1740 and All That

First of all, authorship to this book is credit to the Earl of Ilchester and Mrs. Langford-Brooke, which I took to meaning the Earl provided a great many of the papers and Mrs. L-B did the actual writing. The preface details the convoluted fate of H-W's papers, and how, among other events, earlier attempts to write is biography or publish a collection of his poetry failed, the later because Southey, the poet entrusted with the task, flat out refused because of changed morality. To which I say: Southey, you had it coming. Partly because of this, I presume, our author(s) are at pains to emphasize how Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams was a man of his time, alright, but not really a coarse Georgian, and would that he had lived in better times. Hence no syphilis, no non-straight verses (though his insinuating comments on Fritz and Hervey are kept intact), and of the het verses, nothing explicit.

This said, it's a biography that uses a lot of primary material - not just Hanbury's own papers but the national archives (which for example the mid 19th century Mitchell editor and publisher Andrew Bisset also used) for all the diplomatic dispatches, and in this regard, it's a treasure trove. Most of the footnotes go to primary sources. On the downside, it doesn't feel like the author(s) consulted many non-British sources - I mainly noticed Poniatowski's and Catherine's memoirs -, but not much else, and nothing German, despite H-W's work in Dresden, Berlin, Vienna, and of course all the Hannover stuff. And even of the British contemporaries, non-complimentary takes on H-W are dismissed in footnotes or in the final chapter with two sentences, like when we're told Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu didn't have a high opinion of him, but as she was friends with his wife, she wouldn't have. (Love the argument, as opposed to "she was on the other side of a feud you even quoted a poem of his from, wherein not only Hervey but she get direclty attacked, and oh, yes, she was friends with Hervey much more intensely - the Algarotti triangle not withstanding - than she was with his wife.) It very much feels like an authorized biography written centuries after the fact.

( Charles Hanbury-Williams: Youth and Soulmate )


Back to the 1920s hagioraphy: At any event, Wimmington's death is what ultimately pushes H-W into his envoy career later. But first Charles is a young man about town, and our authors are at pains to emphasize he was NOT a member of the Hellfire Club and did not participate in its orgies, he was a member of the Society of Dilettanti, which was a slightly more respectable frat boy union and future office holder network. He falls in love with Peg Woffington, the great actress of the day, but while accepting his suit she's also lovers with David Garrick, most famous actor of the day, and this leads to the anecdote where a jealous H-W accuses her of having seen Garrick only this morning, when she told him she hadn't seen Garrick for eons. Replies Peg: "And is not that an age ago?"

We've now reached the early 1740s, and the contortion of "don't say syphilis!" re: H-W's impending marital breakup is so great that I must quote:

( The Illness that Dare Not Speak Its Name )

Simultanously to having his marriage explode, H-W bitches with the Foxes about Hervey.

( We hates him, Precious! )

( Charles Hanbury Williams gets into politics )

( Execution of two Jacobite Lords )

( First Posting: Anglo Among Saxons )

( Second Posting: Meet the Hohenzollerns )

( Interlude: The Mystery of Madame Brandt )

Back to H-W's Prussian adventures.

( Avoiding Jacobite Exiles, Meeting Voltaire, Still Not Meeting Fritz )

Wilhelmine visits, and thus we get a H-W written portrait of her:

( I never met with a woman so learnedly ignorant )

And now for the big letterly explosion. Our biographer tells us this rant on why Fritz sucks, sucks, sucks, is so "outspoken as to be partly unpublishable", because clearly he agrees with Georg Schnath on the tender sensibilities of 1920s readers. Still, what we get is:

( The completest Tyrant that God ever sent for a scourge )

( Fatherly Advice Interlude )


After a brief second Saxon interlude, H-W gets posted to Vienna because London is under the impression the current envoy, Robert Keith, isn't tough enough on MT. As mentioned elsewhere, H-W was that rarity, an envoy who succeeded in making himself unpopular in Vienna and Berlin to the same degree. As with Fritz, he came with an already formed opinion, slightly revised it upon being received by FS & MT (as opposed to Fritz, they received him quickly), and then went back into critique.

