18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 32

[cahn]

:) Still talking about Charles XII of Sweden / the Great Northern War and the Stuarts and the Jacobites, among other things!

Comments

Jacobites and treason

[mildred_of_midgard]

In fact, this is part of the Duke of Bedford's argument: we want the nobility to feel that they can revolt if they feel that it's necessary (such as, from his POV, in 1688)

Yes, I read his speech last night and was going to say today that this is fascinating! It was way more interesting than Chesterfield's speech.

His argument, for those of you who haven't read it, is that the current bill to strip traitors of titles and estates before killing them, meaning their descendants won't inherit either, means that you're giving the landed nobility more to lose when they revolt. This means brave men who are willing to risk their own lives to fight an unjust gov't will think twice before risking their children's inheritance, and stay home. This means we're more likely to end up with tyrannical gov'ts. "Look at my grandfather!" he says.

Looking at his grandfather, Grandpa Russell was executed for treason for participation in the Rye House Plot, a conspiracy to assassinate Charles II and future James II.

This is why Bedford's able to open his speech by saying, "Look, I think I can safely say that you all know that I'm not a Jacobite sympathizer despite the fact that I'm opposing the bill for added penalties for supporting the Stuarts. My personal record and my family's record speaks for itself."

The single most fascinating line in the speech to me:

We should rather run the risk of frequent civil wars, than continue those punishments, which are much more severe upon men of family and fortune, than upon the lowest class of people.

It's a speech rife with classism, as luzula pointed out, but it's a speech for weakening the government so that it can be successfully kept in line, with violence if necessary. Reading that just 30 years before the American Revolution is *really* interesting. The AR did not happen in a vacuum!

(Though I'm generally bored to death by American history, possibly out of resistance to having it shoved down my throat year after year, the one thing that I do intend to do one day is study the intellectual background to the *ideas* of the AR: Polybius and the Achaean League, Machiavelli, federalism in the Holy Roman Empire, Blackstone, all the philosophers, etc.)

Oh, interesting. But that was a time when the British government was really worried about treason.

Yeah, and there was a new treason act in 1800! Triggered by an assassination attempt on G3, apparently. But an isolated crazy guy, not a movement, so, yeah, I think you're onto something about the threat coming from a different level of society.

For cahn, Blackstone's summary of the penalties for high treason:

The punishment of high treason in general is very solemn and terrible. 1. That the offender be drawn to the gallows, and not be carried or walk; though usually a fledge or hurdle is allowed, to preserve the offender from the extreme torment of being dragged on the ground or pavement 2. That he be hanged by the neck, and then cut down alive. 3. That his entrails be taken out, and burned, while he is yet alive. 4. That his head be cut off. 5. That his body be divided into four parts. 6. That his head and quarters be at the king’s disposal.

The king may, and often does, discharge all the punishment, except beheading, especially where any of noble blood are attainted. For, beheading being part of the judgment, that may be executed, though all the rest be omitted by the king’s command.

Which is why I think BPC would have been left hoping for a competent executioner. (Katte, who's having the 291st anniversary of his execution today, got lucky with his single stroke.)

Incidentally, so far I haven't seen a single argument against attainting the Stuarts, and I doubt I will. The debate so far is solely about the other two clauses, and mostly the forfeiture of titles and estates by the innocent children.

Re: Jacobites and treason

[luzula]

The reason my eyes caught on Bedford's speech is that he has a cameo in one of my fics, but that was just about the regiment he raised in the '45. I see now that he's more interesting than I thought! I wondered at first how he could be a Duke if grandpa Russell was executed for treason, but it seems William III reversed the attainder. Hee, I also love this bit from Wikipedia: Several people were tried and convicted of seditious libel for publishing works about his ghost. Grandpa Russell, that is.

So this is a Whig arguing to weaken the central government so that it can be successfully kept in line, but it's interesting that the Tories were also making a similar argument, from another angle. There was a whole debate going on in the first half of the 18th century in England about a standing professional army vs militias. The Tories argued that a standing professional army was 1) too expensive, and also the government should keep out of wars on the continent for that reason, and 2) gave the central government too much power. (Of course the militias were mostly useless in the '45, but by that time the standing army argument, which the Whigs favored, had pretty much won.) I don't know enough about the US to tell whether this argument has any resonance there.

Responses to luzula from last post

[mildred_of_midgard]

Well, my question here was maybe too vague, as of course that sort of thing (attitudes towards religion and politics) varies over time and between places, and "religion" and "politics" are huge and varied things in themselves! But yeah, I get the point: asking questions is good. : )

I'll just say that religion was more of a big deal in the 18th century than it is today, less than in previous centuries, and maybe less than you think. And it's worth noting that we may not care (much) about whether Biden is a Catholic or Protestant (there were concerns about Kennedy, as I recall from history class, but it turned out not to be a big deal), but when was the last time the US had an atheist, Muslim, or Jewish president, and are you holding your breath for us to get one?

I mean, it wasn't obvious that the answer would be in a bill at all, it all could just have been contained in informal discussions between the main Hanoverian actors so that we would never know, or was contained in archived letters. But nope, actually debated in Parliament.

When in doubt about a legal fine point of 18th century Great Britain, try Blackstone first! I wasn't hoping for anything this explicit, but I hoped he'd have something applicable. And he delivered.

Meanwhile, I am getting nowhere on your question about the primary sources for BPC:s conversion to Anglicanism.

Huh. Thanks for checking, though!

It seems unreasonable to me that reputable historians would keep claiming it if the evidence wasn't there

I wish this were true! But after two years of source criticism on Frederick the Great historiography, the one thing we've learned in salon is that reputable historians draw on other reputable historians, who were drawing on less reputable historians, who were probably drawing on Voltaire, who was probably intentionally trolling you. :P

The number of reputable historians publishing books up through 2021 who claim Fritz was behind the First Polish Partition is, like, all of them except one, but that one has the evidence to prove he wasn't.

Almost every historian will cite multiple eyewitness reports to say that Fritz could see Katte's execution from where he was imprisoned--and yet there's good reason to believe he couldn't.

Ditto the eyewitness reports that baby Joseph II was at Maria Theresia's appeal to the Hungarian estates in 1741. Everyone I've read repeats this claim, except one historian citing a study that presents documentary evidence that Joseph wasn't even in the city at the time.

For two hundred years, everyone believed Voltaire's letters to Madame Denis in 1750-1753 were genuine, up until someone proved they were doctored after the fact in the 1990s, and only gradually is awareness of this catching on. Reputable historians are still treating them as valuable sources to this day.

The former head of the Prussian secret state archives, one of the most meticulous historians I've encountered, who's working solely with archival sources, makes 4 chronological mistakes in a 100-page monograph that I've caught him in. One is a typo, one is outside his specialty, two are in his specialty. Of the two in his specialty, one had been pointed out by a previous historian but is nonetheless repeated over and over again in the literature.

Catt's memoirs are treated like a goldmine of eyewitness reports by everyone, except the one ignored nineteenth-century scholar who proved Catt had plagiarized half the material from other sources and pretended he'd gotten it from Fritz's mouth, which makes the other half highly suspect.

Just a couple months ago, I traced the claim that Johann Friedrich von Pfeiffer was found innocent of embezzlement, a claim that's found in the Neue Deutsche Biographie and used by reputable historians, back to an eighteenth-century source who admitted he had a hard time finding out material about Pfeiffer and was cobbling together hearsay; whereas an obscure self-published monograph by a local historian quotes from a cabinet order showing that he was found guilty and imprisoned for several years.

A few days ago, I pointed Selena to a letter by Sophia of Hanover that appears to contradict the claim in her memoirs that her fiance had an STD. The letter said that was just a lie to get Sophia's brother to agree to the fiance swap.

We could go on and on. You have to assume that reputable historians aren't doing source criticism unless you see them doing it. Almost no one will track down the evidence for or against every claim they make. By and large, they don't consider that their job. (Duffy certainly doesn't. Kloosterhuis does, but he's human and he makes mistakes.) Further, you have to assume that some percentage of eyewitness accounts are forged, lying, or mistaken, and you have to assess the reliability of the author of any eyewitness claims and look for counterevidence. (In a court setting, eyewitness testimony is considered by experts, but unfortunately not by jurors, to be one of the least reliable kinds of evidence.)

Now, maybe BPC converted to Anglicanism in 1750 and whoever I read who said that was an oft-repeated romantic legend was crazy. But nothing about it being repeated by numerous historians who by and large don't cite their sources makes it sound any different from any of the claims above.

(I once emailed an author, admittedly not a historian but a medical doctor who was interested in Fritz and had published two books on him, and asked him where he got the claim that Fredersdorf was found guilty of embezzlement. He'd gotten it from Wikipedia. Wikipedia didn't cite a source. I eventually traced the claim down to that local historian's self-published monograph mentioned above, in which she draws heavily on the archives for most of her claims, except the one about Fredersdorf being found guilty, which has no citations and is apparently pure speculation based on a coincidence of timing. This claim is now in 3 books I can name and getting propagated. I am seriously working on an article that combines "Fredersdorf wasn't found guilty" and the "Pfeiffer wasn't found innocent" claim above into a critique of other scholars' source criticism and hoping to publish it, if I can do the necessary archive work to back up my claims at some point.)

So much like the claim that Charles didn't take off his boots for a week, or that he prevented looting in Saxony, I'm treating this as possibly true, possibly untrue, until further evidence one way or the other emerges.

Re: Responses to luzula from last post

[luzula]

when was the last time the US had an atheist, Muslim, or Jewish president, and are you holding your breath for us to get one?

Sure, I get it! I guess what I meant, but didn't say carefully enough, was that differences within Christianity were more important in the 18th century. (Heh, in Sweden the prime minister is basically presumed to be non-religious, unless they demonstrate otherwise, and in any case it would be in pretty bad taste for them to start talking about God in speeches...)

Well, I guess I thought historians were more careful, and it's sad that they aren't. : ( Good luck with your article, it sounds like a cool project.

I think I'll try to email someone about BPC and religious conversion and see what happens! Maybe a retired historian so I don't feel like I'm taking time from their grading of student papers, and whatever.

Letters from Küstrin

[selenak]

Because reasons, I was rereading the letters Fritz wrote to Wilhelmine in November and December 1731, i.e. the ones both before and after seeing her again at her wedding. Now, in letters earlier this year, he had explicitly told her not to marry even if she's blackmailed with the prospect of his release. However, in the November letter before the wedding (which includes a poem he's written for the wedding, because of course it does), he explicitly calls her among other things "my liberator", and in the letter from early December where he sort of apologizes for having been distant, he uses the term again.

Most beloved sister! When the Erbprinz (i.e. her new husband) visited me on Tuesday (December 4th), I sadly could not write a goodbye letter to you. But, dearest liberator, I really did not have the time! I was deeply saddened at having to leave you after such a brief reunion already, without knowing when we will see each other again. I did notice that you were doubting my love for you, but I promise you it didn't lessen. Unfortunately, I am lacking any opportunity to prove it to you. But be assured that I don't feel any less than you do. For how shouldn't and couldn't I ignore how kind you were to me after I caused misfortune to my entire family through the foolishness I committed, and how I pushed you into misery! You should have hated me, fool that I was, as the cause of your sufferings, but instead you nobly sacrificed yourself to help me out of this labyrinth. NO, dearest sister, I will never be worthy of the benevolence you have shown. What should I sacrifice for you? What should I suffer for you? I'm ready to do anything. May God give me the opportunity to prove my friendship and devotion to you! Incomparable sister, please don't insult me by doubting me. Otherwise you would slander me by making me look someone who breaks his word, and is unnatural and ungrateful to boot. My heart is yours - yours and the Queen's entirely. (...)
Attached is a letter for the Queen and one for your husband with a thousand kisses. Please, rob him of his disbelief in my friendship. Tell him that it is enough that he now owns my heart and is thus as dear to me as my eyes are, and that consequently I have to love him. Moreover, his good qualities have won my entire respect.
I write this letter without compliments as a sincere brother to his beloved sister. This is what I hope to receive from you. In any case, I swear to you before God that I will not be blessed or ever see His Face if not every word is coming from my soul. I adore you and love you a thousand times more than I love myself, but never as much as you deserve, for no one can. Farewell! Until death, I am completely and entirely yours. P.S. I alreayd have enlightened many about your husband the Erbprinz and asure you I will do everything to convince everyone of the truth. Principessa (his flute, remember) is kneeling at your feet and kisses the hands of her Prince Belly (her lute).

Okay, aside from all the Rococo emo, and the fact that when he writes this letter, neither of them is yet free of supervision (since Wilhelmine is still in Berlin and hasn't yet left for Bayreuth), which means it could potentially be read and he knows it, it would argue he does make a connection between the better conditions of this late stage of his Küstrin time (plus the permission to travel to Berlin, and later as we know to Frankfurt an der Oder), possibly his eventual liberty, and her marriage, despite having said a few months earlier that any claim he'll do better/get released if she marries BayreuthFriedrich is untrue. Also, it fits of course with Wilhelmine's own description of their brief reunion at her wedding in the memoirs and Stratemann's several descriptions (the original one with "and there was much rejoicing", and the later ones where he mentions rumor has it the Crown Prince has been rude and distant to "people" at the wedding. Not to mention with Grumbkow's pointed advice from August 1731 to put up boundaries with Wilhelmine if he wants FW to like him again.

Now, we know from Wilhelmine that the same Grumbkow told her that FW was shocked, just shocked, that Fritz was all of a sudden so distant to her. And of course due to the inherent possiblity of censorship in this situation, see above, Fritz can't evidently tell her about this earlier demand. My questions are these:

a) Does Fritz sincerely believe Wilhelmine's agreement to the marriage is responsible for his improving situation, or is he just aware she thinks so and wants to keep her in this belief, since the situation is still bad enough? (He probably noticed at the wedding of how unhappy Mom now is with her.)

b) Conversely, is there some hidden (subconscious or conscious) resentment on his part (because she can't see he had to fake it, because she married which he didn't want, possibly because she was against his escape plan, and thus he puts it on extra strong?

c) Since Fritz even in this late stage isn't presumably surrounded by "many" people hating on BayreuthFriedrich who have to be enlightened about him, he's presumably talking in code about Mom, right?

Re: Letters from Küstrin

[mildred_of_midgard]

Right, this is ringing a bell. I remember us talking about this letter, but I don't know if we ever talked about the "liberator" choice of words.

I mean, given the state of things in May 1731, it's quite possible he was extremely pessimistic and cynical about the prospect of her being able to do anything about his situation. (Those were the days when his escape plan was "marry MT," for those of you who will benefit from the chronology reminder.) And even if he thought there was a chance, I'm touched that he cared enough to insist that she not do it.

As to whether in December he thought she had improved his situation...I don't know. If he didn't know yet that he was going to have to get married himself, he found out by early January, I believe. Maybe he was trying to make her feel better, or maybe he thought that her marriage, on top of his kissing Dad's boots and forswearing predestination, helped improve his situation in August.

Conversely, is there some hidden (subconscious or conscious) resentment on his part (because she can't see he had to fake it, because she married which he didn't want, possibly because she was against his escape plan, and thus he puts it on extra strong?

Could be this too! I'm sure Fritz's head was a very complicated place in 1731. :/ </3

c) Since Fritz even in this late stage isn't presumably surrounded by "many" people hating on BayreuthFriedrich who have to be enlightened about him, he's presumably talking in code about Mom, right?

Presumably, although given how Sonsine was supposed (according to Wilhelmine's memoirs) to have reacted to the idea of Wilhelmine offering to give up on the Fritz of Wales marriage, and this right after FW had just locked up Fritz and beaten Wilhelmine up...maybe there were numerous people Fritz met when he came home for the wedding that he needed to enlighten! If Sonsine, who loved Wilhelmine, had such strong feelings, other people might have too.

Random replies from last post

[cahn]

Ivan the Terrible: So if Wikipedia is to be believed, Ivan a) beat his son's wife until she had a miscarriage because he didn't like it that she was "dressing immodestly" and b) when his son had the temerity to object, beat him with his scepter and killed him, which meant his younger son inherited who kinda sucked? (Oh, and huh, Feodor's minister was apparently Boris Godunov, whom I recognize from the opera, though I've only managed to watch the first... half an hour?? I should... maybe watch it so you guys can tell me how divorced from real life it is :) )

Charles XII and base 8: OMG. I mean, yeah, he's not wrong. But can you imagine a world in which part of it ran on base 10 and part on base 8... it would be orders of magnitude worse than metric/imperial. Oh Charles.

Blackstone: heh, Blackstone was in my passive memory -- I would not have been able to tell you with any precision, and I definitely didn't know that about the "best of all possible worlds" thing, but I knew it had something to do with the law, presumably from all that random 18th-19th-century English fiction I read a bunch of :P

Kalabalik: okay this is freaking AMAZING and Charles is BOTH awesome and crazy :P Also I am super tickled that it is still a word in Swedish!

Supercharles, and stories about same: ALSO both awesome and crazy :P I really really appreciate knowing when you are skeptical about stories, but... I also really like hearing the stories :D (ALso, totally agree, luzula, about invading Russia in the winter without enough hats! Or at all!

Pope Max: heh, that's a good story, and omg that French, it is too late at night for me to be able to follow it at all, although I am amused that he signs it "vostre bon père MAXIMILIANUS, futur pape." Lol! And ooooh cool I didn't know that about Elisabeth's daughter!

