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cahnAnd 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, andselenak 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
-
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
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)
Date: 2021-10-06 01:10 pm (UTC)Er, yes, sorry.
If BPC had not invaded England right then (in the winter??) would it have turned out better for him?
Opinions differ? And of course it's hard to know. But I think they saw the winter as something that would favor them, since the Highlanders were used to harsh conditions and the ordinary British army weren't used to fighting in winter. And if they had waited, the Hanoverians would have had more time to gather their forces. Speed is how William of Orange managed his coup, and then most of the army just accepted a fait accompli. BPC:s attempt was a gamble from the start, but speed was his hope, too--the British army was much larger than what he could hope to gather. (Although actually the Hanoverians were worried about the loyalty of some of the Scottish regiments especially.)
It seems like a lot of ordinary people were just keeping their heads down. Like, who cares who's on the throne, the Hanoverians haven't done much for me, but I'm not going to stick my head out for this Stuart either?
(argh, I promise I'll reply more later, I have to sleep)
No worries, definitely prioritize sleep. : )
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)
Date: 2021-10-08 04:29 am (UTC)It seems like a lot of ordinary people were just keeping their heads down. Like, who cares who's on the throne, the Hanoverians haven't done much for me, but I'm not going to stick my head out for this Stuart either?
Heh, very fair!
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)
Date: 2021-10-09 08:01 pm (UTC)This is why it's hard for me to read about the Targaryens without thinking about the Stuarts. Because:
Dany rode close beside him. "Still," she said, "the common people are waiting for him. Magister Illyrio says they are sewing dragon banners and praying for Viserys to return from across the narrow sea to free them."
"The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace." He gave a shrug. "They never have."
Re "from across the narrow sea," I will take this opportunity to tell
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)
Date: 2021-10-11 04:08 am (UTC)Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)
Date: 2021-10-11 06:44 pm (UTC)See also KJ Parker, Duke Valens, and Fritz. ;)
Btw, I made a typo at the end of that quote: "They never have" should be "They never are," i.e. left in peace.
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)
Date: 2021-10-11 09:25 pm (UTC)Which I can tell
But MacDonald of Glencoe was late meeting the deadline because of something that wasn't his own fault, and the secretary of state for Scotland decided to make an example of him, with William's knowledge. He sent Campbell troops to Glencoe (the Campbells were a rival clan, but this wasn't a clan conflict), and when the soldiers were enjoying the (perhaps forced) hospitality of the Glencoe MacDonalds, they began killing them, though a lot of them got away into the snow. This was in February 1693, and you can hear about it in this song. I have never heard anyone pronounce the word "rape" with such relish--I guess it's the Scottish "r".
Anyway, this backfired. The massacre was a gift to Jacobite propaganda, and destroyed the credibility of the government in the Highlands.
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)
Date: 2021-10-12 02:05 pm (UTC)The other suspicion I have for a possible historical Scottish inspiration for a GoT character is Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat for Walder Frey. Admittedly, much of my sense of Lovat's personality comes from Diana Gabaldon. *But*, Dragonfly in Amber was published in 1992 and GoT only in 1996, so even if some of her depiction is fictional, GRRM may have been inspired by her too. (Alternatively, maybe the Lovat traits that I haven't come across in nonfictional sources are in fact historical and it's just that Gabaldon and GRRM found them and I didn't.)
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)
Date: 2021-10-12 06:11 pm (UTC)the Lovat traits that I haven't come across in nonfictional sources
What are those?
By the way, I haven't actually read/watched Outlander--in fact, I've sort of avoided it. Do you think it's good? And (I suppose a partly separate question) did the author do good research?
Outlander
Date: 2021-10-16 01:41 pm (UTC)Cool, thanks!
the Lovat traits that I haven't come across in nonfictional sources
What are those?
I was vague because it's hard to pin down. Old-man lechery is the easiest one to put into words. Being remarkable among their contemporaries for cunning and pursuit of self-interest.
And even harder to explain: the *attitude* in their dialogue in the respective books. Idk, Frey just pinged me as Lovat (and it took me embarrassingly long to realize that "Frey" *might* come from "Fraser", if I'm not imagining this).
