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

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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?

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From:

luzula

so ugly were his mistresses

See, this is the sort of thing I don't like in history books. It's one thing to say "at the time, Charles joked about his mistresses being ugly", but the mistresses didn't deserve getting judged by the author... (Incidentally, I was just checking something on Wikipedia, and saw that they credit the "mistresses as penance" remark to someone called Gilbert Burnet and not Charles).

Anyway, thanks for the details! Yes, I read a bit about Mary Beatrice in one of the Szechi books I previously reported on, which describes her as being a canny politician after James II died, in her efforts to get French support for James III.

Yeah, I agree about James II coming back probably being...not that great for Britain. James III might've been better, I think, because he had to make all sorts of concessions to get support and the balance of power would have shifted in favour of Parliament.

From:

selenak

Re: Judgmentalism in history books - I hear you. Historians taking Henry VIII. at his word for Anne of Cleves' lack of physical attractiveness as mentioned above is another case in point.

Incidentally, I was just checking something on Wikipedia, and saw that they credit the "mistresses as penance" remark to someone called Gilbert Burnet and not Charles

Wouldn't surprise me. By now, we've often encountered the phenomenon where a snappy one liner gets attributed to the most famous person around around and sticks with them regardless of whether or not they or someone else have said it - Mildred's favourite supposed Fritz quote ("She cried but she took..." about MT and Poland) being a case in point, which actually came from a minor nobleman and wasn't attributed to Frederick the Great until the later 19th century, but once it was, it got quoted as a saying of his by virtually all biographers forever more.

(Incidentally, now that you mention it, Jude Morgan uses the quote in his novel about Charles and Monmouth as well but does NOT attribute it to Charles himself, so evidently he's on wiki's side in this.)

Meanwhile, how would the Old Pretender's chances to become James III have been in the following scenario: William III. goes through with the idea he contemplated for a short while according to one of our Prussian sources, namely, adopting kid!Friedrich Wilhelm the future Soldier King. (The Hohenzollerns and the House of Orange were related, and William had already toyed with the idea of adopting FW's uncle years earlier.) Young FW would have fulfilled the blood line criteria laid down by Parliament as well as the Hannover cousins - he, too, is a grandson of Sophia of Hannover and thus a great grandson of Elizabeth Stuart. And he's so Protestant, you don't get to be more Protestant a royal than FW. So instead of a German dynasty with Hannover as their continental other realm, Britain gets a German dynasty with Prussia as their other realm.

However, Britain's aristocrats and parliament and everyone then realise once FW is grown up and takes over (either from William or Anne) that they got a micromanaging workoholic with a fearsome temper who expects his aristocracy to contribute at least a son each to the army and WORK WORK WORK to get out of their debts, recruits tall men of all classes no matter whether they want to be recruited or not, closes up lots of palaces to save money and changes the royal life style to austerely bourgois. Oh, and he's not impressed by all the high church Anglocatholicism and lectures the Archbishop of Canterbury on the bible. Yes, he is good with agricultural reforms and founding hospitals and schools etc., but I could see a few years being ruled by FW causing British Parliament cry "help!" and decide they want a J3 after all.

From:

luzula

Hee, what a way to merge the Fritzian and the Jacobite fandoms! *g* That is an intriguing AU.

From:

cahn

Historians taking Henry VIII. at his word for Anne of Cleves' lack of physical attractiveness as mentioned above is another case in point.

Yes! When I read

luzula's comment I was just thinking, since you brought it up earlier, that I went decades thinking Anne of Cleves was ugly! (And, ugh, history books, I mean, even if she was, why should I have cared?)

(parents are here, online time limited -- will return next week!)

From:

cahn

And he's so Protestant, you don't get to be more Protestant a royal than FW.

Okay, this got a laugh out of me. I'm also totally amused by the idea of this FW AU where everyone's like "...would James really be so bad?" :)