Replies on Stuarts and treason and Monmouth

[cahn]

Whoa, that description of the Bloody Assizes is... something else. Especially Alice Lisle :(((( but really all of them. Kind of... cheering for the downfall of Jeffreys here, and I confess it is very satisfying that karma did indeed catch up to him.

(in addition to the gruesomeness which underlines that if you have to be executed, you better pray that your executioner is at least competent at it, and that Henry VIII actually did do Anne Boleyn a favour with that swordsman from France, macabre as it sounds)

Uggggh. I suppose glad for Anne Boleyn it was fast. Here's to hoping that Monmouth passed out from shock at least :(((((((

Convention in such cases demanded that the about to be executed person proclaimed their loyalty to the monarch and asked the attending crowd to pray for the monarch, displaying their loyalty to said monarch. If you check out the pre-execution speeches of Thomas More, Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell, this happens in every case... This doesn't mean these people really were rooting for the King who had them executed as they died, but were aware that they still had living family who might suffer if they did not follow convention.

Oh wow, yeah, that makes Monmouth's reaction really... telling. And heh to the bishops trying to get him to follow the script. Good job Monmouth :((

Did he have living family at the time?

[selenak]

From our very own prinzsorgenfrei, if someone needs a shorthand for Fritz & Siblings:

[mildred_of_midgard]

Every line of that is amaaaazing!

"Not to talk shit about anyone, but..."

LOL Wilhelmine, this is why we love you.

What do you mean people feel insulted when you insult them?

The number of biographers who go "THIS" when talking about Fritz driving his friends/intellectuals away by expecting them to not get offended, banter back, but without insulting him, and without forgetting that he's king...Oh, Fritz. You never did understand the difference between abused teenager punching up and absolute monarch punching down. *hugs*

Another girl, what can you do

Drown them like puppies? *lolsob*

You honestly kind of look like your older brother in a dress

Well, the tricorn isn't helping, but as we've discussed, Amalie was the one who looked most like him, intense blue eyes and all!

One eye on your career and one eye on some pretty boy's ass

OH HEINRICH.

Your family had other problems around the time of your birth

OH BOY DID THEY

and you being overlooked never quite stopped

That explains so much! From Wilhelmine's "my youngest sibling was four and hiding under the table" on! :PP

Heee! Everyone needs this shorthand for Fritz & siblings!

A mixture of stuff, mostly Katte related

[prinzsorgenfrei]

Hello, I'm still alive even though Uni is still actively trying to kill me!
At least I don't have any more papers to write rn.

Anyway, I've been to Wust twice this year, once two days ago (what does it say about me that I drove 500km for a dead guy's 291st Jahrgedächtnis...?), and have apparently been promoted to the local historical association's transcription specialist because they don't have anyone who can read Kurrent and I can. So now I have some 18th century documents on my desk at home. Which I still can't believe. Some bills, some official documents with Prussian seals, a letter to Hans Heinrich from 1705, a letter to his wife from 1743, and an envelope of a letter to one of the younger sons with a seal from another Katte. I have yet to transcribe them, but I'll notify you if I find anything fun :D Also there's more where this came from which i could possibly get. Needless to say I'm hyped and will actually pass away immediately if the next stack of unorganized documents contains a letter that mentions new stuff on Katte jr.

Speaking of Katte, I got an article about the punishment methods at his boarding school by a Thomas Grunewald, don't know if you've already covered that...? I haven't read the whole thing yet, but what I've seen is very interesting. Teen Katte, along with some other students, got reprimanded for throwing snow and "wird besonders ermahnt, weil er sich vieles sagen lassen kann, aber nachher so tut als sei nichts gewesen". He also got investigated for trading things with his classmates and being "nicht genügsam erwecket"

Finally, I made some art during the last few months. I don't remember if I shared my latest comic with you...? It's not even that new, but I sorta forgot... Anyway:

Silly comic featuring Fritz and Algarotti



And two Kattes. It's rather obvious which one was made in a medium i know how to use and which one was an experiment with new things... They both have their charm, even though both faces didn't turn out the way I usually want my Kattes to look. The coloured pencil one was gifted to the people in Wust and will apparently end up on some wall there :'D

Oil Pastels:



and coloured pencils:



Alright, this was my quick dump of stuff that could be interesting :'D I might make more coloured pencil portraits in the near future, I'd like to have a proper, nice looking picture of Fredersdorf... Maybe I'll make it a small series of Fritz and his boyfriends, I kinda like the portrait on white background look ^^ Anyway, I hope y'all are doing well :D

Re: A mixture of stuff, mostly Katte related

[mildred_of_midgard]

OMG, no, I cannot believe this, you cannot be real, you are my new hero!!

We were just admiring your guide to Fritzian siblings that Selena pointed us to and wondering where you were and hoping you would come back. But I wasn't expecting THIS! :DDD

Anyway, I've been to Wust twice this year, once two days ago (what does it say about me that I drove 500km for a dead guy's 291st Jahrgedächtnis...?)

That you are LUCKY and also dedicated and also MY HERO! (selenak, your 45 pictures of Wust taken specifically for me are the best thing that ever happened to me in salon and the only thing that's reconciled me to not having been there myself. <333)

We extremely need your help with the paleographical side of things, and now you're telling us the Wust association does too??! OMG! I have two sets of historical documents (one Fredersdorf, one Peter Keith) that if we can figure out how to get them from the archives, I will legit pay you for a transcription.

ALSO! See if the Wust people can help you get a copy of Martin von Katte's unpublished manuscripts on the Katte family and on Hans Hermann! They form the basis for Kloosterhuis' Katte monograph, but I haven't been able to get them! Tell them I'm writing an article. (I am, probably. :P)

Also also, one of the reasons I've been eagerly waiting for you to come back is that we need some transcription help with this very short record! Top of the right hand page, the one that starts v. Keith. That's Peter's widow's death record, turned up courtesy of cahn!

Felis and Selena were able to read all but a few words. This discussion has what Felis was able to interpret. Can you help?

Speaking of Katte, I got an article about the punishment methods at his boarding school by a Thomas Grunewald, don't know if you've already covered that...? I haven't read the whole thing yet, but what I've seen is very interesting.

We don't know this, please share! Is it online? If not, can you scan a copy?

"wird besonders ermahnt, weil er sich vieles sagen lassen kann, aber nachher so tut als sei nichts gewesen".

LOLOL, oh Katte. Was this Francke's Pietest pedagogium at Halle?

Finally, I made some art during the last few months. I don't remember if I shared my latest comic with you...? It's not even that new, but I sorta forgot... Anyway:

I had not seen this! LOLOL Algarotti, Fritz needs a sex therapist, clearly!

Speaking of constructive criticism, since we know that 1) Andrew Mitchell was one the "tastiest dish" for Algarotti, 2) Fritz showed some of his poetry to Mitchell, Selena has embraced as headcanon my joke that Fritz and Mitchell obviously talked about how their ex Algarotti was hot stuff, and also Mitchell critiqued the orgasm poem for realism wrt Algarotti's orgasms. :'D

Your art is so great. <3 If you'd come back in time for Rare Male Slash Exchange, I would have begged for your help with the flyer in my modern-day Fritzian corporate AU. Instead, I ended up with this ridiculous thing and had the characters mock my graphic design skills or lack thereof in-universe, lol. :'D

Speaking of fic, I read your road-trip fic and loved it! I didn't leave a comment solely because in order to quote my favorite parts, I would have had to reread the fic, and you have to understand that my German, while massively improved over 2 years ago, is extreeeemely slow and painful. I'm working on it and plan to leave a juicy comment with quotes once I can do so without it taking two weeks! (Also, it was super useful for teaching me some modern vocabulary, since all the vocab I have is for things like "fortress" and "bloodletting", not "seatbelt", lol forever, but also takes me even longer than usual to read for that reason.)

Btw, I'm currently reading Kloosterhuis, and once I'm finished, I'm going to try Zeithain again. (Zeithain will be much better German practice, but I wanted to do it in this order, because I wanted to see what Roes fictionalized vs. drew from history.)

The coloured pencil one was gifted to the people in Wust and will apparently end up on some wall there :'D

OMG! Btw, if you're tight with the local historical association and talk Katte portraits with them, do you want to tell them that the Katte portrait they do have on the wall is almost certainly Catt, per our discussion here?

In other news, I'm currently trying to turn some of our historical research into publishable articles! This is why I need help getting materials from the archives and then someone to transcribe them. :D

Article 1: Biographical sketch of Peter Keith. According to the Prussian archives, there's an unpublished correspondence that appears to be between him and Fritz, 1745-1750. (I know you don't know French, but I have someone who can almost certainly help with that part!) Kloosterhuis also gives two different months for his marriage to Ariane, and he gives the citation the marriage record, and I'd love to get a copy of that as well.

Article 2: Thanks to my persistent detective work, cahn's emotional and financial investment (lol), and selenak's reading and summarizing of books written in German, we have figured out almost all of what's up with Fredersdorf's embezzlement accusation (in Wikipedia as well as Fahlenkamp), and solved another mystery while we were at it! But in order to make this production-grade material, I have one item from the box bills project, from Fredersdorf's successor to him asking about Glasow's embezzlement, that I need to get my hands on the original of, because I'm relying on the box bill project's summary on their webpage. This one will be in German, at least.

Your art is going straight into Rheinsberg!

Meanwhile, if any of our German speakers want to see if it's possible to order online from the Prussian archives, I would appreciate the help. When gambitten checked, there was a form, but also it said the cashier's office was closed due to the pandemic. Every time I check, it still says closed. But maybe there's some way for us to order anyway?

If not, we'll have to wait, and I will let you know, transcription specialist prinzsorgenfrei, when I have more materials for you to transcribe! (Don't forget to ask the Wust people about Martin von Katte's stuff! I've been dying to get my hands on those manuscripts since Selena first told me about them!)

Also, your kattestrophe blog says there's a Fritz & Co. Discord. What kinds of conversations happen there? Is there anyone there who might be interested in joining salon?

We missed you, but you have come back with a bang! Please keep us apprised of your transcription findings!

ETA: Speaking of Rare Male Slash Exchange, I meant to note that Selena wrote me a lovely Peter Keith fic in which Algarotti finds that some Germans, even traumatized ones without a lot of recent experience, are great in bed. :D (Peter, setting a standard that Fritz couldn't live up to? Lol!) But I see from the kudos that you've already found it. :)

In other news, we also turned up Wilhelmine's travel diary from her Italy visit. I'm halfway cleaning up the OCR so we can run it through Google Translate and see if there's anything interesting. So far no, but you never know! There will also be some Fritz & Wilhelmine letters, but I'm not sure if they're ones that have already been found elsewhere by salon or not.

...but who will play Algarotti?

[selenak]

An overview of upcoming historical tv shows, posted yesterday. Of interest to Salon: a new Russian tv series Elizaveta by the same folk that made the most recent Ekaterina/Catherine series about Elizabeth between Peter the Great's death and her coup making herself Tsarina. Since this includes the time when Anna Ivanova organized the ice palace wedding, I bet they'll include that. However, considering that, Mildred, you told us this Ekaterina show not only gave Fritz fearsome gigantic beasts as dogs instead of Italian greyhounds but also let him attempt to poison the Russian royal family as if he was Vladimir Putin, including his biggest fan Peter, despite the fact this makes no sense whatsoever, I have to wonder which non Russian bad guy will be around for this one. Probably Anna's lover? And now for the really important question: will Suhm have a cameo appearance? Will Algarotti? (Who was there for Anna Leopoldovna's wedding, remember.) Hey, maybe Algarotti will be Fritz' super secret poisoning honeypot spy?

On a less silly note, another upcoming show is about Elizabeth (Tudor) between the death of Henry VIII and her own accension, and as we get glimpses of Thomas Seymour, young Robin Dudley, young Jane Grey etc, I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll get some complicated stuff instead of just doing the Mary vs Elizabeth thing of Mary's reign. And on a personal not salon note, I'm gratefied yet another show is about Varian Fry who saved among many many other people Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta's lives from Hitler.

Re: ...but who will play Algarotti?

[mildred_of_midgard]

Of interest to Salon: a new Russian tv series Elizaveta by the same folk that made the most recent Ekaterina/Catherine series about Elizabeth between Peter the Great's death and her coup making herself Tsarina.

Oh, neat. I don't watch many things, but I did make it through the subtitles of the first season, so I might someday check this out. Thanks.

Probably Anna's lover?

He is a convenient scapegoat!

And now for the really important question: will Suhm have a cameo appearance?

Almost certainly not, but I will pick my favorite nameless extra in the background and announce that it's him. :P

Will Algarotti?

Maybe! I'm also hoping Lynar shows up, although it's too bad the threesome won't, since it's being produced in Russia.

Transcript death registry

[prinzsorgenfrei]

Okay, I *think* I'm done. You'll have to deal with my handwriting for a moment, transcribing somehow works best on paper:



I think what looks like a long s at the end of "gebohr" could be an abbreviation sign and the smushed letters inbetween the lines *could* be the title "Freiin" with a spelling mistake. I am honestly not sure if the writer actually spelled Ariane as Oriane or if his handwriting is just weird about capital As :'D Also the writer appears to have used a mix of german letters/Kurrent and latin letters which is common and which I hate :'D I am somewhat confused about the "Excellentz" followed by "u." but I currently have no other idea as to what could be going on here. Also I stared at "Baron" for far too long without understanding what the fuck came after B (the two death indicating crosses confused me for a moment and i thought that whatever started with a B was supposed to be a second name), but luckily I asked my friend and her eyes weren't broken yet (they just do that at some point during the transcription process, I've heard it from multiple people :'D).

Quick translation attempt(let's hope my brain still knows how to english). I'll try to keep the lines roughly the same just so it's clear which part is which:

Column 1
"deceased
v. Keith, widowed woman/Mrs.
Ariane Louise born ^Baroness^ von
Innh. and Knypphausen, Ober
hofmeisterin of the reigning
Queen, excellency
and was thus buried on the 14th
eiusdem(of the same month) in our crypt
no 5
for 60 rthll"

Column 2
"Age
71.
year(s)"

Column 3
"Illness
Steck
fluß (pulmonary edema)"

Column 4
"Heirs
one adult son, the
Chamberlain Baron †
von Keith
† Carl Reinhard"

I hope this is a little useful and what you wanted to have ^^' Might take another look at it tomorrow when my eyes work again

Re: Transcript death registry

[mildred_of_midgard]

A little useful? This is the best!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!! <-- How I feel about having someone who can read handwriting in salon.

You are so getting enlisted if we ever get our hands on the Fredersdorf or Peter Keith materials. :DDD

(Also, your handwriting's way better than mine. I always cringe a little when I upload a family tree I've drawn and think that I should find some kind of online software where I can type the names and relationships in and get a tree, lol.)

<333

Great Northern War: Tragic minister Görtz

[mildred_of_midgard]

Georg Heinrich von Görtz is the A+ minister of Charles XII that cahn asked if he was like tragic Fredersdorf.

Well, a little bit, but either way, he's interesting in his own right, imo.

Massie makes Görtz sound like one of the most amazing, larger-than-life characters in the story. He starts out a minister in Holstein-Gottorp service, acting as diplomat abroad, and meeting with the likes of Queen Anne, Peter the Great, and other monarchs. But Holstein-Gottorp is too small for him.

Then he ends up meeting Charles, and they realize they're a match made in heaven. Charles is the king with the grand military vision, Görtz has administrative and diplomatic genius. Charles gives him full powers as minister. Which already makes a lot of people jealous, because he's still technically a Holsteiner, helping out his ally, rather than someone whose exclusive loyalties are to Sweden.

This is already a big problem, because not only is he a foreigner, his boss is Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, who is Charles XII's nephew (and future dad of Peter III).

Why is this a problem?

Well, remember how Charles refuses to choose between his nephew and his sister as his heir? If his nephew's ambassador is unofficial prime minister of Sweden, the sister's party can only assume that he's going to be working on behalf of the Holstein claim to the throne. So Görtz has already got some powerful enemies there. But don't worry, he'll get more!

We're in the late stages of the war. Sweden is out of men, out of money, out of overseas territory. But not out of Charles XII and Görtz! Together, they're determined to turn it around! Görtz was, according to Massie,

an audacious international adventurer without real ties of nationality but with a taste for power and a passion for intrigue. He had a complex, versatile intellect which allowed him to work on several divergent, even contradictory schemes simultaneously. It has been said of him that “he achieved twenty times as much as Talleyrand or Metternich while working with less than one twentieth of their resources.” For four years—from 1714 to 1718—Goertz, armed with the power of the king, loomed over Sweden. In person, he was a dramatic figure, tall, handsome (in spite of an artificial eye, made of enamel, which replaced one lost in a student duel), charming and a brilliant conversationalist.

...

[Charles] admired Goertz’ energy, his breadth of vision, his analytical capacity and his willingness to attempt, like Charles himself, vast, grand-scale schemes and radical solutions even with limited resources. As Charles saw it, Goertz applied in administration and diplomacy the same dash and reckless bravado which the King employed in war. Thereafter, until Charles’ death, Goertz was indispensable to him. He took absolute control of Sweden’s finances and all the great domestic departments of state. He became the King’s voice, if not his brain, in Swedish diplomacy. By February 1716, he was describing himself as Director of the Finances and Commerce of Sweden.

He goes to work, raising taxes, creating a paper currency, doing whatever it takes to make it so Charles can fight on. Naturally, the Swedes, already exhausted, like Görtz as much as you might imagine.

