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: James I and VI: Scotsman on the English Throne

[selenak]

Of course, I still can't help being reminded that my history teacher in high school insisted James (of the King James' Bible) was Catholic! Because all the Stuarts were Catholic! And none of young Mildred's counterarguments held any weight.

LOL, though also, what a testimony to the miserable state of education. Bad history teacher. I mean, last month I stumbled across a vid where a guy took of all the inaccuracies in any given Three Musketeers film adaption (and also the original novel) the one thing to complain about that was actually completely correct, to wit, the statement that Anne of Austria had been a Spanish Princess. I mean, I get the confusion if you're not familiar with the Habsburgs referring to themselves as "The House of Austria" and Charles V. having divided his realms up between his son and his brother, thus founding the two lines. But then don't make absolute statements like "Anne of course as Austrian, not Spanish!" without at least taking the two seconds to google her wikipedia entry!

Catholics won't end up getting emancipated until 1829.

We also heard a bit of the situations for Catholics in the "Mitred Earl" biography where Fred Hervey did try to make things better for the Irish Catholics which was still very much a minority position in the late 17000s.

BTW, to return to James, he lifted the fees for Catholics in the last years of his reign in order to finally make progress with the Spanish marriage project, and Charles reinstalled them at the start of his reign to much acclaim. His wife Henrietta Maria kept asking him to lift them again and it was quite a while until he did. The image of Charles I. as being pro Catholic and just a a step short of proclaiming himself Catholic as well really derives not from his actual deeds or convictions (whatever else he was, he was solidly Protestant all his life and one of the things he made the two children still with him in England, Henry and Elizabeth, swear on their last meeting before his execution was that they should remain true Protestants) but from the mixture of Puritan anti Royalist pamphlets and son James (II)' behaviour decades later, who of course wanted to believe Dad would have if he could have.