See other comment for: hilarous batshit insanity of it all, but now I'm intrigued by the 1818 date, because between Juliana as the evilest stepmother of them all, and the "weakly, deformed infant" her son - just who was reigning in Denmark at the time? Because while Juliana and her son were both dead (son Frederik, because of course that's his name, having died in 1805), wiki tells me Frederik's son, i.e. Juliana's grandson, Christian Frederik (of course), was already heir presumptive of the Danish throne (as of 1815), and would eventually become King of Denmark (in 1839), because Caroline Matilda's son, who succeeds Christian the Insane, dies without a son of his own.
Now, wiki also says there was mutual distrust and tension between the cousins, but still, isn't it somewhat tactless to present the grandmother of the future King as the evilest and his father as deformed? Talk about the free press. Unless the author of this batshittery is actually a cunning propagandist who doesn't want Juliana's line to make it to the throne? ...Nah, I'm probably overthinking it.
Edited 2023-03-02 07:46 (UTC)
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
See other comment for: hilarous batshit insanity of it all, but now I'm intrigued by the 1818 date
I was also intrigued by this date! Because the first thing I thought of was: 1814-1818 is when Moltke's son is prime minister! And he doesn't come off too well in this; I mean, my reading is that JM bribes him to let her kill the kid.
But since the thing was written in English by a John Brown, especially since it opens "FREDERICK the Fifth, the father of our present monarch (Christian the Seventh)," I think this must be a British translation of some older Danish source, and that it was written precisely because Christian was king.
Let me see what I can find out.
In December last, a pause occurred in the execution of the work, during which the Author endeavoured to procure, from various sources, those authentic and original facts which were essential to complete his work and distinguish it from a mere compilation.
Me: Well, they're certainly "original", all right! Original to this work.
The Swedes are eminent for hospitality and every social virtue ; and their character has been wilfully assailed, or casually misunderstood, by British tourists. In the hour of persecution, Mr. Brown found a secure and most agreeable asylum there.
Okay, interesting. Mr. Brown moved to Sweden when Christian VII was king and was really grateful to him?
John Brown (died c. 1829) was an English historian and miscellaneous writer. He laboured on a history of Bolton; went to London to advocate the claims of his friend, Samuel Crompton, the inventor; but committed suicide, seemingly in despair at his lack of success in life.
Very little is known of his early life, except that he travelled widely in northern Europe and mixed in European politics. Drawing on his experiences, he wrote several works on international law, including Mysteries of Neutralization (1806). He showed a strong interest in European monarchs, and published Anecdotes and Characters of the House of Brunswick (1821) and Northern Courts (1818).
Okay, the Brunswick volume is bound to have good stuff.
OMG, we are not disappointed!
SDC was framed! G1 was the worst person who ever lived and his wife was beautiful, virtuous, and innocent, and it was all a conspiracy! The letters were forged!
The partiality of Whig historians, gave a lustre to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, the mother of George the First, which her real character did not deserve : and the same bias led them altogether to omit the name of his oppressed consort, whom he had, as a despot, consigned to a prison, without any other or better reason than his will and his power. Over the savage injuries inflicted on this greatly injured woman, the iron hand of the tyrantdrew a veil, which, for a time, covered and concealed the victim of lust and cruelty, and the injustice by which she was oppressed. But still,the fate of that high-minded, beautiful, and accomplished Princess, deserted, as she was, by all her relations, and by all her former associates, excited a powerful sympathy amongst the liberal and cultivated of polished society, in every nation of Europe.
For a time, indeed, her savage and brutal husband (George the First ) appears to have had the field to himself ; and he filled every court, where so petty a prince as he then was had any influence, with the most degrading accusations against his hapless wife ; and if she had been as guilty as the denunciations of her oppressor were coarse and vehement, she would, indeed, have forfeited all claim to respect, but not to sympathy, because, however bad she might have conducted herself, the adulteries of her husband were still more disgusting and notorious, and not a breath of slander had rested on her fame, till after her ill-fated marriage with that mercenary and ambitious Prince : to whose vices, therefore, her own aberrations were solely to be attributed.