Massie says he was accused of financial dishonesty, but was in fact so honest that he even paid for state needs out of his own pocket. (This was a thing that happened; Peter's favorite Menshikov and Catherine's favorite Potemkin were both accused of embezzlement, but they both, when you examine the records, apparently used personal money for state purposes and state money for personal purposes, considering the one a loan to the state and the other a repayment of the money they'd advanced. The bookkeeping was so chaotic that it was impossible to tell in the end who owed who. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out Görtz did the same.)

But try telling the Swedes that. So now Görtz has got three sets of enemies: Swedes who are upset that a foreigner is getting all this favor, Swedes who support C12's sister Ulrike Eleonora over Holstein nephew Charles Frederick as heir to the throne, and Swedes are Done With This War Already (TM).

But Charles thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread, and Charles is an absolute monarch!

So now Görtz's job is to go negotiate with other major powers, like Russia, about ending the war on terms Charles will accept.

This is Massie's take (note my qualifier):

Görtz is a people skills genius who takes a weakened Sweden that should really be suing for peace, and makes it into the diplomatic power of the north that everyone is courting. He's wheeling and dealing, wielding smoke and mirrors, using psychology, just like a poker player pretending his hand is a lot stronger than it is. It works amazingly! He gets really good terms!

And Charles rejects them, because the only acceptable Charles XII terms are "I defeat my enemies utterly and don't cede an inch of land." (You saw this coming, right?)

So Görtz tries again! He doesn't tell Charles what he's up to, and he asks forgiveness rather than permission, and he gets another really good deal!

Which Charles rejects, and goes on fighting for all-or-nothing.

At this point, I was super impressed with Görtz, and the fact that he and Charles were both so amazing in their respective but completely different domains was pushing my ship buttons. (As I've explained, this is why I find it hard to ship Fritz/Fredersdorf more than I do: they're both good at so many of the same things, and even where they're not, I don't get that clear sense that their partnership had that clear division of labor like Charles and Görtz. "The same dash and reckless bravado which the King employed in war" is a ship made to order for me.) 

BUT. The fact that they weren't on the same page and Görtz was increasingly having to keep secrets from Charles was making shipping harder. (I know that would be a feature rather than a bug for some of you reading this. For this particular dynamic, for me, it's a bug.)

But then! I read Hatton. And Hatton's take is that the claim that Görtz was doing genius diplomacy basically behind Charles' back, and Charles' stubbornness and arrogance kept making it all for naught, is the *old* school of thought. Whereas if you read all the archives, not just from Sweden, but of the whole anti-Swedish coalition--as well as Sweden's would-be allies, in the military sense, the Jacobites and Alberoni of Spain, and of her formal allies although not co-belligerents, Hesse and France--the threads of the negotiations can now be more clearly distinguished.

(Hatton may not be perfect, but this kind of thing is why I like her.)

According to Hatton, reading all the archives you can get your hands on reveals that Charles and Görtz knew their letters were being read. This was a safe assumption in 18th century diplomacy, as selenak and I have explained.

So our antiheroes had a whole system going where they would send letters that they meant to be read, which made it look like Görtz was taking his diplomatic maneuvering extremely seriously and Charles was the one rejecting it. But their secret letters, which have only just (as of 1968) been studied, make it clear that they were on the same page, and that Görtz's job was to distract the allies and buy time for Charles' military initiatives. And he knew it and was on board with it.

Me: HELLO MY NEW SHIP.

But then, in 1718, Charles is shot through the head on one of these military initiatives, as we've learned. In the grab for the throne, his sister Ulrika Eleonora moves fast and wins.

Görtz has three sets of enemies, as described above--Swedes who hate the war, everyone suspicious of foreigners, and Ulrika Eleonora's anti-Holstein party--and one of them is now on the throne. And his protector is gone.

He's promptly arrested and accused of alienating the late king's affections from the people. Meaning everyone is super upset at the war and blaming Charles, but he's the king and my brother, so we can't have that, so let's blame the minister! Who worked hand in glove with Charles and did only what the King wanted. Never mind that, off with his head! Görtz is the one who made Charles, after 14 years of continuing the war of his own accord, decide to keep continuing the war another 4 years. (Um, guys, Charles' track record is against you.)

Görtz got a show trial. To quote Massie at length again:

From the beginning, Goertz was doomed; in vain, he protested the lack of jurisdiction of the special commission. His claim that he was an alien and untouchable was rejected. His petition to have legal counsel was refused as unnecessary. He was not allowed to call his own witnesses or to confront hostile witnesses. He was not allowed to develop his defense in writing or to bring notes into the courtroom. He was given only a day and a half to prepare his reply, which permitted him time to read only one fifth of the evidence presented against him. Inevitably, he was found guilty, and unanimously he was condemned to be beheaded and his body buried under the scaffold, a mark of special contempt. He received the sentence with composure, but petitioned that his body might be spared this final disgrace. Grimly, Ulrika ordered the entire sentence carried out. Goertz mounted the scaffold with courage and dignity and said, “You bloodthirsty Swedes, take then the head you have thirsted for so long.” As he laid his head on the block, his last words were, “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” His head fell at the first blow, and his body was buried on the spot.

He outlived Charles by just 2 months.

So, he's not exactly Fredersdorf and not exactly Katte, but the minister part is there and the tragic part is there. While I'm not endorsing the measures he took to continue the war, it's a massive double standard that Charles gets venerated and the guy who showed up to help him at the end gets his head chopped off. Just like Fritz *actually* trying to run away and Katte just thinking about it, and one gets locked up and the other gets his head chopped off.

At least they both got single-blow executions. As we've seen, that was a luxury in pre-guillotine days.

Also, I would read the hell out of fic about these two and their crazy partnership. :D I don't care if they had sex, that's the least important part here.

Oh, I should add that Massie relies heavily on Hatton for his C12 material, so I'm not sure how he overlooked her comment about the "ostensible" correspondence and the recently turned up "real" correspondence. But she makes a way better case than he does, so I'm going with her interpretation until further notice.

Re: Great Northern War: Tragic minister Görtz

[selenak]

He does sound like a fascinating character! However, German wiki upon a quick check paints a somewhat darker picture of him - not in Sweden, where it agrees he did exactly what Charles wanted and that his death was judical murder - but before that, in Holstein.

"As leader of the finances, he made himself unpopular through the raising and ruthless procuration of ever new taxes. An austere household, on the other hand, he rejected in opposition to Magnus von Weddenkop. But his colleagues, too, had the favor of the Dowager Duchess (who was Charles' older sister Hedwiga, btw) and Görtz couldn't yet completely dominate policy. (...) After the death of the Dowager Duchess Hedwig Sophia 1708, Christian August took over the government, and Görtz gained additoinal influence. He had his rival Weddenkop arrested in 1709 and claimed his Hamburg property. After Görtz had the Görtz Palais built in Hamburg, Hamburgians mocked that due the dishonest personality of the builder, the inscription over the entrance should say "spolia holsatiae" ("Robbery Goods from Holstein"). Weddenkop got arrested in Tönning and wasn't freed until 1714 (against the strict orders of Görtz who had wanted him to be executed when transfered to the Danes). Weddenkop later got completely rehabilitated, got his property restituted and died in 1721 in Hamburg.

Like I said, German wiki entirely agrees that what happened later in Sweden to Görtz was a show trial. But it looks like he was familiar with the practice from doing it to others. BTW, German wiki also says Görtz' daughter Henriette got her father's estate back from Gustav III., but not until then. And it provides a Voltaire quote about him, adding Voltaire had met Görtz in person (presumably when Görtz was still a travelling diplomat?), and which says: "There never lived a man who was so smooth and bold, so inventive in misfortune, so decisive in his enterprises as he was. No plan frightened him, and he was ready to use every means."

(German wiki's source referencing - among others, our old buddy Reinhold Koser, Fritz source finder extraordinaire!)

ETA: all in all, it makes Görtz sound like two other 18th century finance ministers who were efficient, ruthless, very hated but essentially doing exactly what their boss, who as the ruling monarch couldn't be blamed, wanted them to, to wit, Brühl in Saxony and Joseph Süß Oppenheimer in Würtemberg. (The later died after a show trial, too, with an added dose of vicious antisemitism since he was a Jew.) German wiki says in Görtz' case, they even had to invent a law (against giving "bad advice") to justify it! Still, I imagine Weddenkop in Hamburg wasn't exactly heartbroken when hearing the news and experienced a "karma is a beautiful thing" moment.

Daughter of ETA: The Görtz Palais in Hamburg has its own wiki entry and a colorful history itself, to put it mildly. After Görtz' execution in 1719, it served as the Imperial Embassy in Hamburg. Why? Because Hamburgians, for what reason the entry doesn't say, had plundered and destroyed the original envoy's house and so the city of Hamburg offered this one in recompense. It remained the Imperial embassy until 1806 (end of HRE, hello, Napoleon) upon which it became the city hall for as long as the French occupation lasted. Then it became the headquarters of a newfounded Hamburg bank. And in the 20th century, it had its darkest chapter, since it became the local Gestapo Headquarter, which lasted until the firebombing of Hamburg, which destroyed the building except for the frontal facade. Post war, the facade was restored but the remaining building, built from scratch, is modern and used for offices.

Son of ETA: wow, Weddenkop's German wiki entry is even more negative about Görtz than Görtz' German wiki entry (and mentions Weddenkop's heirs were still sueing Görtz' heirs many years after his death.

Choice bits, in German for Mildred to practice: Wedderkop versuchte politisch das durch den Frieden von Traventhal gewonnene stabile und freundschaftliche Verhältnis zu Dänemark zu erhalten, geriet aber mit dieser Haltung zunehmend in Konflikt mit seinem aufsteigenden Widersacher Georg Heinrich von Görtz und dessen ausgeprägtem Machtbewusstsein, dem er schließlich zum Opfer fiel. Dieser hatte nach dem Tod von Herzog Friedrich IV. im Jahr 1702 das bessere Verhältnis zum Administrator des Herzogtums, Fürstbischof Christian August von Lübeck, gefunden, der ein ausschweifendes Leben, zugleich aber die Regierungsgeschäfte für den erst zweijährigen Herzog Karl-Friedrich führte. Aufwind bekam Wedderkop vorübergehend durch eine von Stockholm aus veranlasste Untersuchung der Finanzen des Herzogtums, die die Verschwendung des Administrators und die Ausplünderung des Landes durch Georg Heinrich von Görtz offenlegte.

And: Mit dem Tod von Hedwig Sophia von Schweden im Jahr 1708, der Witwe des 1702 in der Schlacht bei Klissow gefallenen Herzogs Friedrich IV., sah sich Wedderkop zunehmend schutzbedürftiger und zog sich sicherheitshalber in sein Palais am Neuen Wall in Hamburg zurück. Am 19. Dezember 1709 ließ Wedderkop sich aus nicht nachvollziehbaren Gründen dennoch zu einer Sitzung des Geheimen Rates nach Schloss Gottorf locken, wo der 72-Jährige freundlich empfangen, im Anschluss an ein Diner mit dem Administrator jedoch nachts verhaftet und auf die Festung Tönning gebracht wurde. Die Verhaftung erfolgte ohne Gerichtsurteil und gerichtliche Untersuchung. Da eigentlich keine belastenden Umstände gegen Wedderkop vorlagen, gestaltete sich der Prozess schwierig, wurde aber dennoch als ein Stück fragwürdiger Kabinettsjustiz 1713 mit einem Todesurteil gegen Wedderkop abgeschlossen. König Friedrich IV. von Dänemark belagerte 1713 mit seinen Verbündeten die in der Festung Tönning eingeschlossenen schwedischen Truppen unter Magnus Stenbock. Erst mit Übergabe der Festung kam Magnus von Wedderkop wieder frei. Die restlichen Lebensjahre verbrachte er in Hamburg im Haus Speersort 12/14 des Herzogs mit dem Versuch, seine Vermögensangelegenheiten zu ordnen, denn sein Palais am Neuen Wall war von Görtz beschlagnahmt worden. Am 1. Juli 1719 verlieh der Herzog von Holstein Wedderkop und seinen Erben als Ersatz für das erlittene Unrecht das Amt Tremsbüttel zur Nutznießung auf 30 Jahre.

Yep, Weddenkop definitely thought in 1719: "There is a God! Thank you, Lord. If ever someone had it coming..."

Addresses

[prinzsorgenfrei]

Nothing too substantial, but I ended up looking through old address registers for the "important" people of Berlin and found a few people we know.

Katte is listed like this

in both 1729 and 1730 (and his grandpa is the first person in the register).
I've also found his friend Holtzendorff, who is listed with the Kurmärkische Landschaft from 1736 onwards and lived in a bunch of different places. His first listed address is in the Brüderstraße, which I though was interesting because that's the street Katte lives in in Zeithain. Maybe Roes did some research and then decided to still not put Katte in his correct house.

Then there's Peter Keith, listed in 1749 as living with his wife's family:


The philosophers are there too, some of them present, some not.

I also found one of Fredersdorf's relatives who lives in his house sometime in the 50s:

and Lehndorff, who lives just down the street :'D


Speaking of Fredersdorf, I visited Zernikow in summer and now know a very nice old lady there who knows a bunch of people and is super interested in both Fredersdorf and Heinrich :D And I have photos of the inside of the church, if those are of interest.

Re: Addresses

[selenak]

I hadn't had the chance to see the inside of the church, so would be very interested indeed. As for the adress book, while it's not completely new to us - felis discovered it a while ago - we had NOT had the chance to see these entries ourselves, let alone so nicely enlarged and readable, for which I, for one, am profoundly grateful, having just spent days trying to decypher tiny tiny letters...

Kaphengst kommt

[mildred_of_midgard]

Just here to remind everyone that it's "Kaphengst kommt" time of the year. :D Actually, not sure about your part of California, cahn, but Massachusetts and presumably Germany. Although we're finishing up here, so Germans might be done with it already. Anyway, when you see those leaves getting stirred up, remember that Kaphengst was spectacular in bed!

Re: Kaphengst kommt

[selenak]

Thank you for that thoughtful reminder. :) As it so happens, I will be in Berlin next week for professional reasons, and I will try to make it to Potsdam and see Sanssouci in November, with maybe one or two leaves left. ;)

The Gottorp fury; Charles XII

[mildred_of_midgard]

Charles XII's brother-in-law, Frederick IV the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, was Peter III's paternal grandfather. Not to be confused with his contemporary, Frederik IV the King of Denmark, who waged war on Charles XII and Frederick IV! (I am spelling the Danish guy "Frederik" in a futile attempt to reduce confusion.)

Refresher:


Not too long after Charles became king, when he was still living in Sweden and not waging war everywhere but Sweden, Duke Frederick came to visit.

Frat parties ensued.

Apparently of the rowdy, hard-drinking, breaking shit, "I'm trying to get myself killed, someday everyone will realize the Kalabalik was totally in character" rather than the "have sex with anything that moves" kind...with the caveat that there may well have been sex that contemporary sources and/or modern historians have left out.

The Swedes were all "blame the advisor!" already and spreading rumors that the Duke, nicknamed the Gottorp fury, was trying to get Charles killed to give his family a shot at the throne, but if you ask me, you have two young men, one in his teens and one in his twenties, with no constraints on their behavior, and I don't think you have to add a conspiracy in there to make sense of why they would run wild.

The stories that were told about their antics even Massie, Mr. "I never met an anecdote I didn't like," says are 100% exaggerated--there was not actually blood flowing down the palace steps--but there clearly were a lot of antics. My favorite is the time they had a drinking party, and got a bear so drunk it fell out the window and died.

Dowager Queen Grandma, who was a tough woman known for being strong-willed and politically active, stormed into the room and glared at her grandson, who was disheveled and slurring and totally embarrassed.

He then swore off alcohol, or strong alcohol, or getting drunk, something along those lines, forever, and stuck to it. He became known throughout Europe for his Spartan lifestyle, not just in terms of alcohol (watery beer at best, mostly just water), and sex (none that my sources report), but also clothing (plain uniform, no wig), money-spending (no), workaholism (all the time), sleeping conditions (outside on a plank of wood with no blanket, just like his soldiers). In fact, when he was planning the incognito ride back to Swedish territory in 1714:

As his ascetic personal habits were known across Europe, one member of his party joked that the King could establish an impenetrable disguise if he wore a curled court wig, stayed in the most luxurious inns, drank heavily, flirted with every girl, wore slippers most of the day and slept until noon.

Imagine the opposite of that, and you've got Charles XII.

For comparison, keep in mind August the Strong and FW will be founding their anti-drinking society in just a couple decades (drunken bear episode is 1699), and this is contemporary Peter the Great's idea of a society, the "Most Drunken Council of Fools and Jesters":

In October 1691 Peter produced its "rules of order." On 1 January 1692 he placed at its head his former tutor, Nikita Zotov, awarding him the titles "Most holy lord Ianikita, archbishop of Press-burg and patriarch of all the Iauza region and Kukui" and "prince-pope" (Pressburg was the fortress on the Iauza River that Peter’s army had stormed, and Kukui a stream that ran through the German Quarter, which was thus also called "Kukui"); the "Council" likewise had a conclave of twelve cardinals. Peter himself performed a deacon’s duties. The first commandment for members of the "Council" was daily drunkenness. Upon initiation, new members were asked, not "do you believe?" but "do you drink?" Some of its rituals cannot be described, because of their indecency.

If that last sentence makes you wonder when the book was written, the answer is 1996 (!), but by a Russian (and helpfully translated into English for the Mildreds of the world). Robert Massie, 16 years earlier, had no trouble describing the rituals for his audience. Oh, Russia.