( Charles Hanbury-Williams Tells It All: Habsburg Edition )

So no, that diplomatic posting isn't a roaring success, either. Exit Charles Hanbury-Williams. Russia awaits!

( Russian Prelude, more fatherly advice )

( Meeting Catherine The Not Yet Great: Diplomatic Success at Last! )

( Corresponding With Catherine )

( Saying goodbye to Poniatowski and Catherine )

H-W's journey back is described including a mental breakdown in Hamburg. Again, no mention of syphilis. Instead, we leanr that vulnerable Sir Charles manages to attract an enterprising adventuress named Julie John or Johnes who manages, after three days of acquaintance, to extract a marriage pledge and a grant of 10,000 roobles. She will actually show up in England later waving the marriage pledge at his family and will have to be paid off. Says the book: Whether from noxious drugs or from more natural causes, Sir Charles became completely deranged during those days in Hamburg.

Aaand he's off, with another member of the Marwitz clan as escort. He's not locked up in the proverbial attic in England but cared for in a nice house, and his daughters visit, which he reports in a short letter showing he can pull himself together that much. But basically, it's the end for Charles Hanbury-Williams.

( Charles Hanbury-Williams: The Rebuttal )

We have in our library the three volume biography of Prince Eugene of Savoye by Alfred von Arneth, which yours truly did not have the time to read so far, but has dipped into for points of Frederician interest, to wit, the Eugene-Seckendorff relationship, the lead up and aftermath of the 1730 escape attempt from the Austrian pov. Arneth is writing this very obviously from a defensive position where almost all 19th century readers/writers have adopted the Prussian Hohenzollern narrative.

(mildred_of_midgard: Obvious, cahn, because Arneth was an Austrian. He was the head of the state archives, and he published reams of historical documentation, including a 10-volume bio of MT and a ton of correspondence, which is how we know MT did not, in fact, write to Madame Pompadour.")

selenak: Which means not only is he correcting but he sometimes goes over the top in defending. Some examples for both:

( Arneth for the defense on bribery, international marriage projects and plots )


( Eugene and Seckendorff react to Katte's execution: )


( The Military Bromance of the 18th Century: Eugene and Marlborough )

( English wiki vs Liselotte of the Palatinate: the debate about Eugene's sexuality is ON! )

Finally, Eugene, the historical novel:

( Eugene as written by two marxists )

Three essays in the anthology "Mehr als ein Soldatenkönig", edited by Jürgen Kloosterhuis and Frank Göse and focused on Friedrich Wilhelm I. of Prussia, were of particular interest to the salon. Here are my reviews:


( Jürgen Kloosterhuis: The Tobacco College Painting and its mysteries )

( Sören Schlueter: FW as a father (to people not Fritz or Wilhelmine) )
( Isabelle Bosch: FW's daughters as mirrored in their libraries )

Jochen Klepper's novel Der Vater is hands down one of the most famous and original German 20th century novels dealing with Prussian history, and also the one designed to get Fredericians protesting, as it is 900 plus pages of FW as the tragic hero of the tale. (SD is the villain.) Incidentally, the first time I read this novel I was still in school, and it was in a severely abriged version, only about 300 pages which centred on the father/son drama. At a guess, that edition existed because some post war publisher figured that the Fritz of it was why most readers were interested in FW. It wasn't until last year that I came across the complete, uncut version, which I read; this was also the first time I read Klepper
since aquiring enough historical knowledge to judge how Klepper works with or around the facts. With the caveat: what facts and research he had access to, writing in the 1930s in Nazi Germany as an harrassed Protestant theologian and writer with a Jewish wife and daughter who would end up committing suicide with them not rather than see them taken away to camps not too long after Der Vater became his success against the odds. I know a novel should speak for itself, but this biographical background of Klepper's is worth keeping in mind when looking at his characterisation of FW, why FW as a character spoke to him - keep in mind that the Third Reich had simultanously a cult of genius leader figures going, of which their distorted image of Friedrich II. was one; Klepper's FW is very much a counterpoint and antithesis to this, among other things. Klepper also had a strict pastor as a father himself, whom he was in conflict with, and trying to understand FW went hand in hand with trying to understand his father. Last not least, there was his own religious struggle to understand why God let the horror around him happen. After the war ended, Klepper's sister Hildegard gave his diary to the Allied trial against Adolf Eichmann where it was used evidence (in session 51).

