Agreed on Morgenstern. (He's not always reliable, but stuff like his story about Sophie Charlotte telling FW he's totally illigitimate are describing things that supposedly happened decades before his arrival at court, and with what he tells about more recent to this events, we haven't caught him at an outright falsehood (which he'd have known to be one) yet. (See also his describing Gundling's life with FW, including the bears, which are also stories predating his own arrival by years and which he had to base on what he heard, but which hold up when compared to other data.) So if he says it was Schwerin the Victor of Mollwitz, then I take it to be at least a very popular rumor in the later 1730s.
The oldest son, btw, is Tido. So the connection between Schwerin and Tido at Mollwitz is even closer than we realized. Gosh, no wonder Fritz blew his stack.
LOL, quite. I wouldn't swear on Schwerin's complete innocence in Tido writing that satire, either.
BTW: if the Knyphausen/Schwerin offspring and it's not Amalie the conwoman (which due to the date of her birth it can't have been), what did become of the kid, I wonder? And why wasn't there a melodramatic 19th century novel imagining its fate? I mean, those were the days before anyone could sue you for writing RPF about them. See also Fanny Lewald writing an novel which has Rahel Varnhagen in unrequited love with Heinrich's favourite nephew Louis Ferdinand while Varnhagen the widower was still alive (and not happy, not least because Rahel really had not been).
So if he says it was Schwerin the Victor of Mollwitz, then I take it to be at least a very popular rumor in the later 1730s.
Exactly, and rumors are what's relevant here. It's not like Fritz had access to a DNA test; he was as dependent on rumor as anyone else. And since he presumably would have known about the close ties between Schwerin and the Knyphausens, it would have been a very plausible rumor.
Btw, cahn, the conversation between Manteuffel and Fritz happened in December 1735, so Morgenstern joining the court in 1736 meant that the rumors would have been very current when he was around in the late 1730s.
I have so much more to tell you about Tido and Schwerin and the Knyphausens, but no time! Maybe soon!
LOL, quite. I wouldn't swear on Schwerin's complete innocence in Tido writing that satire, either.
Omg, excellent point! And as we discussed, even if he was innocent, Fritz's paranoia is going to suspect him anyway.
The one caveat is that the only reason we have to believe in the satire--at least so far, no other sources have emerged--is an extremely unreliable source: a British merchant writing decades later and specifically saying he heard the story from Tido, who was prone to telling tall tales. All contemporary sources point to simple desertion; maybe Tido fancied up the story at Fritz's expense years later.
BTW: if the Knyphausen/Schwerin offspring and it's not Amalie the conwoman (which due to the date of her birth it can't have been)
If the church register is correct (and it may not be), it can't have been the same kid as December 1735. It may be impossible that they had a later kid, as I'm not sure about Schwerin's movements in 1737, but I can't quite rule it out based on the knowledge I have.
There's also a big question mark about the date. What we have is an unreliable historian (Herlyn, a descendant of her husband's family) citing a church register at Jennelt that records her marriage in August 1769 and says she was 32 years old. Now, church records recording how old people were are often off by a year or two. I'm not super convinced she wasn't born in late 1735 and thus 33 at the time of her marriage. It's also possible that there was some delay in her baptism due to the whole changing-hands thing, and her baptism, not her birth, is what's dated to late 1736 and leading them to believe she was 32 in 1769.
You'll see when you read the latest Peter draft that I've come down on the side of "probably the illegitimate kid, not certainly" for Amalia.
what did become of the kid, I wonder?
I've asked myself the same question. Boring answer? Infant/child mortality. It's my best explanation for why we don't hear of any contesting "Amalia's not the illegitimate child, *I* am!" contemporary claims. Also, if the Baroness really did give birth twice, either to twins or twice consecutively, as rumor has it, there's still a missing child. So I'm thinking death is the most likely explanation.
And why wasn't there a melodramatic 19th century novel imagining its fate?
Lol, that I can't help you with! Perhaps all the 19th century romantic urges were channeled into imagining Amalia was the daughter of Princess Amalie and Trenck.
So I'm thinking death is the most likely explanation.
