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cahnUnfortunately, 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) )
(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) )
August III: Misc
Date: 2023-10-16 03:49 am (UTC)1. In case you were wondering, Staszewski agrees the taking potshots at dogs through the window happened, but only in the last few months of his life, when he was too sick to leave his rooms and go hunting like he normally did. He denies the drinking himself into the stupor.
2. The political situation when August III was growing up was pretty insane. It includes things like the Great Northern War, the conquest of Poland by Charles XII and overthrow of August the Strong, the invasion and occupation of Saxony by Charles XII, the battle of Poltava and subsequent restoration of August the Strong to the Polish throne, the death of Joseph I and election of Charles VI, etc. This is why Crown Prince August's Grand Tour keeps changing plans, and why it ends up lasting 8 years instead of the originally planned 3. (At the end, he's all grown up and over the homesickness, and doesn't want to go home anymore but instead stay in Venice indefinitely, but of course he's not allowed to do that either.)
3. Especially during the early stages of his Grand Tour, there is lots of drama, cloak and dagger missions, intrigues, letter openings, conspiracies, kidnapping attempts, and so forth. In collusion with Mom and Grandma back in Dresden, foreign powers like Sophie of Hanover, Frederik IV of Denmark (this is the grandfather of the unhinged alcoholic,
Btw, the Denmark connection is because young August's grandmother, August the Strong's mother, the arch-Protestant, is Anna Sophie of Denmark, aunt of Frederik IV.
4. Speaking of Protestant interventions, Staszewski confuses the hell out of me with this paragraph, which takes place in 1711, at the start of August's Grand Tour:
Ermutigt durch die sächsische Kurfürstin Anna Sophie, zeigte sich auch die Gemahlin des Kurfürsten von Hannover, die Namensverwandte der Königinmutter, Anna Sophie, besorgt um den kleinen Friedrich. Ihr Werk war auch die Intervention am britischen Hof und die eifrige Anteilnahme der Königin Anna an den vielfältigen Aktionen, die im Zusammenhang mit dem sächsischen Thronfolger standen. Sie regte ihren Gemahl an, den Hofjunker Krafft von Erff an die Seite Friedrich Augusts zu stellen, dem die Aufgabe zufiel, den Glaubenswechsel des Sohnes Augusts II. zu verhindern. Persönlich hielt sie ihre schützende Hand über den Prinzen, damit ihm durch die Konversion keine Gewalt angetan werde.
Either Staszewski is confused, or I am. If you can sort out who's doing what in that paragraph in a way that does not contradict history,
5.
ETA:
6. In extremely miscellaneous news, I just took 3 tries to type "Sweden", because my fingers had hit "S-c-h" before my brain caught up and went, "No, that's German, there's no 'c' in English."
"S-h-w"
No, that still looks wrong.
Then finally a victory with "S-w-e-d-e-n."
Selena, I still can't speak your language properly, but it's getting inside my head at odd moments! (Remember when I had to google "fief" for "Lehen"?
Re: August III: Misc
Date: 2023-10-18 06:45 am (UTC)Encouraged by the Saxon Electress Anna Sophie, her namesake, the wife of the Prince Elector of Hannover, showed herself full of concern regarding young Friedrich. The British Court‘s intervention and the eager particpation of Queen Anne in the many actions regarding the Saxon Crown Prince were her work as well. She encounraged her husband to position the Courtier Krafft von Erff at Friedrich August‘s side, who was given the task of preventing a change of faith on the part of August II‘s son. She took the Prince under her personal wing so that he shouldn‘t be forced into a conversion.
Now, given Queen Anne‘s strict anti Hannover relations stance, the biggest surprise here is that Sophie is credited with enough influence at the British court to persuade Anne to join the „Keep Friedrich August Protestant!“ campaign. I mean, I guess it‘s not impossible. Given that ever since it became obvious Sophie and her descendants would be Anne‘s successors, an increasing number of English nobles showed up in Hannover to win the favour of their future monarch(s), and they in turn could have influenced Anne, if, say, Sophie should say something like „you want to win my favour? Talk your current Queen into intervening on behalf of that poor young boy“ . And of course Anne was a faithful Anglican Protestant, plus Catholic conversion was a red button and highly relevant topic for any Stuart.
Why Sophie should care in the first place: well, she was the daughter of the Winter Queen. On the other hand, several of her siblings did convert to Catholicism, much to their mother‘s distress. (Remember, one even became an Abbess, and when Sophie visited Versailles with young Figuelotte, she visited her sister as well.) Her memoirs don‘t make her sound fanatic - and she would have been ready to let Figuelotte convert, much as Liselotte had done, for the sake of a royal French marriage -, but of course the religion of young future August IIII was highly relevant for German politics. Not least because after August the Strong‘s conversion, the number Protestant Princes Electors were shrinking, and if - as eventually did happen - the Palatine line got extinct and thus the Palatine became Wittelsbach property, meaning the same Elector would rule both Bavaria and the Palatinate - , they were down to Hannover and Brandenburg. Also, and more Machiavellian if young future August III had not converted, chances are he‘d never been elected King of Poland, no matter how much money Brühl threw around to make that happen. Which would have left Hannover and Brandenburg as the sole two Electorates whose princes were also Kings of territory outside the HRE, England and Prussia respectively. Much as it‘s nice to help the Protestant cause, it‘s even nicer to be the biggest game in town.
Re: August III: Misc
Date: 2023-10-18 06:58 am (UTC)This is also my translation, but the part that confuses me is that it's 1711. Who is this wife of the Prince Elector of Hanover? Sophie's husband is long dead. The wife of the Prince Elector of Hanover is SDC. So who is encouraging her husband to position people at Friedrich August's side and taking the Prince under her personal wing? The only one of the three women (Anna Sophie the Saxon Electress, Sophie of Hanover, and Anne of England) with a living husband is Anna Sophie, and it would feel weird to describe her keeping a long-distance eye on her own son as "she took the Prince under her personal wing."
That's why I wanted your opinion on who all these "she"s and "her"s are in a way that's consistent with history.
ETA: I mean, given that Lewin was a Soviet scholar who didn't have access to the West until his mid 40s, and he makes other mistakes (Prince Karl of Bayreuth instead of Prince Friedrich of Bayreuth, Rudolf of Holstein-Gottorp, Peter III's uncle, as king of Sweden instead of Adolf, Peter's first cousin once removed--a mistake Selena also once made, but not in a published book), it's entirely possible he thinks that 1) Sophie of Hanover is named Anna Sophie and 2) her husband is still alive and running Hanover in 1711. Which means he could be misinterpreting one of two scenarios in his sources:
a) At Sophie's behest, her *son* future G1 intervened to get someone Protestant placed at crown prince future August III's side, and Lewin thinks that was Sophie influencing her *husband*,
or
b) Crown prince future August III's mother, aka Anna Sophie originally of Denmark and now electress of Hanover, got her husband (August the Strong) to place someone Protestant at their son's side, and Lewin thinks Sophie did it because he thinks her name is also Anna Sophie (and that her husband is still alive). [ETA: Ugh, no, that's his grandmother, and she *also* doesn't have a living husband. Now I'm the one getting confused! But now I've confirmed none of these women had a living husband in 1711, so...he's definitely confused about something.]
I just wanted to see if there was a reading that doesn't require the author to be wrong about this many things, but like I said, he doesn't have the greatest track record with the names and genealogies of Germans.