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

[cahn]

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

Comments

Re: Charles II and Sophia

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thanks for the clarification! Hatton doesn't cite any sources for this claim; the chapter in general is based on the memoirs and the "many volumes of her printed correspondence." It could be speculation, or there could be a letter.

(hence her including such details as the STD gained from a courtesan in Venice

Oh, one thing Hatton says that does come from a letter is this:

Sophia's amour-propre had been damaged by Georg Wilhelm's rejection but she was given to understand--or convinced herself--that he had contracted syphilis in Venice and was now 'unfit for marriage'.⁷

7 For her later realization that Karl Ludwig had been told this of Georg Wilhelm to make him consent to the substitution of bridegrooms, see Sophia, Correspondence with her brother: to Karl Ludwig 8 April 1666.

I found the volume, and the quote reads:

Je ne sache aussi personne qui ait jamais doute de la vigueur de Georg Wilhelm ; ce qu'on vous a dit n'a este que pour vous faire consentir a mon mariage.

I also don't know anyone who ever doubted the vigor of Georg Wilhelm; what you have been told was only to make you consent to my marriage.