Her oppressor, though he could hermetically close his pale and blighted victim in a lonely castle, and for ever debar her of the presence of her children, could not deprive her of disinterested advocates, who had the sense and humanity to consider, that she had not had a fair or an open trial, -that her coarse, vindictive, gross, and sensual husband, was the absolute master and mover of the tribunals by which she is said to have been degraded and divorced, and that her judges were as completely his servants as his lacqueys or valets ; that her character, previous to marriage, had not only been free from reproach, but was known to be of the most amiable order.
That the match was forced upon her, who was every way its victim, and had originated entirely in the avarice of her husband, who was her own first cousin, and whose claim to her hand was so enforced by his father and mother, that there was no possibility of a refusal ; although the notorious debaucheries, and deep-rooted profligacy of her husband were so gross, that all the courts of Europe resounded with recitals of his licentious amours, and general profligacy of character. When these facts were publicly known, every reflecting person admitted the probability that the fair captive, and unhappy mother, had been falsely accused, and unjustly sentenced, through the power and the malice of a guilty husband.
That the Electoral Prince, her gaoler and oppressor, had pretensions to personal courage, did not justify his having, on many occasions, exercised his valour by beating his beauteous wife, and dragging her along by her dishevelled locks, to gratify his concubines, who were the instigators and the spectators of those outrages; nor did his ambition to shine as a first- rate intriguer, warrant his having selected the character of his unhappy consort as the object which, by circumvention, by subservient and venal diplomatists, by stratagems of all kinds of the sap and mine process, he sought to demolish.
In defiance of every artifice, the baseness of hispersonal character, and the grossness of his propensities, spread rapidly with his vituperations against his wife, and his own reputation suffered in a still greater degree than that of the calumniated Princess. That her husband was a man of coarse taste and dissolute habits there can be no doubt ; and none, that he married, solely from motives of state policy, a beautiful and virtuous young Princess, whom he never loved, and whose life he began to render miserable as soon as the marriage ceremony had been performed ; yet, it is more than probable, that his minions and his concubines, seeing his aversion to his wife, fabricated the most atrocious calumnies against her, forged, or caused to be forged, a variety of letters, tending to prove the unhappy Princess had been false to her profligate lord, and they suborned and disciplined a host of false witnesses to give support to their calumnies. Where the heart is violently predisposed to think well or ill, it eagerly adopts whatever conforms to its prejudices.
The Prince had deeply and irreparably injured his wife ; and, too often is it seen, that an oppressed person has no foe so inveterate as that by whom a great injury has been inflicted; and the heart most prone to the commission of crime, is often the least capable to forgive. Thus situated, it is no wonder that GEORGE the FIRST, when Electoral Prince of Hanover, too readily received every report that was discreditable to his neglected, insulted, forsaken wife ; nor, that his attendant courtiers found it their surest way to his favour to vilify her character, and strive, by all practicable means, to pursue the unhappy lady to utter ruin.
According to the united testimony of German, Dutch, French, and English authors, never was a young and beautiful woman more cruelly treated, nor her morals exposed to worse pollution.
It was even asserted, by a Dutch anonymous author, that the malice of her dissolute husband hurried him to the infamous expedientof throwing his own wife, and the mother of his son and heir, in the way of profligate but accomplished chevaliers, in order, if successful in their attempts upon her honour, they might betray their victim, and hand her over to punishment, to infamy, and ruin. This, however, is so extravagant a flight of matrimonial depravity, that it exceeds the bounds of credibility, and must be imputed to the universal indignation excited by the gross depravity, and unrelenting cruelty of her worthless husband.
It is not the intention of the Editor to draw any comparison between the personal characters and conduct of the consorts of the first and the fourth George, who have sat on the English throne ; but there is the closest possible analogy between the conspiracies of which those Princesses were the victims.
Okay, this explains the chapter I saw in the table of contents that was called "The Secret History of the Corrupt Practices of the Duchess of Kendal" (that's Melusine, Cahn, Katte's "aunt" and G1's mistress).
Yep, Brown/his source thinks G1's half-sister the Countess Platen was his mistress and proves that G1 couldn't even be faithful to his mistress, much less his wife.
This whole volume is just about how terrible G1 and his supporters were, and how wonderful SDC was.
