Back when selenak read Dennison's First Iron Lady, she found it to be very factually solid, with only one ?? that made her wonder if maybe Dennison was right after all.
The questionable point was whether the double marriage project was meant to marry Fritz to older daughter Anne or younger daughter Amelia/Emily. All of our sources, including contemporary primary sources from parties who should know, pointed to Amelia, so we concluded that Anne was a case of mistaken identification.
However! Detective Mildred reporting in with newly uncovered facts.
From my reading in the last week, I've come across Anne's name twice in this connection. Between those two sources, I might know what's going on.
One is Jeremy Black's dissertation, British Diplomacy 1727-1731. Now, he is not some random music or art history student, like some of our dissertation writers, but a reputable historian and professor who's published something like 100 books, most of them having to do with 18th century British foreign policy (yes, there is a lot of overlap in his 100 books). And he writes:
Noises were made in Berlin about the projected marriages between George's eldest son Frederick, now Prince of Wales, and Frederick William's eldest daughter Wilhelmina, and between the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick and the British Princess Royal, Anne.
He doesn't give me an exact citation for this claim, but he has 4 footnotes to other sentences on this page, and those 4 footnotes look like this:
1. Despite Waldegrave's-appointment, the Austrians did not name an envoy for Britain, St. Saphorin to Tarouca, draft, Aug. 1727. PRO. 80/61; O'Rourke reported that the Austrians wanted a reconciliation with Britain, O'Rourke to Graham, 1 Oct. 1727, Vienna, England, Varia, 8; Fonseca pressed Waldegrave to go to Vienna, 24 Sept. 1727, Waldegrave Journal, Chewton.
2 Charles Du Bourgay, British Envoy Extraordinary in Berlin, to Townshend, 28 June, 12 July 1727, PRO. 90/22. The Saxon envoy in Berlin, Sühm, reported that Prussia wanted a reconciliation with Britain and France, Suhm to Augustus II, 21 July 1727, Dresden, 3378, Vol. IV, f. 127.
3 Wallenrodt was suspected of being anti-British, Horatio Walpole to Tilson, 26 July 1727, BL. Add. 48982, f. 62,64.
4 Townshend to Du Bourgay, 14 July (OS) 1727, PRO. 90/22; Suhm to Augustus II, 22 Aug. 1727, Dresden, 3378, IV f. 171-2; Le Coq to Augustus II, 23 Sept. 1727, Dredsen, 2676, Vol. 18a. f. 242-3.
In other words, 9 unpublished envoy reports and letters from foreign ministers in various archives. On the one hand, that means I can't cross-check him; on the other, it means he might know what he's talking about.
I checked Dennison, and Black is indeed in his bibliography (something like half a dozen of his books, including the one on foreign policy from 1714-1727, which, yes, I am currently reading).
So I'm betting Dennison got this from Black.
But what about all those reliable contemporary sources that say Amelia? Brendan Simms, author of Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714-1783, has an explanation.
First, note that all those citations in Black's footnotes are from 1727. Simms, who relies very heavily on several of Black's books (though disagrees with him politically), duly reports that Anne was the object of the marriage negotiations in 1727, but when Hotham was sent in 1730,
Hotham was instructed to push for the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Wilhelmina, by now a very old chestnut, and that of Crown Prince Frederick to George’s daughter, this time Amelia.
Emphasis mine. All of the sources we've turned up are talking about the 1730 negotiation (or even later), the more famous and memorable one whose failure led directly to the escape attempt.
So I think our mystery is solved, and Dennison's reputation redeemed, if we assume Black is getting reliable info from the archives, and that the marriage plans changed between 1727 and 1730.
The Simms book, btw, might be useful to you, luzula, if you care about Britain's relationships with other European countries and how they affected domestic politics, including Jacobitism, during the 18th century. The book is popular rather than scholarly, which on the one hand pays off in terms of readability, but on the other, means it relies entirely too much on secondary rather than primary sources, and furthermore, too much on British sources. I've caught Simms in some mistakes, and I really don't agree with his interpretation of everything, but it's 800 pages chock-full of useful information that also manages not to be a chore to read. (More readable than Black, for one thing.) And sometimes, that's what you need.
Besides, I haven't caught Simms in as many mistakes as, for example, Massie, and considering I know way, way more about the subject matter here, that probably means he's not the most unreliable popular author ever!
