Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

[cahn]

Unfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.

(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )

Comments

Re: FS in three biographies: An Overview (2)

[selenak]

But seriously, huh, Lorraine Leopold eventually succeeded, didn't he?!

He did. He was like SD with her English marriage project about this. We have the first SD letter mentioning a Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales match when Wilhelmine is all of six months old, and that's how Lorraine Leopold was about getting his boys matched to Austrian archduchesses practically as soon as one was born. Of course, SD had a more firm reason to believe this would make Wilhelmine King of England than Leopold had reason to believe this would make a son of his really truly HRE - for one thing, MT's Dad and her mother were young when Lorraine Leopold started with this obsession, they always could have produced a living son in the next decade or so, in which case FS would have gotten a wife with a good dowry and high social status, but nothing more than that - and yet his gamble paid off, wheraes SD's would have failed even if Wilhelmine had married the guy. (Given Fritz of Wales died before G2.) She'd never have been Queen of England.


WELL THEN.

I'm really curious as to what Mildred will say, because she's read books claiming FS did make the sales with their respective sources quite recently. I mean, Schreiber and Renate Z. come across as thorough in their research, but Renate Z. also believes Fritz wanted to become HRE at one point simply based on a supposed Wilhelmine quote from 1743 when Mildred presented us with several Fritz quotes to the contrary, so it's not like they are infallible. But it's worth noting both of them did not find any source for the "FS sold supplies to the Prussians" claim other than Fritz.

WHAT. This is GREAT

My thoughts precisely. :)

Re: FS in three biographies: An Overview (2)

[mildred_of_midgard]

I'm really curious as to what Mildred will say, because she's read books claiming FS did make the sales with their respective sources quite recently.

Well, "books" = Hennings, which you have also read. And he cites Vehse, and Vehse does not cite anyone, so that's the sum total of my non-Fritzian evidence. It does not inspire confidence. (Vehse does not appear to be another Koser or Volz, unless I'm missing the volume where he cites his sources.)