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

So, here's my write-up of the '45. I apologize for not having as much gossip about individual people as your discussion posts often have! Hopefully it's interesting anyway, and no doubt others can fill in more, or you can ask if there's anything in particular you're wondering about. And

mildred_of_midgard, do tell me if you think I'm wrong about anything! *g* I'm always happy to discuss and learn more.

I was supposed to write about the '45, but to do that, I really have to start at the Glorious Revolution (so named by the victors, of course). So, James II/VII really pushed the Catholic agenda, and besides that, seems to have had a general ability to piss people off. Apart from the Highlands, where he seems to done all right when he was sent there before he got on the throne? Might explain why many of them fought for him later.

There was a failed coup by the Duke of Monmouth (illegitimate son of Charles II) in 1685, and then a successful one by William of Orange, married to James' sister Mary, in 1688. The differences between James and William can be seen by:
William: *sends bland and diplomatic letter to Scotland making vague promises of goodwill, asking if he can be their king*
James: *sends rude and autocratic letter demanding that Scotland support him since he is obviously the rightful king*

The "Glorious Revolution" is supposed to be the beginning of democracy, with more influence from Parliament; my impression is that William had no particularly democratic inclinations and in fact there wasn't even any Parliament elected in England during his and Mary's rule--he just kept going with the convocation that offered him the crown [I'm very sure I read this but now I can't find the reference. If you want I'll make more of an effort to track down the source]. The increased influence of Parliament was a much more gradual process.

First Jacobite Rebellion, in 1689:
James pretty much fled to Ireland, where he found some support, and in '89, John Graham of Claverhouse, later Viscount of Dundee, called "Bonnie Dundee", raised the standard for James, though he didn't have that much support. (Also compare previous famous Graham, the Marquess of Montrose, Scottish Royalist leader during the Civil War.)

Snarky historian Bruce Lenman: Claverhouse was "the sort of unimaginative soldier for whom the arrival of an order from a superior terminated all speculative thought, if indeed he ever indulged in such".
Loyal protagonist of Rosemary Sutcliff book "Bonnie Dundee": Claverhouse was the noblest man ever to live!

Whatever the truth, Claverhouse won at the battle of Killiecrankie, but died there, and his successor failed to keep the troops together. James lost in Ireland as well, and found refuge in France, along with a lot of Irish and Scots, who served in France's army. This is the origin of the Irish Brigade, for example, which distinguished itself at Fontenoy.

The 90's and 00's were not great for Scotland--harvests were bad, William of Orange didn't care much, there was a failed colonial venture. In 1707 the union with England was accomplished, with Queen Anne (Mary's sister) appointing the negotiators for both England and Scotland, and plenty of bribes to go round to buy the votes of the Scottish elite. The usual corruption (sorry, patronage) of 18th century politics!

Failed Jacobite attempt of 1708:
France: we're at war with Britain, so let's distract them with the Stuarts! : D
They sent 5,000 troops to Scotland, with James "III/VIII" (the future "Old Pretender") on board. He looked wistfully at the shore, but the British navy turned up and the ships had to turn back.

Many people in Scotland were not happy with the union, because Scotland was decidedly the junior partner and was for example forbidden trade with France (which obviously led to smuggling instead). Jacobitism was linked with opposition to the Union in the popular mind (even though previous Stuarts had tried for a union!), and also with Episcopalianism in Scotland and Catholicism in Ireland.

Second Jacobite Rebellion, in 1715:
The Hanoverian succession was in 1714, and in 1715, the Earl of Mar raised the second Jacobite Rebellion after failing to gain favor with the new regime (he was nicknamed "Bobbing John"). This was the biggest one, in terms of mobilization (about 15,000 men, twice the Jacobite army of the '45), and had nothing to do with foreign support! People were unhappy with the Union and George I. But the Earl of Mar was a bad leader and didn't press his advantage when he should have, and the different groups just sort of milled around. Instead, the Duke of Argyll took the initiative for the government and won (although he was criticized for moving without instructions from London, which explains why the Campbells were so slow to move in '45).

Abortive Jacobite attempt, in 1719:
Spain: we're at war with Britain, so let's distract them with the Stuarts! : D
But the ships were scattered by storms, and the small party that was left was quickly defeated at the battle of Glenshiel. (George Keith was in this one!)

Then follows over 20 years of solid Hanoverian and Whig rule. You would be forgiven for thinking that the Stuarts would just live out their lives in Rome and never be seen in Britain again.

Abortive Jacobite attempt, in 1744:
France: we're at war with Britain, so let's distract them with the Stuarts! : D
They meant to send 15,000 men led by de Saxe across the channel and take London. But there were storms and disagreement in the French government.

Edited 2021-10-05 19:19 (UTC)

Third Jacobite Rebellion, in 1745:
Finally, our main event! So, Charles Edward Stuart/Bonnie Prince Charlie (henceforth BPC) was 25 at the time and ambitious (but not always smart, he made an enemy of George Keith, for example, who would've been a great help to him). When the French wouldn't back him and he was discouraged by both Scottish and English Jacobites unless he came with lots of French troops, he turned to the Franco-Irish community, some of whom invested in outfitting two ships for him. The ships carried arms and 700 volunteers from the Irish Brigade. But the largest of the ships ran into a RN ship and had to turn back. (This is the divergence point of my alternate history If Fate Should Reverse Our Positions, by the way, where both ships made it and subsequently the course of the war was changed! : D)

So BPC famously invaded the West Highlands with seven men. Understandably, many Jacobites were reluctant to back him. But he wheedled, ordered, and guilted several clan chiefs into doing so--a key figure here is Cameron of Lochiel, without whom he would likely have failed. Lochiel was guaranteed the value of his estates if the venture failed (and BPC kept his promise--Lochiel got a French regiment), and with that respected clan chief behind him, recruitment went better.