Anyway, recommended for you with mild caveats. selenak, you're probably better off with the drier and more reliable texts; cahn, not enough anecdotes to be of interest to you. ;) This is just politics.
Congrats on solving this mystery, Detective Mildred! Dennison seemed so solid otherwise that this one big slip-up really was befuddling.
For a moment, I wondered whether the change from Anne to Amelia was because she‘d suffered from small pox in between and had been left with very noticable facial scars, but a) looking up the date, Anne had small pox in 1720 already - Caroline joined Lady Mary‘s campaign and.had her younger children inocculated two years later -, and b) Wilhelmine had contracted small pox in the late 1720s, and surely if FW had said he wanted a younger princess for his oldest because of the small pox scarring, G2 would have retaliated by wanting a younger princess as well? (Especially since he actually wasn‘t in a hurry to get Fritz of Wales married and procreating, due to his hate-on for his oldest and dreaming of Cumberland as successor.)
Considering Anne famously said about her 1734 husband, yet another William of Orange, that she‘d marry him even if he looked like a babboon, because she really really REALLY wanted to get married (and he was the last Protestant prince available), I doubt she was thrilled to get dropped from the Prussian marriage project. I wonder whose idea the switch of princesses was?
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.)
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.
:(
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.)
No clues yet who switched the princesses, but I did find Black quoting FW on the William of Orange + Anne of Hanover marriage yesterday in my reading:
In January 1733, the ministry was able to intercept and decipher an instruction from Frederick William I to his envoy in London to thwart the intended marriage of William IV of Orange and Anne, the Princess Royal. Frederick William was in bitter dispute with William IV over the Orange inheritance, and also wished to keep marital choices in Protestant princely society focused on his family. To that end, Frederick William sought to play on animosities which were clearly no secret:
the jealousy which Robert Walpole has conceived against Lord Chesterfield may be improved by you, if you dextrously insinuate to the former what an overmatch of credit the effecting of that proposed marriage would give to the said Chesterfield with the King and Queen.
Frederick William I to Degenfeld, 17 Jan. (ns) 1733, NA, SP 107/8.
Robert Walpole is unofficial prime minister of Great Britain.
Chesterfield is:
* Semi-famous man of letters, author of Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman to his illegitimate son.
* Husband of Melusine Petronella, illegitimate daughter of George I and Katte's aunt Melusine.
* Such a gambler that he was afraid to admit to his mother-in-law Melusine how much he'd lost on one occasion and pretended he hadn't played at all. She later made sure he couldn't touch any of the money she left to Melusine Petronella in her will.
* Ancestor of the fictional narrator of Zeithain.
* British envoy to the Netherlands. His staff gave Peter Keith asylum in 1730 and smuggled him to England, although Chesterfield apparently wasn't present on the occasion.
* Author of this quip in a letter in 1730: The King of Prussia in the oath he prepared for the Prince to swallow, among many other things, has made him swear that he will never believe in the doctrine of Predestination! A very unnecessary declaration in my mind for any body who has misfortune of being acquainted with him to make, since he himself is a living proof of free-will, for Providence can never be supposed to have pre-ordained such a creature!
In 1733, he returned from the Netherlands to Britain and started intriguing against Walpole. So that's the animosity FW is trying to play on there.
As for FW vs. the House of Orange, I've been dipping into the (excruciatingly detailed, 1200 page) The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806 in the last couple weeks, and the Dutch and the Prussians have been at loggerheads for decades. The Great Elector, F1's father, married a princess of Orange, and the Hohenzollerns had been claiming the Orange inheritance ever since it came up for dispute. The Dutch have been nervous around Prussia because Prussia has territory on their border (remember that this is why Peter is so easily able to escape over the border from Wesel) and are always claiming more.
So by 1733, the House of Orange, the Netherlands, and Prussia are all looking somewhat askance at each other.
And speaking of intrigues, 1733 is when Fritz marries EC, and also when the Brits, due to shifting alliances in Europe, suddenly they decide they might want to go through with Fritz-Amelia after all, while Fritz is on the verge of getting married. FW explodes in fury about how perfidious Albion is trying to make him break his word!! and the Fritz-EC marriage goes through as planned.
