Victoria, Empress Frederick

Well it is a few days past "tomorrow" but I would like to continue with highlighting queen Victoria's children, beginning with her eldest daughter Victoria, called "Vicky" within the extended royal family. But first a little set-up if I may.

When I say the "extended" royal family, I refer to the royal houses in Europe at the time, all pretty much related, and thus all "family".

There were many countries in Europe in the 19th century that still had monarchs, or constitutional monarchs, but (Since this series of posts is about Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom) I will be referencing mainly the royal households of the UK, Austria, Germany, Denmark, and Russia. These were the big players in the 19th century, and up until World War I.

Born in late 1840 at Buckingham, Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa was soon created Princess Royal by her mother, since there were real prospects the little girl might become queen. As it turned out, she would become an Empress, but not of the British Empire.

Unlike her younger brother, who would become king of the United Kingdom, Vicky was intelligent and vivacious. When she was only 14, her mother and father arranged for her to be married to prince Frederick William of Prussia (Fritz) who was then second in line to the Prussian throne (and later the German Empire) behind his father. They were married 2 years later when Vicky was 17 years old.

Their marriage was, of course, a dynastic alliance, but (happily) it was a love match as well. Off to Germany the young girl went with her young husband. Soon thereafter, his father became king (Kaiser William I) and she suddenly found herself Crown Princess of Prussia.

These were war years as Prussia fought to consolidate all the German states into one Germany. Some of the fighting was with Denmark, and this caused strife within the British royal family because of their close ties to Denmark, but life went on. The monarchs of Europe never seemed to let wars stand in the way of family reunions.

Germany became a very militaristic state, run by aristocrats with saber scars above their eyes from fencing at university - quite the rage, even though sometimes self-inflicted. Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, was the real power, overseeing the unification of Germany, and the old king went along, keeping his nose clean, sleeping in his metal soldiers' cot, pretending he was in charge, honestly believing his crown came from God, listening to Bismarck whisper visions of grandeur in his ear. He would be another Frederick the Great, would the old soldier. But Bismark called the shots.

When William I died, much of the country envisioned the dawn of a new era. Fritz and Vicky were modern-minded and forward-thinking, a much-needed breath of fresh air. Finally, change would come to Germany.

But by then it was too late. By the time he took the throne, Frederick III had advanced throat cancer and was already breathing through a tube. His reign lasted only 99 days.

When Vicky's son took the throne as Kaiser Wilhelm II, there was no doubt about there being any peace and quiet in Germany. Forget that dream.

William was an odd child. His grandmother, queen Victoria, never seemed to really like him. Vicky tried to exert a proper British influence on him through his early childhood teachings, but his heroes and final influences were the German aristocracy and the military. He would wear a uniform as long as he was in power. When the other royal children would visit - from England, from Russia, they would recall Cousin Willy as always bossing them around, deciding what they would play, making them sit while he read the Bible to them. A psychopath? You be the judge. He was the last king of Germany.

The Dowager Empress lived out her life in relative seclusion, known officially as the Empress Frederick. Vicky had 8 children and lived to 60 years old, dying just 7 months after her mother. She died of inoperable breast cancer. Her servants and maids asked to be moved farther away from Vicky's room so that her screams would not disturb them in the night.

Vicky always kept in close touch with other members of the British royal family, especially her younger brother, the future king Edward VII. There are some 3777 letters cataloged to her from her mother, queen Victoria, and over 4000 letters from Vicky to the British queen.

Queen Victoria's precocious firstborn was buried at Potsdam, next to her beloved husband and her two children who had died in childhood.

Course Corrections

It is half-past midnight in cactus country where I am, so officially it is now the 4th day of this new blog. (I don't know why the date still shows March 11. Must still be before midnight in Googleland. Or else they haven't yet changed their servers to Daylight Savings Time. Whatever. Pretend it says March 12.)

While I am, in general, pleased at what has been happening so far, and so quickly, it is also pretty obvious that some changes need to be made with regard to the vision and direction of the blog. It is already getting out of my control, if ever it really was in my control. I am steering by the wake, as it were. I am not unhappy that you are taking control from me, but I do crave some sort of purpose and direction.

This blog was started rather on the spur of the moment when I was out entrecruising (as I call it) and noticed that I kept coming across very interesting and very literate blogs which all seemed to be located in the vast territories of the former British Empire. I kept reading interesting stuff, but soon realized I didn’t really understand as much of it as I would have liked. Indeed we are truly separated by this common language we share. I would stare at the words. The words were obviously English words. English is my native language (honestly). So why wasn’t I understanding the nuances of these posts?

I happened to be trying to read the football commentary on magpieszone.com when the spark of the idea for this blog entered my head.