So much for the author. On to the novel itself.

Some impressions: the 900 plus pages version is still immensely readable if you like well written 1920s/1930s style historical novels, which I do (by which I mean the language and psychology is of that time as much as it's rokoko when directly quoting from documents), and I can see from this version, as I could not from the 300 pages one, why so many literary historians say about Klepper's FW is that he's supposed to be a counter image to Hitler and Franco, the good, morally responsible ruler (despite being also a tragic human being) who reforms his country out of bankruptcy and despite his military fetish keeps it out of war. Klepper makes much of the lesson young FW draws from participating in the battle of Malplaquet in 1709, which was the bloodiest, most devasting European battle (as a part of the Spanish War of Succession - essentially, think old Louis XIV against the rest of Europe) of that century until the 7 Years War, which was on the one hand celebrating the anniversary with fellow veterans like Grumbkow and Seckendorff every year but on the other doing his best to ensure something like this does not happen again within his life time, at least not involving Prussian/Brandenburg armies.

Unsurprisingly, Klepper is good with FW's religious struggles throughout his life. If you do know more history, however, it's noticeable that he goes out of his way to mitigate FW's abusive streak (for which his behavior towards Fritz isn't the only example).

( How Klepper deals with Gundling, Doris Ritter, and Katte )

( Klepper's SD: Ron the Death Eater? )

( Klepper's Wilhelmine: Hermione in a Harry/Draco story )

( The FW/Fritz relationship: tragedy with a Grey Havens ending )

( Klepper: must have read Gustav Volz )

( On young FW falling in love with the future Queen of England )

( On who deflowered FW )

( Klepper's Fritz: Definitely Gay )

Overall: Klepper's FW is presented as tragic but essentially a good man with flaws, at in the end understood as such by his children, including the two oldest ones, with his painful death being written as both atonment (like I said, Katte's death isn't presented as necessary or justified by Prussian law, but strictly because FW has convinced himself he needs a replacement sacrifice for his oldest son to God, in which he's wrong) and martyrdom (FW dies as justified in the Lutherian sense). This is achieved by a lot of editing, hardly unusual for a historical novel, of course, but at least it is a novel, not a biography.

Continuing on the note of "contemporary envoy reports are a gold mine", we give you the 1728 - 1733 reports of Wilhelm Stratemann, envoy of the Duchy Braunschweig/Brunswick, whose employers would end up marrying three of their offspring to three of FW's children (Fritz marries Elisabeth Christine, AW marries Louise, Charlotte marries the next Duke of Brunswick), on the fateful years when Hohenzollern family life went from dysfunctional to death sentences for boyfriends and intermittent imprisonment for the oldest son and daughter, respectively. The way Stratemann spins this saga into the most wholesome FW praising account any envoy (including FW's pal Seckendorff, the Imperial envoy at the time) has given yet is something to behold. Furtherly, bear mind this edition of the reports, edited by one Richard Wolff, was published before World War One, which meant that Hohenzollern censorship still applied. This said, Stratemann, with his detailed focus on royal family stories and lack of access to hardcore secret political negotiations, does provide a treasure trove of what would later be called "human interest" stories and useful details on anything from how FW and family celebrated Christmas to the seating chart of Wilhelmine's wedding banquet.

( So, who was Stratemann? )

But before getting to the Katte relevant reports, let's have some pre-escape attempt wholesome family life. As mentioned, Strateman got his political intel generally either via rumors or as crumbs from Seckendorff whom he tried to hang out with as often as he could, and thus it's frequently slightly or strongly off the mark. Otoh, he clearly did have a source among the staff in the royal household, whom I have identified based on several factors listed below as the governess of the Princess Sophie (and her two younger sisters, Ulrike and Amalie), and thus anything that happens with the kids is usually first hand. It is pronounced how he flings himself into these stories as opposed to reporting anything like that the other envoys (say, Suhm for Saxony or Dickens for Great Britain) report about the father/ oldest son or husband/wife clashes. So instead of stories about Fritz getting yelled at, you get stories about AW getting gifted with miniature canons and indulged in his love for fireworks. Until it really, really becomes unavoidable to report something else, what with a locked up Crown Prince.

