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cahnLast 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.
Re: Augustus Hervey I: Men, Women and Herveys
Date: 2023-03-21 11:15 pm (UTC)Haha, well, good for Erskine!
Henry Fox isn't hating on Byng but cooly pragmatic. A gigantic international war has just broken out, someone has to be guilty for the fact the glorious British navy has just lost to the French, and it certainly won't be Henry and his colleagues in government.
Lol, yep, that's how it goes.
Fritz: See? See?!! Supposedly constitutional monarchies did it, too, and in the same war. Why is everyone on my ass then?
I mean, I have used the Byng example as well as others to point out that lots of monarchies did it! And in fact that when Fritz said he could have AW's head, he wasn't kidding. That doesn't make it okay, though, Fritz.
And the existence of Voltaire proves that some 18th century contemporaries protested this kind of thing.
(If Molly disliked being with children, you won't find any references to it in this book. Of course, it might just be small children she did not get along with, and adults are another matter.)
Well, yeah, I'm kind of the same way. Small children and adults are completely different to interact with! (Usually. Looking at you, Ferdinand of Naples.)
He is under the impression Cosimo was the last of the Medici, though. (Pure Gian Gastone, forgotten already.)
Oh, that is really interesting to know!
(Hervey's ghost: NOT THE LOVE RAT! Augustus, no!!!!!)
LOLOLOL I laughed so hard!
Frederick married and continued the family line, but he also (presumably when in Italy) fell in love with, drum roll, none other than Wilhelmine Encke, Countess of Lichtenau, chief mistress of FW2.
It's a small world! When would this have been?
Lucy Worsley, I don't know what you're on about. No way this guy sounds dull and moralistic.
Definitely not. I'm glad we turned up Augustus Hervey, then, to flesh out the picture some more!
1) How brutal did you have to be to be cashiered for brutality from the freaking British Navy in the 18th century?
Wooow, yeah.
If either of them worried about what eleven years old Augustus might see, hear and learn at sea, we don't hear about it. This is standard for time, but it does say something about the time.
Meanwwhile, in France...
Liselotte: *is preparing to come get her baby as a grown man on campaign*
Yeah, I know, she didn't have umpteen kids and lost her first one, but still.
FW: If I had become King of England instead of stupid cousin G2, I would have made my kids join the Royal Navy, too.
Would you have, though? The thing about having your kids lead regiments in and around Potsdam is that it's really easy to supervise them. If you send them out on ships into the ocean, your control freak self might start freaking out!
Given what the navy meant to England, though, it *is* interesting to think how FW would have coped with it.
Re: Augustus Hervey I: Men, Women and Herveys
Date: 2023-03-24 10:03 am (UTC)It's a small world! When would this have been?
His wiki entry doesn't say, and Erskine doesn't, either. Italy is my own guess, depending on how much Frederick travelled, he could have met her just as well in Berlin. However, even a Hervey might think twice before hitting on a King's official mistress when the King is nearby, whereas her journey to Italy provides much more relaxed opportunities. I don't know in which year she was there by heart, but it's in Horowski, and I don't have my copy at hand. Otoh any meeting after 1800 is less likely, because there FW3 had put her on trial, confiscated her property and banished her to Glogau where promptly a pal of E.T.A. Hoffmann's fell for her and married her, despite being decades younger.