So Charles XII goes overnight from drunken bear falling out window to...I'm genuinely trying to think of a comparison here. FW founded the anti-sobriety society, the Spartans had gay sex, uptight Victorian gentlemen were in prostitutes up to their ears (or such is my impression of the "not my period" century)...anyway, some extreme of abstemiousness.

The thing that makes me hesitate is that there are dozens of biographies that describe Fritz exactly like this. Including the total lack of sex, or interest in women. And the whole glorified military hero thing is going to have very similar influences on the historiography of C12 and Fritz.

Anyway, like literally everything else I say about C12, take that with a grain of salt, but this is what all my sources are telling me so far.

Incidentally, I've mentioned that C12's dad was like a sane FW. One of the historians I read, I forget which one, says that C11 was such a workaholic he even made monarchs like Fritz and Joseph II look like slouches. I instinctively bristled :P, but then I remembered that Fritz had actual hobbies and a life, so while he was constantly busy and productive, if you're only counting state business, then yeah, the music, poetry, art collecting, Classics and French literature studying, round table conversations, talking to Voltaire, talking about Voltaire, reading Voltaire, writing to Voltaire, reading Voltaire's letters aloud, and petting his dogs, would count against him. So fine. :P

Anyway, sane C11 might have played a role in how C12 turned out. He was chill! Not, I hasten to add, when it came to fighting wars or performing feats. But when it came to interacting with people one-on-one. C12 was the anti-scapegoater. In fact, he bent over backwards so much to find out the good about everyone that contemporary Swedes joked that the best way to have your merits brought to the King's attention was to have someone accuse you of wrongdoing. When his generals lost a battle, he would make excuses about how the oral orders he'd given them probably weren't totally clear, and anyway shit happens.

AW: !!!

Also in Opposite Fritz Land:

1. No interest in the fine arts, although he did enjoy attending French plays.
2. Loved math, was apparently very good at math, would visit universities to chat about it with the professors, felt up to a whole new system of arithmetic notation. :P
3. Big on personal hygiene.
4. Preferred German to all other languages, inc. Swedish. Understood French but refused to speak it.
5. Did get to learn Latin and became fluent enough to have conversations with university professors in it.

When he was told that he should learn French so that he could show French ambassadors appropriate honor by being able to speak to them without an interpreter, he said that an ambassador coming to Sweden should honor the country they were in by speaking Swedish. Point for Charles!

ETA: Deep and apparently sincere personal piety, obviously, a big one in Opposite Fritz Land. The interesting thing is that he apparently replaced "Providence" with "Fate/Chance" in his writing in his later years (after Poltava, maybe? I'm going from memory) and historians debate whether that was just a linguistic habit or whether he actually stopped being quite so committed to his religion. To all appearances, though, he did remain a believer until the end. He used to tell his men that God decided when you died, and no bullet would hit you until God had decreed it. But when that moment came, it didn't matter whether you were on a battlefield or in your bed, you were doomed. The point here being that you should charge fearlessly into battle, trusting God, and never hesitate or think that you would be safer off the battlefield. And like Fritz, he put himself in an amount of danger that freaked his immediate circle out but made his soldiers willing to keep fighting to the bitter end.

Great Northern War: Johann Patkul

[mildred_of_midgard]

C11 as the sane FW. They both were big into enriching the crown by acquiring lands from the nobility. I'm not entirely sure, but my impression is that FW paid for his when they became vacant, whereas C11 was more like, "The Crown giveth and the Crown taketh away."

This ended up casting a long shadow. In the short-term, he made Sweden into a financially solvent state after his predecessor's ruinous wars. In the long-term...Well, it's a bit of a long story, settle in.

Sweden conquered Livonia, modern-day Latvia, in the seventeenth century. The local nobles had been promised that they would be exempt from the taking away of their estates, called reduction. And then C11 kept reducing their estates!

One Livonian noble, Johann Patkul, protested. Vehemently. In person to the king. C11 was like, "You seem upright and honest, and I like the way you spoke frankly. But I'm not changing my mind." So Patkul went off and wrote an inflammatory pamphlet, which resulted in C11 having him placed under the death penalty.

So Patkul decides to take Livonia back from the Swedes. He goes in person and (according to the books I've been reading, single-handedly, although that might be a little too neat to be true), convinced Frederik IV of Denmark, Peter the Great, and August the Strong that making war on Sweden when C12 was just a teenager was just the thing to do! One of my sources says he convinced August that the northern Baltic territories would support the campaign to make Poland a hereditary monarchy. August was all over that!

Now Charles is in a three-front war. He's not happy with Patkul.

Energetic and active, Patkul keeps moving around the courts of the major players in the war, advising them on how to conduct the war.

Eventually, he pisses off August/the Saxons enough that they have him arrested for treason and locked up. Peter the Great keeps trying to intercede for him, pleading for mercy and to have Patkul handed over to the Russians (who are much less pissed off at him) instead. August wavers.

He waits too long. After Charles has conquered Sweden, he demands the extradition of certain prisoners, ESPECIALLY Patkul. August, knowing that of all the people pissed off at Patkul, Charles is the MOST pissed off, is like, "Wait, no, can I get out of this?"

Charles: NOW, buddy.

Patkul: *ends up in Swedish captivity*

European monarchs: Have mercy on him!

Charles: You are confusing my chill toward my generals with my total lack of chill toward my enemies. This guy single-handedly started a three-front war against my country, which was minding its own business, to take advantage of my youth!

Patkul is broken on the wheel and decapitated. To quote Wikipedia:

Differing slightly, the accounts agree that Patkul, after a prolonged process of breaking his bones with the wheel, begged for his decapitation (crying "Kopf ab!") and rolled to the block on his own; the following decapitation did however not succeed until after several strikes.

See how we have a block here, meaning an axe was used, and several strikes were needed. Which is why I, if I were a murderer, would prefer to use a sword, in the hilarious words of luzula.

Btw, 19th century historian Bain says that while history has generally been kind to Patkul (Massie certainly has), treating him as a fearless patriot, he was actually quite awful to his peasants and just wanted the freedom to continue oppressing them.

Me, raised on stories of the slave-owning Founding Fathers: I don't know if it's true in this particular case, but the logic checks out!

When you give a monarch a bear

[mildred_of_midgard]

For cahn.

FW: I will put a bear in Gundling's room!

Roman Emperor Elagabalus, many centuries earlier: I will put bears in everyone's room!¹

Ivan the Terrible: I will set bears on people just to see what happens!²

Charles XII: I will get the bear so drunk it falls out the window to its death!

Gian Gastone: Ooh, you have bears? I want to see the bears! Bring me the bears.

*shortly thereafter*

GG: I'm so turned on rn. I want to have sex with--

Mildred: Please don't say the bear.

GG: The bear-handler. He's such a big brawny guy, yum.

Mildred: Oh, thank god.

GG: Also his two young assistants, also hot stuff.

Mildred: Still could be worse.

GG: The bear-handler and his boys³ will be added to my collection of male prostitutes.

Mildred: I already know about the collection of male prostitutes and so am not batting an eye!

GG: One night, the bear-handler will be drunk in his room when I get a hankering for him. I'm drunk also, it goes without saying. I will have him brought to me. But he's so drunk he doesn't want to get out of bed. But I'm the Grand Duke, and my pimp/boyfriend/life partner Giuliano will force him to come to my room. For more drinking, of course!

Mildred: Yep, sounds about right.

GG: We're having a great time, right up until I unleash a "prodigious vomit" all over his face and chest. I'm still having a great time, because I totally have a vomit fetish!

Mildred: ...Okay, you got me. I figured out you had an alcoholism fetish, but this one I didn't see coming.

GG: But he's furious and starts beating me black and blue to within an inch of my life. I bleat a little but am not really up for defending myself. Giuliano and other servants overhear the commotion and come running to save me from imminent death.

Mildred: Well, I don't blame him...

GG: Neither do I! In fact, he doesn't get punished at all and continues to draw his salary and live peaceably in Florence, probably because elsewhere in this narrative it's been recounted that I'm totally into getting beaten up and make the Ruspanti do it to me all the time!

Mildred: This narrative isn't very reliable, is it?

GG and Giuliano Dami, in unison: God no. Please treat this anonymous manuscript like the National Enquirer of the 18th century and don't believe anything you read about us in it. Unlike Harold Acton, who took it as gospel in his book.⁴

FW: My bears are the best attested!

Mildred and Gundling: ...That's not exactly a point in your favor.

Notes:

1. This is from a source that's so dubious that it's questionable how much it was even ever meant as history, so you shouldn't believe this happened so much as be aware that this is a story that was told and some people have believed it.

2. According to Massie in his Peter the Great bio. Not from any reliable source on Ivan the Terrible, which I have yet to read (but am starting to look into).

3. Called "boys", but the ages of the other "boys" that are given in the text as GG's prostitutes are around twenty, so not necessarily pedophilia here.

4. About which more when I've done some more research in the Italian books that draw on actual archival material that I recently bought and have started reading.

Gian Gastone

[mildred_of_midgard]

3. Called "boys", but the ages of the other "boys" that are given in the text as GG's prostitutes are around twenty, so not necessarily pedophilia here.

I wrote "not necessarily pedophilia" here, because Wikipedia told me that Giuliano Dami was born in 1683, and Acton told me that he was picked out by GG for his sexual attractiveness sometime before the 1697 marriage, i.e. when he was 12-14 and GG was 24-26. But now that I've read further in the Dami bio and discovered that there's documentary evidence that Giuliano was not picked out for his sexual attractiveness until sometime between 1705 and 1707, i.e when he was 22-24, I retract my concerns.

Given that even the tabloid-y anonymous manuscript doesn't mention any ages younger than 19 or 20 that I recall (and I'm not perfect, but I was keeping an eye out), it's looking like GG's preferred age for starting a relationship with a hot young man was the same as Heinrich's: about 19-23. Like Heinrich, he didn't necessarily drop them once the age of peak beauty had been passed, but could keep an emotional relationship going for decades (Giuliano was with GG for 30 years, until GG's death), and he wasn't sexually faithful.

Sorry, Heinrich, but the age of attractiveness made you the natural comparison. I'm not comparing you in any other respect!

Sophia Dorothea of Celle, the Hatton take

[mildred_of_midgard]

Reminder for cahn, SD of Celle is

- SD's mother
- G1's wife
- Grandmother of Fritz
- Locked up for life after the discovery of her adultery with her lover.
- Lover Philipp von Königsmarck, "disappeared," probably killed and thrown into the river.
- Their letters were coded.
- Some of which were stolen by Ulrike and sent to Fritz!

The Debate
Historians: Philipp von Königsmarck and SDC were totally about to run away when they were caught!

Hatton: They definitely wanted to and wrote about it in their letters, but we now know they had no concrete plans.

Mildred: How do we "know" this?

Hatton: One, Königsmarck had to join his regiment.

Mildred: But the whole point of running away is not fulfilling your responsibilities?

Hatton: But he had given orders for everything to be ready for his arrival!

Mildred: Yes? If you don't behave like everything is normal, then you get caught even sooner? *cough* Fritz.

Hatton: But they didn't have the money to support SDC in a style that she would accept. *adduces evidence for this*

Mildred: Okay, maybe, but this isn't the strongest case I've ever seen. Moving on!

Historians: G1 was totally at fault for the events of the night of K's disappearance!

Hatton: He was in Berlin at the time!

Author of the G2 bio in the English Monarchs Series that comes right after Hatton's G1 bio: How convenient! He probably planned to be away at the time in order to have an alibi.

Hatton: No, his parents, Ernst August and Sophia, may have arranged for him to be away while they plotted the murder, but G1 himself only found out several weeks later.

Mildred: Evidence?

Hatton: Innocent until proven guilty. Moving on! But the legend that he caught SDC in flagrante and ran her lover through with a sword is right out.

Mildred: With you there.

Historians: G1 wanted to divorce SDC.

Hatton: Not so! She pushed for divorce. He tried really hard to reconcile with her, with the help of the jurists on the divorce court. Everyone was invested in a reconciliation except SDC, who thought that divorce was the key to her freedom.

Historians: G1 kept her locked up forever!

Hatton: Her daughter, SD of Prussia, tried to negotiate for an amnesty in 1725, but SDC refused! She would only agree to leave her house arrest if her name was cleared, it was stated that she had never done anything wrong, and she received compensation for wrongs suffered. Forgiveness would mean acknowledging that she had done anything wrong.

Mildred: Well, she kind of didn't, or at least not the kind that gets men like her husband locked up when they do it.

Hatton: Besides, she didn't think she needed her daughter's help with getting free, because she was counting on the Jacobites to save her. The Jacobites were the main reason she was kept locked up so long, btw.

SD: Well, that's fine, Mom, since I can't afford to negotiate on your behalf anyway until after my raison d'etre is settled, i.e. the double marriage of my two oldest kids to their cousins. But I'm sure that'll happen any day now! (1725)

Mildred: :'-(

Conclusion
I'm not convinced G1 is much less at fault than I was before (I guess the well-documented lengthy and apparently sincere attempts to reconcile were new), but it *was* interesting to see all of SDC's agency in this.

Misc
1. The divorce suit papers were destroyed, historians suspect by G2, and reconstructed in the 19th century based on the detailed notes of one of the judges.

2. When G1 read SDC's letters, he got to read about such things as

his wife's intense desire for his death in battle, and her poor opinion of him as a lover when compared to Philipp Christoph.

I mean, I believe he was a better lover! And this is why society needs no-fault divorces, then you don't have to wish for your spouse's death!

3. The details we have on what happened to Königsmarck are from Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick (cousin of our Anton Ulrich), who apparently had remarkably good sources. Hatton says she would be inclined to disbelieve what he wrote, if not for

Professor Schnath's discovery that Don Nicolò Montalbano (usually called Montalban), the Italian who had endeared himself to the family during the work on the new Osnabrück palace, had settled on him shortly after 1/11 July the sum of 150,000 Taler from Ernst August's coffers. A princely reward, indeed, if it is taken into account that Montalban's salary was 200 Taler a year and that of the highest-paid electoral minister 1,500. Reward for what? It seems inescapable that this was payment for his services on 1/11 July and, at the same time, silence-money: the sum was to be paid by regular quarterly instalments. The other courtiers mentioned in Mencken's despatch were also devoted to the house: von Stubenvol was a Palatinate-born Kammerjunker who had married a natural daughter of Ernst August's; von Klencke was Oberkammerjunker to Ernst August; and Freiherr von Eltz was Hofmeister to young Georg August. All were men who could be expected to take firm action lest the newly-won dignity be besmirched by the scandal of an elopement. The identification of Nicolò Montalban (for there were several of that family name at the Hanoverian court) made by Schnath lends strong credence to the correctness of the rest of Anton Ulrich's information: the names of the other courtiers involved and the method of disposing of Königsmarck's body, sunk in the Leine river in a sack weighted with stones.

Professor Schnath, remember, is this guy, whom selenak has told us about before.

4. The official story was that Königsmarck Never Happened, and the divorce was officially because of SDC's refusal to cohabit with her husband, apropos of nothing at all and certainly no better alternatives that she did want to live with.

5. Sister Aurora von Königsmarck, mistress of August the Strong, was "indefatigable" in her quest to try to find out what happened to her brother. :(

Re: Sophia Dorothea of Celle, the Hatton take

[luzula]

OMG. I don't know how this has passed me by, but I did not know this stuff. My opinion of G1 is, uh, rather considerably lowered.

The Jacobites were the main reason she was kept locked up so long, btw.

What? Why?

Great Northern War: The Confusingest Part

[mildred_of_midgard]

Namely, FW and Whitworth.

Intro
So Blanning, in his G1 bio, says that the Great Northern War, complex as it is, is responsible for some of the least coherent scholarship of the period (not disagreeing), but that the Whitworth bio is a particularly clear account. That was what led me to the Whitworth bio.

Where I promptly went, "What one earth are you talking about, Blanning?" I got other useful info out of the book, but as far as the GNW was concerned, I couldn't even keep up with what was going on.

Later on, I discovered that while the Whitworth bio is a terrible introduction to the GNW, once you already understand the general outline of the GNW and the side-switching, it's very valuable for the parts it covers, which is: "Excruciatingly detailed account of the negotiations involving Hanover and Prussia in the last few years of the war." (Which should tell you why it's a terrible introduction.)

So now I'm here to tell you (some of) what Whitworth, Rottembourg, and FW were up to in the late 1710s. I'll do my best to simplify, as it is confusing.

The War
Our story starts in 1714. As a reminder:

- C12 has just returned from the Ottoman Empire up to Stralsund, which is besieged.
- G1 has just become King of Great Britain.
- The War of the Spanish Succession is ending.
- FW has just become King of Prussia (1713).

The entire war can be summarized under two points:

Point 1. It starts because Sweden's neighbors want or want back territory that Sweden conquered in its 17th century glory days.
Point 2. Most of its complexities (side-switching, etc.) are due to European powers caring about the balance of power.

The balance of power is key here. In the mid 1710s, Sweden has de facto lost most of its overseas territory and is only hanging on because C12 doesn't know when he's beat. Russia is on the rise as a great power and is about to be the big winner of the war.

Motives
In the mid 1710s:
- Hanover cares about point 1 of the war: get Swedish territory!
- Prussia cares about point 1: get Swedish territory!
- Russia cares about point 1: get Swedish territory!
- Britain is starting to shift the focus of their caring to point 2: keep Russia from dominating the Baltic!
- France is with Britain.

When Whitworth is sent to Berlin in 1716 and 1719, he has to navigate these different concerns, two opposing ones being those of his boss, G1 of Hanover + Britain. (I don't envy these ambassadors, seriously.)