( A happy royal family and their shenanigans: 1728 till the escape attempt )

With this background, and no word on FW humiliating Fritz in front of the army at Zeithain, the fateful summer trip by father and son being used as an escape attempt comes completely out of the blue. As I mentioned earlier, Stratemann hasn't heard about it (or at least doesn't mention it) as late as August 18th, at which point all the other envoys know, and when he does report Katte's arrest, he doesn't mention Fritz by name as the reason of it. He keeps reporting through September and October that the father/son reconciliation is imminent, that FW if anything will lessen Katte's sentence, that all will be well. Then comes November with its execution, of which Stratemann suddenly has far better intel than he used to in matters Crown Prince and Katte. And he has a fascinating follow-up on this in the middle of his wholesome family anecdotes, as none other than little August Wilhelm has heard about Katte's demise.

( Katte and the Consequences: The Disney Version )

So much fo Katte. Back to Hohenzollern family affairs.

( How to celebrate Christmas and break your oldest daughter to your will )

( On marrying your oldest daughter and son and the difficulties of replacing your court historian )

( Aftermath: Crown Prince not blissfully happy after all? )

The rest of the dispatches has the news that Wilhelmine has written she's really happy with her new husband in Bayreuth, the Protestant religious refugees from Salzburg arrive, and then there's the sudden time jump of a year to 1733 when Fritz gets married. No more interesting stuff. But no matter; Stratemann certainly delivered before that.

On to Part II. Frederick the Great said as early as the Seven Years War, and several times thereafter, that the only place where he'd been truly happy had been Rheinsberg, the namesake of our community. He was there for only four years (1736 to 1740). Later, he gave it to his brother Heinrich, who lived there for nearly half a century. When Fontane visited in the 1850s and 1860s, he was a bit frustrated that Heinrich by then was nearly forgotten, and the four years of Fritz were all anyone talked about, but I'm happy to report this is no longer the case. Lots of Heinrich stories provided by the audio guide and the inscriptions, though on the downside, the real life castellans are trying to convince you of Frederick's heterosexuality and swear he had a romance with a local Rheinsberg girl named Sabine. (In addition to being a married man, of course; this was the only time Frederick and his wife Elisabeth Christine truly lived together.) Never you mind, though: Rheinsberg!



( Palace of Dreams, Obelisk of Fraternal Revenge )


Now, not far away from Rheinsberg are the estates given to two boyfriends of Hohenzollern princes with very different fates. Say about Fritz what you want, but his taste in long term boyfriends was A plus, whereas Heinrich invariably, with only one or two exceptions, ended up with charismatic money spending jerks. None spent more money than Kaphengst, until at last according to legend Fritz told Heinrich in unprintable language to kick him out of Rheinsberg. Heinrich did this via setting him up with Meseberg, a beautiful palace in which today the Federal Republic of Germany puts its guests of state when they visit for more than a few hours. Meseberg is near enough so Heinrich could visit easily, but Kaphengst managed to run it down and get into debts again, at which point Heinrich had to sell his collection of paintings to Catherine the Great in order to bail him out, though he did call it quits then. Considering the currentn day use and the needs of top security, you can't visit Meseberg from the outside, but you can have a look (and conclude Kaphengst must have been spectacular in bed):

( Meseberg the Beautiful )

Meanwhile, the guy who has the claim of having been Frederick the Great's most long term partner, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, starting out as his valet, got the much more small scale estate of Zernikow as soon as Frederick ascended to the throne in 1740, but he made it florish, being the extremely competent organizer and business man he was.

( Competence is sexy, and thus so is Zernikow )


And thus it's time to head back from the province to the capital in this pic spam. On the Part III!

While researching the Marchese di Lucchesini's diaries, I'd come across a quote in the introduction to said diaries that mentioned a volume IV of Lehndorff's diaries, covering a near decade of his retirement years. This, naturally, I had to check out.

