cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

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Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

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From:

selenak

And Fry had a recurring role in the Georgian season of Blackadder as well as playing in the Horrible Histories sketch dealing with the Westphalian Treaty. Not to mention his entire image is that of a Cambridge-educated intellectual. (Didn't he meet Hugh Laurie at Cambridge?).

See, him not knowing your Hohenzollern from your Wittelsbachs and being unaware which dynasty was which and ruled over which German state, I'd have had no problem with. But the "how with a Catholic Emperor could there be PROTESTANTS in the HRE?" question is really something else again.

Oh, and as for Fritz trying to dissolve his marriage: if he had wanted to after his father's death, he could have done it. Even without loosing the Braunschweig alliance, between Charlotte's and AW's marriages. It's not like EC was the aunt of Charles V.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Oh, and as for Fritz trying to dissolve his marriage: if he had wanted to after his father's death, he could have done it.

Indeed, but I have a very faint memory of reading that he tried it/talked about it in the 1730s. But that could have been another unreliable modern "historian", or it could have been something I'm confusing with something else.

It's not like EC was the aunt of Charles V.

*snort*

From:

selenak

Oh, I could buy him talking about it in the 1730s to some friends. (Though the way I recall it is him saying it will be goodbye, Madame, as soon as FW croaks it, which his listeners understood to mean he won't live with her anymore, not that he'd divorce her.) But not when he could actually do it, from the 1740s onwards.

And let's not forget there are examples of Protestant royal divorces: his grandfather G1 did get divorced from poor SD the older. G3's sister who was married to Christian of Denmark got divorced. And of course, nephew FW2 from his first wife.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

But not when he could actually do it, from the 1740s onwards.

No, by then he didn't need to, he had all the power, and she hadn't actually done anything wrong. And that's what I took "tried to dissolve" to mean--if he'd "tried" after 1740, he presumably would have succeeded. And I feel like I remember him exploring his options in the 1730s, although I could be wrong.

From:

selenak

Though it would have to be awfully discreet exploring, given in any event he would have needed FW's permission (just as FW2 needed his, and Heinrich, too, hence no divorced Mina), and he must have known that short of EC blatantly cheating on him with the French ambassador in front of FW, no permission would have been given.

From:

felis

Oh, and I meant to answer your question - yes, Fry and HL did meet at Cambridge (also Emma Thompson of course) and HL for one never pretended that he didn't do much more comedy than studying there. :P Not sure if HL even graduated, but wiki tells me Fry did, in English Literature. No idea if his expertise in that area is better, but overall his image is kind of overrated IMO; this sure isn't the first time he's talked nonsense.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Stephen Fry is nothing but a name to me (I exist mostly outside of popular culture), but when I was explaining to my wife at lunch while I was cackling hysterically over my phone, her reaction was an unsurprised eyerolly, "Stephen Fry thinks he knows everything about everything, and this wouldn't be the first time he was Wrong on the Internet, or other media."