I'm all for a feminist take that doesn't apply a double standard and vilify her infidelity while overlooking his...but this is not that.
Also, the whole volume purports to be a collection of memoirs by other people; whether it's really that or just stuff he made up and put quotation marks around, I couldn't say. But there's this whole thing that's supposed to be written by SDC in her prison and looks like the fakest literary production ever??
Selena, if you have a desire to be entertained by more batshittery in this vein, I'll link you, but I see no history here. What even was this guy doing with his life??
ETA: Speaking literally, I meant to add that Wikipedia tells me that he exposed labor conditions of children working in cotton mills. Which is good! But maybe he should have stuck to that instead of writing history or "history". Except then we wouldn't have gotten all this entertainment.
ETA 2: Also meant to add that my current working hypothesis is that this work was drafted when Brown was living in Sweden, well before 1818 (and before Christian VII died), and only published when he came back to England and found a London publisher. And that Brown had a huge mancrush on Christian, in much the way that Zimmermann had one on Fritz. Discuss. :P
Edited 2023-03-03 02:42 (UTC)
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
Hee, this is hilarious. Not that I am a huge fan of George I and his treatment of his wife, but it's so over the top that no one could take it seriously. Hmm, interesting to see "sensual" used in a negative sense. Also, I wonder if he was a Jacobite since he is so against George I?
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
Too late for that. He's writing in the G4 era, by which time no one takes the Jacobites seriously anymore, and Hannover bashing is more likely to come from Whigs, see my comment below.
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
Well, Lehndorff found him hot and charming, so clearly Christian must have had some attractions. Then again, that was when he was young and travelling, which he wouldn't have been in time for John Brown, though I note that wiki entry doesn't give us a birth date. What I do think is that he had a hate-on, which works almost as well. Because:
It is not the intention of the Editor to draw any comparison between the personal characters and conduct of the consorts of the first and the fourth George, who have sat on the English throne ; but there is the closest possible analogy between the conspiracies of which those Princesses were the victims.
cahn, this refers to one of the better known scandals of the Regency (well, end of Regency, technically) period. Poor old G3 became very old in his madness, remember. When still compos mentis, he'd forced his son, future G4, aka the Prince Regent, aka "Prinny", to marry that standard bride for British princes until the 20th century, a German princess, another Caroline, this despite the fact Prinny was already married morganatically to Mrs. Fitzherbert, btw. Unsurprisingly, Prinny and this Caroline loathed each other. She didn't stay long, just long enough for the two of them to produce Charlotte, Prinny's sole legitimate child, doomed to die young and in childbirth (along with the babe) years later. When G3 had his second, final descend into mental illness, and Prinny became Prince Regent for good, he of course used the opportunity to ensure his unwanted wife remained far away from Britain. When G3 died decades later, though, Caroline, who had lived back in Germany how she wanted to (good for her!) wanted the pay off for this marriage, i.e. the coronation as Queen. While newly, finally G4 just wanted a divorce and did not want her as Queen. Because the Hannover Cousins are like that, he literally locked her out of Westminster Abbey. As in, had the door closed in front of her face during the coronation.
Now, early on, up to and including G3's first mental crisis, which ended with him making a recovery (aka the story covered in Alan Bennet's play The Madness of George III, which as a film got named "The Madness of King George" so American viewers would not get confused and wonder whether they'd missed parts I and II), future G4 aka Prinny had done what all the Hannover Princes before him had done, flirted and sided with the opposition, which at this point were the Whigs. However, later on Prinny threw in his lot with the Tories, which meant the Whigs discovered Prinny-bashing as a way to have a go at the government. And he really gave him an golden opportunity with his behavior towards his wife at the coronation. And when with wanting to divorce her when she refused to (not out of love for him, but for wanting to become Queen of England, which had been the point of this whole charade of a marriage for her), which meant a trial ensued. Basically, the Whig press, which had never cared for Caroline before and had ridiculed her along with her in-laws if they thought of her before, suddenly discovered her as the second Catherine of Aragorn and an innocent martyr, a woman done wrong by the (semi)German oaf she was married to (and who was supported by a Tory government).
