Dennison seemed so solid otherwise that this one big slip-up really was befuddling.
You were right to want to trust him, it seems!
Considering Anne famously said about her 1734 husband, yet another William of Orange
For cahn, just to show the connections: Anne and William IV's son, William V, marries yet another Wilhelmine, the daughter of AW and Luise. Wilhelmine got along with Uncle Fritz, who was always like, "Allowing women power is *terrible*, except when they're related to me and can steer their country in the direction I want (hi, Juliana), so make sure you stay politically influential, niece! Don't let your husband run the Netherlands!"
Presumably to his pleasure, Wilhelmine was in fact very ambitious and politically influential while her husband was nominally in power.
because she really really REALLY wanted to get married (and he was the last Protestant prince available)
Worth also noting for cahn that when Anne of Hanover married her William of Orange, he was Prince of Orange but not Stadtholder of the Netherlands. During their Republic days, starting with the revolt from Philip II and the Duke of Alva, the Netherlands/Dutch Republic veered back and forth between whether they wanted to be run by a committee or a prince of Orange. There were two parties that took turns getting control. (Basically, every time the economic or military situation got bad enough, every few decades, enough people would decide that the current powers that be were to blame, and the opposite party would achieve dominance, and you'd either gain or lose a prince of Orange as stadtholder.)
So between 1702 and 1747, there was no Stadtholder of the Netherlands, and it was ruled by a committee called the Regents. (Whitworth would complain that negotiating with a committee was next to impossible, since 1) you couldn't get them to agree on anything, 2) nothing could be kept secret.)
Why 1702 and 1747? Well, William III (this is William of William-and-Mary of England) died in 1702, and he had spent enough time waging war on Louis XIV and had just gotten the country into yet *another* anti-Louis war (the War of the Spanish Succession), that a majority of influential people decided it was time to take a break from the house of Orange lest they turn themselves into hereditary tyrants.
But then the War of the Austrian Succession happened, and the French were overrunning the Netherlands, and the Dutch economy had tanked after the War of the Spanish Succession, so eventually everyone got fed up and there were riots by the Orangist party in 1747. This brought William IV, Anne's husband, to power, and the stadtholderate officially made hereditary.
The son of William IV and Anne of Hanover, was William V, future husband of Fritz's niece, and he was born in 1748.
William IV died in 1751.
Anne of Hanover got to be regent for her son William V from 1751 until her own death in 1759.
In 1767, Wilhelmine of Prussia married William V. Note that she was 16, her brother Karl Emil had died as an infant in the 1750s, her 19-yo brother Henricus Minor had just died of smallpox in May 1767 (this is the favorite nephew Fritz was devastated over and also wrote a terrible condolence letter about to Ulrike), and of course her brother FW2 had long since been taken away from Mom and was being raised by Fritz's minions as the heir to the throne. So when 16-yo Wilhelmine left home to get married in late 1767, she was the last kid left to grieving mom Luise, and so if I'm remembering correctly, Luise was devastated by the separation.
Then the Patriot Revolution, in part inspired by the American Revolution, starts in the 1780s, with the Patriot democrats trying to get rid of the hereditary Orange stadtholderate. Fritz obviously wanted to keep his niece in power, and gave support, but for balance-of-power-in-Europe reasons was not inclined to go to war over it.
Then, shortly after his death, Wilhelmine gets captured/arrested by the Patriots. Brother FW2, who has no problem going to war over this, marches to his sister's rescue with an army and puts her and her husband back in power...at least until the French Revolution.
I doubt she was thrilled to get dropped from the Prussian marriage project. I wonder whose idea the switch of princesses was?
No idea, but I bet if we stick around long enough, we'll find out! :D (I am always pleased by the number of mysteries that eventually get solved in salon.)
Princesses of Orange
You were right to want to trust him, it seems!
Considering Anne famously said about her 1734 husband, yet another William of Orange
For
Presumably to his pleasure, Wilhelmine was in fact very ambitious and politically influential while her husband was nominally in power.
because she really really REALLY wanted to get married (and he was the last Protestant prince available)
Worth also noting for
So between 1702 and 1747, there was no Stadtholder of the Netherlands, and it was ruled by a committee called the Regents. (Whitworth would complain that negotiating with a committee was next to impossible, since 1) you couldn't get them to agree on anything, 2) nothing could be kept secret.)
Why 1702 and 1747? Well, William III (this is William of William-and-Mary of England) died in 1702, and he had spent enough time waging war on Louis XIV and had just gotten the country into yet *another* anti-Louis war (the War of the Spanish Succession), that a majority of influential people decided it was time to take a break from the house of Orange lest they turn themselves into hereditary tyrants.
But then the War of the Austrian Succession happened, and the French were overrunning the Netherlands, and the Dutch economy had tanked after the War of the Spanish Succession, so eventually everyone got fed up and there were riots by the Orangist party in 1747. This brought William IV, Anne's husband, to power, and the stadtholderate officially made hereditary.
The son of William IV and Anne of Hanover, was William V, future husband of Fritz's niece, and he was born in 1748.
William IV died in 1751.
Anne of Hanover got to be regent for her son William V from 1751 until her own death in 1759.
In 1767, Wilhelmine of Prussia married William V. Note that she was 16, her brother Karl Emil had died as an infant in the 1750s, her 19-yo brother Henricus Minor had just died of smallpox in May 1767 (this is the favorite nephew Fritz was devastated over and also wrote a terrible condolence letter about to Ulrike), and of course her brother FW2 had long since been taken away from Mom and was being raised by Fritz's minions as the heir to the throne. So when 16-yo Wilhelmine left home to get married in late 1767, she was the last kid left to grieving mom Luise, and so if I'm remembering correctly, Luise was devastated by the separation.
Then the Patriot Revolution, in part inspired by the American Revolution, starts in the 1780s, with the Patriot democrats trying to get rid of the hereditary Orange stadtholderate. Fritz obviously wanted to keep his niece in power, and gave support, but for balance-of-power-in-Europe reasons was not inclined to go to war over it.
Then, shortly after his death, Wilhelmine gets captured/arrested by the Patriots. Brother FW2, who has no problem going to war over this, marches to his sister's rescue with an army and puts her and her husband back in power...at least until the French Revolution.
I doubt she was thrilled to get dropped from the Prussian marriage project. I wonder whose idea the switch of princesses was?
No idea, but I bet if we stick around long enough, we'll find out! :D (I am always pleased by the number of mysteries that eventually get solved in salon.)