Scottish clans were built around military service--the clansmen owed it to the chief. Some chiefs were beginning to erode that structure by evicting tenants and letting the land to the highest bidder, such as the Campbells, which is why they had a harder time recruiting. Lochiel had actually planned to do so, but had been dissuaded by James III/VIII who didn't want him to let go of that military power.

Sorry, too much detail. *zooms out* Anyway, the Scottish Highlands: some clans were Jacobite (Camerons, MacDonalds, Stewarts, ...), some Hanoverian (Campbells, Mackays, ...), some fence-sitters or divided (Frasers, Mackenzies, ...).

First skirmish of the war: 16th August, two companies of redcoat recruits (=200 soldiers) were marching south along the Great Glen, and were famously ambushed at a bridge by twelve Macdonalds (pretending to be many more). The redcoats fled and were captured.

BPC famously raised his standard at Glenfinnan on 19th August. He had about 1,200 men (also the captured redcoats were present). During the next week he went up the Great Glen and then up to the Correyarrick Pass, marching on foot at the head of his little army.

Backtracking: what were the Hanoverians doing? Well, most of their troops were in Flanders, and they initially didn't take the rumours of BPC very seriously. In the 1707 union, some parts of the Scottish government that could have reacted quickly had been dismantled, and strategy was dictated from London. The ranking military officer, General Cope, was ordered to attack. He took about 1,700 men and went into the Highlands, but when he got to the Correyarrick Pass, he looked up at that steep slope and was afraid of being ambushed there, and couldn't stay because of lack of rations. So he went north to Inverness instead, to gather support there.

The Jacobite army: Well, I guess the way is open for us to invade the Lowlands now! : D

Incidentally they were marching on roads that were built after the '15 to give easy military access to put down rebellions in the Highlands, but that were really useful to the Jacobite army. They made their way down to Edinburgh, recruiting along the way (the north-eastern part of the Lowlands was strongly Jacobite), and were joined by Lord George Murray, who was to become the senior military commander. Opinions differ about him: Duffy calls him "gifted, energetic, highly unstable". They reached Edinburgh and took it by sneaking in at night.

Cope and his army: Uh, I guess we'll just...go round in a big circle and come back to Edinburgh?

They met at the battle of Prestonpans outside the city. The numbers were fairly even (Cope's 2,000 against the BPC:s about 1,800) and the Jacobites won by a Highland charge, that is, they ran at the enemy, fired their muskets once at close range, then dropped the muskets and attacked with swords. This is not how redcoats were trained to fight! They were trained to load and fire their muskets fast, at another line of soldiers that was also standing still and firing at them. Neither side had good artillery. After the battle, hundreds of captured redcoats actually changed sides (though many of them deserted later).

BPC stayed in Edinburgh some time to wait for more recruits, after which there was a council.
Most of the Scots: Let's stay here and hold Scotland, and wait for French reinforcements!
BPC: I want the whole shebang! Let's invade England! : D

BPC won by one vote, but had to give up the eastern route. Instead they marched southwest on the 1st of November, now 5,000 strong, and took Carlisle, then continued south to Manchester, where they were joined by the only group of English volunteers they were to have, and reached Derby on 4th of December. Duffy praises their logistics and staff work highly, crediting it to O'Sullivan, one of the French-Irish officers who came over with BPC. Also, BPC had tax officers who appropriated all the taxes (since he considered himself the rightful monarch), using them to pay his way.

Let's just stop and appreciate how weird it is that this war is going on during the winter. The huge armies on the continent have correspondingly huge numbers of horses, which can't graze during the winter. So you would have to bring feed for them, which of course is pulled by horses, along with everything else you need because it's winter, and the soldiers will get sick and freeze...well, it's not a great idea. So usually war takes a break during the winter--but not this one.

By now Wade had pulled his army together (consisting of regiments brought from Flanders) and they gave chase, but it didn't go so well. They tried to get through the Tyne Gap but couldn't get through the snow. Soldiers froze to death. Why did the Jacobites not have this problem? Well, perhaps the Highlanders were hardier (that's certainly what the PR says), but also, soldiers were not allowed to be billeted in ordinary people's houses in England, because it gave the army bad press. So they slept in tents and froze. OTOH, the Jacobites did billet their soldiers in people's houses (and paid for it).

Another army was also assembling, under the Duke of Cumberland (George II's second son). They tried to intercept the Jacobite army but were outmaneuvered, so that BPC could have gone on straight for London. Odds are that he could have initially taken it, but then Cumberland would have come a couple of days behind him...anyway, we'll never know what would have happened, because at a council the Jacobites decided to turn around, possibly affected by the testimony of the Hanoverian spy Dudley Bradstreet who told them there was yet another army between them and London.

BPC was bitterly disappointed, but his opponents argued that they had gotten much less English and French support than they needed. In fact the French, having heard of BPC's early successes, were planning an expedition across the channel...but a combination of the British Navy and hearing about BPC turning back at Derby dissuaded them. So the Jacobite army marched back north, with Cumberland chasing them, but they had no problem getting away--also, Cumberland had left most of his infantry behind to guard against the possible French invasion.

Meanwhile, more recruiting had been going on in Scotland, along with French reinforcements. BPC sent Colonel Lachlan MacLachlan of MacLachlan (whose name I only include because it is such a delight) to have them come down south to meet them, but their commander Lord John Drummond (a Scotsman serving in the French army) refused. He claimed King Louis had told him to first clear out the enemy fortresses, but in fact the king had told him to put himself at BPC's disposal. So that's another road not taken.