Now, Brown very intentionally drawing this parallel while claiming he doesn't makes me suspect the entire work is exactly this kind of political propaganda, especially if Brown was into the laudable cause of social reforms and trying in vain to make it in the capital. He might have hoped to find some rich Whig sponsors this way, or he might have done it for free because he loathed the government, and taking shots at the entire Hannover dynasty this way was one safe way to express it. Let's not forget, with the exception of G3 during his sane days, none of the Hannover cousins were popular, and G3's sons in particular were loathed. One reason why Victoria left such a mark in the public consciousness is that she (and Albert) practically reinvented the monarchy and how people saw it, presenting an impeccably devoted married couple with adorable children instead of aged libertines screwing around. This kind of talk strikes me as basically the equivalent of the Hogarth drawings when it comes to caricaturing the Hannovers.
Mind you, if John Brown did stay in Sweden for a while, he might also have gotten in touch with members of the Königsmarck family, because let's not forget SDC's murdered lover here - it's not like Team Hannover are maligned innocents here (just not the evilest etc.). Though given some of the actual letters ended up in Sweden - where Ulrike stole them and mailed them to Fritz - , the claim that there are all forged to slander innocent SDC strikes me as particularly ironic coming from an Hannover attacker, given that the later Hannovers (all descendend from SDC) tried that claim as well.
Well, they're certainly "original", all right! Original to this work.
While he may or may not have heard stories in Sweden or Denmark or both, I do think all the claims of translations and compilations are a literary device, because that was extremely popular back then. (Though more in the 18th century than in the 19th.) Let's not forget, two later 18th century bestsellers, Les Liasons Dangereuses and Sorrows of Young Werther, employ the literary device of being actual compilations of actual letters, commented on by "editors". However, thsese books were clearly marked as fiction, and Brown is marketing this as history, which puts it more into the category of those anti Marie Antoinette pamphlets written pre and during the French Revolution which also claim to be accurate reports on her utter depravity etc. In conclusion: my money is on John Brown writing this as political propaganda, only to discover it doesn't make his name nor does he win sponsors this way.
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
Well, Lehndorff found him hot and charming, so clearly Christian must have had some attractions. Then again, that was when he was young and travelling, which he wouldn't have been in time for John Brown, though I note that wiki entry doesn't give us a birth date.
True, though Christian was only 19 when Lehndorff met him, which means he could have still had some attractions 20 years later, at least enough to inspire pity. And Fritz was neither young nor attractive when Zimmermann developed his crush! But more seriously, yeah, I think Brown is going on stories that arose in Denmark during Christian's reign but predate Brown's time there.
This kind of talk strikes me as basically the equivalent of the Hogarth drawings when it comes to caricaturing the Hannovers.
Oh, god, yes. Exactly.
However, thsese books were clearly marked as fiction, and Brown is marketing this as history
Yeah, I'm familiar with the conceit of documents in fiction (even Tolkien did it!), and marketing your history as letters that you totally sent when the events were happening, but this was more of a fake documents I allegedly found on the continent but am not even making an effort to make them look historical.
What I do think is that he had a hate-on, which works almost as well.
Yeah, the SDC/G1 take clearly smacks of his tendency for hate-ons.
In conclusion: my money is on John Brown writing this as political propaganda, only to discover it doesn't make his name nor does he win sponsors this way.
Interesting, could be!
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
Oh, speaking of the next generation and their distrust and tension, Danish Wikipedia says Christian's son Frederik VI disliked Moltke's son the 1814-1818 prime minister! Until he didn't:
Immediately after the change of government in 1784, Frederik VI, as a young crown prince, had "formal disgust" for Moltke and felt vivid distrust of him. But this highly youthful attitude gradually changed. Moltke's thoroughly honorable character earned him far too great a reputation with everyone, whether they shared his opinions or not, for Frederik VI not to come to look at him differently over the years. When Moltke became chancellor of the Order in 1808 as the oldest Knight of the Elephant, a certain rapprochement was brought about between him and the king, who then also gave him the title of privy councilor, and when the state's position in every respect in the year 1813 developed into complete despair, Moltke was among the men Frederik VI sought advice from.
He appears to have been exactly like his father, except more bookish: nice, full of integrity, ultra-conservative. They both stepped down when they refused to work with Struensee, and opposed any reforms that benefitted the peasants too much.