Hohenzollern & House of Orange: reminder that this is why Oranienburg is called Oranienburg. ("Oranien" being German for what English speakers call "Orange".) The Great Elector built it for his wife, mother of F1. And another reminder, the Hohenzollerns and their claim is why Fritz and FW have "Prince of Orange" - "Prinz von Oranien" - among their titles, as can be seen for example in Fredersdorf's Zernikow transfer document. And why the traditional first abroad trip for a Hohenzollern Prince to take was to visit the Netherlands. Now, this was about as practical a claim as the English Kings calling themselves "King of France" until G3, but otoh the Hohenzollern had way more military power next door, so I'm not surprised the Dutch were sideeyeing them nervously. This was yet another reason why I'm prepared to believe Morgenstern FW had hoped to be adopted by William (III) of Orange and remained disgruntled it didn't happen.
Gossipy addendum: Chesterfield: also had a famous literary feud with Dr. Johnson who snarked about him a couple of times in quotable fashion. ("This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!" And: When [Chesterfield's] letters to his natural son were published, [Johnson] observed, that "they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master."
While Robert Walpole was the Whig who had the correct instinct to bet on Caroline while the other Whig politicians tried to get future G2's favor via courting his mistress. He's also heavily involved in the "South Sea Bubble", the big financial scandal of G1's regime, but managed to not suffer any of the consequences. His youngest son, named after his brother, was Horace Walpole the writer...or was he? Because Sir Robert and his wife famously did not get along, he married his long term mistress (and friend of Lady Mary) as soon as the wife was dead, there is a big, big gap between the birth of Horace Jr and the previous kid, and Horace Jr. in his younger years looked a lot like none other than Lord Hervey, giving fodder to the rumor he was the biological kid of Hervey's older brother (who did have an affair with his mother). Horace Jr. hated both Hervey and Lady Mary and is the guy after meeting her when she's 51 in Italy freaks out about her still dancing, sweating, and so the gossip he shares with his correspondent, still menunstruating (so the innkeeper has to change the sheets). And when she returned to England to die years later he made a quip that sanitary conditions would demand her to be forbidden to enter the country. Seriously, anything Horace Jr. writes about Lady Mary is a freakout about the aging female body combined with traditional misogyny, which her biographer only partly explains by her being great friends with his stepmother whom Horace Jr. hated. (Wheraes his beef with Lord Hervey was that Hervey after a life time a political ally of Robert Walpole refused to leave office when Robert Walpole did, instead of clinging to his cabinet post, which only resulted in G2 having to dismiss him a few months later.)
When [Chesterfield's] letters to his natural son were published, [Johnson] observed, that "they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master."
Which reminds me, once again I am amused by an un[?]intentional segue in Wikipedia:
As a handbook for worldly success in the 18th century, the Letters to His Son give perceptive and nuanced advice for how a gentleman should interpret the social codes that are manners:
... However frivolous a company may be, still, while you are among them, do not show them, by your inattention, that you think them so; but rather take their tone, and conform in some degree to their weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them. There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. If, therefore, you would rather please than offend, rather be well than ill spoken of, rather be loved than hated; remember to have that constant attention about you which flatters every man's little vanity; and the want of which, by mortifying his pride, never fails to excite his resentment, or at least his ill will....
Samuel Johnson said of the letters that "they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing-master" as means for getting on in the world as a gentleman.
What amuses me is the Wiki article speaking approvingly of the advice as "perceptive and nuanced," then giving an example of the advice telling you to lower yourself to other people's level, then quoting "morals of a whore." Which makes it read to me like it's saying some Wiki editor arguably has the morals of a whore. :P
Indeed. Reading Isabel Grundy's biography of Mary Wortley-Montagu was quite instructive about that specific 18th century brand of misogyny. (My review of the biography is herey.) (18th century not because the 19th century was less misogynist but because female bodies weren't talked of in the same way at all, certainly not with discussing their bodily fluids.)
"This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!"
Heeee, this is great!
He's also heavily involved in the "South Sea Bubble", the big financial scandal of G1's regime, but managed to not suffer any of the consequences.
I have actually heard of the South Sea Bubble, probably just because I have read enough pop math articles about financial bubbles, but I didn't have any historical context so it was just like, "oh, this was another historical bubble." So I appreciate the context :)
Okay, how is Walpole "unofficial prime minister"? Wikipedia seems to imply that they just didn't have the title yet?
