and downloaded it from Hathitrust, because I'm not sure our Germans can view it. As far as I can tell, she's saying that she would be pleased to have a crown if she were 30 years younger, but it's not realistic to expect her to outlive much younger people, and after her death, there's a risk that her son will be viewed as a foreigner. Furthermore, her son is used to ruling absolutely, whereas the much younger Prince of Wales (whom she calls the "Prince of Wales" without any questions about his birth or his right to hold that title) will be much easier for the English to do what they want with. Something about preconceived biases (?) in England, I didn't quite catch that, and this is all she's going to put in writing now. But she and her daughter (this is Sophia Charlotte, FW's mom, Cahn, I know it's hard to keep the Sophias straight) are traveling and will be meeting W3 soon.

She's not so philosophical that she wouldn't like to wear a crown, but party politics in England are such that you can never be sure of anything, but she's much obliged to everyone for the offer, etc. etc.

Did you know this, Selena? Did you tell us and I forgot?

Melusine von Schulenburg and G1's half sister Sophia von Kielmannsegg were completely new factors, and you had to polish up your French to even talk to them, which evidently not a lot people managed to do well enough to figure out how the later was related to G1.

That may have been true, but note that Melusine could at least read and write English by 1720, as evidenced by her correspondence, and Hatton said she "wrote well" in English. I'm not sure about speaking, but Hatton recounts the following anecdote about her and Sophia von Kielmannsegg. The context is "How much English did G1 know, anyway?"

Lady Cowper, in the early portions of her diary from George's reign, invariably quotes the king's remarks in French; but in 1720 she records an English sentence which – it seems to me – must be a straight quote since it has a wrong plural of the kind often employed by Germans then and since. The topic of her conversation with George was the Townshend-Walpole return to the king's ministry and the sentence, a somewhat grumpy one, runs as follows: ‘What did they go away for? it was their own faults’. That faulty plurals of this kind were a common error among contemporary Germans in England is shown by the following, probably apocryphal, story. Melusine and Sophia Charlotte shared a carriage which was stopped by an unfriendly mob. The following exchange then took place. La Schulenburg [that's Melusine,

cahn], ‘Good people, why do you plague us so? We have come for your own goods.’ Mob: ‘Yes, and for our chattels too.’

Hatton says it's probably apocryphal, but the fact that it exists at all means either it was made up by someone who didn't know them at all, or they could speak some English, and the anecdote was made up on the basis of their English mistakes.

Whether Melusine learned any of her English before moving to England, or whether this only came after, I don't know.

No, I wasn't familiar with the letter before. I would agree with your general translation except for one (important) point, so here's my own, leaving out the bit about the book Stepney sent her in the beginning:

If I was thirty years younger, I would make much of my perdigree and my religious confession in order to expect people in England to consider myself. But since it is not very likely that I shall survive two much younger people, though they're both less healthy, I'm afraid that after my death, one will regard my sons as foreigners. (Yes, that's "sons" plural. More than one was still alive after all.) Besides, the oldest is much more used to act as a sovereign than the poor Prince of Wales, who is still too young to have patterned himself on the example of the King of France and who it seems would be so happy to achieve again that which his royal father has lost in such an inconsiderate way, that one could do whatever one wanted with him. (The implication for me here isn't so much that G1 is used to act like Louis XIV but that G1 is now used to act as a sovereign, full stop, - i.e. rule on his own - whereas young James - who is after all living at Louis' court together with his Dad in exile - is still too young to have patterned himself on Louis, and also is ready to make compromises in order to get the throne back. )But in England, prejudice reigns, and in order to stick to what you're telling me about this, and without any further discussion of this point in a letter, I shall tell you that my daughter has dragged me here where she has been spending three weeks taking the waters, and that we want to leave on Monday in order to travel to the Netherlands via Brussels, where we shall have the honor to see the King. I am neither so philosophical nor so inconsiderate as to not like all this conversation about a crown, as you may believe, and of course I am pondering your well founded judgment in this affair. In my opinion, there are so many factions in England that one can never be sure of anything there. Which doesn't stop me from being very grateful to those who show affection towards me and mine, especially to you, grateful enough to last a life time. And I find it a pleasing to be obliged to such an deserving person as yourself, whom one likes to owe gratitude towards. Sophie, Electress.

