18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 37

[cahn]

More diaries of our favorite 18th-century Prussian diary-keeper have been unearthed and have been synopsized!

January 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born!

Comments

[selenak]

Was this common in Europe at the time?

Not as far as I know. I could be wrong, and am currently not in a position to look it up, but I think it might have been a Brandenburg/Prussia speciality, mostly designed to prevent foreign nobles and monarchs to gain a claim on some Prussian estate via an emigrating noble. It's worth keeping in mind that Prussia was near broke just a few decades ago before FW changed this via a massive austerity program, the rebuilding of the economy, a massive military build up and a rewriting of an entire mentality. Pre Friedrich Wilhelm I., whether or not your avarage Prussian noble send one or several sons to the military was an individual decision. Post FW, not having served in the army at least for some time if you were healthy was a shameful thing for sons of the nobility, and if you didn't serve the state somehow, you're equally side-eyed. (One of many reasons why I amuse myself now and then contemplating the scenario where young FW does indeed get adopted and made his heir by William of Orange. The English nobility faced with a workoholic puritan control freak with a massive temper problem who expects each of them to serve the state would be a sight to behold.)

Anyway, I think Lehndorff not just as an English or French noble but also as, say, a Bavarian or Saxon noble would not have had that problem.