The Manchester regiment, along with some other forces, was unfortunately put in charge of holding Carlisle, which was taken pretty quickly. As English Jacobites the wrath of the Hanoverian government would fall heavily on them--they were penned up without water, food or sanitation, and several of them died. Later more of them died in jail where they were given rotten offal to eat, and then they were all executed or transported. All officers were executed except those with French commissions, who were treated well and exchanged to France.

A pause here to discuss the very different treatment of prisoners by the Jacobite army. After Prestonpans, they made sure the wounded on the other side got medical treatment, food, etc. The officers were released on parole if they undertook not to fight for the duration of the war.

The difference is not because the Hanoverians were evil and the Jacobites good. In the 18th century, war can only be declared by (the sovereign of) a country, and in war one has to follow certain rules, such as extending parole to captured officers, and setting up cartels to exchange them. BPC made claim to be the sovereign of Britain and as such regarded himself as having every right to declare war--and really wanted to show that he could conduct himself according to the honourable rules of war: he paid for food and billets, he treated the captured well, he didn't harm civilians (which is also just common sense if you're hoping to be accepted as their king). But in the eyes of the Hanoverians, the Jacobites are NOT in a position to declare legitimate war: they are traitors and should not be treated as honourable opponents in war. Their officers shouldn't be given parole, they should be hunted down and executed! Unless they had French commissions. The Hanoverians were furious with the Hessians when, later on, they were considering setting up a cartel with the Jacobites to exchange prisoners (there were some Hessian mercenaries on the Hanoverian side).

The Hanoverian officers taken prisoner at Prestonpans had respected their paroles--until an expedition was sent to forcibly "liberate" them. They were ordered to break their paroles, on direct order from George II himself. Most did, except for a few, for example Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Halkett who said that [the king] was master of their commissions, but not of their probity and honour.

Anyway. The Jacobites meet up with their reinforcements, unsuccessfully besiege Stirling Castle for a while, and then clash with the Hanoverian forces that have been building up near Edinburgh. They are led by General Henry Hawley, or "Hangman Hawley", so called not for his treatment of Jacobites but of his own men. A contemporary source: Nobody disputed Mr Hawley's genius for […] prosecuting with vigour any mortal to the gallows.

So the two sides meet at Falkirk, a confusing battle in a January rain- and hailstorm, at the end of which the Jacobites went "We...won? I think?" They did indeed win and the Hanoverians retreated, leaving behind their artillery which was bogged down in a mire. But the Jacobites did not go on the offensive, which BPC wanted to do; instead they decided in council to retreat to the Highlands, yielding Montrose and other harbours on the north-east coast which were their hope of further French reinforcements.

The Highland clans in the Jacobite army wanted very much to smash up the three forts in the Great Glen, which they proceeded to do with Forts George and Augustus, but failed with Fort William. But meanwhile Cumberland had taken over command of the Hanoverian army and was marching up the northeast coast towards Inverness. The Jacobites besieging Fort William were hastily recalled, getting to Inverness in time for the famous battle of Culloden.

The Jacobite army by this time was hungry and tired, and so were its commanders. BPC had failed to get hold of a shipment of French gold which had landed north of Inverness among Whig clans, and had no more money to pay his troops or pay for food. Cumberland had been drilling his troops in holding the line and not yielding to the Highland charge, and they had more artillery, more men, and more food. So the Jacobites lost badly, and the army was dispersed (the ones who could get away).

Then followed the great scourging of the Highlands. The feeling among the Hanoverians was that they had been too lenient after the '15 and look what happened. There was killing of unarmed people, burning of houses, rape, driving off with their cattle, and withholding of grain imports in the hopes of a famine. Here's the opinion of the Earl of Albemarle, one of the commanders: I [...] always feared from the bad inclination of the people in most of the northern counties and from their stubborn, inveterate disposition of mind, nothing could effect it but laying the whole country waste and ashes, and removing all the inhabitants (excepting a few) out of the kingdom.

Actually some of the worst officers were not Englishmen but Lowland Scots, among them Captain Caroline Scott, named after his godmother the queen, Caroline of Ansbach. The Campbells OTOH, who were traditional rivals to the Jacobite clans, were more moderate, and some said they would surrender, but only to a Campbell.

You can read more about BPC:s escape here, courtesy of

mildred_of_midgard. When he got back to the continent he got a letter from Frederick the Great, saying among other things: All Europe is astonished at the greatness of your enterprise, for though Alexander and other heroes have conquered kingdoms with inferior armies, you are the only one who engaged in such an enterprise without any. But BPC sank slowly into bitterness and alcoholism after losing.

In the aftermath of the rising, many who had fought were rounded up and brought to trial, though the terrible conditions in jails and prison-hulks killed more than were actually executed. Those who survived were transported. Eventually there was another disarming act, Highland dress was forbidden, and measures were taken to weaken the clan system. A couple of decades later, when the clan elites had been more tightly tied to the Hanoverian government, the Highlands were used as recruiting grounds for regiments that would fight in the American colonies.

Yep. There's lots more to say, just ask, or fill in what I've left out! : )

Major sources:
The Jacobite Risings in Britain 1689-1746 by Bruce Lenman (1980)
Fight for a Throne: the Jacobite '45 Reconsidered by Christopher Duffy (2015) (This one is so great! *dangles temptingly in front of

mildred_of_midgard*)

Oh, and also--this is unrelated to the Jacobites, but it strikes me that you guys might enjoy my short 18th century pastiche f/f story Some Omitted Scenes from the Adventures and Amours of Alithea de Richelieu and Arabella de Montferan, Set Down by the Former for the Pleaſure of the Latter. It's fanfic for a 1744 novel which is about two women cross-dressing and traveling around Europe, but you can read it without having read the canon.