Probably, especially if whoever was put in charge of her wasn't really motivated to keep the baby alive. I am not insinuating infanticide, just that if baby X ended up with some eighteenth century countrywoman who got already paid for caring for other babies, as was often the custom in France (don't know about Prussia), then being one of many wouldn't heighten its life chances. Now obviously both Schwerin and the Baronness Knyphausen could have afforded a more exclusive upbringing, i.e. one family, but if they had done that, you'd think that their descendants would have known whether or not Amalie was the genuine article or an impostor and what exactly became of the kid.
(Illegitimate children of nobility: I've encountered all variations, from the kids being part of the regular household to "it never happened, who is this?", with the most common method sadly being foisting them on a third party from lower in the class system who originally benefits financially and stops caring once the benefit is no longer there.)
The one caveat is that the only reason we have to believe in the satire--at least so far, no other sources have emerged--is an extremely unreliable source: a British merchant writing decades later and specifically saying he heard the story from Tido, who was prone to telling tall tales. All contemporary sources point to simple desertion; maybe Tido fancied up the story at Fritz's expense years later.
Good point, yeah. It does make himself look cooler than simple desertion.
Further developments: I tracked down the original of Manteuffel's report to Brühl on the episode of Knyphausen's illegitimate child (which is the episode I'm now editing in the biography). Manteuffel says some rumors attribute the fathering of the child to a certain lieutenant general, others a certain major general, both of whom are close friends of hers, and still others to some low officer.
Manteuffel doesn't name names, but Schwerin the victor of Mollwitz was a lieutenant general at the time (it was Fritz who promoted him to field marshal in 1740), so that is presumably him. The major general is presumably the other Schwerin we found. It's good to know there were multiple rumors going around in 1735 that would account for the multiple fathers we've found named!
In other news, supposedly ("dit on") the Baroness confessed to having been pregnant in December 1735 for the 3rd (!) time since her widowhood (a little over 4 years earlier).
Manteuffel keeps emphasizing that she paid the fine without difficulty (which is the opposite of what Voltaire said, namely that she was ruined!)
He says that everyone is surprised that FW is coming down so hard on her when he's usually pretty lenient with women and girls who give birth to illegitimate children, and everyone is speculating why. Some think it's because he's so pissed off at her late husband (whom he dismissed for having been suspected of involvement in the 1730 escape attempt), but others, Manteuffel included, think it's "amor habendi". I assume that means she's so rich he can fine her a lot.
It's difficult to overstate how much I love the Dresden archives for their extensive digitization efforts. <333 It was driving me crazy that I was relying on a summary by Weber when I'm trying to use primary sources as much as possible.
In particular, because I couldn't tell if it was Weber who declined to name the Baroness von Knyphausen as the woman in question, or Manteuffel, but I extremely suspected Manteuffel wouldn't hesitate, so I needed to go look at the original. And indeed, the anonymization was done by Weber.
ETA: Also, if this is her third pregnancy, we have a number of missing children to account for! Probably early death, as we discussed, but someone should write a melodramatic novel anyway. :)
Three illegitimate children in four years seems somewhat unlikely, not least because the body needs some time to recover, even for noblewomen who don`t nurse, and I doubt she immediately had sex again after giving birth, - maybe the rest were stillbirths? If there was a rest; I could also believe Manteuffel is spicing things up a bit, based on the true fact of one kid (and maybe one stillbirth).
Mind you, if she did have all those pregnancies in so short a time immediately after having been widowed, it may be that her marriage with Oriane's late father had not been exactly passionate...
FW (and Fritz after him) was definitely described as avaricious by all and sunder.
Voltaire describing her as ruined by FW: figures. This is the man who describes Wilhelmine as being thrown out of the window for dramatic effect.
You are, as ever, the best detective. And I'm still ragingly curious as to whether it was Schwerin the victor of Mollwitz and if so, why they didn't marry - was his wife (assuming he had one, which in FW's Prussia is a given) still alive?
Three illegitimate children in four years seems somewhat unlikely, not least because the body needs some time to recover
Au contraire, the royal genealogist is here to say that it was extremely common in the eighteenth century. That's what happens when you don't have birth control!
