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: Fritz of Hervey

[cahn]

Augustus Hervey's younger brother Frederick, the later globetrotting Earl-Bishop (Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry), has a starring role in the last bit of the book

Aw YESSSS selenak, you are awesome, thank you for finding this for me :DD

So: Frederick was bff with none other than Sir William Hamilton, future husband of Emma, envoy in Naples, and son of Lady Achibald Hamilton whom Hervey the memoirist, Frederick's Dad, was entertainingly and jealously bitchy about in his memoirs, accusing her of having an affair with Fritz of Wales.

Better and better! I knew this guy would be entertaining :D

They met in school when they were 16 and formed a life long bond, not least about their shared love of antiquities, volcanoes and travelling.

I laughed at the "volcanoes." I mean, my second thought (even before reading the rest of the paragraph) was that Mt. Vesuvius was a thing and so it's not as weird as it sounds, it just... from my US 21st-century perspective it does sound like an incredibly niche interest :D

This caused Lord Bristol to write a warning letter pointing out that marrying for love instead of money had caused misery in three generations of Herveys and did he really want to add a fourth?

I mean! He's not wrong! (Though the Herveys also seem to make a habit of never staying in love, either.)

What was wrong with marrying an almost princess and daughter of a Prussian King, is what Frederick the globetrotting Bishop wants to know, while simultanously putting the moves on her mother

Me, reading the first half of that sentence: You know, sounds like what my parents used to tell me: it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich guy as a poor guy. (I mean, this was their claim, anyway.)
Me, reading the second half of that sentence and doing a spittake: ...okay, NOT like my parents.

he writes a long spying report, fancying himself the Scarlet Pimpernel. But he's really not, so the report never reaches England and is intercepted, and thus Frederick sends the next 18 months languishing in Milanese custody until being released again.

:D I laughed again. THIS GUY.

Fie, thinks the Albano peasant, no English heretics under my roof, and chucks Hervey outdoors, where Frederick dies.

Wow. I mean, too bad he died, but, like, he died like he lived: in a way that is entertaining to me :P

His body is brought back to be buried in Ickworth, and so they can get it through the various quaranteene and other customs rules, it's declared to be a statue.

This is an AWESOME detail.

OMG, this was everything I wanted out of learning more about Frederick Hervey! Thank you again :DDDDD

So did Horowski say what happened to not-yet-Victorian Frederick and his fourth generational non-moneyed love?

Re: Fritz of Hervey

[mildred_of_midgard]

I laughed at the "volcanoes." I mean, my second thought (even before reading the rest of the paragraph) was that Mt. Vesuvius was a thing and so it's not as weird as it sounds, it just... from my US 21st-century perspective it does sound like an incredibly niche interest :D

Huh, that doesn't strike this 21st-century USian as an incredibly niche interest or weird at all. Some people are just into volcanoes.

OMG, this was everything I wanted out of learning more about Frederick Hervey! Thank you again :DDDDD

It whetted my appetite for more! ;)