A very unnecessary declaration in my mind for any body who has misfortune of being acquainted with him to make, since he himself is a living proof of free-will, for Providence can never be supposed to have pre-ordained such a creature!
Okay, that is excellent :D
1733 is when Fritz marries EC, and also when the Brits, due to shifting alliances in Europe, suddenly they decide they might want to go through with Fritz-Amelia after all, while Fritz is on the verge of getting married.
Waaait, I mean, I'm sure you guys have told me this before but I did not realize it was RIGHT THEN. omg!
Yeah, as far as the history of prime ministers go, all I can do is copy-paste you Wikipedia:
There is no specific date for when the office of prime minister first appeared, as the role was not created but rather evolved over a period of time through a merger of duties. However, the term was regularly, if informally, used of Walpole by the 1730s. It was used in the House of Commons as early as 1805, and it was certainly in parliamentary use by the 1880s. In 1905, the post of prime minister was officially given recognition in the order of precedence. Modern historians generally consider Sir Robert Walpole, who led the government of Great Britain for over twenty years from 1721, as the first prime minister. Walpole is also the longest-serving British prime minister by this definition. However, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was the first and Margaret Thatcher the longest-serving prime minister officially referred to as such in the order of precedence. The first to use the title in an official act was Benjamin Disraeli, who signed the Treaty of Berlin as "Prime Minister of her Britannic Majesty" in 1878.
As you can see, most of that is way out of my period.
Reading further in Black's dissertation gives us the answer to this one too:
In autumn 1728...George II told Caroline to inform Sophia Dorothea that he wanted not only the marriage of Frederick and Wilhemina, but also that of the Prussian Crown Prince, Frederick, and a British Princess, though not the Princess Royal, who was intended for William IV of Orange.
"Princess Royal" being Anne's title. So we have:
1727: Fritz/Anne 1728: Fritz/anyone but Anne 1730: Fritz/Amelia
I had been wondering if maybe Anne was out of the picture in 1730 because she was already getting engaged to William IV, but thought that that was a bit long even for a royal engagement, given that it ended up being successful and didn't have *that* much at stake (unlike, say, MT and FS).
But there we go, in 1728, Anne/William of Orange was already a thing.
Black also tells me two interesting things to supplement our knowledge of these marriage negotiations:
1. The Dutch were very pro-Fritz/daughter of G2, because they were not happy about the prospect of Anne/William IV, "a scheme that was to embitter Anglo-Dutch relations in 1729." (Which presumably helps explain why it took 6 years to get them married.) I'm assuming this is because of what I talked about in my other comment, namely that the princes of Orange were not currently stadtholders of the Netherlands and it was not a hereditary position, although the Orangists very much wanted it to be, and a marriage to a British princess would greatly strengthen William's hand in that contest. So I can see why the Regents would be unhappy with Anne/William of Orange.
2. Chesterfield was so optimistic about the double marriage project that he volunteered to be sent to Prussia to negotiate the marriages! (Note that at this time, Chesterfield had just been made ambassador to The Hague, and he really, really, really didn't want this position, to the point where he kept delaying his departure from England in hopes of getting a domestic post, so I'm not surprised to see him scheming to get out shortly after arrival (May 1728).)
But the 1728 double marriages foundered because: FW cares way more about Jülich-Berg and demands British-Hanoverian support; Hanover doesn't want the Prussians gaining more territory, especially not in the vicinity of Hanover; the British are allied to the French, so they don't want to be accused of pursuing an independent German policy that will make enemies of the French; the French are trying to support the Bavarian Wittelsbachs as challengers to the Habsburgs (this will become important a few years later, in the War of the Austrian Succession); one of the Wittelsbach lines is FW's rival for Jülich-Berg. So there's a ripple effect from Bavaria to France to Britain to Prussia, which results in FW refusing the double marriage project.
And this kind of thing is why I'm currently studying 1715-1731 foreign policy: I have a fix-it fic in my head that's set in 1730-1731 and has the potential to be highly political. I want to figure out how different players, both individuals and principalities, would react to the Prussian Crown Prince seeking asylum in France and making noises about coming to England (and how I can get the outcome I want, which is Fritz and company living happily ever after). And I figure there will be a lot of ripple effects like this.