She actually did it herself multiple times during her first marriage, in which she had legitimate kids (of whom all but the first survived to adulthood, and the first lived to be 2 years old) in 1717, 1719, 1721, 1722, 1724, 1725, 1727, 1729, and 1731. Given that her last son was born 1 week before her husband died, I would say it was a passionate marriage and she was quite fertile.
SD also did it multiple times: 1707, 1709, 1710, 1711, 1712, 1713, 1714, 1716, 1723, 1726, 1730.
Maria Theresa did it multiple times: 1737, 1738, 1740, 1741, 1742, 1743, 1745, 1746, 1747, 1748, 1750, 1751, 1752, 1754, 1755, 1756.
Louis XV's wife Marie Leszczynska did it multiple times: 1727 (twins), 1728, 1729, 1730, 1732, 1733, 1734, 1736, 1737.
Peter's mother did it at least once that we know of: 1711, 1713, 1714, and since the genealogies tend to list a daughter in between 1711 and 1713, may have done 4 births in 4 years.
Suhm's wife did it multiple times: 1722, 1723, 1725, 1726, 1728, 1730.
Grandpa Wartensleben's 2 wives did it multiple times each: 1680, 1683, 1683, 1864, 1694, 1696, 1697, 1700, 1702, 1703, 1707, 1709, 1710.
Caroline of Ansbach did it multiple times: 1707, 1709, 1711, 1713, 1717, 1721, 1723, 1724 (plus miscarriages and stillbirths).
Maria Carolina did it multiple times: 1772, 1773, 1775, 1775 (yes, January to November of the same year), 1777, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783, 1784, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1790, 1792, 1793.
Fritz's sister Charlotte did it multiple times: 1735, 1736, 1737, 1738, 1739, 1740, 1742, 1743, 1745, 1746, 1748, 1749, 1752.
Both of Philip V's wives did it, one multiple times: 1707, 1709, 1712, 1713, 1716, 1717, 1718, 1720, 1726, 1727, 1729.
Both of Moltke's wives did it multiple times: 1736, 1737, 1738, 1740, 1741, 1743, 1745, 1746, 1748, 1750, 1751, 1753, 1755, 1762, 1764, 1765, 1767, 1769, 1770, 1773.
Ferdinand's wife-niece did it multiple times: 1761, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1776, 1779
Catherine I of Russia did it multiple times: 1704, 1705, 1707, 1708, 1709, 1713, 1714, 1715, 1717, 1718, 1723, 1724.
Katte's mother did it only once, but she did it in the space of 2 years: 1704, 1705, 1706.
And I chose these examples because a majority of the births are ones where the kid lived at least a few months, and mostly a lot more than that. Non-stop pregnancy was a way of life for many women, Charlotte von Knyphausen among them.
Actually, on the one hand with modern medicine, but on the other hand with birth control, my own mother had 3 kids in 4 years: 1983, 1985, 1987.
So I find it very plausible that she gave birth 3 times in 4 years, given her previous history of giving birth every year or two.
And I'm still ragingly curious as to whether it was Schwerin the victor of Mollwitz and if so, why they didn't marry - was his wife (assuming he had one, which in FW's Prussia is a given) still alive?
Yes, according to Wikipedia, he married his first wife in 1708, and she didn't die until 1754. They had children in 1711, 1712, and 1715 (i.e., 3 in 4 years). Then he married his second wife and thereby legitimized their illegitimate children from 1717 and 1721.
If you ask me, the fact that he was having illegitimate children in 1717 and 1721 makes it more plausible that he was having them in the 1730s!
That's a good question! I had a quick glance at Varnhagen, but he says Schwerin and his second wife had no children; no mention of earlier illegitimate children (per Wikipedia). If I find out, I'll let you know!
I should add that Charlotte von Knyphausen embodies a different feature of the 18th century that surprised cahn: that first birth in 1717 took place when Charlotte was still 14 years old. (Her husband was 38.)
If you catch women early enough in their childbearing years, you can get a lot of kids out of them every 1-2 years! If, you know, they don't die in childbirth or have their organs ruined entirely*. I'm reminded of one of my great-grandmothers, who got started at age 14 and had 15 children live to adulthood, plus a few die as babies. I don't have birthdates, but she must have been doing the "3 kids in 4 years" thing numerous times.