Oh, interesting:
In the year 1792, when his father died, it was he who came to inherit the county of Bregentved. According to a tradition in the family, his older brother Christian Magnus Moltke was actually destined to follow his father as count; but old Moltke had excluded him from it on account of his sympathies for the ideas of the French Revolution.
Re his bookishness, Wikipedia tells me:
It has been said above that in his youth Moltke studied eagerly at several universities. The love he felt for scientific studies found expression, among other things, in a German translation he prepared of Quintilian's 10th book (published 1776) and in some reviews he wrote in the Leipziger gelehrte Zeitung. Later, when he became head of the great royal library, he thereby had an opportunity to benefit science in another way, and he had in several respects real merit in the organization and expansion of the library. In his youth it had evidently been classical philology that had interested him, but it has become our natural history museums that the memory of him has been most strongly attached. He gave the university the natural history collection that his father had left behind, and which he himself increased, and in addition to donating 10,000 reigsdalers during his lifetime for the purchase of natural history works for the university, he determined in his will 60,000 reigsdalers to promote the natural history studies at the University. At the same time, his will testified to his gentle, humane mind by the considerable bequests in a benevolent direction which it contained.
OH HEY. I was looking something up, and I just read 3 sentences in Danish without needing translation help! Granted, they were from a biographical dictionary, but this is 3 more sentences than I could do a month ago. :DDD
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Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
Now, wiki also says there was mutual distrust and tension between the cousins, but still, isn't it somewhat tactless to present the grandmother of the future King as the evilest and his father as deformed? Talk about the free press. Unless the author of this batshittery is actually a cunning propagandist who doesn't want Juliana's line to make it to the throne? ...Nah, I'm probably overthinking it.
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
I was also intrigued by this date! Because the first thing I thought of was: 1814-1818 is when Moltke's son is prime minister! And he doesn't come off too well in this; I mean, my reading is that JM bribes him to let her kill the kid.
But since the thing was written in English by a John Brown, especially since it opens "FREDERICK the Fifth, the father of our present monarch (Christian the Seventh)," I think this must be a British translation of some older Danish source, and that it was written precisely because Christian was king.
Let me see what I can find out.
In December last, a pause occurred in the execution of the work, during which the Author endeavoured to procure, from various sources, those authentic and original facts which were essential to complete his work and distinguish it from a mere compilation.
Me: Well, they're certainly "original", all right! Original to this work.
The Swedes are eminent for hospitality and every social virtue ; and their character has been wilfully assailed, or casually misunderstood, by British tourists. In the hour of persecution, Mr. Brown found a secure and most agreeable asylum there.
Okay, interesting. Mr. Brown moved to Sweden when Christian VII was king and was really grateful to him?
Ah, okay, here's his Wikipedia page.
John Brown (died c. 1829) was an English historian and miscellaneous writer. He laboured on a history of Bolton; went to London to advocate the claims of his friend, Samuel Crompton, the inventor; but committed suicide, seemingly in despair at his lack of success in life.
Very little is known of his early life, except that he travelled widely in northern Europe and mixed in European politics. Drawing on his experiences, he wrote several works on international law, including Mysteries of Neutralization (1806). He showed a strong interest in European monarchs, and published Anecdotes and Characters of the House of Brunswick (1821) and Northern Courts (1818).
Okay, the Brunswick volume is bound to have good stuff.
OMG, we are not disappointed!
SDC was framed! G1 was the worst person who ever lived and his wife was beautiful, virtuous, and innocent, and it was all a conspiracy! The letters were forged!
The partiality of Whig historians, gave a lustre to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, the mother of George the First, which her real character did not deserve : and the same bias led them altogether to omit the name of his oppressed consort, whom he had, as a despot, consigned to a prison, without any other or better reason than his will and his power. Over the savage injuries inflicted on this greatly injured woman, the iron hand of the tyrantdrew a veil, which, for a time, covered and concealed the victim of lust and cruelty, and the injustice by which she was oppressed. But still,the fate of that high-minded, beautiful, and accomplished Princess, deserted, as she was, by all her relations, and by all her former associates, excited a powerful sympathy amongst the liberal and cultivated of polished society, in every nation of Europe.