Your link to "In the first twenty chapters there have been many things wrong" is broken.

Okay, I’m on the road this entire week (and the next), so this will be on the fly, but here it goes:

Affair of the Necklace: nothing to complain about. I also believe her that the necklace in question looked terrible even though I haven’t seen it, since this era was not noted for featuring subtle jewelry.

French Revolution in general: also okay for the pov the book takes, though maybe it’s worth pointing out that both Louis and MA were in fact guilty of the main charge in their trials, which wasn’t having been King and Queen but conspiring with foreign armies against France and furthering an overthrow of the government with the help of said foreign armies. Since Louis had taken an oath on the new constitution, this also constituted a breaking of said oath. Now obviously the oath had been taken under pressure, and also the conspiring was done with the very real fear that their lives were at stake. But it still meant that the King and Queen of France were in league with foreign powers and doing their best to help said powers invade France. So, for all that both trials had an predestined outcome, the irony is that as opposed to the general accusations of tyranny and the vile slander of sexual molestation of her own son for MA, this particular charge was true, and the fairest court of the world would have had to find them guilty of it.

Speaking of revolutions: Goldstone is downplaying the Neapolitan Revolution and its brutal put-down as much as she can. And the paranoid atmosphere earlier with all the spying at Charlotte’s investigation is present as a harmless excentricity. Now again, given what happened to her sister, I very much understand Maria Carolina becoming paranoid as hell and becoming hardcore as a result even before events erupted - which of course alienated the progressive Neapolitans from her like at record pace. Goldstone revers to the revolutionaries as “collaborators” (of the French), which is biased framing, for while the short lived Neapolitan Republic was very much supported by the French, the main protagonists were long term progressives and the “best and brightest”’ of the nation. The reason why Charlotte is still massively unpopular in Italy is the charge that Southern Italy never quite recovered from the intellectual bloodletting that followed, once Nelson came through on the royal side. To quote wiki: “Of some 8,000 political prisoners, 99 were executed, including Prince Gennaro Serra, who was publicly beheaded, and others, such as the intellectual Mario Pagano, who had written the republican constitution; the scientist, Domenico Cirillo; Luisa Sanfelice; Gabriele Manthoné, the minister of war under the republic; Massa, the defender of Castel dell'Ovo; Ettore Carafa, the defender of Pescara, who had been captured by treachery; and Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, court-poet turned revolutionary and editor of il Monitore Napoletano, the newspaper of the republican government. More than 500 other people were imprisoned (222 for life), 288 were deported and 67 exiled. The subsequent censorship and oppression of all political movement was far more debilitating for Naples.”

In her novel about Sir William Hamilton, “The Volcano Lover”, Susan Sontag gives Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel the last word. (The novel is written in third person for the most part, with four first person narration epilogues, and the last one is by Eleonora, waiting for her execution and cursing Emma, Charlotte and the Royals and British in general.) Alexandre Dumas in his mid 19th century written novel about Emma which is very sympathetic to her nonetheless has the repression of the Neapolitan revolution, which she enabled in order to help her friend, as the one sin that haunts her and the guilt that plagues her as her “sinful life” never does. In real life, Whig politician Charles James Fox denounced Nelson in the House of Commons for the admiral's part in "the atrocities at the Bay of Naples", national hero or not.

Again: given all this happened AFTER MA’s execution, it’s all too understandable that Charlotte thought “I’m not going to be executed by the rabble, down with all traitors, it’s kill or be killed!”, and that Emma thought she needed to save her friend from MA’s fate, and that Nelson thought the same thing. But to handwave everything the way Nancy Goldstone does and say “Napoleon killed way more people! Also it was Ferdinand not Charlotte who wanted them to die!” Is pretty partisan, as per usual. One of her sources, Kate Williams’ Emma biography “England’s Mistress” does a better job of putting things into perspective without indulging in whataboutism. Their contemporaries certainly thought it was a big deal.

Joseph’s reforms: yes, more or less true to what the problem was. Though again, the framing is important here, and to repeat what I said before - she leaves out the very first Joseph vs Mimi and Leopold clash in the 1760s, which was about Dad’s money, and Joseph wanting it for the ginormous Austrian war debts, while Leopold wanted it for Tuscany and Mimi just wanted the cash. Note that favourite or no, MT did not side with Mimi there. Whether Mimi, like Leopold, was against Joseph’s reforms because she could see that ramming them down people’s throats en masse was a disaster in the making, and that you had to introduce reforms differently, or whether she simply was way more conservative and didn’t want reforms at all is up to debate.

(Note that the author of the “Five Princesses” book points out that the Princesses were generally conservative, and several, like Eleonore Liechtenstein, deeply devout, and so very critical of many of Joseph’s reforms for this reason even before disaster unfolded. Her book has the ladies as her heroines, too, but she doesn’t try to put them in the right all the time.)

Also: three times, Goldstone says about Leopold’s son Franz (the future II): “He was trained by Joseph”. Which is a hilarious way of trying to blame Franz, who was an arch reactionary who couldn’t stand his uncle and vice versa, on Joseph. “Trained by Joseph” only in the sense that he became part of the army when Joseph was Emperor. But she could have said with way more truth “He was raised by Leopold”. Because he was. He still ruined not just what remained of Joseph’s but all of his father’s works when he became Emperor and took Austria back behind even MT’s own reforms. For which he himself is to blame. “Trained by Joseph’” my ass.