Good lord, the image of Chesterfield & FW in the same room. Now re: the bit of advice you quote in the other comment, this would actually be a good guide line with FW, who certainly hated more than anything else anything he saw as other people treating him with contempt, but for the life of me I can't imagine any English Envoy, no matter how diplomatic, avoiding FW feeling insulted in this particular era, since they'd be presenting G2.
Good lord, the image of Chesterfield & FW in the same room.
Right? Hence my exclamation mark!
Now re: the bit of advice you quote in the other comment, this would actually be a good guide line with FW
True, true. If you hate smoking, just suck on your pipe and pretend to smoke! Even the Old Dessauer did it.
Incidentally, speaking of the Tobacco Parliament, Black's take on Gundling is that he was a serious scholar who's been wronged by historians seeing him just as a court fool, but that alcoholism undermined his accomplishments. No mention of FW abuse, none.
I can't imagine any English Envoy, no matter how diplomatic, avoiding FW feeling insulted in this particular era, since they'd be presenting G2.
Yeah, I'm trying to think if there were English (or Hanoverian) envoys FW was on good terms with. He blew hot and cold toward Whitworth, as I recall, but that was G1, of course. G2...nothing's coming to mind.
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Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
The questionable point was whether the double marriage project was meant to marry Fritz to older daughter Anne or younger daughter Amelia/Emily. All of our sources, including contemporary primary sources from parties who should know, pointed to Amelia, so we concluded that Anne was a case of mistaken identification.
However! Detective Mildred reporting in with newly uncovered facts.
From my reading in the last week, I've come across Anne's name twice in this connection. Between those two sources, I might know what's going on.
One is Jeremy Black's dissertation, British Diplomacy 1727-1731. Now, he is not some random music or art history student, like some of our dissertation writers, but a reputable historian and professor who's published something like 100 books, most of them having to do with 18th century British foreign policy (yes, there is a lot of overlap in his 100 books). And he writes:
Noises were made in Berlin about the projected marriages between George's eldest son Frederick, now Prince of Wales, and Frederick William's eldest daughter Wilhelmina, and between the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick and the British Princess Royal, Anne.
He doesn't give me an exact citation for this claim, but he has 4 footnotes to other sentences on this page, and those 4 footnotes look like this:
1. Despite Waldegrave's-appointment, the Austrians did not name an envoy for Britain, St. Saphorin to Tarouca, draft, Aug. 1727. PRO. 80/61; O'Rourke reported that the Austrians wanted a reconciliation with Britain, O'Rourke to Graham, 1 Oct. 1727, Vienna, England, Varia, 8; Fonseca pressed Waldegrave to go to Vienna, 24 Sept. 1727, Waldegrave Journal, Chewton.
2 Charles Du Bourgay, British Envoy Extraordinary in Berlin, to Townshend, 28 June, 12 July 1727, PRO. 90/22. The Saxon envoy in Berlin, Sühm, reported that Prussia wanted a reconciliation with Britain and France, Suhm to Augustus II, 21 July 1727, Dresden, 3378, Vol. IV, f. 127.
3 Wallenrodt was suspected of being anti-British, Horatio Walpole to Tilson, 26 July 1727, BL. Add. 48982, f. 62,64.
4 Townshend to Du Bourgay, 14 July (OS) 1727, PRO. 90/22; Suhm to Augustus II, 22 Aug. 1727, Dresden, 3378, IV f. 171-2; Le Coq to Augustus II, 23 Sept. 1727, Dredsen, 2676, Vol. 18a. f. 242-3.
In other words, 9 unpublished envoy reports and letters from foreign ministers in various archives. On the one hand, that means I can't cross-check him; on the other, it means he might know what he's talking about.
I checked Dennison, and Black is indeed in his bibliography (something like half a dozen of his books, including the one on foreign policy from 1714-1727, which, yes, I am currently reading).
So I'm betting Dennison got this from Black.
But what about all those reliable contemporary sources that say Amelia? Brendan Simms, author of Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714-1783, has an explanation.
First, note that all those citations in Black's footnotes are from 1727. Simms, who relies very heavily on several of Black's books (though disagrees with him politically), duly reports that Anne was the object of the marriage negotiations in 1727, but when Hotham was sent in 1730,
Hotham was instructed to push for the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Wilhelmina, by now a very old chestnut, and that of Crown Prince Frederick to George’s daughter, this time Amelia.