FW wants Swedish Pomerania, and most especially Stettin, which is a valuable port on the Oder. (EC2 will later be sent here by Fritz after her divorce from FW2.)

Motive Maps
Map 1: Pomerania before 1720 (from Wikipedia):



Notice Gartz, Fredersdorf's home town, also on the Oder in Swedish territory! Berlin is just on the very bottom of the map. To the east is Küstrin. Küstrin is on the Oder. If you follow the blue line up through Schwedt, Gartz, and Stettin to the Baltic, you'll see the territory FW wants, and why Stettin is such an important port.

Map 2: Pomerania through history (possibly copyrighted, so just linking). Focus on the second and third panels, showing what was lost in 1720.

The entire article contains lots of great maps.

G1 (as Elector of Hanover) wants Bremen and Verden, which will give Hanover some coastline along the North Sea.

Map 3: Hanover, Bremen, Verden (from Wikipedia):



Map 4: The Swedish Empire. Focus on the part that borders Russia, east and south of Finland.



This map does a pretty good job of showing why Russia was an early adopter of war on Sweden.

All the medium green stuff off to the east and south of the Baltic--Karelia, Ingria, Estland, Swedish Livonia--will be lost by Charles XII to Peter the Great. St. Petersburg will be built in Ingria. This is why Russia comes out the big winner: Peter can now build a big fleet and dominate the Baltic. What I wish this map did was show national borders, so you could explicitly see that Russia had no Baltic ports in 1700, because the Baltic was little more than a Swedish lake (as it was enviously called at the time).

So what happens in 1714 is Peter the Great has already conquered all that territory, and FW wants in on the divvying up of the Swedish empire! He makes an alliance with Peter in which he will help Peter with the war on Sweden in return for Russia's recognition of Prussian acquisition of as much of Swedish Pomerania as it can get.

But whereas Hanover is focused on map 3, territory Hanover can acquire from Sweden, in the late 1710s, Britain is focused on map 4, territory Russia has already acquired from Sweden. Britain is worried that the Baltic is going to turn into a Russian lake. This is where balance of power comes in.

Whitworth's Job
So the Brits send Whitworth to Berlin to try to get FW to leave his buddy Peter, make some territorial concessions to Sweden, and join the alliance in the north that the British are trying to form. That alliance is aimed at making sure Sweden remains a viable force that, with its allies, can keep Russian ambitions within limits.

But while Whitworth is in Berlin, back home there's a huge battle between the Hanoverian ministers ("We hate Prussia! We want territory! No alliance with Prussia, no territorial concessions to Sweden!") and the British ministers ("Win Prussia over! Support Sweden! Preserve the balance of power!"). This makes Whitworth's job extra difficult until the British ministers win out and he finally isn't getting conflicting messages.

You may remember that Whitworth was stationed in Russia in the early 1700s (and dismayed by all the drinking that meant he'd never be able to be influential there). That's where he destroyed the tobacco factory. Well, in those days, pre-Poltava (1709), England wasn't taking Russia seriously as a military or diplomatic power. Whitworth, on site and getting to know Peter, was all, "Serious threat here, people! Alarm, alarm! Do something before he gets too mighty to handle!"

And, of course, Whitworth called it. Ten years later, Britain is now getting on board, although still not as much as Whitworth would like.

So now Whitworth's job is to talk FW into abandoning Russia in favor of Hanover/Britain.

But FW is 1) eager to get all the territory he can out of Sweden, 2) not thrilled about breaking alliances, 3) reeeeally not convinced that Great Britain is in a position to protect him from his big scary powerful and soon to be angry neighbor Russia. His foreign minister Ilgen is more pro-Russia than pro-Hanover. (Ilgen is Ariane's maternal grandfather, father of the Baroness von Knyphausen who gets a cameo in "Lovers lying two and two".)

So FW goes back and forth and back and forth, trying to decide whether he's better off staying friendly with Russia, or abandoning them for the British-Hanoverian alliance and making the best deal with Sweden the British will support. This constant vacillation drives Whitworth and Rottembourg crazy. (More on Rottembourg below.)

British: Maybe we could just let FW have Stettin, but not the surrounding territory, and only for a certain number of years, like 25. Would that be okay, Charles?

Charles: You missed the part where I do not negotiate with terrorists invaders. Stettin is mine. Also, you idiots, if you let Prussian troops garrison a city for years at time, they will not leave it at the end of the agreed-upon time period!

[Mildred: 100% hard agree. Can you imagine telling Fritz in 1745 that he has to give up Stettin?]

After a lot of back and forth like this, suddenly everything happens all at once. Hanover signs a treaty with Sweden, getting Bremen and Verden, right as FW is prepared to sign his own treaty with Sweden, taking a good chunk (but not all) of Swedish Pomerania.

This is good news for British-Hanoverian diplomacy...Except! Except that it's going to be a lot harder to sell the Swedes on accepting their losses to Hanover if they're simultaneously losing territory to Prussia precisely because the British got involved.

So what Whitworth does (we're not sure whose idea it was, but could have been his), is backdate the signing of the treaty in Berlin to the day before the Hanover-Sweden treaty was signed. That way, the British could tell the Swedes, "Sorry, it all happened too fast! The Berlin treaty was signed by the time we made you sign the Hanover treaty." This is a lie, because Whitworth knew damn well the Swedes had already been forced to concede a lot of territory by the time he got the signatures on his own treaty forcing them to concede more territory.

The handwavy explanation was, "Well, FW had already verbally *agreed* to the treaty by that date, it's just that he then got sick with what seems to have been a stress-induced illness caused by his inability to make up his mind over whether it was okay to betray your allies or not."

(Fritz: I will have a lot of stress-related illnesses during my reign, but not that particular one!)

Conclusion
So in the end, Sweden lost almost everything but less than it could have, if not for British intervention; Hanover got what it wanted; Prussia got some of what it wanted; Russia got all the things. The alliance directed against Russia petered out because France and Britain were far away, busy with other things, and both hit by economic crashes in 1719/1720, while none of the other powers (like Prussia) were prepared to take on Russia militarily single-handedly just to preserve trade that would benefit the Brits.

Trade Addendum
Why does the trade benefit the Brits? As we learned in the Whitworth write-up, the Baltic is of key economic importance to the Brits, because that's where they get the raw materials for their navy: tar, hemp for ropes, wood for their ships... The whole tobacco conflict in the late 1690s and early 1700s was caused by the English, being mercantilists like the rest of Europe, wanting to increase their exports to Russia to balance out the imports, because the imports were so critical they simply couldn't do without them.

The whole part where England/Great Britain imports its raw materials for its navy from Baltic regions drives pretty much all of their foreign policy in the 1710s. Which I have not reported on the details of, but it's worth knowing that was their main concern and why they got involved. Because if there's one thing we know about the Brits during this period, it's that they are a naval power.

France Addendum
Toward the end of the Great Northern War, France had closed out the War of the Spanish Succession and had some free time on its hands. One thing they wanted to do was make sure everyone (read: Philip V) agreed to the terms of the peace treaties (read: Spain lost a lot of territory). The easiest way to do this, they felt, was twofold. First, ally with Britain and Prussia. Two, restore peace in the north so that Britain and Prussia would be free to focus their energies on the south (Italy, the Mediterranean, Spain), when Philip V went to war to try to get back the lost territory.

So Rottembourg was sent to Berlin with a twofold mission accordingly. One, try to get Prussia out of the Austrian camp and into the French-British camp. Two, help negotiate the Prussia-Sweden treaty so that there could be peace in the north. France would act as guarantors of the treaty. This meant his job was to help Whitworth with FW.

Whitworth, on his side, had received instructions to work with Rottembourg. One of the reasons G1 had allied with France was to get French guarantees of Bremen-Verden. As we've seen, it was weird to have England/Britain and France allied during the Second Hundred Years' War (1689-1815)! But 1716-1731 was a weird time period, diplomatically, for Europe.

[Blanning is not actually a fan of the 1720s. This passage made me laugh, especially remembering him in a different book complaining about the quality of the scholarship on the Great Northern War. Apparently the whole 1700-1730 period is Just That Complicated (TM).

Even the most gifted narrator would find it difficult to construct an account of the 1720s both coherent and interesting, or indeed either of those things. Only intense concentration and repeated reference to the chronology can reveal which abortive congress was which, which short-lived league brought which powers together, who was allied to whom, who was double-crossing whom, or whatever.]

Coda
This will probably be my last post on the GNW, at least for a while. There's one more topic that I'm interested in, and I've started reading the relevant book, George I and the Northern War. It has more side-changing! (Which I spared you guys in this post.) It has lots of references to Lövenörn and Whitworth and Rottembourg! But even in English, it's a long and dense book for someone as sleep-deprived as I am, the lack of e-book format is a definite hassle for me, and when I do have the brainpower to wrestle with something that requires concentration, I keep getting side-tracked by things like "Kloosterhuis' footnotes" and "batshit Medici" and "that August the Strong bio," all of which are in German or Italian (lol). But if I manage to work my way through it, I will report back.

Meanwhile, cahn, I don't expect you to follow the diplomatic maneuverings and lack of gossipy sensationalism in this post without a lot more repetition, but I tried to use it to repeat some things we've already covered. selenak, I hope it's a little more useful for you. Mostly, I'm going to forget all this shortly, so it's good to have it written down so I can put it in Rheinsberg. Big GNW write-up coming up.

Re: Great Northern War: The Confusingest Part

[luzula]

You missed the part where I do not negotiate with terrorists invaders. Stettin is mine.

Really, I don't see the logic here, C12. Did not Sweden itself capture Stettin by invasion?

The whole part where England/Great Britain imports its raw materials for its navy from Baltic regions drives pretty much all of their foreign policy in the 1710s. Which I have not reported on the details of, but it's worth knowing that was their main concern and why they got involved. Because if there's one thing we know about the Brits during this period, it's that they are a naval power.

Unrelatedly I happen to know a lot about Swedish forests and forestry, so yeah, I did know that exports from that industry were big in the 18th and 19th centuries (also iron). But I hadn't considered it from Britain's perspective.

News from 1740

[felis]

/Mildred, how's that Peter Keith Essay going? ;)

Every couple of months I check if the 1740 issues of the Berlinische Nachrichten have been digitized yet, because among other things, there's that Preuss-alleged reference to Peter in December I want to see. They still haven't shown up, but I found something else this time: Berliner geschriebene Zeitungen aus dem Jahr 1740. These aren't official newspapers, but private reports, from two different people, which were written for the Abbess of Quedlinburg, June-December 1740. (The abbess at the time = a great-aunt of Russian!Pete. She died in 1755 - which is when Amalie got the job - and she and her people were interested in the new king and his politics because all throughout FW's reign there had been quarrels re: sovereignty, stationing of military, and of course recruiting. (I think there were very few people FW didn't have quarrels with regarding the last one.))

The two agents are Schultzer (previously military) and Vogel (low official) and the editor is the same one who published the Stratemann reports. He put some effort into checking all their claims and has lots of footnotes with references to other sources (actual newspapers and military records, other envoy reports, even the elusive Tröger compilation of Manteuffel's Fidamire thing) to verify things or correct them and point out unfounded rumours, in case the two agents don't correct themselves down the line, as they sometimes do.

Why am I telling you all this? Because Peter is mentioned.

On the 14th of October, Schultzer writes the following: "Übrigens ist den 12. der Herr Lieutnant v. Keit, welcher vor einigen Jahren von Wesel nach Engelland übergegangen, aus Engelland wieder hier angekommen, welches S.M., weil er nicht gerufen worden, ungnädig vermerckt haben sollen." ("Incidentally, on the 12th, Lieutnant von Keit, who moved from Wesel to Engelland a few years ago, came back from Engelland, which HM, because he was not called, is said to have received ungraciously.")

As you can see, immediately we have some mixed-up info and an unfounded rumour, but the Editor mentions the July summons in the footnote, setting this straight, and at least it's written in a way ("haben sollen") that makes it clear that it's only hearsay.

Even better: Fritz arrives in Berlin on the 15th, and: "Um 5 Uhr begab sich der Herr v. Kait, welcher Obristlieutenant in Portugisischen Diensten sein soll, durch die kleine Pforte an der Stech-Bahn, dem Dom gegenüber, nach die Königl. Zimmer, wohin S.M. denselben dem Verlaut nach beschieden hätten. Den 16. erschienen S.M. auf der Wachparade, wobei dieser Herr v. Kait sich gleichfalls befand. Weil aber S.M. vom Fieber noch nicht gäntzlich verlassen sind, als haben Sich Höchst-Dieselbe den 17. in Dero Zimmer gehalten. Eodem Abends um halb 9 Uhr trafen endlich die so lange erwartete Bayreuthsche Frau Markgräfin Königl. Hoheiten hier ein."

("At 5 o'clock, Herr von Kait, who is supposed to be Lieutenant Colonel in Portuguese service, went through the little gate at the Stech-Bahn, across from the cathedral, to the Royal Rooms, where HM reportedly had him called. On the 16th, HM appeared at the parade, and this Herr von Kait was also there. On the 17th, HM kept to his rooms because the fever still wasn't gone. The same day at half past eight in the evening the Bayreuth Margravine Royal Highnesses, who had been awaited for so long, finally arrived here.")

There are no references to other sources in the footnotes in this case, so this guy Schultzer seems to be the only one who reported this. That said, he tends to mention a lot of names and people, unlike his colleague Vogel, who keeps things a lot more brief and specifically doesn't have Schultzer's military interests and connections. (He corroborates Fritz's whereabouts, the fever, and Wilhelmine, but doesn't mention Peter.) Since I don't know why anybody should make this up in its entirety, there's at least a chance that Fritz and Peter did indeed meet on the 15th/16th (i.e. the earliest date possible). Fritz then leaves for Rheinsberg on the 19th, still suffering from fever.

Last Peter reference is on October 28: "Herr v. Kait sei Stallmeister geworden." (Which is the kind of career news Schultzer reports all the time. No mention of a commission in the Prussian military, though, which is something he would have noted I think.)

--

Other interesting tidbits:

Since Mildred was interested in the mourning dress code: During the envoy audiences on June 12th, Fritz was wearing violet, not black, which was very unusual. The footnote quotes Manteuffel: contre tout usage et sans rime et raison. Also, during those audiences, people noted (and some envoys were upset) that Valory got first dibs.

On June 5th, Fritz visits the treasury with v. Boden, Eversmann, and Fredersdorff; Eversman gets dismissed at least by June 17th, which is also when the Zernikow gift gets reported (with varying rtl. values). Fredersdorf's collection of responsiblities - Castellan, Bettmeister, Kämmerer, setting the theatre people straight - trickles in bit by bit over the months.

Re: Fritz's August trip - before he even left, there were already rumours that he'd go for an incognito trip to Paris, and lots of arguing back and fourth if true or just invented. (As of August 30th, Schulzer has not yet heard of the Strasburg adventure.)

LOTS of mentions that Fritz had revues for all the regiments and pulled all the prettiest people for his new guard regiment. See also, August 16th, mention of a new chamber servant, previously a musketeer, "[der] gut aussiehet". Also lots of info on the new page/servant/etc uniforms, very splendid and pretty, plus a green/golden carriage that Fritz had himself made.

Height of the rumour mill: right after the Emperor's death. Not just regarding the war preparations - people say we are going to invade Poland! no, Cleve! no, Silesia! yes, we are going to Silesia, but not to invade but to protect MT against Bavaria and Saxony! - but also other deaths, and while the Tzarina did indeed die (although not via unnatural causes), the Saxon King was NOT in fact assassinated in Warschau. :P To be fair, both of them say that nobody really knows and confirmation is missing.

Finally, in less Fritz-related but still interesting news: Schultzer includes the occasional crime report, i.e. several murders and street robberies, a severed head found in a clay jar, and an armoury break-in. Said break-in was followed by a lengthy investigation, starting with a tree, a ladder, and a broken window, and ending with an expert saying that the tree wasn't strong enough for a person and suggesting that it was an inside-job, upon which Stallmeister Schwerin vouched for all his people and the investigator's sights turned towards some craftsmen who had been working there, but a search of their rooms for the stolen goods didn't yield anything. No final conclusion reported. (Me: This detective story, while intriguing, leaves something to be desired.)

Re: News from 1740

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, wow, this is amazing! Thank you!

The essay is coming along bit by bit. I'm nearly done with the first draft (just getting the facts down), and then I have to revise. But now I have some new facts to get down! So the first draft isn't quite as close to being done as it was 5 minutes ago. ;)

[The big hold-up has been having to work at 4:30 am for my day job for a couple weeks, which has wrecked my sleep schedule like you would not believe.]

("Incidentally, on the 12th, Lieutnant von Keit, who moved from Wesel to Engelland a few years ago, came back from Engelland, which HM, because he was not called, is said to have received ungraciously.")

This is awesome because I have been precisely looking for this date! All I had was a month. If contemporaries have heard of his return by the 14th, then we can assume that at least he returned in the first half of the month, not the latter half.

there's at least a chance that Fritz and Peter did indeed meet on the 15th/16th (i.e. the earliest date possible). Fritz then leaves for Rheinsberg on the 19th, still suffering from fever.

Indeed, and what's interesting to me is that there are already rumors of him not being in royal favor (which would continue to be a topic of discussion until at least 1753). Even if the reason is wrong, it does lead me to believe that either Peter, the people around him, or both were expecting a much warmer welcome than he got. It's possible they did have an in-person and/or written conflict immediately upon Peter's arrival.