Joseph dying alone: without a family member present, true, but his friend Lacy was (that’s one of the two other male members of the friendship circle Joseph and the princesses formed), who had been there when Joseph’s daughter had died already, and held his hand on this occasion. Also, note that Eleonore Liechtenstein, who had her share of arguments with Joseph throughout their friendship (they were easily the two most thinskinned, temper-having and bullheaded members of the group), and did indeed befriend Mimi in her later years, wrote a far more generous epitaph for him than Goldstone did in a letter to her sister Leopoldine Kaunitz, to wit: We were often infuriated by him, but how much verve, life, enthusiasm and love for justice did he awaken in all of us!”

Lastly: Leopold and Mimi were allies, but he still didn’t send her and Albert back to Brussels unsupervised. He insisted that Metternich Senior (the father of the famous Metternich) was to go with them and do a part of the governing. From which you can deduce Leopold didn’t think the Netherlands revolting was all to blame on Joseph’s reforms and Napoleon and didn’t consider Mimi and Albert geniuses at governing.

ETA: Wait, you also asked about Mozart. While he was indeed in financial trouble when he died, the way of his burial was due to the Josephinian burial reforms, that’s true. (Amadeus doesn’t claim the opposite, btw. If it had been simply a matter of money, Salieri or van Swieten, both of whom are shown following the coffin up to a point, could have paid for a funeral. However, there wasn’t one available. If Salieri himself had died at this point, he would have been buried in the exact same manner.) Now, there was a point to this in that funerals often had been ruinously expensive, especially for poor families, because letting the dearly departed go out in style had become such a point of honor and showing off for all classes. But of course by prescribing the same type of re-usable coffin for everyone, Joseph did FW and Fritz one better and pissed off everyone as well.

Edited 2021-10-06 13:42 (UTC)

-[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard is going to tell us about Charles XII of Sweden and the Great Northern War

I'm making good progress! Massie really made a whole lot of books that were so dry that my eyes glazed over, into things I'm excited to read!

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

Because you are AWESOME at asking questions that I would not ask!

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

Probably not from me, alas. Between my increasingly long reading list in English and the fact that my German is getting closer! but still not there! and my increasing number of hours at work, I think I'm going to be focusing on other things this fall. Alas!

Belated replies from the last post:

-So -- the way she describes future!Louis XVI sure makes him sound like he's ASD (I'd come to that conclusion quite a few pages before she made the armchair diagnosis) but -- the question is (as it always seems to be with her), is this an accurate description or did she just make stuff up to bolster the conclusion she'd already come to?

I mean, based on what I've read, I agree with Selena that it checks out, though I can't diagnose with certainty.

-okay, that description of Naples makes me want to visit

I hated it more than any place I've ever visited, and my partner found it a letdown, but I know people who love it. Maybe we stayed in an especially bad neighborhood (although I was also not a fan of the museum, and also did not find any good neighborhoods in my exploring).

and also, Poland wasn't talked about on this meeting, contrary to popular legend.

Czernin (who came across to me as a big Fritz fan) repeated this legend too.

(Because of what would happen in the next few years, a lot of people assumed that Fritz and Joseph must have hashed it out there,

And Fritz tried selling it this way to Lucchesini in his later years, right?

Lastly: Nancy Goldstone is apparantly as unwilling to believe Fritz praised his Best Enemy after her death as the participants in my poll by only quoting "a new era begins" and letting him "exult", as opposed to quoting the rest of the relevant letter

Lolsob.

I love that, and honestly it would have made her book stronger to put it in. WHY. (She's such a good writer at making history entertaining! AND YET.)

I know! I wish we could form a collaboration in which we tell her what to write and she decides how! (Cause, yeah, my stuff is not that entertaining. :/)

...and there are TWELVE nominations for 16th C Hapsburgs! Did you know that these additional ones were going to be nominated,

selenak? :D

The non-salon-nominated people seem to be
Eleanor of Austria
Ferdinand I
Germaine de Foix
Mary of Hungary

All of those except Germaine de Foix (whose wikipedia page is really not useful :P ) I learned about from your post, Selena; I suspect this all means Game of Queens has to go on top of my reading list so I can have a better idea whom I'm requesting for Yuletide :P :D (Because I'm going to request Any, of course! :D )

But any gossipy sensationalism you happen to want to share while I'm reading (because I uh have also committed to read Flight of the Heron :D so don't know how much I'll get through before signups!) is welcome!

Aka Catherine Fletcher's biography "The Black Prince of Florence". Overall: Fletcher comes across as pretty trustworthy, especially since she's good with the source referencing, is able to admit "we just don't know for sure one way or the other" about a key circumstance instead of adopting just one theory and treating it as fact ever after (why Alessandro's assassin killed him), and tries hard to provide contemporary context so her readers don't automatically go with their own assumptions. (For example re: race in the current day, specifically American sense vs how the 16th century attitudes, which weren't "race-blind" but weren't loaded with a lot of subsequent history, either.) Most importantly, her main claim re: Alessandro isn't that he was a misunderstood hero but that he was a fairly typical man of his time, both in his virtues and flaws, and that his subsequent bad press partially resulted from his assassin and enemies writing much of his history and partially from 19th century onwards racism (she provides the quotes to go with this). Since she doesn't out of hand reject all negative claims about Alessandro but sees one of the worst as entirely possible, she does not come across nearly as partisan as Nancy Goldstone or a great many Fritzian historians (in one direction or the other). All in all, her biography very much reminded me of the Borgia biographies I read a few decades ago, which also had this "yeah, they did some bad stuff, but no more so than the rest of the bunch, and were singled out for being "Catalans", then subsequently demonized" argument.