Emphasis mine. All of the sources we've turned up are talking about the 1730 negotiation (or even later), the more famous and memorable one whose failure led directly to the escape attempt.
So I think our mystery is solved, and Dennison's reputation redeemed, if we assume Black is getting reliable info from the archives, and that the marriage plans changed between 1727 and 1730.
The Simms book, btw, might be useful to you,
Besides, I haven't caught Simms in as many mistakes as, for example, Massie, and considering I know way, way more about the subject matter here, that probably means he's not the most unreliable popular author ever!
Anyway, recommended for you with mild caveats.
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
For a moment, I wondered whether the change from Anne to Amelia was because she‘d suffered from small pox in between and had been left with very noticable facial scars, but a) looking up the date, Anne had small pox in 1720 already - Caroline joined Lady Mary‘s campaign and.had her younger children inocculated two years later -, and b) Wilhelmine had contracted small pox in the late 1720s, and surely if FW had said he wanted a younger princess for his oldest because of the small pox scarring, G2 would have retaliated by wanting a younger princess as well? (Especially since he actually wasn‘t in a hurry to get Fritz of Wales married and procreating, due to his hate-on for his oldest and dreaming of Cumberland as successor.)
Considering Anne famously said about her 1734 husband, yet another William of Orange, that she‘d marry him even if he looked like a babboon, because she really really REALLY wanted to get married (and he was the last Protestant prince available), I doubt she was thrilled to get dropped from the Prussian marriage project. I wonder whose idea the switch of princesses was?
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.)
Re: Princesses of Orange
:(
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.)
I want to know! [oh, and I guess you now do :D ]
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
In January 1733, the ministry was able to intercept and decipher an instruction from Frederick William I to his envoy in London to thwart the intended marriage of William IV of Orange and Anne, the Princess Royal. Frederick William was in bitter dispute with William IV over the Orange inheritance, and also wished to keep marital choices in Protestant princely society focused on his family. To that end, Frederick William sought to play on animosities which were clearly no secret:
the jealousy which Robert Walpole has conceived against Lord Chesterfield may be improved by you, if you dextrously insinuate to the former what an overmatch of credit the effecting of that proposed marriage would give to the said Chesterfield with the King and Queen.
Frederick William I to Degenfeld, 17 Jan. (ns) 1733, NA, SP 107/8.
Who's who for
Robert Walpole is unofficial prime minister of Great Britain.
Chesterfield is:
* Semi-famous man of letters, author of Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman to his illegitimate son.
* Husband of Melusine Petronella, illegitimate daughter of George I and Katte's aunt Melusine.
* Such a gambler that he was afraid to admit to his mother-in-law Melusine how much he'd lost on one occasion and pretended he hadn't played at all. She later made sure he couldn't touch any of the money she left to Melusine Petronella in her will.
* Ancestor of the fictional narrator of Zeithain.
* British envoy to the Netherlands. His staff gave Peter Keith asylum in 1730 and smuggled him to England, although Chesterfield apparently wasn't present on the occasion.
* Author of this quip in a letter in 1730: The King of Prussia in the oath he prepared for the Prince to swallow, among many other things, has made him swear that he will never believe in the doctrine of Predestination! A very unnecessary declaration in my mind for any body who has misfortune of being acquainted with him to make, since he himself is a living proof of free-will, for Providence can never be supposed to have pre-ordained such a creature!
In 1733, he returned from the Netherlands to Britain and started intriguing against Walpole. So that's the animosity FW is trying to play on there.
As for FW vs. the House of Orange, I've been dipping into the (excruciatingly detailed, 1200 page) The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806 in the last couple weeks, and the Dutch and the Prussians have been at loggerheads for decades. The Great Elector, F1's father, married a princess of Orange, and the Hohenzollerns had been claiming the Orange inheritance ever since it came up for dispute. The Dutch have been nervous around Prussia because Prussia has territory on their border (remember that this is why Peter is so easily able to escape over the border from Wesel) and are always claiming more.
So by 1733, the House of Orange, the Netherlands, and Prussia are all looking somewhat askance at each other.