By the way, I haven't actually read/watched Outlander--in fact, I've sort of avoided it. Do you think it's good? And (I suppose a partly separate question) did the author do good research?
I haven't watched it (I don't really like to watch things), but I've read all the books. I don't like all the books, but especially the first few, I like a lot and I reread them constantly. I'll be buying book 9 when it comes out next month. They've never made it to the point of triggering fannishness with me, though. I don't obsess about them, I don't make up stories about the characters in my head, I don't have feels about the characters when I'm not reading the book, and I don't read fanfic.
Are they good? That's a different question. :P Gabaldon does a lot of things really well, but whether or not you like the overall effect really depends on the reader. A lot of people really hate these books, or, judging by reviews, seem to have gone in expecting one kind of book and been very confused by getting a different kind.
If you're the kind of person who demands strict historical accuracy, you will be disappointed and possibly, like one person who was ranting at me, throw the first book violently across the room within a couple chapters and then rant at online strangers about it years later. :D
To her credit, Gabaldon did a *lot* of historical research, and the books are overflowing with period detail and a ton of characters, events, and practices that I myself don't know as much about as she does.
But she makes *so* *many* divergences from history, from creative license of the "this is the story I want to tell, accuracy be damned" sort to rookie ones for no apparent reason, like Louis XV as the grandson of Louis XIV, that even when I read these books as a teenager (when I cared a lot more than I do now about historical accuracy), I was outraged.
Apparently her depiction of 1945 Scotland was so, so inaccurate that the British publishers had her change it to 1946 just to make it less egregiously wrong, because no self-respecting Brit would be able to maintain suspension of disbelief. 1945 Scotland is not something I know anything about, but the person who was ranting at me about it on the internet was so furious that they were never able to read any further than this part. (For my own edification, I tried to get them to give me examples of inaccuracies, but they were like, "EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING in the opening chapters is wrong." So I learned nothing.)
I've gotten to the point where historical accuracy in fiction matters very little to me. I'd rather read something with characters I care about and a plot where I want to know what happens next, than read something less interesting set in a place and time that precisely matches what we know of the historical time and place. I just tell myself going in that all historical novels are set in a parallel universe, and I spare myself a lot of frustration that way. It's all the easier in a series like Outlander, where there's magic, time travel, and dinosaurs (okay, one dinosaur, but still). If Herodotus wrote multiple works in
this universe, sure, why not.
If your reaction to my strategy is, "You don't have to make excuses for the author's fuckups," which was the reaction of that person who was ranting at me, then historical accuracy is going to be a dealbreaker for you in these books. If your reaction is that it's more important that the worldbuilding feel real than that it be accurate, and that Homer and Shakespeare didn't exactly stick to the historical facts either, then you might like them.
(There are other things, like the graphic rape and torture, that don't bother me but might bother you.)
Re: Outlander
Date: 2021-10-19 07:20 pm (UTC)Well, there's his probable rape of Lady Lovat, but that's not the same thing as old-man lechery. But the second certainly agrees with what Lenman portrays!
Thanks for your opinion on the books. Hmm, I can certainly be annoyed at historical inaccuracy, but I admit it mostly annoys me when I already don't like a book for other reasons! Then it becomes another thing not to like about the book. And it depends also on what the author's goal is: if they're clearly not aiming at historical accuracy, then it matters less. Also, deliberately changing things to make a better story, sure! If an author engages me enough with style, setting, characters, and plot, they can get away with a lot.
I have a habit of constantly looking up words on the OED to see how old they are and how the usage has changed (for writing 18th century fanfic). So now if an 18th century character says that they are worried, or that they will contact someone, a little "beep!" of anachronism goes off in my head. Of course, you can definitely write an 18th century story in modern language and think of it as a translation! And I can get behind that. But I can't un-know what I've learned about what's modern language and what isn't.
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)
Date: 2021-10-13 04:04 am (UTC)but wow that is something else. Ouch. Yeah, I can see why no one trusted the government anymore.
Also that song is really compelling, I mean, it would be compelling anyway, but even on top of that -- I think it's a combo of the Scottish accent and the instrumentals.