For a time, indeed, her savage and brutal husband (George the First ) appears to have had the field to himself ; and he filled every court, where so petty a prince as he then was had any influence, with the most degrading accusations against his hapless wife ; and if she had been as guilty as the denunciations of her oppressor were coarse and vehement, she would, indeed, have forfeited all claim to respect, but not to sympathy, because, however bad she might have conducted herself, the adulteries of her husband were still more disgusting and notorious, and not a breath of slander had rested on her fame, till after her ill-fated marriage with that mercenary and ambitious Prince : to whose vices, therefore, her own aberrations were solely to be attributed.
Her oppressor, though he could hermetically close his pale and blighted victim in a lonely castle, and for ever debar her of the presence of her children, could not deprive her of disinterested advocates, who had the sense and humanity to consider, that she had not had a fair or an open trial, -that her coarse, vindictive, gross, and sensual husband, was the absolute master and mover of the tribunals by which she is said to have been degraded and divorced, and that her judges were as completely his servants as his lacqueys or valets ; that her character, previous to marriage, had not only been free from reproach, but was known to be of the most amiable order.
That the match was forced upon her, who was every way its victim, and had originated entirely in the avarice of her husband, who was her own first cousin, and whose claim to her hand was so enforced by his father and mother, that there was no possibility of a refusal ; although the notorious debaucheries, and deep-rooted profligacy of her husband were so gross, that all the courts of Europe resounded with recitals of his licentious amours, and general profligacy of character. When these facts were publicly known, every reflecting person admitted the probability that the fair captive, and unhappy mother, had been falsely accused, and unjustly sentenced, through the power and the malice of a guilty husband.
That the Electoral Prince, her gaoler and oppressor, had pretensions to personal courage, did not justify his having, on many occasions, exercised his valour by beating his beauteous wife, and dragging her along by her dishevelled locks, to gratify his concubines, who were the instigators and the spectators of those outrages; nor did his ambition to shine as a first- rate intriguer, warrant his having selected the character of his unhappy consort as the object which, by circumvention, by subservient and venal diplomatists, by stratagems of all kinds of the sap and mine process, he sought to demolish.
In defiance of every artifice, the baseness of hispersonal character, and the grossness of his propensities, spread rapidly with his vituperations against his wife, and his own reputation suffered in a still greater degree than that of the calumniated Princess. That her husband was a man of coarse taste and dissolute habits there can be no doubt ; and none, that he married, solely from motives of state policy, a beautiful and virtuous young Princess, whom he never loved, and whose life he began to render miserable as soon as the marriage ceremony had been performed ; yet, it is more than probable, that his minions and his concubines, seeing his aversion to his wife, fabricated the most atrocious calumnies against her, forged, or caused to be forged, a variety of letters, tending to prove the unhappy Princess had been false to her profligate lord, and they suborned and disciplined a host of false witnesses to give support to their calumnies. Where the heart is violently predisposed to think well or ill, it eagerly adopts whatever conforms to its prejudices.
The Prince had deeply and irreparably injured his wife ; and, too often is it seen, that an oppressed person has no foe so inveterate as that by whom a great injury has been inflicted; and the heart most prone to the commission of crime, is often the least capable to forgive. Thus situated, it is no wonder that GEORGE the FIRST, when Electoral Prince of Hanover, too readily received every report that was discreditable to his neglected, insulted, forsaken wife ; nor, that his attendant courtiers found it their surest way to his favour to vilify her character, and strive, by all practicable means, to pursue the unhappy lady to utter ruin.
According to the united testimony of German, Dutch, French, and English authors, never was a young and beautiful woman more cruelly treated, nor her morals exposed to worse pollution.
It was even asserted, by a Dutch anonymous author, that the malice of her dissolute husband hurried him to the infamous expedientof throwing his own wife, and the mother of his son and heir, in the way of profligate but accomplished chevaliers, in order, if successful in their attempts upon her honour, they might betray their victim, and hand her over to punishment, to infamy, and ruin. This, however, is so extravagant a flight of matrimonial depravity, that it exceeds the bounds of credibility, and must be imputed to the universal indignation excited by the gross depravity, and unrelenting cruelty of her worthless husband.