* Not that she was married young (22), but I still wonder how Wilhelmine managed to get pregnant within about 10 days of her wedding and then never again, despite a loving marriage. Organ damage is still my best explanation.
Btw, I got curious and looked it up, and Marie Louise of Savoy, wife of Philip "the Frog" V, despite being married at 12, at least didn't start having children until she was 18. Not for lack of sex: she didn't want to consummate the marriage on her wedding night, and Philip wasn't going to make her, but when Grandpa Louis XIV found out, he was all, "No, you SHOW her who's boss! You rape that child!" (essentially) And then they did start having sex shortly thereafter.
In other words, our days of being stupendously grateful we don't live in the past are certainly coming to a middle.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-07 02:10 pm (UTC)The oldest son, btw, is Tido. So the connection between Schwerin and Tido at Mollwitz is even closer than we realized. Gosh, no wonder Fritz blew his stack.
LOL, quite. I wouldn't swear on Schwerin's complete innocence in Tido writing that satire, either.
BTW: if the Knyphausen/Schwerin offspring and it's not Amalie the conwoman (which due to the date of her birth it can't have been), what did become of the kid, I wonder? And why wasn't there a melodramatic 19th century novel imagining its fate? I mean, those were the days before anyone could sue you for writing RPF about them. See also Fanny Lewald writing an novel which has Rahel Varnhagen in unrequited love with Heinrich's favourite nephew Louis Ferdinand while Varnhagen the widower was still alive (and not happy, not least because Rahel really had not been).
Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-07 10:58 pm (UTC)Exactly, and rumors are what's relevant here. It's not like Fritz had access to a DNA test; he was as dependent on rumor as anyone else. And since he presumably would have known about the close ties between Schwerin and the Knyphausens, it would have been a very plausible rumor.
Btw,
I have so much more to tell you about Tido and Schwerin and the Knyphausens, but no time! Maybe soon!
LOL, quite. I wouldn't swear on Schwerin's complete innocence in Tido writing that satire, either.
Omg, excellent point! And as we discussed, even if he was innocent, Fritz's paranoia is going to suspect him anyway.
The one caveat is that the only reason we have to believe in the satire--at least so far, no other sources have emerged--is an extremely unreliable source: a British merchant writing decades later and specifically saying he heard the story from Tido, who was prone to telling tall tales. All contemporary sources point to simple desertion; maybe Tido fancied up the story at Fritz's expense years later.
BTW: if the Knyphausen/Schwerin offspring and it's not Amalie the conwoman (which due to the date of her birth it can't have been)
If the church register is correct (and it may not be), it can't have been the same kid as December 1735. It may be impossible that they had a later kid, as I'm not sure about Schwerin's movements in 1737, but I can't quite rule it out based on the knowledge I have.
There's also a big question mark about the date. What we have is an unreliable historian (Herlyn, a descendant of her husband's family) citing a church register at Jennelt that records her marriage in August 1769 and says she was 32 years old. Now, church records recording how old people were are often off by a year or two. I'm not super convinced she wasn't born in late 1735 and thus 33 at the time of her marriage. It's also possible that there was some delay in her baptism due to the whole changing-hands thing, and her baptism, not her birth, is what's dated to late 1736 and leading them to believe she was 32 in 1769.
You'll see when you read the latest Peter draft that I've come down on the side of "probably the illegitimate kid, not certainly" for Amalia.
what did become of the kid, I wonder?
I've asked myself the same question. Boring answer? Infant/child mortality. It's my best explanation for why we don't hear of any contesting "Amalia's not the illegitimate child, *I* am!" contemporary claims. Also, if the Baroness really did give birth twice, either to twins or twice consecutively, as rumor has it, there's still a missing child. So I'm thinking death is the most likely explanation.
And why wasn't there a melodramatic 19th century novel imagining its fate?
Lol, that I can't help you with! Perhaps all the 19th century romantic urges were channeled into imagining Amalia was the daughter of Princess Amalie and Trenck.
Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-08 02:10 pm (UTC)Probably, especially if whoever was put in charge of her wasn't really motivated to keep the baby alive. I am not insinuating infanticide, just that if baby X ended up with some eighteenth century countrywoman who got already paid for caring for other babies, as was often the custom in France (don't know about Prussia), then being one of many wouldn't heighten its life chances. Now obviously both Schwerin and the Baronness Knyphausen could have afforded a more exclusive upbringing, i.e. one family, but if they had done that, you'd think that their descendants would have known whether or not Amalie was the genuine article or an impostor and what exactly became of the kid.