:(

Last Peter reference is on October 28: "Herr v. Kait sei Stallmeister geworden." (Which is the kind of career news Schultzer reports all the time. No mention of a commission in the Prussian military, though, which is something he would have noted I think.)

Also awesome to have a date for this!

the Saxon King was NOT in fact assassinated in Warschau. :P To be fair, both of them say that nobody really knows and confirmation is missing.

Hee! I know I saw ambassador reports (in Volz's Spiegel, I think) speculating on Fritz withdrawing with his ministers after the Emperor's death, and secondary sources I've read have said that Berlin was like a beehive buzzing with rumors. This is the context in which Fritz is supposed to have had this exchange with someone who wanted to know what was going to happen:

Fritz: "Can you keep a secret?"

Other person: "Oh, yes, Your Majesty!"

Fritz: "Well, so can I!"

:DD

(I think that turned out to be from one of the unsourced anecdote collections written in 1786-1790, though? I remember being disappointed that it may not have been authentic, because it's one of my favorites.)

This is all wonderful information, thank you! I need to get my German better so I can read all these sources you keep turning up and make my own contributions!

Also, salon people, do keep asking me how the Peter Keith essay is coming along! (Ditto the Fredersdorf-Pfeiffer one.) It really helps!

Write-up of "The Jacobites", by Daniel Szechi (2019)

[luzula]

This book was perfect, because it skimmed lightly over things I already know a lot about (the course of the '45, and the Highland clans and their relationship to Jacobitism), and focused on things I didn't. Here's a summary of parts I found interesting (ask if you want more on anything).

It starts with a brief summary of the historiography and various positions different historians have taken. There's a general bit about British society, then an account of the 1688 revolution and the war in Scotland and Ireland. I didn't know much about the war in Ireland, so that was interesting. It looks like James II did not make the most of his Irish Catholic support there. More than anything else the failure of the Jacobite army in 1690–1 is ascribable to a failure of political will. James II and VII does not seem to have taken to his Old Irish subjects.³⁸ They, in turn, were soon disillusioned with him and his inner coterie of advisers, none of whom were Old Irish.³⁹ Also he was not great as a military commander.

It then goes into how the Jacobites communicated within themselves (slooowly and uncertainly, because of the large distances, which made it hard to plot), and the various factions and internal ideological struggles within Jacobitism, and what the formal declarations of the Stuarts actually said. This is the main new thing I learned from the book, and it's very interesting! ...it is interesting to observe in this context the gathering radicalism of the Jacobites’ political agenda. For all the traditionalist evocation of rightful monarchy at the exiled court and the innate social and political conservatism of many of its hard-core supporters in the British Isles, as a political movement Jacobitism was impelled towards greater and greater political radicalism as time went on (see documents 3, 4, 15).

Which makes sense! There's always a struggle over power between the monarch and the parliament (and other power bases), and if the king is actually in exile and not on the throne, he's in a uniquely bad bargaining position. He's dependent on his supporters to get the throne back, and pretty much has to agree to what they want.

This shift begins already in the 1690's. James II's first communications are uncompromising. The Irish Parliament he called in 1689 basically wanted the Catholic majority to be in charge of the country, but they were to lose out in 1693 when the English Protestant faction among the Jacobites won out over the English Catholic one: Parliament was assigned a constitutional position very similar to that already prevailing in England in the 1690s, the religious settlement was to be left virtually untouched (specifically, the privileged position of the Church of England was to be maintained) and there was to be a complete indemnity for all supporters of the Revolution and their heirs. James also found himself caught between the English Jacobite and Irish Jacobite agendas, in that he had to agree to leave the settlement of Ireland to the tender mercies of the first post-restoration English Parliament (see document 3).¹³ In sum, the Jacobite government-in-exile committed itself to leaving the new, post-Revolution political, religious and social order in England (and English ascendancy in the British Isles) virtually intact in the event of a restoration.¹⁴ Must have been bitter for James II...

Then, in 1708, we get the much more radical proclamation of James III, as a consequence of what the Scottish Jacobites wanted. James III promised such things as three-year terms for parliament, all ministers and judges appointed by parliament, religious toleration (but no Catholics in office), the king could not set foreign policy on his own, etc. And they agreed that if the king broke these agreements, then parliament could kick him out. No doubt if any of these kings had actually ended up on the throne, they would've tried to get power back, like William III did after the Glorious Revolution, disappointing the radical Whigs, but they'd be starting from a bad bargaining position.

The exiled Stuarts’ identification with the Scottish national cause and their acceptance of the Juncto’s radical agenda, moreover, boosted the trend towards the adoption of more and more radical commitments by the exiled Stuarts. Their natural allies were the politically alienated and dispossessed, and so they accumulated more and more commitments to alter the status quo in the event of a restoration. The most important and momentous of these was the pledge by the Jacobite government-in-exile (repeated again and again in public statements and propaganda) that as soon as the exiled dynasty was restored it would hold a ‘Free Parliament’. This had been a radical nostrum since the 1650s, produced political revolutions in 1660 and 1688, and was bound to appeal to anyone who felt they had been unjustly treated by the existing order.²⁵ Likewise the Stuarts’ promise from 1715 onwards to institute a complete religious toleration (including full civil rights for religious minorities) augured no less a political and social earthquake.²⁶ To appreciate the potential upset implicit within this proposal it is only necessary to reflect that this was an issue very, very few conventional politicians would touch before the 1770s, that it convulsed British politics in 1780, 1799–1800 and 1825–9, and brought down at least two governments before it was finally passed. In the same vein, from the mid-1720s James promised to roll back the systematic disfranchisement of plebeian Londoners by Walpolean legislation designed to boost the powers of the oligarchical court of Aldermen. This would in effect have given back control of the city to ordinary Londoners and transformed the politics of the English/British capital. And London’s politics were nothing less than crucial on a national scale. The denouement of this process came in the 1750s, when Charles Edward added to these commitments pledges to institute biennial or triennial Parliaments, disband the standing army, cut the number of placemen in Parliament to no more than fifty, and enact legal guarantees of the liberty of the press and the right of the people to resist tyrannical governments (see document 15). It was an agenda a great many late eighteenth-century radicals and revolutionaries would have enthusiastically endorsed.

I also note that "document 15", written by BPC, also mentions his conversion to the Anglican Church, so that's another primary source for that.

Then the book goes through the various attempts at coups and up until the '15, as well as shifts of opinion within England and Scotland. It goes into the '15 in some detail, which makes sense as the author has written a separate book on that. It seems it wasn't as spontaneous as I'd thought before, since it was preceded by plotting between James III, Tory conspirators in England and Jacobites in Scotland. James III explicitly promised to break the 1707 union. The reason the rebellion failed seems the same one I've read before: that Mar was a very bad military commander, and that the English Jacobites didn't rise. But actually he never claimed to be one, he was waiting on James and Berwick (an Irish military commander in French service) to arrive and take over. But the French government forbade Berwick to take part, and James arrived too late to make a difference to the outcome.

I'd thought the government's punishments after the '15 were milder than after the '45, and it seems that they were to the extent that ordinary soldiers in Scotland were not punished. But in other respects they were as harsh. There was plenty of executions of the leaders, the confiscation of estates for all involved, and systematic looting and burning in the Highlands with no separation of guilty and innocent (says nothing about outright killing as after the '45, though). The confiscation of estates did sort of fail in that the Scots Whigs were alienated by the harshness of the treatment of the Highlands, and the whole judiciary establishment in Scotland obstructed the confiscation of estates. The government took 1,000 prisoners in Preston and the majority of the ordinary soldiers were to be transported to the Caribbean, which was basically a death sentence. But that too went awry since most of them were skilled workers and the entrepreneurs who bought the prisoners from the government instead sold them to North America since that paid better.

Then we get developments in England, Scotland and Ireland after the '15, and what the Jacobite court was up to. The most interesting bit for me here was Ireland. Ireland never rose after the 1690's, but that was not for lack of Jacobitism. Even if they'd been disillusioned by James II back then, they really had nowhere else to turn. England was very aware of their discontent, since the Gaelic and Catholic majority basically had no power, and all the power was held by the Protestant and English minority. Because of that awareness, there were plenty of garrisons to keep them down and they were not allowed to have arms. But Ireland contributed in another way: the "Wild Geese" who followed James to the continent in the 1690's formed Irish brigades in France and in Spain that evolved into crack military units. The effect of this on Irish Jacobite morale at home was great: there was a whole culture of songs and stories about it, relating the exploits of these soldiers to old mythical heroes, and illegal recruiting networks that ensured that the units actually remained Irish over time. Also, the commanders of these units had the ears of the kings/ministers in the respective countries. Jacobitism actually clung on the longest in Ireland, into the 1780's, and the transition to Jacobinism seems to have been pretty easy in the sense that both these movements were about trying to get help from the continent to overthrow their English Protestant overlords.

Skipping over the '45, nothing new. Then we get an interesting chapter first motivating why the Jacobites were so tempting to other countries: it gives examples of other countries being taken out of commission by civil wars and how great a way it was of breaking the military deadlock. He goes through various countries one by one and their diplomatic contacts with the Jacobites over time and reasons for why the countries acted as they did. Then there's a last chapter on the Jacobite diaspora.

Duke of Berwick

[mildred_of_midgard]

This is fascinating, thank you! Much of it was new to me.

It seems it wasn't as spontaneous as I'd thought before

Oh, good lord, no. No matter whose side you were on, everyone knew the Hanover succession was going to happen, and everyone was making their plans well in advance. How much the specific details of the '15 were worked out in advance, I don't know, but the part where the Jacobites knew there were going to be protests at the Hanoverian accession and planned to take advantage was understood for years was kind of inevitable. Kind of like how everyone knew starting in about 1661 that the War of the Spanish Succession was going to happen, and planned for it until it finally happened in 1701; and everyone knew the Medici line was dying out by the 1720s, so they were laying their plans until 1737...Military and political details obviously had to respond to current events and couldn't be planned 40 years in advance, but if a succession crisis could be anticipated years in advance by anyone with half a brain, it was, and the maneuvering via correspondence, diplomatic negotiations, and treaties would go on.

Berwick (an Irish military commander in French service)

For cahn, not just any Irish military commander in French service, but James II's illegitimate son, and thus James III's half-brother! Berwick had already proven himself a very capable commander in the War of the Spanish Succession, and Philip V basically owed his throne to him (that and the fact that most of the Spaniards were fine with keeping Philip and reluctant to support the Habsburg claimants).

Prior to this, Berwick had fought for his father, James II, in Ireland, as he tried to get his throne back. He was present at the Battle of the Boyne, and he stayed in Ireland even after James had fled to France. (I'm not sure how much Berwick is himself "Irish", but he definitely had commanded troops in Ireland, and since he ended up going from there to France, he may have been called "Irish" because he had arrived as the head of Irish troops. He was born to English parents in France and raised in France, though.)

As we've pointed out before (luzula, you weren't here for this), Berwick's mother was Arabella Churchill, sister of the Duke of Marlborough. Horowski, predictably, makes a lot out of the tight family connections on both sides of the War of the Spanish Succession.

But the French government forbade Berwick to take part

The timing is critical here. The War of the Spanish Succession has just ended. The Peace of Utrecht has just forced France to recognize the Protestant Succession and banish James III from France.

Per Wikipedia (pay attention to the dates I've bolded):

Believing the great general Marlborough would join him, on 23 August James wrote to the Duke of Berwick, his illegitimate brother and Marlborough's nephew, that; "I think it is now more than ever Now or Never".

27 August: The Earl of Mar holds the first council of war, in Scotland.

September 1: Louis XIV dies. Philippe d'Orleans becomes regent.

6 September: The Earl of Mar raises the standard of James III/VIII.

This means that by the time Berwick needs permission to leave France, the big Jacobite supporter and personal friend of James II Louis XIV is dead. The new regent is Philippe d'Orleans, son of gay Philippe. If anything should happen to child Louis XV, Philippe d'Orleans is next in line to the throne. Except that Philip V of Spain, who had renounced the throne of France, is making it pretty clear that promise wasn't worth the paper it was written on. If anything happens to Louis XV, he's invading with his Spanish army and claiming the throne. The two Philip(pe)s are thus complete enemies.

It's also becoming increasingly clear that Philip V is going to try to get back the lost Spanish territory he just signed away. So Philippe the Regent needs an ally to try to force Spain to adhere to the terms of the Peace of Utrecht. The ally he wants is England. (This is why Rottembourg and Whitworth are working together in Berlin.) This will lead to the 1716-1731 Anglo-French alliance, in which they will fight on the same side against Spain in 1718-1720, which will thus lead Spain to try to put James III on the throne in 1719.

So up until September 1, 1715, the sympathies of the French monarch were with the Jacobites. Post September 1, the French regent has every reason to support George I against the Jacobites. Hence Berwick being refused permission. (Berwick will later be sent back into Spain to fight against Philip V, thus on the opposite side of the war that he just finished, where he was fighting *for* Philip V. Berwick was not happy about this.)

Berwick will eventually die at the Battle of Philippsburg, getting his head ripped off after a "Do you know who I am??!!" exchange with the guards who tried to save him from himself. See my write-up here.

it gives examples of other countries being taken out of commission by civil wars and how great a way it was of breaking the military deadlock.

I would love to see these examples.

He goes through various countries one by one and their diplomatic contacts with the Jacobites over time and reasons for why the countries acted as they did.

Ditto, I'd be interested in that. Diplomatic history of the 1700-1730 period is apparently of great interest to me (pace Blanning :P).

Hans Heinrich buying stuff i.e. Katte Transcripts Part I

[prinzsorgenfrei]

I'm done with two of the transcripts! Two bills for Hans Heinrich from J. C. Lieberkühn, goldsmith in Berlin. I can't guarantee that every word is correct, but I tried. Let's see what he bought:



Vohr seiner Exellentz den H
General Katte
Den 24 Majus
1724
Gelieffert Einen Großen
Spielkässel mitt der Fontaine
so gewogen - - 56 Mark 6 ½ lot
Marck á - 11 Rhl 12 gl
Ehût - - - Summa 648 Rhl 16 gl
Hierauff habe empfangen
An alten Silber als 12 teller
2 Spielkässel 1 Becken und Kanne
1 Nacht Kanne so zusammen
Gewogen - - 57 Marck 3 lot
Marck á 8 Rhl 20 gl
Lot á 13 gl 3 pf Ehût - - 502 Rhl 6 gl
Bleibt Rest - - - 146 Rhl 10 gl
Berl den 26 octob
1724 Dieser Rest ist mirr mitt
146 Rhl zu dancke bezahlt
J C Lieberkühn
J C Lieberkühn

I found "Spiel-Kessel" in an old dictionary that claims it's a bowl for dishwashing, which... I mean, so far I haven't found another meaning, but a dishwashing bowl "mitt der Fontaine" made of 13 kg of silver seems a bit excessive :'D Maybe a washing bowl for personal hygiene? In any case, that's a lot of silver. I believe that the "Ehût" could be a wrong spelling of "eût", uh... not sure if that makes much sense, but at this point I don't have another idea for that word... Could be an abbreviation of something?

Bill #2:



Vohr seiner Exellentz den H.
Generall Liet: Von Katte
4 dutz teller und 16 Schüsseln
Polliert Vor alles das genau est 14 Rhl
Vor die Wapen zu stechen
laut Rechnung - - - 22 Rhl
Vor die Beutel bezahlt – 10 Rhl 16 gl
Vor den Kasten - - - 7 Rhl
Berl den 25 April Summa – 53 RTL 16 gl
1726
Joh Christ Lieberkühn
Diese Rechnung ist mirr
zum dancke bezahlt
Berl. Den 27 juni Joh Christ Lierberkühn
1726

"Wapen"/Wappen took me *way* too long. I transcribed this one first and only saw the p on the other one later. I spent a lot of time googling whether there was a figure of speech that I didn't know about "Waren"/"Wagen"/"Vasen" stechen. There is not. Anyway, Hans Heinrich got fancy dishes engraved with his coat of arms!

My next transcript is more boring and not as interesting handwriting wise (it's very easy to read). So far someone appears to have bought 4223 oysters, a lot of fish, some cheese, and over 100 lemons. I can't say who wrote this (yet) since the paper is neither dated nor signed. Watermark wise it appears to be from after 1740. If it was from anywhere else, the Taler/Groschen rate could possibly help date it to before/after 1750, but since it's Prussian that doesn't tell me shit :/ I'll see if I can get more handwriting samples, maybe something fits.

Re: Hans Heinrich buying stuff i.e. Katte Transcripts Part I

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, this is awesome, thanks so much! <333 I'm so in awe of your ability to figure out these squiggles. Do you mind if I put this in Rheinsberg? We have so much Katte material there and this will make a lovely addition!

Is there a difference between "Rhl" and "RTL"? RTL makes sense as Reichsthaler to me, but is Rhl the same thing?

Semi-related, I was reading more Kloosterhuis yesterday (actually, I was working on my Peter Keith essay, woot) and saw that in the inventory of Peter's rooms after he deserted, there's this entry:

eine Stiefeletten-Haden [!]

I know "Stiefel" is boot, obviously, but can someone help me out with what Kloosterhuis is so surprised at here?

What the Danish Envoy said

[selenak]

I have the book about Danish/Prussian relations, I'll read it, but in Mildred's interest, I checked out the passage about Lovenorn in 1730 first, and it's short enough to translate immediately.

Background: relations are tense because FW suspects the Danes of conspiring with the Brits to put a British pawn on the Swedish throne.