And speaking of intrigues, 1733 is when Fritz marries EC, and also when the Brits, due to shifting alliances in Europe, suddenly they decide they might want to go through with Fritz-Amelia after all, while Fritz is on the verge of getting married. FW explodes in fury about how perfidious Albion is trying to make him break his word!! and the Fritz-EC marriage goes through as planned.
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
Gossipy addendum: Chesterfield: also had a famous literary feud with Dr. Johnson who snarked about him a couple of times in quotable fashion. ("This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!" And: When [Chesterfield's] letters to his natural son were published, [Johnson] observed, that "they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master."
While Robert Walpole was the Whig who had the correct instinct to bet on Caroline while the other Whig politicians tried to get future G2's favor via courting his mistress. He's also heavily involved in the "South Sea Bubble", the big financial scandal of G1's regime, but managed to not suffer any of the consequences. His youngest son, named after his brother, was Horace Walpole the writer...or was he? Because Sir Robert and his wife famously did not get along, he married his long term mistress (and friend of Lady Mary) as soon as the wife was dead, there is a big, big gap between the birth of Horace Jr and the previous kid, and Horace Jr. in his younger years looked a lot like none other than Lord Hervey, giving fodder to the rumor he was the biological kid of Hervey's older brother (who did have an affair with his mother). Horace Jr. hated both Hervey and Lady Mary and is the guy after meeting her when she's 51 in Italy freaks out about her still dancing, sweating, and so the gossip he shares with his correspondent, still menunstruating (so the innkeeper has to change the sheets). And when she returned to England to die years later he made a quip that sanitary conditions would demand her to be forbidden to enter the country. Seriously, anything Horace Jr. writes about Lady Mary is a freakout about the aging female body combined with traditional misogyny, which her biographer only partly explains by her being great friends with his stepmother whom Horace Jr. hated. (Wheraes his beef with Lord Hervey was that Hervey after a life time a political ally of Robert Walpole refused to leave office when Robert Walpole did, instead of clinging to his cabinet post, which only resulted in G2 having to dismiss him a few months later.)
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
Which reminds me, once again I am amused by an un[?]intentional segue in Wikipedia:
As a handbook for worldly success in the 18th century, the Letters to His Son give perceptive and nuanced advice for how a gentleman should interpret the social codes that are manners:
... However frivolous a company may be, still, while you are among them, do not show them, by your inattention, that you think them so; but rather take their tone, and conform in some degree to their weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them. There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. If, therefore, you would rather please than offend, rather be well than ill spoken of, rather be loved than hated; remember to have that constant attention about you which flatters every man's little vanity; and the want of which, by mortifying his pride, never fails to excite his resentment, or at least his ill will....
Samuel Johnson said of the letters that "they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing-master" as means for getting on in the world as a gentleman.
What amuses me is the Wiki article speaking approvingly of the advice as "perceptive and nuanced," then giving an example of the advice telling you to lower yourself to other people's level, then quoting "morals of a whore." Which makes it read to me like it's saying some Wiki editor arguably has the morals of a whore. :P
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
How dare women still have a physical body when they age?
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
Heeee, this is great!
He's also heavily involved in the "South Sea Bubble", the big financial scandal of G1's regime, but managed to not suffer any of the consequences.
I have actually heard of the South Sea Bubble, probably just because I have read enough pop math articles about financial bubbles, but I didn't have any historical context so it was just like, "oh, this was another historical bubble." So I appreciate the context :)
But Horace Jr., omg >:(
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
A very unnecessary declaration in my mind for any body who has misfortune of being acquainted with him to make, since he himself is a living proof of free-will, for Providence can never be supposed to have pre-ordained such a creature!
Okay, that is excellent :D
1733 is when Fritz marries EC, and also when the Brits, due to shifting alliances in Europe, suddenly they decide they might want to go through with Fritz-Amelia after all, while Fritz is on the verge of getting married.
Waaait, I mean, I'm sure you guys have told me this before but I did not realize it was RIGHT THEN. omg!