On to some key points:

1.) "Who's your daddy?" Catherine Fletcher goes with Lorenzo de' Medici (not the most famous one to bear that name, his grandson,

cahn), father of Catherine de' Medici, over Giulio de' Medici, later Pope Clement as Alessandro's father. The arguments are these: on the one hand, Lorenzo never acknowledged Alessandro, and since he died just a few days after Catherine's birth - Catherine was his sole legitimate child and thus the last legitimate descendant of the older Medici line - , when Alessandro was just a toddler, we don't have any documents showing him doing something for the kid, either. Whereas Pope Clement's consistent favoring of Alessandro from the later's teenage days onwards provided fodder for the rumor that he was the Dad and simply said his cousin Lorenzo had been in order to provide a nod to propriety.

Whereas Fletcher argues that a) Renaissance Popes usually did not bother with this pretense, see also Rodrigo Borgia (Alexander VI) and later Alessandro Farnese (Paul III), so why would Giulio/Clement? (Here I disagree, because Giulio de' Medici had been illegitimate himself. As a Cardinal, he was therefore in a weaker position than your avarage Renaissance Cardinal, and more in need of at least pretending to observe propriety.

More worth considering is her second argument, b): there was no favoring of Alessandro during the later's early childhood. Alessandro does not show up in any records until Catherine de' Medici's Dad and mother died shortly after her birth, leaving her baby self, a girl, as the last legitimate of the line, and girls could not rule Florence. Thus, attention was given to two male bastards, Ippolito, who was the bastard son of Giuliano the younger, and Alessandro, now designed as her father's son. Both boys suddenly show up as possible heirs in records now, but Ippolito is the one clearly favored and assumed to rule Florence when he grows up, while Alessandro is treated as the spare to Ipppolito's heir, until Clement gets really sick, believes he will die, and in a hurry makes Ippolito enter the church and appoints him a Cardinal so the Medici will have another possible future Pope and will not lose their foothold in the upper Church hierarchy. Only Clement recovers against expectations. 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).

2.) "Who's your mummy?" We don't know that, either. Not even what her name was, though possible candidates include "Simunetta" and "Senoera", or whether she was a servant or a slave (the terms were still used interchangeably a lot of the time), whether she had been of Black African or Arab descent (again, the term "Moro" wasn't just used for both but also for people without any North African heritage at all, like Ludovico Sforza). Alessandro's portraits, both the ones painted in his life time and postumously, are inconclusive in this regard, especially since Renaissance portraits are hardly photographs (for example, we know that Alessandro broke his nose during the Renaissance equivalent of a football match, and that's nowhere to be seen in any of the portraits). A letter claiming to be from her doesn't show up until 1882 and is most likely a forgery given what else the author who claims to have found it did. The earliest reference to her as a "negro" is in a chronicle by a French historian employed by Catherine de' Medici (where the take on Alessandro is largely sympathetic, btw), where it's said she was "half" of one. Interestingly, Ippolito when writing a letter to Charles (V.) as to why Charles should not marry his daughter to Alessandro but to himself, Ippolito (Ippolito really REALLY did not want to be a Cardinal and wanted to do what Cesare Borgia had done, quit the church for a secular careeer, for as long as he lived) uses as one of his arguments that Alessandro's mother was "a base peasant", no racial term mentioned. (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.)

However, as mentioned before Fletcher considers it possible that the absolute darkest story re: Alessandro's mother might be true. 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.

3.) Alessandro and women. Fletcher points out that the charges of tyrannical debauchery etc. are surprisingly vague. Alessandro had one consistent mistress, Taddea, from the time he was a late teenager onwards till his death. (He also had two children by her he acknowledged.) Doesn't mean he didn't have other affairs, but it's worth noting that aside from the story about his death (where Lorenzino claims he lured Alessandro to his doom by claiming a hot lady was awaiting him), there are no names other than Taddea's linked to his. There are several scandalous stories about various of his hangers-on and women where the ladies in question are named, and their fates detailed, but when it comes to Alessandro himself, there's only the general "he was debauched" claim by his enemies. Margaret, he seems to have treated very considerately. He met her for the first time when she was eleven and en route to Naples, and then later when she was 14 and the marriage was finally realised. He seems to have remembered what she told him on the earlier occasion because we have a letter from Alessandro himself asking a friend whose wife was a famous dog breeder for a puppy since Margaret had told him she wished for a little dog. He also gave her a lot of the standard presents of jewelry, fine clothing etc., not to mention the beautiful book of hours you saw in a vid, but the bit about the puppy is a personal touch that makes it sound as if he wanted her to like him and saw her as a person, not just a living connection to the most powerful man of Europe. Of course, he had plenty of motive - throughout the engagement years, the Medici (well, Clement and Alessandro) lived in fear Charles could still change his mind about the match, especially once Ippolito actively campaigned against it, and that Charles insisted that Margaret was to live in Naples first, not in Florence, and that the marriage wasn't to be consumed untl she was ready didn't calm their minds. But it's still a personal touch. As to whether Margaret liked or disliked him, Fletcher says any claim she disliked him is speculation based on his later reputation. She may have done, of course, but if so she hid it in her letters immediately following his assassination, where she signs as "Margarita la trista" , the sad Margaret. 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. (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.)