The discovery of the escape plans of the Prussian Crown Prince in the beginning of August 1730, behind which King Friedrich Wilhelm suspected English scheming, heightened those tensions even more. The arrest of young Friedrich, his imprisonment in the fortress Küstrin and the death penalty for Lieutenant Katte were observed with great attention in Denmark. Crown Prince Friedrich had indeed confided his escape plans to the Danish envoy Lovenorn, but hadn't found agreement from the later. Lovenorn had done everything to dissuade the Prince from his intent hand had tried to influence Katte to the same purpose. His efforts remained unsuccessful. When the King learned of Lovenorn's entanglement in his son's plans, he felt betrayed by the envoy. The Prussian cabinent secretary von Borck had to write a letter to Lovenorn at (FW's) command in which it was said: "I had believed him (Lovenorn) to be my good friend, but not anymore since Katte and Fritz, c'est le Prince, have testified that he'd known what they had planed, and that the later had confided it to him at Prince Galitzin's party. If he as my friend had told me about it, this unfortunate affair would not have happened."'

(Source Footnote: The letter itself from the archive. Galitzin was Prince Sergey Dimitr. Galitzin, Russian envoy in Berlin 1729/1730.)

While Lovenorn could successfully convince the King of his innocence in later conversations, but due to the unpleasant situation at the Prussian court he was glad, when an order from Christian VI., who had ascended to the Danish throne in October 1730, commanded him back to Copenhagen.

Source Footnote: Letter dated September 10th, 1730.)

Legation secretary von Johnn was chosen as his successor, who was lower in rank than Lovenorn.

Footnote to this: "Rekreviditiv" - I have no idea how to translate this - by Lovenorn from December 26th, 1730. In his report from November 5th, 1730, Lovenorn describes that when the death sentence was read to him, Katte had lost all "contenance" and burst into tears.

End of footnote. And of text about the escape attempt, the next passage is about fishing disputes. There is nothng about the pamphlet, Lovenorn or Johnn as possible sources, or Lovenorn having had a good relationship with Fritz before. I'll read the entire book, which includes Fritz' own reign, so there might be more, but this is the passage Mildred was most interested in. As you can see, while the Katte description is only in a footnote, it is sourced directly to Lovenorn's report from the archives.

Re: What the Danish Envoy said

[mildred_of_midgard]

Wonderful, thank you! It is really good to have primary sources on both the envoy report and on the Wikipedia claim that Lovenorn knew about the plans and didn't tell FW.

"I had believed him (Lovenorn) to be my good friend, but not anymore

Yeah, I got to the part in Kloosterhuis where FW likes Katte, too. FW, maybe people would be your friends more if you would stop being horrible to your son!

Crown Prince Friedrich had indeed confided his escape plans to the Danish envoy Lovenorn, but hadn't found agreement from the later. Lovenorn had done everything to dissuade the Prince from his intent hand had tried to influence Katte to the same purpose.

I don't blame these people, for obvious reasons, but the longer the list of people who tried to talk Fritz into staying gets, the more I feel sorry for him. And I understand why the plan was so hard to keep secret; he had a hell of a time finding anyone who would support him in it.

Footnote to this: "Rekreviditiv" - I have no idea how to translate this

Looks like that's a typo for "Rekreditiv", which Duden tells me is "written confirmation of receipt of a diplomatic letter of recall by the head of state," which makes perfect sense in context.

I'm still confused about the chronology of the recall:
October 12: Frederik IV dies.
?: Lovenorn is recalled.
Nov 5, 1730: Lovenorn is writing envoy reports on Katte's execution.
Nov 6, 1730: Lovenorn is appointed Danish chief war secretary as his post-ambassador career.
December 26: Written confirmation of receipt of a diplomatic letter of recall by the head of state.

??

While Lovenorn could successfully convince the King of his innocence in later conversations, but due to the unpleasant situation at the Prussian court he was glad, when an order from Christian VI., who had ascended to the Danish throne in October 1730, commanded him back to Copenhagen.

Source Footnote: Letter dated September 10th, 1730.)

I'm also confused about this chronology: which part of that is September 10? Just the part where he convinced FW of his innocence in later conversations? Not the part where he was glad to get recalled in later months, surely!

Fritz, c'est le Prince,

Wait, I just processed this, because I'm so used to us calling him Fritz. But of course, the person who called him Fritz the most was FW. FW said Fritz, and Borck added "c'est le Prince"? Wow.

Anyway, this is awesome, and I'm delighted that you acquired the book and have reported back.

Two Katte-related questions

[cahn]

1. What would be the appropriate way to address/think of Preacher Müller (in particular, if one were Katte)? As a twenty-first-century American who occasionally attends a Lutheran church, my impulse is to call him "Pastor Müller," (which is how I'd generally address a Lutheran in that role, even if Pastor wasn't possibly his exact title), but maybe that's an incorrect impulse?

2. So, let's say that hypothetically one might be interested in the point of Katte's punctae where he talks about a conversation he and Fritz had in Brandenburg. Is this Brandenburg the town? When would it have been possible for Fritz and Katte to have been there?

Re: Two Katte-related questions

[selenak]

1. "Pastor Müller", when thinking of him, "Herr Pastor" when addressing him.

2., yes, Brandenburg the town, and the rest, over to Mildred of chronology fame.

Prussian/Danish Relations according to Stephan Hartmann: The FW Era (and some spoilers for Fritz)

[selenak]

who turns out to be a gigantic Fritz fan of the type more likely to write books before WWII, not a Nazi in disguise, I hasten to add, just veerrrrry biased in his favor. See, Fritz took Silesia only because it belonged to Prussia by right. All the other wars weren't just to defend his legal aquisition by invasion, it was because MT from the get go wanted to make him a Margrave again and destroy the Kingdom of Prussia. The strategic genius was just defending himself preemptively! (Source: Fritz' Histoire de Mon Temps and Fritz' Seven Years War History and Droysen.) But Hartmann's true masterpiece comes when he has to talk about Poland. See, Danish PM Bernstorff, about whom more in a moment, predicts Fritz would want to divide the country in 1768 already. However, says Hartmann: Bernstorff's judgment on the Prussian policy towards Poland did not reflect reality. From 1772 onwards, Berlin didn't promote the plan of a partioning of Poland, just of separating some Polish territories and adding them to the Hohenzollern state, with the sole intent of not letting Russian influence in the Commonwealth get too powerful.

I'm still staring at that sentence, refusing to believe it was published in 1983.

Aaaannyway. As you may gather, I did read the book, though I admit I skipped a lot early on because as opposed to Mildred, my interest in the Great Northern War is limited. Suffice to say the impression I got was: Denmark hates on Sweden, but after an early rebuff drops out of the war for nine years until the tide has turned against Charles XII for good, and then it drops back in to get a share of the goodies. Prussia and Denmark keep an uneasy eye on each other, due to partially conflicting interests, though they are nominally allies. Oh, and Denmark falls out with Russia once Russia becomes top dog and they realise getting rid of Charles might have created another monster in the neigborhood, but also because the Danish Queen refuses to meet the Tsarina (aka Peter the Great's wife Catherine the later I., due to her origins as Baltic peasant and possible serf) when Peter and Catherine are touring Europe (again). Peter does not forget this.

Of interest to salon of the later eras: FW really did like Lovenorn, and no wonder, though I needed to look him up at German wiki to fully understand why. Lovenorn had an excellent military career, though mostly with the Russians, serving first Peter the Great's buddy Menshikov and then rising. He was present and distinguished himself at the battle of Poltava (aka where Peter kicked Charles' butt) and while eventually returning to Denmark ended his military career as Generalmajor due to gout. Like Manteuffel, he was in Berlin twice, with interruptions. FW had liked him and made him member of the Tobacco Colleague, but Lovenorn was less of a fan and in fact was happy to leave Berlin for the first time because of not liking those Tobacco Parliament sessions. (I should add here that the reason why none of the Danes at the Prussian court was into the Tabacgie wasn't the one we'd assume, it was pure snobbery - FW had born commoners like Gundling there was well as noble men!) They sent him back because he was supposed to be good at FW handling, though.

Also: in the almost duel crisis between FW and G2, Denmark was approached by both Prussia and GB as to whether it would be an ally in the event of a Prussia/Hannover (GB) war, and basically took a DO NOT WANT attitude, which was one reason why Lovenorn had to go back and mollify FW, who took this refusal to join in his potential beating of his brother-in-law rather personal.

Since the Danes are ultra Protestants, they might find FW incredibly frustrating in terms of his changeable foreign policy in general, but they're always very impressed when he does things like offer shelter to the Salzburg Protestants when their Prince Bishop kicks them out. Danish public opinion (if not Danish policy) actually favors Fritz early in in the 7 Years War because it buys wholesale into his propaganda of being the champion of Protestantism against a French/Austrian Catholic takeover of the world. (Completely ignoring that Protestant Sweden and Orthodox Russia are fighting on the France & Austria side. Even Hartman has to admit Fritz was just using propaganda and wars didn't need religious reasons anymore in the 18th century anymore.)

But back to the FW era, where mollifying FW meant laying it on really thick as well, as when the Great Chancellor Holstein told Lovenorn to tell FW that the Danish King "loved the King in Prussia so well that if he learns the later is sick, he cannot wait for the next postal day to arrive so he can learn that Friedirch Wilhelm has recovered".

However, post Katte execution and replacement of Lovenorn by Johnn, FW kept feeling insulted, in this case by Lohnn only being a Legationssekretär, of lower rank than Lovenorn had been, and thus replaced his own envoy in Denmark, Biedersee, as well, calling him back at the end of May 1731 and replacing him with a Legationssekretär, Iwatzhoff, and fuming furtherly in a letter from June 2nd 1731 that Denmark had sent "to nearly all courts people of distinction and merit", except for Berlin, where they sent "only a bad man" - "einen schlechten Menschen" - "with the character of a Resident." Maybe FW suspected who'd been the source of that Katte pamphlet?

(Legationssekretär Iwatzoff protested against this assignment to Copenhagen as well, btw, his chief argument being that it was hideously expensive to live there and be at court, while FW was paying a lousy salary. FW wrote back Iwatzoff could do his job without good wardrobe and an equipage.)

Lastly (about this era, not the book), naturally Denmark and Prussia had a dispute about FW's most favourite thing, recruiting tall men. On December 31st, 1735, Prussian Captain von Vintzelberg leaves with two subalterns and ten soldiers from Emden in order to receive a nice tall soldier named Memme Siefken whom one Count Frydag has made a present of to FW. He's supposed to be escorted to Minden. But en route back, the Prussians stop at Wiefelstede near Oldenburg because the weather is terrible. What happened next is completely differently reported by the Prussians and the Danes respectively. According to Captain von Vintzelberg, about a hundred farmers armed to the teeth at around 9 pm stormed in and attacked the Prussian soldiers who were helpless because due to the terrible weather, they had taken their shoes and socks off to dry them at the fireplace. He personally when courageously throwing himself at the peasants was beaten up and robbed, and then the hundred farmers made off with his property and the tall recruit. FW, getting this report, was fuming and demanded either Memme Siefken or an equally tall and capable soldier in compensation. Also an apology.

Denmark to FW: That's totally not what happened! Firstly, this guy Memme Siefken was born in the county of Oldenburg, so he's a citizen of Denmark. (cahn, Oldenburg is in Germany today, but back then it was in Denmark. Check out Mildred's explanations about Schleswig and Holstein.) Secondly, we all know about Prussian "recruiters" and their methods of "recruiting", FW, and so do the good citizens of Oldenburg. which is why several of them, hearing one of theirs had been "recruited", which they took to mean "kidnapped", decided to help the poor guy. When they arrived at the Wiefelstadt Inn, one of the farmers asked the "recruit": "Memme, is that you? If you are supposed to serve the King in Prussia, you might as well serve the King of Denmark". And when Memme Siefkin said he'd totally prefer that, the next two Prussian soldiers drew their swords, so naturally our poor peasants had to defend themselves! As for your Captain: no one robbed him. Lastly, guess what: Memme Siefkin isn't on Danish territory anymore. He escaped to Holland and wants to stay there. So: you're not getting any tall guys from us!"

FW: Grrr. Argh. You're so lucky I'm not into wars of agression!

Re: Prussian/Danish Relations according to Stephan Hartmann: The FW Era (and some spoilers for Frit

[mildred_of_midgard]

(Source: Fritz' Histoire de Mon Temps and Fritz' Seven Years War History and Droysen.)

*spittake*

*checks publication date*

1983

Lol, reading further, I see you beat me to it. Well, then, this is (one reason) why you're my book-reading canary before I spend money!

(I should add here that the reason why none of the Danes at the Prussian court was into the Tabacgie wasn't the one we'd assume, it was pure snobbery - FW had born commoners like Gundling there was well as noble men!)

*facepalm* You guys! Okay, good to know, in case he shows up in fic.

However, post Katte execution and replacement of Lovenorn by Johnn, FW kept feeling insulted, in this case by Lohnn only being a Legationssekretär, of lower rank than Lovenorn had been, and thus replaced his own envoy in Denmark, Biedersee, as well, calling him back at the end of May 1731 and replacing him with a Legationssekretär, Iwatzhoff

Ahh, this is cool, thanks!

Maybe FW suspected who'd been the source of that Katte pamphlet?

Maybe!

Lastly (about this era, not the book), naturally Denmark and Prussia had a dispute about FW's most favourite thing, recruiting tall men.

More than once, since my Google searches show Lovenorn and von Johnn writing letters of protest to FW in October 1730 and December 1730 respectively! With actual record numbers from the archives. (Unlike the Katte report. Why doesn't Hartmann realize we need archive numbers and preferably a transcription of the entire report? Fishing disputes. I ask you!)

Lastly, guess what: Memme Siefkin isn't on Danish territory anymore. He escaped to Holland and wants to stay there. So: you're not getting any tall guys from us!"

FW: Grrr. Argh. You're so lucky I'm not into wars of agression!

LOLOL. Sometimes I think the reason FW wasn't into wars of aggression was that he'd then end up in a war with EVERYONE, even beyond the Seven Years' War, over his recruiting methods.

Anyway, the book seems to contain useful info, at the cost of "Written in what year?" Thanks for checking this out for us!

Prussian/Danish Relations according to Stephan Hartmann: The Fritz Era

[selenak]

As mentioned, our author is a fan. It therefore very much grieves him that Fritz developed a low opinion of Denmark during his reign, which leads to Fritz snarking in that excellent work of history, Histoire de mon temps: "Under Frederick IV., Denmark had taken the Duchy Schleswig from the House of Holstein; under Christian VI., one wanted to conquer the Kingdom of Heaven. (...) If the imagination of a Prince is delighted by the heavenly Jerusalem, he despises the shit of this world. All moments devoted to the execution of state business, he regards as wasted."

Hartmann thinks this is unfair and mostly due to Fritz developing an intense dislike to Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff, de facto Danish PM for much of Fritz' reign, including the 7 Years War, and a firm believer in diplomacy over war and in Denmark staying neutral instead of supporting Fritz. Bernstorff is the only person whom Hartmann fanboys as much as he fanboys Fritz, and he very much regrets Fritz wasn't able to see that Bernstorff was his only equal as a statesman in Europe at the time, the only other genius in a top position.

Bernstorff, who was in fact German, from Mecklenburg, (and didn't learn Danish in 20 years of ruling Denmark), also wasn't fan of Fritz, but he didn't let it get personal, nor did he try to use the kind of negative propaganda tactics Fritz used early on to attempt to get rid of Bernstorff. (About whom early on his envoy in Denmark had given him a report to the effect Bernstorff was a lightweight and all vanity, and Hartmann admists that he thinks the envoy was just writing what Fritz wanted to hear.) Now, one problem Denmark had was from the moment HolsteinPete became (P)RussianPete, i.e. was appointed by Elizaveta as her successor, there was the possibility that a member of the House of Holstein with the backup of Russian might would try to take back Schleswig once his aunt was dead. Said problem only grew because Peter, growing up, made no secret he intended to do just this. Since he also made no secret of his Fritz fanboying, the Danes did try to win Fritz around as a mediator, which wasn't made easier by the fact both Denmark and Prussia wanted Ostfriesland (and Prussia put its troops there once th elast native Prince was dead). And then there was the Bentinck Affair.

Renember Countess Bentinck, she of Mission: Seduce Heinrich!fame, young Sophie's horse riding heroine, she who first shocked and then befriended Lehndorff, and palled around with Voltaire? The reason why she'd come to Prussia in the first place hadn't been to seduce Heinrich, it was to win Fritz as an ally because she was engaged in a serious territory involving argument with her ex husband. How did this involve the Danes? Well, to quote the wiki summary (the one in the book is way more complicated and longer): . Since she herself exercised the government over Varel and Kniphausen, she delayed the payment of the apanage due to the divorced Count Bentinck and also led the interest rates due for the capital of 337,000 gulden to the other Dutch creditors. Bentinck asked the Danish King Christian V., who had guaranteed the marriage contract between the now-enemy spouses to mediate. With the consent of the Emperor, Christian V took over the chairmanship of an inquiry commission to determine the debts of the Grievite Aldenburg House. This found that Charlotte Sophie had incurred debts of more than 60,000 talers in seven to eight years, three times as much as she was allowed to spend due to her income. In order to be able to satisfy the demands of the creditors at least partially partially, the Commission put the Aldenburg estates, as far as the Danish Government had access to them, finally under forced management.

