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: August III: This is how you lose the PR war

[selenak]

Yup, sounds like another case of shy monarch hiding behind etiquette to me. Btw, you know who also was a case in point? Charles I. Who had been a shy bookish and sickly kid expected to die young and completely overshadowed by sports-excelling and charismatic older brother Henry. When young Charles made that trip to Spain with Buckingham causing so much political trouble for everyone, he did not get a wife out of it, but he did culturally imprint on two things for the rest of his life: 1) Spanish etiquette, and 2) Titian paintings (also art in general, but especially Titian - who had painted for Emperor Charles V which is why there were a lot of his works in Spain at this point, and Charles started to buy right then and there - , of whom Charles I. became the biggest collector in England. I mean, the Royal Collection in Britain to this day is absolutely dominated by the stuff Charles I acquired, because he became such a massive art collector who brought not only the great continental Renaissance painters to England but also the then contemporary modern greats like Van Dyke. But 1), the Spanish etiquette, all the ritual and awe, was for Charles who had a life long stutter* something like a life line in how to interact with courtiers and people. And a great contrast to the far more informal type of court his father James held.

….none of which helped but rather encouraged the build up to the Civil War. The Tudors, especially Henry VIII and Elizabeth, had a knack of that balance between inspiring awe and coming across as accessible to the people which the Stuarts just didn‘t manage until Charles II. James I and VI was seen as a too jocular Scot, Charles I as a tyrant in the making probably about to go over to Rome, no matter how unfounded that rumor was, and that he introduced Spanish style etiquette did not help in that regard.

*One of the great elements of Alec Guinness‘ performance as Charles I in „Cromwell“ is that you can hear that Charles is fighting with that stutter problem every time he speaks in public despite him never stuttering per se - he had trained himself out of it - but the slight hesitation moments are there. (Exception, which is true to history: his trial and execution. At this point, according to all reports, he talked fluently.)

Re: August III: This is how you lose the PR war

[cahn]

Btw, you know who also was a case in point? Charles I.

This is all rather fascinating to me!

...none of which helped but rather encouraged the build up to the Civil War.

Ooh, I can see that. All that etiquette stuff (especially coupled with a not-particularly-charismatic monarch) could come across as so Continental! :)

One of the great elements of Alec Guiness' performance as Charles I

That sounds really cool. I can see that being one of those things that really makes a great performance.