(Illegitimate children of nobility: I've encountered all variations, from the kids being part of the regular household to "it never happened, who is this?", with the most common method sadly being foisting them on a third party from lower in the class system who originally benefits financially and stops caring once the benefit is no longer there.)
The one caveat is that the only reason we have to believe in the satire--at least so far, no other sources have emerged--is an extremely unreliable source: a British merchant writing decades later and specifically saying he heard the story from Tido, who was prone to telling tall tales. All contemporary sources point to simple desertion; maybe Tido fancied up the story at Fritz's expense years later.
Good point, yeah. It does make himself look cooler than simple desertion.
Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-09 03:16 am (UTC)Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-09 03:58 am (UTC)Salon hive mind! I had this exact thought and almost wrote this exact paragraph but for lack of time.
you'd think that their descendants would have known whether or not Amalie was the genuine article or an impostor and what exactly became of the kid.
Gah! I have opinions on this, based on the latest archival findings, but no time. To be continued!
Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-26 11:25 am (UTC)Manteuffel doesn't name names, but Schwerin the victor of Mollwitz was a lieutenant general at the time (it was Fritz who promoted him to field marshal in 1740), so that is presumably him. The major general is presumably the other Schwerin we found. It's good to know there were multiple rumors going around in 1735 that would account for the multiple fathers we've found named!
In other news, supposedly ("dit on") the Baroness confessed to having been pregnant in December 1735 for the 3rd (!) time since her widowhood (a little over 4 years earlier).
Manteuffel keeps emphasizing that she paid the fine without difficulty (which is the opposite of what Voltaire said, namely that she was ruined!)
He says that everyone is surprised that FW is coming down so hard on her when he's usually pretty lenient with women and girls who give birth to illegitimate children, and everyone is speculating why. Some think it's because he's so pissed off at her late husband (whom he dismissed for having been suspected of involvement in the 1730 escape attempt), but others, Manteuffel included, think it's "amor habendi". I assume that means she's so rich he can fine her a lot.
It's difficult to overstate how much I love the Dresden archives for their extensive digitization efforts. <333 It was driving me crazy that I was relying on a summary by Weber when I'm trying to use primary sources as much as possible.
In particular, because I couldn't tell if it was Weber who declined to name the Baroness von Knyphausen as the woman in question, or Manteuffel, but I extremely suspected Manteuffel wouldn't hesitate, so I needed to go look at the original. And indeed, the anonymization was done by Weber.
ETA: Also, if this is her third pregnancy, we have a number of missing children to account for! Probably early death, as we discussed, but someone should write a melodramatic novel anyway. :)
Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-26 05:35 pm (UTC)Mind you, if she did have all those pregnancies in so short a time immediately after having been widowed, it may be that her marriage with Oriane's late father had not been exactly passionate...
FW (and Fritz after him) was definitely described as avaricious by all and sunder.
Voltaire describing her as ruined by FW: figures. This is the man who describes Wilhelmine as being thrown out of the window for dramatic effect.
You are, as ever, the best detective. And I'm still ragingly curious as to whether it was Schwerin the victor of Mollwitz and if so, why they didn't marry - was his wife (assuming he had one, which in FW's Prussia is a given) still alive?
Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-26 06:41 pm (UTC)Au contraire, the royal genealogist is here to say that it was extremely common in the eighteenth century. That's what happens when you don't have birth control!
She actually did it herself multiple times during her first marriage, in which she had legitimate kids (of whom all but the first survived to adulthood, and the first lived to be 2 years old) in 1717, 1719, 1721, 1722, 1724, 1725, 1727, 1729, and 1731. Given that her last son was born 1 week before her husband died, I would say it was a passionate marriage and she was quite fertile.
SD also did it multiple times: 1707, 1709, 1710, 1711, 1712, 1713, 1714, 1716, 1723, 1726, 1730.
Maria Theresa did it multiple times: 1737, 1738, 1740, 1741, 1742, 1743, 1745, 1746, 1747, 1748, 1750, 1751, 1752, 1754, 1755, 1756.