4.) Alessandro and men. As boys, Alessandro gets compared to his disadvantage to Ippolito, who is described as prettier, and better educated (which feeds into Fletcher's theory that kid!Alessandro may have been raised as a servant until Catherine's Dad died, which suddenly made him a possible spare to the possible heir, and so had to catch up on his education), but from teenage days onwards he's your avarage athletic, swaggering and joking Renaissance Prince. He made a good impression on Charles when presenting himself to him in person and becoming part of Charles' entourage for months including a trip through various German territories, where one observer noted the Emperor didn't treat Alessandro as a future son in law but as a son. Since Ippolito (who as mentioned really did not want to remain in the church and saw himself as Cesare Borgia, only more successfully so) argued more and more with Uncle Pope Clement while Alessandro remained respectful and obedient, you might say Alessandro was a hit with older powerful men in general. 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). (Via poison. One of the few times a murder by poison is really well documented and not just rumor. Note: it lasted four days. As opposed to the more fictional deaths which happen at once.) This one, Fletcher thinks Alessandro definitely did.

5.) Alessandro's opponents. Florence was still nominally a republic until Charles changed it officially into a dukedom, with Alessandro as the first Duke of Tuscany. Since the Medici had been in exile for 19 years after being kicked out under Savonarola, they had returned with added paranoia and propensity to crack down on opponents. Their individual popularity had varied - Giuliano the younger, Ippolito's father, had been fairly popular, Lorenzo the younger, Catherine's and Alessandro's father, had not been, which Ippolito had made much of in his "why I should be your son-in-law" letter to Charles, conveniently leaving out that Clement actually had made Ippolito himself regent of Florence for a while and that had resulted in a minor uprising, too, before Alessandro was put in charge - but they hadn't been offically named as Dukes. Alessandro was, and that itself caused much resentment. Which is why one of the explanations for his assassination is that cousin Lorenzino wanted to bring the Republic back, but if so, he went about it in a weird way, without any contact to the republican exiles who thus failed to act after Alessandro's death, which meant Florence simply got a new Duke, Cosimo, who came from the younger Medici line and was the ancestor of the Last Of The Medici we meet one and a half centuries later.

5.) So, what was it about Lorenzino the assassin? He also hailed from that younger Medici line and thus was a distant cousin to Alessandro and Catherine. As a late teenager, he managed to piss off Pope Clement by vandalizing the triumph arc of Titus which got him banished from Rome (and permantly disgruntled with Clement). Alessandro took him in, and the two got along famously for years. And then he killed Alessandro. Which left people guessing ever since. Was it:

a) Lorenzino having had the master plan to ingratiate himself with evil Alessandro until he could strike a blow for freedom? (His own explanation.)

b) Lorenzino having sincerely befriended Alessandro until the friendship went sour because while Alessandro favored him a lot, he had other friends, too? (This, more or less, was the explanation of Alessandro-friendly contemporaries.)

c) Lorenzino ingratiated himself with Alessandro as Ippolito's spy (he owed Ippolito, who'd financed his original getaway from Rome after having pissed off Clement), and then after Ippolito's death was left hanging, eventually deciding he'd better kill Alessandro before Alessandro found out about the Ippolito spying and killed him? (Catherine Fletcher's theory, but she emphasizes it's just that, and there's no proof.)

d) Lorenzino/Alessandro as an example of lovers falling out? This is the theory I'm amazed no one mentions. Well, it's a kind of subtext in Musset's drama Lorenzaccio, but Musset's drama is only very loosely based on history. (In it, Alessandro is a red head. Fletcher points out that interestingly, Alexandre Dumas, writing nearly at the same time as Musset, had Alessandro definitely as a mulatto, but then Dumas was mixed race himself.)

6.) Now Gods, stand up for bastards! Fletcher points out that this was definitely the era for them. Between both Ippolito and Alessandro as bastards, Margaret (of Parma) being one and of course her half brother Juan de Austria, not to mention Pope Clement, it showed that while illegitimacy was a taint, it wasn't an unsurmountable one as it would become once the reformation had really taken hold globablly. Of course, it all depended on your parent acknowledging you. Still, Alessandro's career - from son of a most-likely-black-servant to absolute ruler of Florence (for a while) would not have been possible in any later age.

Edited 2021-10-19 12:08 (UTC)

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.

Guys, I was in Frankfurt (am Main, i.e. not the one where Fritz probably met Fredersdorf, which is Frankfurt an der Oder, but the one where the Emperors got elected and crowned and Voltaire got arrested for keeping Fritz' poetry) this last week, and I think I might to a pic spam for

rheinsberg, but I just wanted to point out that the Yuletide requests have gone online, and lo and behold, we have a non-salon member asking for a Frederician story. Unsurprisingly, it appears to be a newbie drawn to the tragic romance who wants Fritz/Katte. Either canon or fixit. Now, I'm not going to, since the only Fritz/Katte stuff I'm actually interested in writing falls into the "break it differently" category, and it would be mean and jerk-like to inflict this on someone wanting romance for their Christmas. However: if either of you feels inspired, I'm just saying newbies should be encouraged. :)

As noted, I've decided I have to do several small posts instead of big ones, because anything more comprehensive I won't finish and you wouldn't read anyway. So let's start this party.

If you thought Fritz being at war with Austria, France, Russia, Sweden, and much of the Holy Roman Empire, with only English subsidies to back him, was impressive, wait until you hear about Sweden being at war with Russia, Saxony, Poland, Hanover, Great Britain, Prussia, and Denmark/Norway!

