18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 36

[cahn]

Starting a couple of comments earlier than usual to mention there are a couple of new salon fics! These probably both need canon knowledge.

felis ficlets on siblings!

Siblings (541 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Summary:

Three Fills for the 2022 Three Sentence Ficathon.

Chapter One: Protective Action / Babysitting at Rheinsberg (Frederick/Fredersdorf, William+Henry+Ferdinand)
Chapter Two: Here Be Lions (Wilhelmine)

Unsent Letters fic by me:

Letters for a Dead King (1981 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802)
Characters: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Love/Hate, Talking To Dead People, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family
Summary:

Just because one's king and brother is dead doesn't mean one has to stop writing to him.

Comments

Peter Keith chronology revision

[mildred_of_midgard]

Further research reveals that, contrary to my original belief, Peter almost certainly missed Algarotti's arrival in England by a year. I would say, "Sorry, Selena," but I'm actually not sorry, because I love the fic regardless!

My sources and Google hits are wildly contradicting each other on whether Admiral Norris's fleet left for Lisbon in May 1735 or May 1736, but the more reliable sources, as well as the historical context, seem to be pointing to 1735. Since Algarotti only arrived in London in March 1736, that means the first time he and Peter could have met each other was in 1740, in Berlin.

It's weird, because the book I was getting the 1736 date from quotes another book that I finally tracked down, but it turns out the author of the first book inserts years into quotations where there are no years in the original, supposedly quoted text, and where there are years, the second author systematically updates them by 1 year!

I thought this might mean that I was reading an earlier edition of the first book, which contained mistakes, but both the footnotes citing the primary sources in the first book, the footnotes citing the primary sources in the second book(!!), and the dates on the online catalog of the archives for said primary sources all agree on 1735. This means the author of the second book went to a lot of trouble to insert and change dates that not only don't match the dates in the passages supposedly quoted from the first book, they don't even match her own footnotes! WTF.

The good news is that due to my terrier-like detectiveness when I decided to track this down or die trying :P, I turned up the website for the Kew National Archives in London, where you can request digital copies of the records you want. It costs just to have them check how much copying a record will cost, but I'm thinking of picking out some of the records in the relevant footnotes and paying the archivists to see if I can get copies. Then make prinzsorgenfrei decipher them for us. :P (Hey, at least they'll be in English, not French.)

Which reminds me, who wants to help me with German forms on the Prussian archive website? We still need to get our hands on some Fredersdorf materials, some Peter Keith letters, and some Gröben letters! I'm offering to pay (depending on the costs, of course), I just keep procrastinating on figuring out how to do it because my German is not great, and I only know how to read about early modern warfare. :P

Re: Peter Keith chronology revision

[mildred_of_midgard]

May 1735 or May 1736

Aaaand, of course, a German newspaper reports this as June 7, meaning the May 27 date I had was Old Style. Why must chronology be so complicated?

Well, at least we now have a firm date from a contemporary source: June 7, 1735.

(I promise I have more interesting findings, but I got sidetracked trying to figure out who this guy Lehndorff talked about was, and then I was like..."While I'm here in the newspapers, let's just check out the Admiral Norris date." Like I do. ;) I also got the exact date of Algarotti's arrival in Berlin (June 28, 1740), which I didn't have before!)

Re: Peter Keith chronology revision

[selenak]

Aaaand, of course, a German newspaper reports this as June 7, meaning the May 27 date I had was Old Style. Why must chronology be so complicated?

Huh. I knew the Russians were still using the Julian calendar in the 18th century, but I thought the Brits had finally switched, not least because otherwise, what an extra administrative nightmare for Team Hannover?

Re: Peter Keith chronology revision

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, no, not until 1752! It is the bane of all Jacobite historians. I know this because it was a plot point of my teenage self's novel. :'D

If my teenage self's sources are to be trusted, part of the resistance was because the Gregorian calendar was seen by many in England as a popish plot, which means politicians had to be careful about proposing it.