Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 42

[cahn]

Last post, we had (among other things) Danish kings and their favorites; Louis XIV and Philippe d'Orléans; reviews of a very shippy book about Katte, a bad Jacobite novel, and a great book about clothing; a fic about Émilie du Châtelet and Voltaire; and a review of a set of entertaining Youtube history videos about Frederick the Great.

Comments

Re: Child Emperors and their Regents

[selenak]

Although I'm now remembering Tarr's Aspasia saying something like, in Germany they rebel openly, in Byzantium they would have just snuck around and killed the previous emperor..

Well, that's only true if you compare John Tzimitzikes' successful ursurpation with Henry the Quarellsome's failed attempt. A good number of Byzantine takeovers started the good old fashioned Roman way, by a very successful general getting hailed as Emperor by his troops. Now whether or not they then made it all the way to the throne depended on the era they lived in. If it was an unstable one, you got a whole series of Emperors in quick succession and all the outer enemies invading for added kicks. Otherwise, or if the reigning Emperor turned out to be very good at his job, you have the young Basil II vs Bardas Phokas versus Bardas Skleros situation, where both Bardas' were hailed by their respective troops as Emperor (Bardas Phokas twice, even), but got defeated nonetheless.

Meanwhile, in addition to the open rebellions, the Ottos and later the Salians accused their share of magnats of secretly conspiring against them, and then deposed said magnate. Correctly? Made up accusation against a potential troublemaker and/or easy way to get your hands on land and cash? Who knows.

...and then there's always the Fourth Crusade. Where Pope Innocent wanted everyone to go to Egypt because the situation there was unstable enough at the time that a potential conquest seemed possible, but "Go to Egypt" didn't sell as well as "Go to Jerusalem", so the preachers preached the traditional "Jerusalem!" creed. Meanwhile, Alexios the son of Isaac Angelos, who'd been blinded and deposed by his brother, also called Alexios, had escaped from his uncle's prison and made it to Germany where his sister Irene was the wife of Philip of Swabia, one of the two German kings currently duking it out in our very own War of the Roses (the other was Otto of Brunswick, and yes, they were both crowned Kings), and his in-laws thought bringing Alexios the younger to the throne, thereby getting the support of the next Byzantine Emperor, would be a great thing to have. And then there were two French nobles who made a deal with Enrico Dandolo the Doge of Venice to buy an entire fleet with money they didn't have, still with the end goal of going to Egypt, but the financing would be done by some sacking on the way... All of which converged into a situation where 90% of the army thought they were going to Jerusalem, the officers thought they were going to Egypt, and no only the leading generals knew they would have to go to Constantinople first, get Alexios on the throne and then get paid the fabled riches of the East Roman Empire, or else. As far as blatant dishonesty was easily the match of anything going on in Byzantium.