It is not the intention of the Editor to draw any comparison between the personal characters and conduct of the consorts of the first and the fourth George, who have sat on the English throne ; but there is the closest possible analogy between the conspiracies of which those Princesses were the victims.
Okay, this explains the chapter I saw in the table of contents that was called "The Secret History of the Corrupt Practices of the Duchess of Kendal" (that's Melusine, Cahn, Katte's "aunt" and G1's mistress).
Yep, Brown/his source thinks G1's half-sister the Countess Platen was his mistress and proves that G1 couldn't even be faithful to his mistress, much less his wife.
This whole volume is just about how terrible G1 and his supporters were, and how wonderful SDC was.
I'm all for a feminist take that doesn't apply a double standard and vilify her infidelity while overlooking his...but this is not that.
Also, the whole volume purports to be a collection of memoirs by other people; whether it's really that or just stuff he made up and put quotation marks around, I couldn't say. But there's this whole thing that's supposed to be written by SDC in her prison and looks like the fakest literary production ever??
Selena, if you have a desire to be entertained by more batshittery in this vein, I'll link you, but I see no history here. What even was this guy doing with his life??
ETA: Speaking literally, I meant to add that Wikipedia tells me that he exposed labor conditions of children working in cotton mills. Which is good! But maybe he should have stuck to that instead of writing history or "history". Except then we wouldn't have gotten all this entertainment.
ETA 2: Also meant to add that my current working hypothesis is that this work was drafted when Brown was living in Sweden, well before 1818 (and before Christian VII died), and only published when he came back to England and found a London publisher. And that Brown had a huge mancrush on Christian, in much the way that Zimmermann had one on Fritz. Discuss. :P
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
(Anonymous) 2023-03-03 07:36 am (UTC)(link)Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
(Anonymous) 2023-03-03 07:44 am (UTC)(link)Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
It is not the intention of the Editor to draw any comparison between the personal characters and conduct of the consorts of the first and the fourth George, who have sat on the English throne ; but there is the closest possible analogy between the conspiracies of which those Princesses were the victims.
Now, early on, up to and including G3's first mental crisis, which ended with him making a recovery (aka the story covered in Alan Bennet's play The Madness of George III, which as a film got named "The Madness of King George" so American viewers would not get confused and wonder whether they'd missed parts I and II), future G4 aka Prinny had done what all the Hannover Princes before him had done, flirted and sided with the opposition, which at this point were the Whigs. However, later on Prinny threw in his lot with the Tories, which meant the Whigs discovered Prinny-bashing as a way to have a go at the government. And he really gave him an golden opportunity with his behavior towards his wife at the coronation. And when with wanting to divorce her when she refused to (not out of love for him, but for wanting to become Queen of England, which had been the point of this whole charade of a marriage for her), which meant a trial ensued. Basically, the Whig press, which had never cared for Caroline before and had ridiculed her along with her in-laws if they thought of her before, suddenly discovered her as the second Catherine of Aragorn and an innocent martyr, a woman done wrong by the (semi)German oaf she was married to (and who was supported by a Tory government).
Now, Brown very intentionally drawing this parallel while claiming he doesn't makes me suspect the entire work is exactly this kind of political propaganda, especially if Brown was into the laudable cause of social reforms and trying in vain to make it in the capital. He might have hoped to find some rich Whig sponsors this way, or he might have done it for free because he loathed the government, and taking shots at the entire Hannover dynasty this way was one safe way to express it. Let's not forget, with the exception of G3 during his sane days, none of the Hannover cousins were popular, and G3's sons in particular were loathed. One reason why Victoria left such a mark in the public consciousness is that she (and Albert) practically reinvented the monarchy and how people saw it, presenting an impeccably devoted married couple with adorable children instead of aged libertines screwing around. This kind of talk strikes me as basically the equivalent of the Hogarth drawings when it comes to caricaturing the Hannovers.
Mind you, if John Brown did stay in Sweden for a while, he might also have gotten in touch with members of the Königsmarck family, because let's not forget SDC's murdered lover here - it's not like Team Hannover are maligned innocents here (just not the evilest etc.). Though given some of the actual letters ended up in Sweden - where Ulrike stole them and mailed them to Fritz - , the claim that there are all forged to slander innocent SDC strikes me as particularly ironic coming from an Hannover attacker, given that the later Hannovers (all descendend from SDC) tried that claim as well.