If you want to know why this war is confusing, this table of who was on whose side when about sums it up:

Notice in particular how Great Britain goes from:

1700: England, Scotland, and Ireland listed individually on the Swedish side
1717-1719: Great Britain on the Russian side
1720-1721: Great Britain back on the Swedish side

and how Poland goes from:

1701-1704: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the Russian side
1704-1709: Warsaw Confederation on the Swedish side, Sandomierz Confederation on the Russian side
1709-1719: Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth on the Russian side again

and how Saxony drops out of the war for 3 years:

1700-1706, 1709-1719.

Prussia doesn't exactly change sides, in the sense that they don't go to war against Russia, but the separate peace they make with Sweden is pointedly hostile to former ally Russia.

Yep, that's why it took so long for me to be ready to start studying this war, never mind to get enough of a handle on it to report back! But now I've got enough to at least start a conversation.

So let's begin at the end: how does the Great Northern War affect the plot and characterization of the Frederician fandom?

1. Prussia gets Gartz, Fredersdorf's hometown, when Fredersdorf is 12. Why? Because FW decides wars of aggression are fine as long as you're not the one who started them. I guess.

2. Fritz is able to send EC2 to Stettin after the divorce from FW2. Why is Stettin in Prussia? FW's wars of someone else's aggression!

3. Three-year-old Fritz tells SD that he wants to join Dad at war and help him kill the King of Sweden with a big cannon. (Aww.) Who's the King of Sweden here? Charles XII.

4. Duhan is conspicuous for bravery during a siege, leading FW to conclude he will be an excellent role model for his son and never ever help him get into debt to build his secret library or encourage him to wear fancy French clothes, and leading adult Fritz to comment, "It is rare to engage a tutor in a trench." Which siege? The siege of Stralsund, during the Great Northern War.

5. St. Petersburg is founded by Peter the Great in 1703. Where? On land that had belonged to Sweden until that very year.

6. Peter III is overthrown and killed after just six months as tsar of Russia, in 1762. Why? The final straw isn't him being (P)RussianPete, it's him being HolsteinPete, i.e., trying to go to war with Denmark to get back territory that Holstein lost in the Great Northern War.

Russia: There are literally one million more important things that we could be doing FOR US with these resources. Down with HolsteinPete!

7. In 1741, Fritz tells his ally France that they'd better tell their client Sweden to attack Russia and distract Russia from allying with Austria to get Silesia back. James Keith, in Russian service, ends up governor of Finland and meets his life partner Eva Merthen here. HolsteinPete is briefly proposed as Finnish king during this episode, before that idea is scotched. Why does Sweden go to war with Russia? To get back territory they lost in the Great Northern War.

8. Why does Sweden gang up with Russia, Austria, and France against ~~poor innocent Orpheus~~ Fritz in the Seven Years' War? To get back the territory they lost to FW in the Great Northern War of Someone Else's Aggression.

9. Why does Gustav III attack Catherine the Great in 1788-1790? You get one guess.

Does St. Petersburg still belong to Russia at the end of all these wars? It does. Sorry, Sweden. Have some furniture.

10. What is Whitworth doing in Berlin? Trying, with Rottembourg's help, to get FW to sign the separate peace with Sweden al-fucking-ready.

11. Why is Stanislas Leszczynski king of Poland not once, but twice, both times unsuccessfully? Because August the Strong royally pissed off Charles XII, who needed a puppet he could put on the throne of Poland, hence Stanislas.

12. Why should Napoleon have known that invading Russia ends badly? Because Charles XII suffered from Peter the Great's scorched-earth policy and the coldest winter in 500 years in Europe when invading Russia. (Hitler should really, really have known better by the 1940s, or, as Eddie Izzard put it, "I've got a better idea! Oh, no, it's the same idea, it's the same idea.")

And hopefully that's enough talking points to get a discussion started. More bite-sized posts to come! (Fingers crossed.)

cahn, here's a story I learned from a Juan d'Austria biography which will please the Philip sympathizer in you though there's no way it can be used in any Don Carlos fanfiction. So, Juan gets officially acknowledged as Charles' son (and indeed renamed Juan, he was Jerenimo/Hieronymus before) following Charles' death and a plea to Philip to do just that in his last will when Juan is 12. After acknowledging Juan as his brother in public, Philip decides to have him attend the same school as Don Carlos and Alessandro Farnese (Margaret of Parma's kid), who are all roughly the same age. In particular, Carlos and Juan are supposed to keep each other company. Except Juan (and Alessandro) are really good at school stuff, and Carlos, not so much. Carlos gets irritated. One day, when he's playing tennis with Juan and Juan wins, Carlos shouts: "I'm not talking to you anymore! I'm not talking to one whose station is so far beneath mine! You're a bastard, and your mother is a whore!"

Juan shouts back: "Well, my father is way greater than yours!"

Carlos, even more incensed, reports this to Dad in a "do you know what the bastard has said?!?" fashion. Philip returns: "Don Juan is right, and you are wrong. His father and mine was a far greater man than I shall ever be."

Juan: *swears Philip life long loyalty right then and there*

BTW, Carlos did make up with Juan; when he makes a list of his friends some years later, he puts him in it. Unfortunately, the purpose is the list is a collection of "people I might persuade to rebell against Dad with me", and he's utterly wrong about Juan who reports Carlos' first approach immediately.

Just since we have a couple of new folk here, wanted to mention that I try to turn the post around at about 300 comments (that being when we've found it starts to get unwieldy enough to be hard to navigate) -- the new post (with replies to a bunch of the comments to this post) is here.

The Backstory for the '45

First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)

The '45: from Derby to Culloden and after

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no subject

In the Shadow of the Empress: The rest.

Misc.

Yuletide tag set is out!

Alessandro de Medici: The Defense