Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 48

[cahn]

Some awesome historical RPF candyheartsex stories for meeeeee (or by me, in one tiny case) with historical characters! I'm just going to note whom the stories are about here. They are all so good!!

Anne Boleyn/Catherine of Aragorn
Frances Howard and Frances Coke (or: James I's court was basically a HOTBED of scandal, omg)

And two that are also historical RPF but also consistent with the Jude Morgan novel The King's Touch, which is an excellent historical novel narrated by James ("Jemmy") Scott, Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son.

Princess Henrietta of England (Charles II's sister and wife of Philippe I duc d'Orleans)
James of Monmouth/William/Mary

Comments

Re: Nikolaikirche

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, and weirdly, the postscript did not say what I expected it to say when I deciphered it: as best I can tell, it says Karl Ernst made a mistake ("sich...beirrt") in that line, and that his coffin (I can't decipher this word, but it's plain from context) was actually displayed in the Parochialkirche, which is where he's also buried.

Given that he's putting in writing his last wishes and saying, "I want to be buried next to my dad and brother and maternal relatives," saying he got confused is a bit weird. I was expecting something more like "changed his mind" or "that wasn't feasible because..."

German speakers, does "beirren sich" have some meaning I'm not aware of? Or were not only Karl Ernst's requests for no ceremony, but also his request to be buried by his father and brother ignored?

No written notification of his death in the newspaper or anywhere else.

They put together a eulogy to be delivered by the preacher at the church in Jennelt in East Frisia where Karl Ernst had an estate, but maybe that was okay because it wasn't a written announcement?

Btw, that's where I got the bit about him donating regularly to charity.

Re: Nikolaikirche

[selenak]

Honestly, I've never heard the term "beirrt" instead of "geirrt". (As a declination of "sich irren", as in: Ich habe mich geirrt, du hast dich geirrt, er hat sich geirrt, wir haben uns geirrt, ihr habt euch geirrt, sie haben sich geirrt.) Assuming it's either a more old fashioned phrasing or the guy meant to write g but wrote b: maybe the letter writer wants to express Karl Ernst was wrong about which church his father and brother were buried in? But honestly, that would be extra unlikely, unless the letter writer thinks Karl Ernst was going senile when writing his will.

Re: Nikolaikirche

[mildred_of_midgard]

Wow, my transcription even *says* "geirrt". I have no idea what happened on the path between my eyes and my fingers when I was typing that up for you. Conflation with "sich nicht beirren lassen," I guess.

Anyway! Now that we're all talking about the same verb...

"maybe the letter writer wants to express Karl Ernst was wrong about which church his father and brother were buried in? But honestly, that would be extra unlikely, unless the letter writer thinks Karl Ernst was going senile when writing his will.

Maybe? I did wonder if they thought he was going senile. But the thing is, he was right! His father and brother *were* buried in the Nikolaikirche, the exact church he asked to be buried in! And while he mentioned maternal relatives, he did not mention his mother, who's in a different church, so it seems like he knew exactly who was buried where and what he wanted.

It remains mysterious to me why he asked for one thing very specifically and got another thing, and the excuse given was that he didn't know what he was talking about. Oh well!

(Essay work continues, and I think I'm done writing Peter's, and down to fiddly citations and formatting. On that note, if you ever come across the letter to Wilhelmine in which FW thought Fritz would be ruled by favorites in 1739, I'm still on the lookout for it!)