Well, they're certainly "original", all right! Original to this work.
While he may or may not have heard stories in Sweden or Denmark or both, I do think all the claims of translations and compilations are a literary device, because that was extremely popular back then. (Though more in the 18th century than in the 19th.) Let's not forget, two later 18th century bestsellers, Les Liasons Dangereuses and Sorrows of Young Werther, employ the literary device of being actual compilations of actual letters, commented on by "editors". However, thsese books were clearly marked as fiction, and Brown is marketing this as history, which puts it more into the category of those anti Marie Antoinette pamphlets written pre and during the French Revolution which also claim to be accurate reports on her utter depravity etc. In conclusion: my money is on John Brown writing this as political propaganda, only to discover it doesn't make his name nor does he win sponsors this way.
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
True, though Christian was only 19 when Lehndorff met him, which means he could have still had some attractions 20 years later, at least enough to inspire pity. And Fritz was neither young nor attractive when Zimmermann developed his crush! But more seriously, yeah, I think Brown is going on stories that arose in Denmark during Christian's reign but predate Brown's time there.
This kind of talk strikes me as basically the equivalent of the Hogarth drawings when it comes to caricaturing the Hannovers.
Oh, god, yes. Exactly.
However, thsese books were clearly marked as fiction, and Brown is marketing this as history
Yeah, I'm familiar with the conceit of documents in fiction (even Tolkien did it!), and marketing your history as letters that you totally sent when the events were happening, but this was more of a fake documents I allegedly found on the continent but am not even making an effort to make them look historical.
What I do think is that he had a hate-on, which works almost as well.
Yeah, the SDC/G1 take clearly smacks of his tendency for hate-ons.
In conclusion: my money is on John Brown writing this as political propaganda, only to discover it doesn't make his name nor does he win sponsors this way.
Interesting, could be!
Re: Mirror mirror on the wall: Who's the evilest of them all?
Immediately after the change of government in 1784, Frederik VI, as a young crown prince, had "formal disgust" for Moltke and felt vivid distrust of him. But this highly youthful attitude gradually changed. Moltke's thoroughly honorable character earned him far too great a reputation with everyone, whether they shared his opinions or not, for Frederik VI not to come to look at him differently over the years. When Moltke became chancellor of the Order in 1808 as the oldest Knight of the Elephant, a certain rapprochement was brought about between him and the king, who then also gave him the title of privy councilor, and when the state's position in every respect in the year 1813 developed into complete despair, Moltke was among the men Frederik VI sought advice from.
He appears to have been exactly like his father, except more bookish: nice, full of integrity, ultra-conservative. They both stepped down when they refused to work with Struensee, and opposed any reforms that benefitted the peasants too much.
Oh, interesting:
In the year 1792, when his father died, it was he who came to inherit the county of Bregentved. According to a tradition in the family, his older brother Christian Magnus Moltke was actually destined to follow his father as count; but old Moltke had excluded him from it on account of his sympathies for the ideas of the French Revolution.
Re his bookishness, Wikipedia tells me:
It has been said above that in his youth Moltke studied eagerly at several universities. The love he felt for scientific studies found expression, among other things, in a German translation he prepared of Quintilian's 10th book (published 1776) and in some reviews he wrote in the Leipziger gelehrte Zeitung. Later, when he became head of the great royal library, he thereby had an opportunity to benefit science in another way, and he had in several respects real merit in the organization and expansion of the library. In his youth it had evidently been classical philology that had interested him, but it has become our natural history museums that the memory of him has been most strongly attached. He gave the university the natural history collection that his father had left behind, and which he himself increased, and in addition to donating 10,000 reigsdalers during his lifetime for the purchase of natural history works for the university, he determined in his will 60,000 reigsdalers to promote the natural history studies at the University. At the same time, his will testified to his gentle, humane mind by the considerable bequests in a benevolent direction which it contained.
OH HEY. I was looking something up, and I just read 3 sentences in Danish without needing translation help! Granted, they were from a biographical dictionary, but this is 3 more sentences than I could do a month ago. :DDD