I still believe in the validity of the basic premise, but at the same time it is becoming obvious that some changes--course corrections--need to be made. I hadn’t thought the blog concept through deeply enough. We are adrift. There have been bright spots, of course: For one thing, I hadn’t anticipated that proper British ladies would so love to bully unsuspecting American men. I love it. But that’s not what I am really talking about.

My general vague plan on day one of this blog was for me to continue roaming the internet and harvesting examples that I truly didn’t understand, and then bring those examples to your attention. Then you would translate for me, in a helpful and friendly manner, and, gosh, what a fine time we all would have. Ha.

The first thing that I quickly realized was that there was really no need for my inept “harvesting”, and I found out even faster that I wasn’t very good at it anyway. I mean, not knowing what the words meant, how was I to know if what I was choosing was interesting to you, the audience; whether it was mundane, or whether it was a real nugget to be examined and savered until all the marrow had been delightfully sucked out.

The second thing I quickly learned was that while American humor is direct and hits you right in the gut fast and hard, British humor is much more subtle. You lean toward nuances, comparisons, stories, and, of course, you are masters at metaphor and the fine art of the double entendre.

Perhaps the differences between American and British humor are best explained by this rather tidy summation which was given by the late great American commedian Alan King (whose picture appears at the head of this post.) I saw this on HBO many years ago. Mr. King had been invited to a student comedy competition at a famous school in Britain. Cambridge, I think. It was the kind of competition where the two sides each sit on one side of the small autditorium, and the audience would move to seats on the other side of the aisle whenever they were swayed by the comedic prowess of the speakers, who took turns. I remember that Mr. King spoke first to the very bright young British audience. His words summed up very succinctly the point I am grasping to make here.

“I love British humor.” he began. “It is very instructive. It makes you think. It is very, very witty. It is incredibly cerebral. It is ever so clever. It just isn’t fucking funny.”

I am going to, in the main, stop my feeble attempts to harvest what I think to be interesting tidbits of unusual examples of the British vernacular. Instead, I am going to let the experts do that. The experts know the territory. The experts don’t stumble around like I do.

You are the experts.

Have at it. I can’t hold a candle to you, anyway. I am a babe in the woods, compared to you. Just let me moderate. Let me make commentary. Let me ask questions. Teach me about the real English language; the one that is still so very much alive and vibrant in your country’s ethnic subdivisions and neighborhoods; the language of my ancestors. Listening in on your talk among (amongst) yourselves, it is obvious you have no clue as to the incredible treasure you have inherited. Having grown up with it, you take it for granted. Time and distance has slowly alienated Americans (and, sadly, to a great extent, Canadians) from this birthright, little by little, over the years.

But I want to do more than try and learn to understand English. I want also to feel free to ask you questions about other things (besides language differences) I (and other Americans) have long been curious about but were afraid to ask. Or had no one to ask. Since I am far away and you can’t just reach out and slap me for asking stupid questions, let me give you an example of an American stupid question:

Just what exactly does being British mean, anyway?

I mean, you have your English, your Scots, your welsh, your Irish. But what is being British, exactly? Any random combination of the above? Hardly, I suspect. Those might even be fighting words to you. Hell, I don’t know. You have England. You have Britain. You have Great Britain. You have the UK (which I know is supposed to be followed by the words, “of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” Please bear with me. It has been many years since this stuff was crammed into my head as a 10-year-old in rural Michigan. I know about England and I know about Scotland. I know about at least one Act of Union. I don’t think there was actually an Act of Union when you got Wales so long ago. I think you just went and took it one afternoon. I know that what is now independent Ireland is no longer under British rule, although I don’t have a clue about the circumstances of the separation.

You see? There is much more fodder for this blog than simply teaching me real English (although that is still the biggest reason for this blog’s existance.) It seems to me that the enlightment of Americans' rather poor understanding of (some of) their ancestor’s culture, without restriction to only the language part of it, is a worthy purpose as well, and it occurs to me that this blog can serve as a vehicle to that worthy purpose. Talk about a run-on sentence, eh? No, I haven’t been drinking. It just strikes me as a good idea. Potential for more intellectual abuse by the ladies, as it were. Because, like it or not, with regard to knowing about their roots, Americans, in general at least, are dumber than stumps. Whatever you tell us, we’ll believe. It could be great sport for you.

So let’s begin our 4th day together with that new premise. No more restrictions as to subject matter. You talk, I’ll ask questions and make dumbass uninformed comments. It’ll be fun. You’ll see.

Start with the one I have already posed. What the hell, truly, is “British” anyway? Or what do you think it is? And don’t toy with me. Or do toy with me. Whatever.