1740 and All That

I.e. family letters between Sophia of Hanover, most enterprising of great grandmothers, her daughter Sophie Charlotte, the first Queen of Prussia, her son-in-law Friedrich I., first King, her grandson Friedrich Wilhelm (aka Tiny Terror FW, not yet graduated to paternal horrow show FW), and grand daughter Sophia Dorothea.


First, some notes on the edition, preface and person of the editor. ( Georg Schnath thinks Sophie's baroque frankness is just too coarse for the Roaring Twenties )

So much for the editor and the edition. Now to the content.

( The letters summarized by yours truly )


And now have some actual quotes:

( Why cousin James won't be King for much longer, and young FW's (lack of) education is revealed )

Tiny Terror FW was nine at the time. Take your pick as to whom to believe. When SC dies in February 1705, F1 and Sophie write to each other almost daily trying to comfort each other.

Sophie also adds: The one thing I will ask most humbly from your Majesty is that I'll be allowed to embrace the dear Crown Prince here again after a while, for he is all that is left of the blessed Queen. And in a letter two days later: I will always seek in your Majesty and the dear Crown Prince what I have lost so painfully and unexpecdetly and what will never leave my heart. However, yet two days later there's a little push there amidst the affection and sorrow, for: Her late Majesty's thought and concern was always that the Crown Prince, as virtuously and well he's been raised, should practice writing somewhat more, which he can learn best of your Majesty as your Majesty excels in it.

Yet three days after that, February 28th 1705, we get our canon on teenage FW's romantic affections for Caroline, future Queen of England, which means I apologize to Klepper and Morgenstern for believing they led their romantic imagination carry them away on this subject:

( FW: Teenager in love? )

1705 was a year of horrors for F1, since in December, his daughter from his first marriage, who had married the Prince of Hesse-Kassel, dies the day before Christmas. In the next spring, an alchemist promising to have the secret of gold making shows up in Berlin, leading young FW to sensibly comment to Granny that if a man could make gold, surely he wouldn't have to live on the road trying to win the favor of princes, and why people who shall be Dad don't get that is a mystery to him. In the summer, F1 and FW of 1706 come to Hannover again to visit Sophie, and she uses the opportunity to propose her alternate match for young FW, which is, of course, SD.

( A marriage made in... Hannover )

( SD and FW, the early years (as reported to their grandmother) )

Future G2 gets to be with Marlborough at Oudenarde, while FW, now that the baby is dead, is clung extra hard to by fretting F1. This does not make FW happy.

( Young FW wants to join the war effort but becomes a topic of gossip in Versailles instead )

On to reveals of FW/SD early married life. Now, en route to the front FW will pass through Hannover and visit Grandma.

( Does it make sense to love one's husband? )

felis contributes quotes from the simultaneous early marriage correspondence between SD and FW:

( I have nothing to reproach myself with )