Louis XV's wife Marie Leszczynska did it multiple times: 1727 (twins), 1728, 1729, 1730, 1732, 1733, 1734, 1736, 1737.
Peter's mother did it at least once that we know of: 1711, 1713, 1714, and since the genealogies tend to list a daughter in between 1711 and 1713, may have done 4 births in 4 years.
Suhm's wife did it multiple times: 1722, 1723, 1725, 1726, 1728, 1730.
Grandpa Wartensleben's 2 wives did it multiple times each: 1680, 1683, 1683, 1864, 1694, 1696, 1697, 1700, 1702, 1703, 1707, 1709, 1710.
Caroline of Ansbach did it multiple times: 1707, 1709, 1711, 1713, 1717, 1721, 1723, 1724 (plus miscarriages and stillbirths).
Maria Carolina did it multiple times: 1772, 1773, 1775, 1775 (yes, January to November of the same year), 1777, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783, 1784, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1790, 1792, 1793.
Fritz's sister Charlotte did it multiple times: 1735, 1736, 1737, 1738, 1739, 1740, 1742, 1743, 1745, 1746, 1748, 1749, 1752.
Both of Philip V's wives did it, one multiple times: 1707, 1709, 1712, 1713, 1716, 1717, 1718, 1720, 1726, 1727, 1729.
Both of Moltke's wives did it multiple times: 1736, 1737, 1738, 1740, 1741, 1743, 1745, 1746, 1748, 1750, 1751, 1753, 1755, 1762, 1764, 1765, 1767, 1769, 1770, 1773.
Ferdinand's wife-niece did it multiple times: 1761, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1776, 1779
Catherine I of Russia did it multiple times: 1704, 1705, 1707, 1708, 1709, 1713, 1714, 1715, 1717, 1718, 1723, 1724.
Katte's mother did it only once, but she did it in the space of 2 years: 1704, 1705, 1706.
And I chose these examples because a majority of the births are ones where the kid lived at least a few months, and mostly a lot more than that. Non-stop pregnancy was a way of life for many women, Charlotte von Knyphausen among them.
Actually, on the one hand with modern medicine, but on the other hand with birth control, my own mother had 3 kids in 4 years: 1983, 1985, 1987.
So I find it very plausible that she gave birth 3 times in 4 years, given her previous history of giving birth every year or two.
And I'm still ragingly curious as to whether it was Schwerin the victor of Mollwitz and if so, why they didn't marry - was his wife (assuming he had one, which in FW's Prussia is a given) still alive?
Yes, according to Wikipedia, he married his first wife in 1708, and she didn't die until 1754. They had children in 1711, 1712, and 1715 (i.e., 3 in 4 years). Then he married his second wife and thereby legitimized their illegitimate children from 1717 and 1721.
If you ask me, the fact that he was having illegitimate children in 1717 and 1721 makes it more plausible that he was having them in the 1730s!
Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-27 03:02 pm (UTC)Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-27 03:09 pm (UTC)Re: Baroness von Knyphausen's illegitimate child
Date: 2025-06-28 11:19 am (UTC)If you catch women early enough in their childbearing years, you can get a lot of kids out of them every 1-2 years! If, you know, they don't die in childbirth or have their organs ruined entirely*. I'm reminded of one of my great-grandmothers, who got started at age 14 and had 15 children live to adulthood, plus a few die as babies. I don't have birthdates, but she must have been doing the "3 kids in 4 years" thing numerous times.
* Not that she was married young (22), but I still wonder how Wilhelmine managed to get pregnant within about 10 days of her wedding and then never again, despite a loving marriage. Organ damage is still my best explanation.
Btw, I got curious and looked it up, and Marie Louise of Savoy, wife of Philip "the Frog" V, despite being married at 12, at least didn't start having children until she was 18. Not for lack of sex: she didn't want to consummate the marriage on her wedding night, and Philip wasn't going to make her, but when Grandpa Louis XIV found out, he was all, "No, you SHOW her who's boss! You rape that child!" (essentially) And then they did start having sex shortly thereafter.
In other words, our days of being stupendously grateful we don't live in the past are certainly coming to a middle.