It turned out to have been so very much worth it. Post-retirement Lehndorff may now have made his East Prussian family estate, Steinort, his main place of residence, but not only does he travel a lot (as you do, when retired, not poor and finally having your monarch's permission), but he makes annual trips to Berlin and to Rheinsberg, finding it impossible to stay away too long from the man who is still the love of his life. (Otherwise known as Prince Heinrich of Prussia.) All of which means a lot of gems like Lehndorff's meetings with colourful contemporaries, like not one but two of Catherine the Great's exes, and the Comte de Saint Germain, one of the most famous con men of the Rokoko age, but a continuing first row seat to the soap opera that is Hohenzollern family life.

Our Editor, Dr. K.Ed. Schmidt-Lötzen, thanks G. Volz - the very same - for helping him because the excentric ortography of some of those letters, and of the diaries themselves, are a trial, and Volz has gone through the hardcore school of decyphering Fritz letters. Also, our editor doesn’t know whether he’ll live long enough to publish all of Lehndorff’s journals (he wouldn't), because looking at all those volumes still ahead, he doubts it. Aw. Editor, some of this material will go up in flames in 1945, so we’re grateful for anything you published, you were doing an intense public service, believe me.

(Today, post WWII, there are far fewer manuscripts still in existence, but there are some, thankfully, in the Lehndorff family archive as preserved in the Leipzig State Archive.)

Now, onwards to what our Lehndorff wrote. Remember, when last we left him, he retired from Queen EC‘s service, said goodbye to Heinrich and went home to Eastern Prussia to his estate Steinort. Which, btw, is in Poland today, along with a lot of other locations that will be mentioned in this volume; some even are in Russia now.

( 1775 - 1776: Sons and Lovers (of Catherine II) )

( 1777: Time of the Tricksters (some of which Heinrich doesn't have sex with) )

( 1778-1780: We didn't start the fire! )

( 1781-1782: The Magical Mystery Tour )

( 1783-1784: Yours, Yours, Yours )

As promised, I'll finish with a Lehndorff entry from June that same year (1784), which this man, now in his 60s, who fell in love with Heinrich as far as I can tell from the tone of his entries on him during late 1751 and through 1752, writes thusly:

June 1784: From there, I hurry home, change my clothing and jump, after I had talked for a moment with my wife and her visitor, into the post carriage. In order to avoid the heat, I drive through the entire night and arrive on the 6th in the evening at Rheinsberg. I always experience a particular sensation whenever I get close to this charming place, when I think of the fact that in an hour, in half an hour, in a quarter of an hour I shall see Prince Heinrich again, who when it comes down to it has been for as long as I can remember the Prince whom I love best. I had all reason to be satisfied with his greeting. I cannot adequately render the emotion that moves inside me, but I am his, utterly and completely. (Ich bin auf jeden Fall ganz sein eigen.)

A primary source we've stumbled across recently is the "Journal Secrete" by the Baron of Seckendorff. Just to make things a bit more confusing for the Frederician scholar, journal writer Seckendorff, Imperial diplomat at the court of FW from 1734 - 1737, is not, I repeat, not identical with Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff, Field Marshal, Diplomat, previous imperial envoy and schemer extraordinaire at the Prussian Court in the later 1720s and up 1732. This more famous Seckendorff usually shows up in tandem with FW's war minister Grumbkow as a semi-villainous double act in Wilhelmine's memoirs, and in most early biographies from Fritz' pov. Seckendorff the younger, the journal writer, is his nephew, Christoph Ludwig von Seckendorff.

Not surprisingly given he's being an envoy at a court whose king once had threatened to hang another envoy, Seckendorff the younger often uses code names in his journal. (It's not paranoia when they're really after you.) Though they're usually none too subtle. Junior = Fritz. (Yes, really. It sounds anachronistic, but isn't.) Olympia = Queen Sophia Dorothea, his mother. Biberius = Grumbkow. "Le Diable", i.e. "The Devil" = Manteuffel, currently the Saxon envoy, also on the Austrian payroll and supposed to get close to Fritz and spy on him for the Iimperials. Orondates = Joseph Wenzel, Prince of Liechtenstein, curent official Imperial envoy in Berlin, and also current owner of that same Antinous statue Fritz will aquire later.