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby)
Date: 2021-10-17 08:36 pm (UTC)Ye Jacobites By Name, by Robert Burns (written later in the 18th century, obviously). This one actually is an anti-Jacobite song, or at least a pretty great anti-war song. Same singer as the Glencoe massacre song.
"Cam Ye O'er Frae France" is a satirical song making fun of George I. I can't find a stand-alone YT video of Dick Gaughan's a capella rendition of it, which is my favorite, but you can find it at 12.05 in this album. And this site explains some of the references. This one is actually from that time and not written afterwards.
Both Sides the Tweed is tangentially a Jacobite song, but it's more about the 1707 union between England and Scotland. Dick Gaughan changed the lyrics in the 1970's to read "our land's sacred rights" instead of "our King's sacred rights" and wrote a new (very lovely!) melody for it, but the text is much older--it's in a collection I mention below, where the collector might have written down an old song, or might have written it himself. You can hear me singing the old melody for the song here (couldn't find it on Youtube, but I could find the sheet music).
Okay, I could go on and on, because there is A LOT of music associated with this history! You can find much more in this collection from 1819 and 1821, containing both Jacobite and Hanoverian songs.
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby) - songs
Date: 2021-10-18 05:31 am (UTC)That first one especially -- I suppose because I really like that singer -- but yeah, that's a pretty great anti-war song.
The second one --- yes, I really liked that a capella rendering! I'm also glad you pointed me to that site because I could not understand anything he was saying and I felt rather silly about it (I thought I was reasonably good at understanding northern-England/Scot accent) but then it turned out that many of the words were ones I didn't actually know, so :)
The site tells me that the "blade" is Count Konigsmark, whom I'm sure I was told but didn't remember was the putative lover of Sophia Dorothea whom George I killed (I mean, I did remember that! I just didn't remember his name) -- does salon know any more that's interesting about him? (Wiki says that he "assisted her in one or two futile attempts to escape from her husband in Hanover," which just makes me feel sad for SD! But
And of course thank you for the link to you singing Both Sides the Tweed! You have a lovely voice <3
Königsmarck and Hannovers
Date: 2021-10-18 07:08 am (UTC)His sister Aurora was August the Strong's first prominent mistress, which allowed her to insist on investigations as to what had become of him. (Also unless I'm misremembering Aurora was the mother of Maurice de Saxe.) I did read the Georg Schnath book on the KÖnigsmarck/SD the older letters for you, but alas he just sums up the letters (and love letters summarized read dull "He says her beauty is beyond compare. She expresses regret about not being with him" etc), albeit after a smugly triumphant foreword saying the English translation of the letters all miss out the letters ULrike had stolen and sent to Fritz and which were thus in the Prussian State Archive because evidently, the English editor was just too lazy to travel to Germany.
As I also mentioned at the time, Königsmarck may or may not have had an affair (before his engagement with SD the older) with the Countess of Platen who was mistress to Ernst August, G1's father, the husband of Sophie of Hannover, and who traditionally gets cast as the primary villain in his demise. The Australian novel I summarized for you even had her just ask for some soldiers, purpose unspecified, and then using them for his murder, on a general "woman scorned" motive. Otoh, a bit more reliably, some sources claim she was his enemy not because of a previous affair but because he refused to marry her daughter (due to his love for SD the older).
Horowski's favourite anecdote about Königsmarck is him building a card house to amuse little SD the younger, age 6, and Grumbkow's future wife (also a courtier's kid the same age) at a party, which we know because both he and their confidant lady in waiting mention it to SD the older in a subsequent letter.
Königsmarck and SD the older used a way more complicated coding for their letters than the Austrian secret service did two generations later for Fritz, aka "Junior", but it wasn't any use - the game was still up once the letters were found. The reason why SD the older's father who was also the older brother of Ernst August didn't do anything to help her was because she complained about him in said letters which were promptly shown to him. Her mother, though, kept visiting and being with her.