Charlotte Sophie could first retain Kniphausen, which wasn't under Danish control. After William Bentinck had called the Danish king to help, she also used the friendship to Albrecht Wolfgang to be able to process with his support as a German Reichsfürstin in front of the Reichshofrat. Albrecht Wolfgang's sudden death on September 24, 1748 was therefore a heavy blow. His son Wilhelm succeeded and began to renovate the almost bankrupt country. Charlotte Sophie was then forced to leave the court in Bückeburg and to look for a new protector.

Fritz was her choice. Now, the entire affair dragged on for years, and the Danish envoy's report offers a tiny glimpse at another Fritz boyfriend, for, in August 1752:

The Danish envoy Thienen reported depressedly to Copenhagen that 'he didn't take his eyes of the Bentinck matter, but the Countess Bentinck had found many good friends in his absence here, and with her, even persuasion would not accomplish anything. In such circumstances, he would have to resort to trying the channel Fredersdorf. He asked for direction of how far he could go, as he guesses he won't get taken seriously below 1000 pistols.

After explaining that bribery wasn't unusual in that century (you think?), Hartmann continues: The sources, however, are silent as to whether the Danish court listened to Thielen's advice. Moreover, not only Fredersdorf seems to have been the target of bribery attempts. On September 1752, Thienen reports that "he had sounded out a friend of Fredersdorf's, who had said that the Countess in question was handing out very good pensions to cabinet members, which meant that it would be very expensive to outbid her".

In the end, in August 1754 Countess Bentinck, having received no further aid from Fritz and strong signals that she should accept the compromise the two French envoys had negotiated, she did accept it (this included her two sons getting all her German estates and her getting a yearly allowance). But there is no more Fredersdorf mention, not even, as Hartman says, whether or not Thienen spoke to him directly or just to a "friend of Fredersdorf's", and whether or not the Danish court sprang the money for the bribe.

When Peter becomes Czar, the Danes spent six very uncomfortable months, but they don't twiddle their thumbs; Bernstorff manages to get an army led aby a French General in place, but before there is a battle, Catherine overthrows Peter, and there is much Danish rejoicing. The basic problem didn't completely go away, since her son Paul inherited Peter's claim to the Duchies of Holstein and Schleswig, but Paul is a kid for now, and Catherine isn't interested in starting a war with Denmark. Which doesn't mean she's going to leave her son's heritage to the Danes who generously offer to rule Holstein for Paul while he's a kid, btw. Catherine appoints none other than Uncle Georg Ludwig (aka the former niece molestor, but also a born HOlstein-Gottorf) as Regent of Holstein, but also appoints Caspar von Saldern to do the the actual governing instead of Uncle Bad Touch, evidently not trusting his abilities. The Danes withdraw their commissioners from Holstein and are content that they won't get attacked by a Russian army.

I already told you the way Hartmann interprets the Prussian part of the Partitioning of Poland. Now, remember Lehndorff had a "Messalina!!!" candidate other than EC2, to wit, Caroline Mathilde, sister to G3, Danish Queen, also heroine of the movie "A Royal Affair"? Well, Hartmann's presentation of the story of Struensee is similarly... interesting. Struensee, as a reminder, is a German physician and Enlightenment believer who befriends mentally and emotionally unstable Danish King Christian VII and his Queen, probably has a love affair with the Queen, in any case ousts not just Hartmann's fave genius Bernstorff from government but completely overhauls said government, becoming essentially Danish PM himself and subjects the country to the most radical reforms this side of FW in 1713 Prussia, only without the military fetish and the Protestantism. He then learns that freeing the press also means you can get bashed by fake news left right and center, becomes hated as a sinister German atheist in pious Denmark, and is the victim of a palace coup in which he and Caroline Mathilda get arrested by army officers in the pay of King Christian's stepmother Juliana Maria. This is retrospectively justified when Juliana Maria makes the King sign the warrent. The people and the rest of the world are told that Struensee intended to declare Christian insane and himself Regent with the help of the evil adulterous Queen (this is how Lehndorff heard the story), with his stepmother and noble friends saving the King in the nick of time. Struensee gets executed after a show trial, Caroline Mathilda gets exiled to Hannover because no one wants to risk war with the Brits and G3 is her brother.

Now, how is this story told by Hartmann? As Struensee for entirely selfish reasons scheming his way to power and toppling masterful politician Bernstorff, and then thankfully getting his just deserts at the hands of Fritz fan Juliana. Why is Juliana a Fritz fan? Because Juliana is Juliana of Braunschweig-Wolffensbüttel, (much younger) sister to EC and Louise (Juliana was born in 1729). Fritz hasn't been keen on either Bernstorff or Struenseen, but he's not going to waste the opportunity of another fan on the throne of a neigboring country. He's writing Juliana about 300 letters for the rest of her life, treating her better than any other family member (with the arguable exception of Louise in the post AW years) and certainly way better than his wife. Juliana remains a fan. Since her son also becomes Regent for his half brother King Christian, who of course is declared insane practically as soon as Struensee is dead and Caroline Mathilda banished, this means Juliana is the power behind the throne for the next years... until Caroline Mathilda's son has grown up and really really Really is not a fan of step grandmother, retiring her to a palace in the provinces.

Now, what truly gets me is the presentation of Struensee as a selfish schemer taking over Denmark purely to enrich himself. As a reminder, these are the reforms, completely unmentioned by Hartmann and all revoked by Juliana, for which Struensee is responsible:

abolition of torture
abolition of unfree labor (corvée)
abolition of the censorship of the press
abolition of the practice of preferring nobles for state offices
abolition of noble privileges
abolition of "undeserved" revenues for nobles
abolition of the etiquette rules at the Royal Court
abolition of the Royal Court's aristocracy
abolition of state funding of unproductive manufacturers
abolition of several holidays
introduction of a tax on gambling and luxury horses to fund nursing of foundlings
ban of slave trade in the Danish colonies
rewarding only actual achievements with feudal titles and decorations
criminalization and punishment of bribery
re-organization of the judicial institutions to minimize corruption
introduction of state-owned grain storages to balance out the grain price
assignment of farmland to peasants
re-organization and reduction of the army
university reforms
reform of the state-owned medical institutions

Yep, sounds like a selfish schemer, alright. If I hadn't already been amused at the presentation of the Fritz/MT feud and stunned at the presentation of the Prussian part in the Polish Partioning, this alone retrospectively would have made me question everything else Hartmann wrote before. In conclusion: no, Mildred, you don't have to buy the book. But we do know a bit more than we did before.

ETA: One nice thing Juliana did: she took in the surviving siblings of locked up Czar Ivan IV. who were after all her nieces and nephews when Catherine finally released them from the end of the world. But she did have Catherine pay for their upkeep.

Re: Prussian/Danish Relations according to Stephan Hartmann: The Fritz Era

[mildred_of_midgard]

leads to Fritz snarking in that excellent work of history, Histoire de mon temps:

Lol!

he very much regrets Fritz wasn't able to see that Bernstorff was his only equal as a statesman in Europe at the time, the only other genius in a top position.

*blink*

I guess 300 years of historians have missed this too! Certainly salon has.

Bernstorff, who was in fact German, from Mecklenburg, (and didn't learn Danish in 20 years of ruling Denmark)

Fritz: This is not an obstacle to ruling a country.

After explaining that bribery wasn't unusual in that century (you think?)

Arneth: See!

Why is Juliana a Fritz fan? Because Juliana is Juliana of Braunschweig-Wolffensbüttel, (much younger) sister to EC and Louise (Juliana was born in 1729).

And that makes her a fan? :P

treating her better than any other family member (with the arguable exception of Louise in the post AW years) and certainly way better than his wife. Juliana remains a fan.

I see, I see. :P

More seriously, I hadn't realized there was this connection, so this is useful!

In conclusion: no, Mildred, you don't have to buy the book. But we do know a bit more than we did before.

This is the conclusion I had come to, yes. But thank you for telling us what we didn't already know!

 One nice thing Juliana did: she took in the surviving siblings of locked up Czar Ivan IV. who were after all her nieces and nephews when Catherine finally released them from the end of the world. But she did have Catherine pay for their upkeep.

Oh, that was her! So many connections...

Female Jacobites

[luzula]

My current project: reading about female Jacobites. This is pure fic research, to better be able to write a female character during the '45.

I first read Ladies in Rebellion by Katherine Fusick, a master's thesis on the subject. The first chapter is on women as agents and correspondents, focusing on Anne and Fanny (Frances) Oglethorpe, who according to Wikipedia are sisters of the Oglethorpe you guys know. Their parents were both highly placed in James II's court; the father died in 1702 but their mother lived on and was a favorite of Mary of Modena, though she stayed in England to keep control of the family estates. Their father was Anglican and their mother Catholic; they compromised by sending their four daughters to the Jacobite court to be educated as Catholic and their sons were educated as Anglican. (And your Oglethorpe was not a Jacobite, it seems, since he fought for the Hanoverian side in the '45!)

One of the sisters, Eleanor, made a French marriage, and that's where the sisters stayed when they were in France, after Mary of Modena died. All of them eventually married well except Anne, who remained unmarried; she stayed for long periods of time in England on the family estate which was on the southern coast and also an active smuggling hub. She was close to the earl of Oxford and possibly his lover. Anne and Fanny were both very active as Jacobite agents: they carried correspondence, wrote reports, evaluated potential recruits, approached and recruited people, mediated in conflicts between Jacobites, etc. They could easily travel between England and France on the excuse of visiting family. The fourth sister, Molly, was not as active an agent. Apparently Anne and Fanny were highly trusted agents.

Fanny approached the earl of Ilay (the future Duke of Argyll) for possible recruitment, and he apparently showed interest. In 1717, which obviously surprised me, since the Campbells fought on the Hanoverian side in the '15! But apparently King George saw Argyll’s growing influence over his son and had both brothers removed from all offices held under the crown in 1716. So their fall from favor obviously made them targets of recruitment, especially as Ilay apparently had the reputation of being ideologically flexible and out for his own gain. But he didn't stay recruited, obviously.

Chapter 2 of the thesis is about women and Jacobite material culture, which among other things provided the following amusing essay in the October 1748 issue of the Gentleman's Magazine on the subject of women's garters. It is The Most 18th century, in that it contains military metaphors for het sex and also Latin and Greek quotes. Here's the relevant bit: After having so lavishly spoken in praise of the garter, I cannot but disapprove of it, when it is made the distinguishing badge of a party. It ought to be like the caestus of Venus, so beautifully described in my motto, and not to be daubed with plaid, and crammed with treason. I am credibly informed, that garters of this sort were first introduced in the late rebellion, by some female aide de camps, and whether or not such ladies are to be imitated, is worth the serious consideration of the virtous part of the fair sex.

How dare women dress to express their political opinions, instead of to entice me!

Chapter 3 of the thesis was about women in the actual rising of '45, not much new for me here. Arrgh, I really wish Margaret Ogilvy had left behind a diary! Woe. I did finally find an electronic version of Beppy Byrom's diary about Manchester in the '45! It has a lot of reports on troop movements and what the Jacobites were doing when in town—she is definitely interested in military matters—but then there's also stuff about her "smoothing" (ironing) clothes and having dinner with family friends. Then we also get the head-patting footnotes of the 19th century editor ("How delightful is the fair diarist's unsophisticated enthusiasm!")

Finally, I give you The Female Rebels, an anonymous 1747 pamphlet arguing against the Jacobites, on the basis that so many women embraced their cause. I quote at length from this, because it is HILARIOUS. The bits about lots of women fighting on the battlefield are exaggerations, afaik.

It is remarkable of the Fair Sex, that whatever Opinions they embrace, they assert them with greater Constancy and Violence, than the Generality of Mankind: They seldom observe any Medium in their Passions, or set any reasonable Bounds to those Actions which result from them. As they adopt Principles without Reasoning, so they are actuated by them, to all the mad Lengths which their Whim, Caprice, or Revenge can dictate to them: They have, generally speaking, weak Heads and warm Hearts; and therefore we see that this Part of the Species are the first Prosylites to the most absurd Doctrines, and in all Changes of State or Religion, the Ladies are sure to lead the Van.

It is to this Foible of the Sex, we may ascribe the Number of Female Jacobites, which discover themselves in this Kingdom; and I cannot think it an unreasonable Conclusion, that the Cause must needs be bad, at least weak, when we find it under so much Petticoat Patronage: For I apprehend it can be no insult upon the profound Parts of the British Ladies, to suppose that they are very bad Judges in political Matters. It can be no Affront to feminine Judgment to alledge, that the Arcana of Government, the several Windings, Springs, and Wheels of the political Machine, are many Degrees removed from their Sphere of Knowledge; and therefore, when we see them with Violence and Vehemence espouse any Side of a political Theorem, it is a Chance of at least ten to one, that they are in the wrong. That they are so at present, is as evident as that they are fair; yet this is a Truth which our female Plato's will not believe; they think it impossible they should be in an Error, and it were as easy to reconcile some of them to think with Patience of Old Age, Impotence, and the Small-Pox, as to alter one Jott of their political System.

Had they confined themselves to mere Speculations, and restrained their Scene of Action to their Drawing Rom and Toylet, tho' they might do some Mischief even there, yet the Misfortune might be esteemed tolerable: But when they leave the Exercise of the Closet, and sally out upon us in the Field; when they bridle that mischievous Member of theirs, the Tongue, and attack, beside the killing Fire of their Eyes, with Sword and Pistol; it is Time for the Male Part of the Creation to look about them, since a Change of Government might bring along with it more than a simple Change of Constitution. We are not sure, but it is a Plot of that crafty Sex, to deprive Mankind of their Dominion over the Ladies: It may be a traiterous Conspiracy of our leige Subjects, the Women, against their sovereign Lord Man.

How else can we account for that Number of Petticoats, that have appeared encased in Armour under the Banner of the Chevalier Charles? Women, (I had almost said Men) who, regardless of Danger, and forgetting the natural Softness of their Sex, appeared openly without Head-Pieces, amidst all the Horror and Confusion of undistinguishing Bullets, and uncomplaisant Swords and Bayonets; who instead of soft Down, and warm Chambers, took up with the coarse Equipage of a Camp, and all the Inclemencies of Frosts and Snow, without any other Canopy than the starry Firmament! Must it not be some Motive stronger than Regard to the Rights of the abdicated House of Stewart, that could work this Miracle, to prevail on Women to forget the natural Timidity of their Sex, their Love of Ease, the Danger of their Lives; nay, what is more to Women, the Danger of their Beauty? For sure the Prick of a Bayonet, or the grazing of a Bullet, would deform the Symetry of their Features, more than the most malignant Small-Pox. Yet all this they suffered, all this they risked. Could it be upon any meaner Motive, than to recover the long contested Empire of the Males, and to fix us for ever in their Chains, in Spite of our Beards and boasted Wisdom!

In spite of your beard, sir!

Re: Female Jacobites

[mildred_of_midgard]

This was interesting information, thank you!

This is pure fic research, to better be able to write a female character during the '45.

She will arrive in a stolen time machine from her twenty-third century university! She will convince BPC that if his generals aren't giving him what he wants (stupid generals wanting to turn back at Derby) that having Joan of Arc as a figurehead worked great for Charles VII of France and she is right here! And since the alternative is turning back, he will take her up on this! And--Oh, you said research your female character during the '45. Carry on, then. And well done. :'D

It has a lot of reports on troop movements and what the Jacobites were doing when in town—she is definitely interested in military matters

Good for her!

The bits about lots of women fighting on the battlefield are exaggerations, afaik.

Me: Didn't Jenny Cameron at least--

Wikipedia: As "Jenny Cameron", she became well-known after a number of sensationalised accounts of her life and deeds during the rising were published. The majority were almost entirely fictional and some were intended as anti-Stuart propaganda.

Me: Well, damn. So what did she do?

Wikipedia: Jean Cameron was reported to have been present at Glenfinnan on 19 August when Charles raised his standard; in line with her duties as proxy tacksman, she may have accompanied some of the Cameron levies from Morvern along with her cousin, Alexander Cameron of Dungallon. She may also have subsequently attended the Jacobite court in Edinburgh, but took little further part in the rebellion: a relative later suggested that despite sending some cattle to the Jacobite army she never actually met Charles himself.

Me: Never met Charles! This is not what I learned.

Wikipedia: Despite Cameron's limited involvement, a number of "cruel and apocryphal" accounts were circulated in England portraying Cameron either as an active military leader, an "amazon" marching at the head of her men, or as a "lewd woman" who became Charles's mistress. These were standard tropes of misogynistic satire of the period: the former credited her with military prowess (including being largely responsible for the victory at Prestonpans), unusual courage, physical strength, and often depicted her wearing male clothing. The latter, notably a prurient 1746 "memoir" written by an "Alexander Arbuthnot", described her as having a voracious sexual appetite and claimed she had borne several illegitimate children.

While untrue, such stories were intended to delegitimise the Jacobite cause by identifying it as the party of chaos and by suggesting its male leaders were cowards, morally bankrupt or otherwise inadequate.

Me: Well, of this, the only thing I learned was that she led her clan's troops to Glenfinnan, the rest, no, absolutely not, but now I'm disappointed that she wasn't actually leading the troops even for a short time and as a noncombatant!

(See, this is why I refuse to get sucked back in: I have way better sources now and I know that I could spend years covering the same ground I covered back then, and I don't want to cover the same ground. Same reason you guys haven't seen me doing a deep dive on the tactics of Fritzian battles: Even if I've forgotten the details, I already did that and need to learn new things, like the tactics of Malplaquet.)

in Spite of our Beards and boasted Wisdom!

In spite of your beard, sir!

ROFL! Masculine insecurity is spelled B-E-A-R-D, clearly. :P