An interesting passage from "Reign Without a Ruler" that gives Frederik more credit for political participation than most of what I had read previously and what I had reported to salon:
Under the leadership of Moltke and Bernstorff, the government by the excellencies could have functioned well even if the King had done nothing but sign documents and make public appearances on official occasions, but Frederik V never withdrew from political work. Throughout his reign--though mostly in the early years--he was engaged in problems of foreign policy, and he even personally negotiated with foreign diplomats. However, it was not he who determined the main policy lines, and at foreign courts it was quite well-known that getting the backing of the excellencies was of key importance if one sought to influence Danish policy. It is difficult to judge the King's work in other areas of government, but in many cases one can discern a monarch who acted independently. While he left the administrative processing of many more matters to others than Christian VI had, Frederik V's position in relation to the corps of officials remained the same. In matters both large and small, the King could issue personal commands, and it could not be assumed that he would follow the recommendations of the corps of excellencies in connection with the appointment of officials and similar decisions. However, it is always possible that Moltke's hand guided the King behind the scenes when Frederik V was giving his orders.
...
An aspect of the positive story of Frederik V is that political leadership worked smoothly during his reign, and it is hardly fair that some have claimed that the King made no positive contribution in this regard at all. Frederik V did involve himself as much as his alcohol abuse allowed him to, and he should be praised for having placed the power he was unable to wield himself in more competent hands.
He was definitely doing a better job than Gian Gastone, which, as I already said, is why this is not called The Last of the Oldenburgs. ;) On the other hand, on a personal level, I only have one anecdote that comes to mind in which GG yelled abuse at someone when he was drunk, and that person was dead. On the third, nonexistent hand, as Selena likes to say...the sources for both GG and Frederik V that I've found are extremely unreliable, and a lot are rumor-based, especially GG. I was astonished at how much of the "history" of Gian Gastone was taken from an anonymous manuscript that's just reporting scandals, gets its dates wrong, and yet is taken as gospel by Acton. We have the letters from Frederik V, but you saw all the caveats I had to hedge around them, and Moltke's memoirs have been summarized by multiple scholars as either "fact-based but amazingly wrong in some places, due to his memory failing him after so many years," or "so amazingly wrong this can't possibly be due to memory." And memoirs written by the king's BFF and de facto prime minister 20 years later are...let's just say not an unbiased source, although probably better than that tabloid about GG, omg.
I still hope to write up my Gian Gastone findings for salon, but it would be great if I could read Italian first, because Google translate and I really struggled through some of those books.
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Frederik V and Moltke
I do wonder whether there's a similar source problem with August the Strong, because that one biography I read a few years ago was a let down in that regard, with no sense of him as a person or reliable personal letters quoted from. (Political letters, yes, but there you don't know how much was written by the ministers.) So you have a lot of rumors and reported scandals to go by. Which reminds me, since you asked about August and what kind of a drunk he was, violent (either physical or verbal) or mellow: honestly, you know as much as I do. I don't recall an incident where drunken August lashes out against someone abusively from Horowski, but I might have overlooked/forgotten something, so don't hold me to it. Pöllnitz doesn't mention anything in those parts of his book I've read, but then Pöllnitz wants to be reinvited to Saxony by August's son.
Of course, we do know August could be long term vengeful if you crossed him significantly - Countess Cosel says hello from her tower and a life time of imprisonment - , and he was famously physically strong, but like I said, I don't recall any stories about him being brutal to someone either physically or verbally in direct interaction. It did occur to me, bearing FW in mind, that the two people in whose lives you could most likely find proof of such a trait, if August had it, would be the court fools, to wit, Fröhnlich and SchmiedelSchmiedel, but their wiki entries at least don't include such information.
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Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Frederik V and Moltke
Under the leadership of Moltke and Bernstorff, the government by the excellencies could have functioned well even if the King had done nothing but sign documents and make public appearances on official occasions, but Frederik V never withdrew from political work. Throughout his reign--though mostly in the early years--he was engaged in problems of foreign policy, and he even personally negotiated with foreign diplomats. However, it was not he who determined the main policy lines, and at foreign courts it was quite well-known that getting the backing of the excellencies was of key importance if one sought to influence Danish policy. It is difficult to judge the King's work in other areas of government, but in many cases one can discern a monarch who acted independently. While he left the administrative processing of many more matters to others than Christian VI had, Frederik V's position in relation to the corps of officials remained the same. In matters both large and small, the King could issue personal commands, and it could not be assumed that he would follow the recommendations of the corps of excellencies in connection with the appointment of officials and similar decisions. However, it is always possible that Moltke's hand guided the King behind the scenes when Frederik V was giving his orders.
...
An aspect of the positive story of Frederik V is that political leadership worked smoothly during his reign, and it is hardly fair that some have claimed that the King made no positive contribution in this regard at all. Frederik V did involve himself as much as his alcohol abuse allowed him to, and he should be praised for having placed the power he was unable to wield himself in more competent hands.
He was definitely doing a better job than Gian Gastone, which, as I already said, is why this is not called The Last of the Oldenburgs. ;) On the other hand, on a personal level, I only have one anecdote that comes to mind in which GG yelled abuse at someone when he was drunk, and that person was dead. On the third, nonexistent hand, as Selena likes to say...the sources for both GG and Frederik V that I've found are extremely unreliable, and a lot are rumor-based, especially GG. I was astonished at how much of the "history" of Gian Gastone was taken from an anonymous manuscript that's just reporting scandals, gets its dates wrong, and yet is taken as gospel by Acton. We have the letters from Frederik V, but you saw all the caveats I had to hedge around them, and Moltke's memoirs have been summarized by multiple scholars as either "fact-based but amazingly wrong in some places, due to his memory failing him after so many years," or "so amazingly wrong this can't possibly be due to memory." And memoirs written by the king's BFF and de facto prime minister 20 years later are...let's just say not an unbiased source, although probably better than that tabloid about GG, omg.
I still hope to write up my Gian Gastone findings for salon, but it would be great if I could read Italian first, because Google translate and I really struggled through some of those books.
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Frederik V and Moltke
Of course, we do know August could be long term vengeful if you crossed him significantly - Countess Cosel says hello from her tower and a life time of imprisonment - , and he was famously physically strong, but like I said, I don't recall any stories about him being brutal to someone either physically or verbally in direct interaction. It did occur to me, bearing FW in mind, that the two people in whose lives you could most likely find proof of such a trait, if August had it, would be the court fools, to wit, Fröhnlich and SchmiedelSchmiedel, but their wiki entries at least don't include such information.