Another thing: the website with the footnotes repeats the old mistake of casting the Countess Kielmanssegg as G1's mistress. She was in fact his illegitimate half sister. Melusine von Schulenburg (aka Katte's Aunt Melusine), the later Duchess of Kendal, was his mistress. The reason why this mistake keeps getting made is that British historians kept writing based on each other and no one bothered to consult German archives until the 1970s or thereabouts, and the "elephant" (Kielmansegg) and maypole (Schulenburg) crack was one of the most famous contemporary Brits made. As Horowski points out, one reason for this was simply that since G1 had no official Queen (poor SD the older!), and came already endowed with a mistress, this left no influential court office for the female nobles, and the male nobles, too, had to put up with a lot of Hannover folk. Hence the bitching. With the irony of all the "can't even speak English!" complaints being that G1, while no intellectual, did speak fluent French (way more than his cabinet members did), and was reasonably good in Italian and Dutch, plus he had school Latin (which he had to use with his first PM for a while since the later's French turned out to be terrible). Between having visited Italy and having fought in the war of Spanish Succession all over the continent, he also had seen far more from other countries than most of the extremely insular English and Scottish population, which is something to keep in mind whenever the cracks about him being a provincial dumb German show up.
(This said, he was also a cold fish to most people not his mistress or illegtimate kids. Hence Sophie having to reassure SD the younger - mother of Fritz - that her father loves her at all in a letter after SD the younger's wedding.)
(remember, also the complaints about German mistresses were one big reason why future G2 as part of his and Caroline's campaign to make themselves popular with their future suspects and be unlike Dad took an English mistress, despite not having much interest in her.)
Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
Date: 2021-10-18 11:52 am (UTC)You are not misremembering!
(Wiki says that he "assisted her in one or two futile attempts to escape from her husband in Hanover," which just makes me feel sad for SD! But [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard, didn't you say that you had a book that took a different tack on that whole thing?)
Yes, and sharing the details is on my to-do list! It's just that I'm trying to keep 20 years' worth of a complicated war in my head while I read about it from different perspectives, so my attention is elsewhere. But fortunately the write-up for this one shouldn't be difficult once I get around to it, since it's confined to the first part of a single book!
Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
Date: 2021-10-20 05:09 am (UTC)Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
Date: 2021-10-20 05:07 am (UTC)(and love letters summarized read dull "He says her beauty is beyond compare. She expresses regret about not being with him" etc)
Hee. I suppose the summary of most love letters is probably pretty boring. It's too bad there aren't more quotes though!
Horowski's favourite anecdote about Königsmarck is him building a card house to amuse little SD the younger, age 6, and Grumbkow's future wife (also a courtier's kid the same age) at a party, which we know because both he and their confidant lady in waiting mention it to SD the older in a subsequent letter.
Aw, that's super cute <3
As Horowski points out, one reason for this was simply that since G1 had no official Queen (poor SD the older!), and came already endowed with a mistress, this left no influential court office for the female nobles, and the male nobles, too, had to put up with a lot of Hannover folk. Hence the bitching.
Heeee. IDK, I just find it super amusing that the female nobles are all "rats, he already has mistress, no job for us I guess."
(remember, also the complaints about German mistresses were one big reason why future G2 as part of his and Caroline's campaign to make themselves popular with their future suspects and be unlike Dad took an English mistress, despite not having much interest in her.)
Oh right! Oh G2.
Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
Date: 2021-10-20 11:51 am (UTC)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.
Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
Date: 2021-10-22 05:46 am (UTC)...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??
Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
Date: 2021-10-22 05:59 am (UTC)(BTW, Fritz and Ulrike had no doubt about that just a measly few decades after the event, either.)
Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
From:Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
Date: 2021-10-21 05:58 am (UTC)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.
Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
Date: 2021-10-22 09:28 pm (UTC)Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
Date: 2021-10-23 04:36 am (UTC)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.
Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
From:Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
From:Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
From:Re: Königsmarck and Hannovers
From:Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby) - songs
Date: 2021-10-18 03:11 pm (UTC)And for maximal contrast, here is a scathing song about modern-day people who still take Jacobite romanticism seriously... : D The lyrics are here so you can follow along better.
And of course thank you for the link to you singing Both Sides the Tweed! You have a lovely voice <3
Aww, thanks! <3
Re: First Part of the '45 (up to Derby) - songs
Date: 2021-10-23 05:10 am (UTC)