Language: the diary is written in a mixture between French and German, about two thirds French, one third German, sometimes switching between paragraphs and quotes. Fritz is usually quoted in French, his father in German. A typical untranslated diary entry reads thusly:

Fréderic Wartensleben me raconte des particularités de Potsdam. Der König ist gesund, sagt er, wünscht zu sterben und hernach wieder auf zustehen, um die Veränderung mit anzusehen. Alexandre veut parier sa tête, que Junior n'a pas donné commission à Lichtenstein, de m'éloigner d'ici. Der Kronprinz hält mich vor unconversabel.

(Attempted translation into English: "Friedrich Wartensleben told me of the Potsdam oddities. The King is healthy, he says, wishes to die and to resurrect, in order to get to watch the changes. Alexander wants to bet his head on Junior not having given Lichtenstein the comission to get rid of me. The crown prince doesn't consider me worthy of conversation.")

With these explanations made, onwards to Seckendorff the younger's intel on dysfunctional Prussian royalty. Manteuffel did manage to become a part of Fritz' social circle, and duly reported on him. According to the German editor of the Trier letter archive, Fritz was aware of this at least in the later 1730s. Whether or not he already was aware of it when he makes the following statements to the guy, I leave to you to judge. But on page 144,ff July 2nd 1736: Mantteuffel - le Diable - reports that Fritz after dinner after showing him "all the tendernesses imaginable", took him into his room afterwards and there confided in him about his family.

( Fritz tells all: My parents, the siblings and me )

Seckendorff the Younger might not get overly chummy with Fritz himself, but he has other sources in addition to Manteuffel, and besides, the Hohenzollern are crazy enougoh that new stories write themselves nearly every day. While our diary writer has his own axe to grind (he doesn't seem to keen on his superior Liechtenstein). But what his boss in Vienna is most interested in is what the hell is going on with Fritz and his family. What kind of King will he be, if he ever makes it to the throne?

( Liars trying to outfox liars, or: did FW expect Frederick the Great? )

Evidently, Mantteuffel got instructions to dig a little more into Junior's sex life. No, not that way. (We think?)

( When Spys Play Marriage Counsellors )

The Trier Archive version of the Fritz/Wilhelmine correspondance, as with the as with the other correspondances, consists of 70% - 80% Fritz letters, though in this case I know this isn't because Wilhelmine's (after the mid 1730s, when Fritz is out of postal parental control) replies don't exist as well. There's a German published selection of their correspondance titled "Solange wir zu zweit sind" - "as long as we are two", or "as long as there are the two of us", which is a Fritz quote from one of the letters - which puts the emphasis way more on dialogue and thus post mid 30s renders it as a back and thro. Unfortunately, I only have an audio version of "So lange wir zu zweit sind" in my possession, which makes literal quoting far more difficult. While the following write up and quotes are mainly from the Trier archive, I have also inserted some of my earlier summaries from the audio, which contain more paraphrases and less direct quotes for that reason.

( Two Siblings, No Chill: The 30s and 40s )

( Erlangen journalists, Marwitz (female) and Maria Theresia, oh, my! )

( Greek myths and living Italians )

( OMG Voltaire! )

( Three funerals and a wedding )

( More things between heaven and earth: philosphizing siblings at large )

( And in the end... )

Since imo if there's a radio active core at the bottom of the fraternal hateship Fritz/Heinrich, it's what happened with brother August Wilhelm more than anything else, including Fritz' behavior in war (though the two are connected), I thought I might present some collected details from the letters in the Trier archive and those biographer Ziebura made available. With the Greeks, before every tragedy, there is a farce. The tragedy happens in 1757/1758, the farce happens in the summer of 1749.

( Brotherly Conduct I: The Prelude )

( Brotherly Conduct II: The Main Act )

( Brotherly Conduct III: The Aftermath )


Addendum: ( The same event as presented by Fritz to his reader Henri de Catt )