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
There is no specific date for when the office of prime minister first appeared, as the role was not created but rather evolved over a period of time through a merger of duties. However, the term was regularly, if informally, used of Walpole by the 1730s. It was used in the House of Commons as early as 1805, and it was certainly in parliamentary use by the 1880s. In 1905, the post of prime minister was officially given recognition in the order of precedence. Modern historians generally consider Sir Robert Walpole, who led the government of Great Britain for over twenty years from 1721, as the first prime minister. Walpole is also the longest-serving British prime minister by this definition. However, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was the first and Margaret Thatcher the longest-serving prime minister officially referred to as such in the order of precedence. The first to use the title in an official act was Benjamin Disraeli, who signed the Treaty of Berlin as "Prime Minister of her Britannic Majesty" in 1878.
As you can see, most of that is way out of my period.
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
Reading further in Black's dissertation gives us the answer to this one too:
In autumn 1728...George II told Caroline to inform Sophia Dorothea that he wanted not only the marriage of Frederick and Wilhemina, but also that of the Prussian Crown Prince, Frederick, and a British Princess, though not the Princess Royal, who was intended for William IV of Orange.
"Princess Royal" being Anne's title. So we have:
1727: Fritz/Anne
1728: Fritz/anyone but Anne
1730: Fritz/Amelia
I had been wondering if maybe Anne was out of the picture in 1730 because she was already getting engaged to William IV, but thought that that was a bit long even for a royal engagement, given that it ended up being successful and didn't have *that* much at stake (unlike, say, MT and FS).
But there we go, in 1728, Anne/William of Orange was already a thing.
Black also tells me two interesting things to supplement our knowledge of these marriage negotiations:
1. The Dutch were very pro-Fritz/daughter of G2, because they were not happy about the prospect of Anne/William IV, "a scheme that was to embitter Anglo-Dutch relations in 1729." (Which presumably helps explain why it took 6 years to get them married.) I'm assuming this is because of what I talked about in my other comment, namely that the princes of Orange were not currently stadtholders of the Netherlands and it was not a hereditary position, although the Orangists very much wanted it to be, and a marriage to a British princess would greatly strengthen William's hand in that contest. So I can see why the Regents would be unhappy with Anne/William of Orange.
2. Chesterfield was so optimistic about the double marriage project that he volunteered to be sent to Prussia to negotiate the marriages! (Note that at this time, Chesterfield had just been made ambassador to The Hague, and he really, really, really didn't want this position, to the point where he kept delaying his departure from England in hopes of getting a domestic post, so I'm not surprised to see him scheming to get out shortly after arrival (May 1728).)
But the 1728 double marriages foundered because: FW cares way more about Jülich-Berg and demands British-Hanoverian support; Hanover doesn't want the Prussians gaining more territory, especially not in the vicinity of Hanover; the British are allied to the French, so they don't want to be accused of pursuing an independent German policy that will make enemies of the French; the French are trying to support the Bavarian Wittelsbachs as challengers to the Habsburgs (this will become important a few years later, in the War of the Austrian Succession); one of the Wittelsbach lines is FW's rival for Jülich-Berg. So there's a ripple effect from Bavaria to France to Britain to Prussia, which results in FW refusing the double marriage project.
And this kind of thing is why I'm currently studying 1715-1731 foreign policy: I have a fix-it fic in my head that's set in 1730-1731 and has the potential to be highly political. I want to figure out how different players, both individuals and principalities, would react to the Prussian Crown Prince seeking asylum in France and making noises about coming to England (and how I can get the outcome I want, which is Fritz and company living happily ever after). And I figure there will be a lot of ripple effects like this.
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
Right? Hence my exclamation mark!
Now re: the bit of advice you quote in the other comment, this would actually be a good guide line with FW
True, true. If you hate smoking, just suck on your pipe and pretend to smoke! Even the Old Dessauer did it.
Incidentally, speaking of the Tobacco Parliament, Black's take on Gundling is that he was a serious scholar who's been wronged by historians seeing him just as a court fool, but that alcoholism undermined his accomplishments. No mention of FW abuse, none.
I can't imagine any English Envoy, no matter how diplomatic, avoiding FW feeling insulted in this particular era, since they'd be presenting G2.
Yeah, I'm trying to think if there were English (or Hanoverian) envoys FW was on good terms with. He blew hot and cold toward Whitworth, as I recall, but that was G1, of course. G2...nothing's coming to mind.
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
Re: Double marriage: Anne vs. Amelia
[personal profile] cahn, not enough anecdotes to be of interest to you. ;) This is just politics.
Noted! It's like you know me or something :D