18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

[cahn]

In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

Comments

Re: Pompadour gossip

[cahn]

Oh! Having read about Henry VIII as an impressionable child with poor access to modern historical takes, I only knew the "Henry didn't think she was pretty enough" take. Which isn't particularly flattering towards Henry, I suppose (although young!me also did not realize that Anne wasn't particularly not pretty, so I guess Henry won that round, although I had always felt rather pleased that she, well, got away) but this:

Only Anne of Cleves, as a foreigner, unlike everyone else really did not recognize the King, so when a middle-aged fat guy showed up unceremoniously bursting into her room and trying to kiss her, she made no secret of her disgust and pushed him back. And suddenly Henry was confronted with something which had not happened to him, ever: getting an honest reaction of how a woman not knowing who he was would respond to him.

is fantastic. LOLOLOLOL oh Henry SERVES YOU RIGHT!

(Also I think the Voltaire icon for this is great, I can just imagine what he would have had to say about it)