Now, what she doesn't say is that future G1 doesn't want to be King. There's nothing in the letter about his eagerness or lack of same. Just that he (or any other son of hers) will be perceived as a foreigner by the Brits, and that he's used to rule as a sovereign by now, whereas young James is a young (British) pub who can still be molded. While Sophie never visited England herself, she knew her share of British exiles from girlhood onwards, not to mention that brothers Carl Ludwig and Rupert lived in the country for years and did have stories to tell, so I would say the observation that any son of hers will be seen as a foreigner was entirely on point and correct. "Used to act like a sovereign by now" is another matter; I haven't yet read a biography of his, so you would know better, but I did have the impression that as Elector, he did like to do his own stuff as opposed to leaving governing entirely to ministers.

Something else she doesn't say is that she'll tell W3 the Hannovers weren't interested. And it's worth pointing out that she and Sophie Charlotte weren't alone; they had kid FW with them. Now, here's a funny thing: counting your quote from Hatton, I have now seen three entirely different takes on this Sophie/Sophie/W3 summit, to wit:

Morgenstern: So what happened was that W3 thought little FW was awesome, wanted to adopt him, but his mean Mom and Grandma, being all about the Hannover interests, evidently were against it. FW never stopped being disgruntled about this and convinced he'd have made a way better King of England than the Georges, readers, I swear!

Goldstone: So we don't know what was said but it's clear from the timing that this was when Sophie pushed for the Hannover succession, therefore finally achieving that late win for Mary Queen of Scots!

Hatton: This was when Sophie said they weren't interested and nearly lost her son the chance for the crown!"

It does occur to me that anything Sophie writes about young James - young, can be molded - certainly (without having prophetic powers) would apply to 12 years old FW as well, and of course as opposed to young James he's impeccably Protestant (the observation about prejudice ruling in England persumably means religious prejudice, i.e. the NO CATHOLICS! issue) and Sophie's direct descendant. So I wouldn't consider it impossible that either of the Sophias or both raised the possibility of FW as an alterante candidate with W3. But maybe, as opposed to what Morgenstern thinks (who wasn't there and only had it by word of mouth anyway, either from FW or his tobacco cronies), W3 wasn't smitten by kid!FW and the idea of adopting him and making him King of England.

Thank you for the German!

Hatton's summary sure made it sound like Sophia had written that G1 was indifferent, but I didn't go back and reread what I had written after I turned up the letter. However, her end-of-paragraph citation footnote is more explicit about what her sources were for the indifference:

AG,: 29 vol. iv., Bothmer's letter of 23 Nov. 1700 from The Hague on the effect of Sophia's talk of George's 'indifference'; cp. AG 34 vol. iii, for Schütz reporting on 13/24 Dec. 1700 from London a conversation with William III on the same subject.

So it sounds like the indifference part might have come orally at the summit, and the letter details the practical obstacles.

AG is the "Bernstorffsches Archiv, Gartow," Bernstorff being G1's first minister in Hannover.

(the observation about prejudice ruling in England persumably means religious prejudice, i.e. the NO CATHOLICS! issue)

Okay, thanks. I wasn't sure if it was religious (anti-James) or anti-foreigner (anti-George) prejudice that she was talking about.

She did apparently say that she thought little James Francis Edward would be willing to convert to Anglicanism: When older and freer of parental control, she argued, he might well turn Protestant in order to become king of England and Scotland.

So I wouldn't consider it impossible that either of the Sophias or both raised the possibility of FW as an alterante candidate with W3. But maybe, as opposed to what Morgenstern thinks (who wasn't there and only had it by word of mouth anyway, either from FW or his tobacco cronies), W3 wasn't smitten by kid!FW and the idea of adopting him and making him King of England.

Yeah, I wish Hatton would be explicit about her source that FW's prospects were reckoned higher than Hanoverian, although it's probably one of those two references from the Bernstorff archive discussing what happened at the summit. It would make sense if the consideration of FW as a candidate was way more casual than what Morgenstern thinks.

It's also worth adding that in addition to the downplaying of her family's claims and interests by Sophia, Hatton also lists the various bits of evidence that she *was* interested: getting upset when Louis XIV recognized "James III", being extremely happy that she was named in the Act of Succession, expressing her willingness to Anne to come to England, etc.

General Lieutenant Adrian Bernhard von Borcke

I keep forgetting to mention that according to previous salon discussion, when we did the Borcke genealogy, this is the father of the FW2 educator. The one who got dismissed by Fritz for making comments about the superiority of peace over war right after Fritz had just won his big war. (Wikipedia says his salary was still paid after the dismissal, though. Take that, Des Champs!

Des Champs: That's because Evil Fredersdorf wasn't around to pocket it!)

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Frederick the Great and Other 18th-C Characters, Discussion Post 31

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Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers

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Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby) - songs

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Kloosterhuis: Long Fellows

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William III, FW, and Sophia

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