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: Pomeranians

[mildred_of_midgard]

given Lehndorff, who knew Fredersdorf from a distance, still is aware he's from "backwards Pomerania", I bet the Pomeranian accent was strong with this one

Ooh, I bet you're right about the accent!

In contrast, I bet Peter did not. I bet he moved to Berlin and had a local accent within 6 months. :D

there's a good chance this really was the first association for Fritz province had.

So, sadly, although I agree with you about the accent, further reading has led to new revelations: Pomerania was also FW's favorite province because it was the one that had the highest percentage of officers to nobles, i.e., the one that got most on board with his reforms. Supposedly, by 1724, almost every nobleman in Pomerania was either an active or retired officer. No other province came close.

Unsurprisingly, the East Prussians and Rhinelanders practically refused to join the army, and when Fritz became king in 1740, most of the provinces submitted complaints requesting the mandatory recruitment system be dismantled or at least seriously downgraded. So given that post-Seven Years' War Fritz dismissed FW2's tutor Borck for saying peace was better than war, I bet he was also pretty grateful to the Pomeranians.

I suspect that "backwards Pomerania" is *part* of why they embraced the military so much: FW set it up so that your best chance for a career path if you were a noble who wasn't extremely wealthy was the army. The most prominent and wealthiest families were much less likely to join the army, but those younger sons of minor nobility? They were all in. That's how Peter and at least one of his brothers ended up in the army. And Pomerania probably had more than its share of nobility that could use an economic boost.

But I still think Fritz was reminded of a certain someone when he heard the accent!