Frederick Prince of Wales - The Greatest King We Never Had

'The Music Party', Frederick Prince of Wales and his
sisters, Philippe Mercier, 1733

It's Sunday night as I sit down to start writing this, after a busy week of taking my boyfriend on days out to the zoo, the aquarium, Speke Hall, and all the fun things there is to do in Merseyside when you've seen all the sights in Liverpool. I also forced him to sit down and watch last year's The First Georgians: The German Kings who made Britain, which has been rerunning on BBC Four. I mean he has to know what I'm talking about when I get all emotional about the Georgians, right? Re-watching the series I was reminded of everything that made me fall in love with the Eighteenth Century in the first place. It also helped me rekindle my love for my sweetheart, Frederick Prince of Wales. Rebel, lover and supporter of the Arts, and "People's Prince", Frederick is one of my favourite historical figures, never mind favourite royals. And so in this post, at risk of having turnips thrown at my head by angry Jacobites, I'll attempt to give a brief history of this Hanoverian Prince, as well as defend my firm belief that King Frederick I would of been one of the greatest monarch's Britain had ever had. 

Please remember that I do not claim to be an expert, and I appreciate any feedback you may have.

Childhood

Frederick, Prince of Wales was the oldest son of George II, born in 1707, and therefore would have been king after his death, had he not died before him, allowing Frederick's son to take the crown and become George III, commonly known as the 'mad king.' But before all that, I'm going to start at the early years. 

Christian Friedrich Zincke (painted when Frederick
was about seven)

The father/son relationships of the Georgian kings were notoriously terrible. George II had a terrible relationship with his father George I, after all his mother had been imprisoned for adultery, never to see her son again. And tensions began with Frederick and his father in the formative years too; he was left at the age of seven in Hanover to act as a figurehead while the his parents were in Britain. Frederick grows up in Hanover and doesn't see his parents for 14 years, until he joins them in England upon his father's ascension to the throne in 1727. It's upon Frederick's arrival that their hatred for each other really started to grow.


Frederick and George II

It all starts to go downhill after George II only offers his son an allowance of £50,000, just half of what he'd been expecting, It sounds like petty rich kid drama, and it is when you put it simply, but Frederick probably took this as a deliberate insult, and possible attempt to limit his freedom by limiting his expenditure. 

The family of George II, William Hogarth, 1731-2
(Frederick is on the far right)

Frederick also opposed his father politically. A group of politicians branched off from the Whig party calling themselves the Patriot Whigs, and Frederick was heavily involved with them, earning their support. The Patriot Whigs were troubled by the idea of a "prime" minister, one man having too much power. While George II was away in Hanover, Robert Walpole took it upon himself to hold cabinet without him. Due to their support of Frederick against his father, the issue of the allowance was raised in parliament, causing further irreparable damage between father and son.

The final straw was when Fredrick's wife, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, went into labour. To stop the King and Queen being able to witness the birth of their grandchild and possible future heir, Frederick took his wife off from Hampton Court in a carriage in the middle of the night to St James' palace, where she would give birth. This not only offended the King and Queen, but the people of Great Britain, who were outraged at what seemed like Frederick's readiness to endanger his wife and unborn daughter in order to get one up on his dad. Even his supporters had to admit this was an immature and unwise move. It was also a move that got him banned from court.

So why was he so great?

Jacopo Amigoni, 1735

So far I've probably painted a picture of a bratty, immature rich kid, and that might be true to some extent, but dear old Frederick was so much more than that.

I've already touched on his political leanings, but what's most striking about this is that Frederick actually seemed to care. It's easy to be cynical about this, after all you could argue his involvement with the Patriot Whigs was just his throwing a tantrum at his dad. But compared to George I spending most of his time in Hanover, he would have stood out as a different kind of ruler. He was progressive, preferring a government where power was shared more equally within parliament, and was also a great supporter of the Arts.

Anonymous print of office-seeker kissing
Walpole's enormous buttocks

If the Georgian age saw the rise of the middling class, and more and more people being able to sell their work for profit through the support of subscribers, and not just a commission of an aristocrat, this was a time that saw a surge in creative freedom. Artists and writers were suddenly able to produce satire in great volumes after a law hadn't been renewed in parliament, because someone had forgotten to put it on the parliamentary timetable. Indeed, Frederick even wrote a satirical play himself under a pseudonym, although it was reportedly terrible and only got two performances. Nevertheless Frederick revelled in this new creative freedom, whilst Sir Robert Walpole and George II had to laugh along at drawings of their exposed buttocks'.

The portrait at the beginning of this post depicts Frederick playing the cello in front of a window, and this he did regularly, so that passers by could hear him play. Whilst it's true he probably loved the attention, it also shows how he placed a heavier weight of importance on pleasing the people, that on out-dated notions of propriety. He really took the biscuit with this during the gin riots when he entered a pub and ordered a pint of gin, thereby showing the people his support for them, and his opposition against the gin tax. He was a much more likeable and sociable figure than either his father or his grandfather therefore, he could be seen out in the public, instead of always locked away in a palace or over in Hanover.

St James' Park and the Mall, 1745 (Frederick is right of centre)

Frederick set himself apart by interacting with the people, and becoming one of them, he can be seen in this painting on the right surrounded by people of all walks of life. Like his mother Queen Caroline before him who was noteably on of the subscribers to Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, Frederick was an important and influential supporter of the Arts.


The importance of this support for the arts cannot be underestimated, after all it is the writers of this era that dominate in our understanding of the Eighteenth Century, as opposed to the kings. Frederick would have been a Hanoverian monarch who had finally gained the love and trust of the people, and I believe it would be him, as opposed to Victoria, that we would identify as the monarch to bring us into the modern age had he ruled.

!!! BLOG RELAUNCH !!!

You'll probably have noticed major changes to this blog before you started reading this. That's because I'm having a complete makeover. I've realised that what I really want to be spending my time researching and writing about is the Eighteenth Century, and that's really what I've been doing when I should have been posting here.

So here I am with a new theme and new URL, but not so new passion. I've already started writing my first post, about the fabulous Frederick Prince of Wales, so that should be up within the next few days. 

I'm super excited about this change, and I hope my enthusiasm for the literature and history of the century comes across in my posts, and makes them as fun as they are informative. 

If I don't post within a week, I'll probably be down the gin bar talking about Mary Davys to anyone who'll listen, so please do drag me back and remind me I have a job to do ;)

My Book of Shadows: The Personal Practice of a Green Witch

This is my Book of Shadows, or as I prefer to call it, my witch's journal. As cheesy as the use of a Slytherin notebook may be for this, it's a beautiful little thing, and a reminder that the magic of stories is just as powerful as the magic of the witch. As promised, I'm going to share with you how I use my journal, what goes into it, and how it helps focus my practice. Before I start I'd like to make a note that this is just an insight into my personal practice, not an instruction manual, and there is no right or wrong way to use your book of shadows, you can use any tatty old notebook if you like, or use the notes on your phone if you want something discreet. And any king of spellcraft, or any religious beliefs that you follow alongside your craft, are all equally valid. Here's a masterpost of many of the different kinds of witches and magic.

Spell Book  The obvious primary use of a book of shadows is a spell book, and all of my spells involve the use of natural ingredients. For me, the simpler a spell the better, relying on the power of the ingredients themselves rather than on ritual surrounding them. 

As I'm not a qualified herbalist I would never brew my own teas for ingestion (although I could never deny the power of a good witch's brew), and so a spell bag, to be carried or placed in a relevant position in the home, is my favourite method of spellcraft. I use little organza bags that can be found in craft shops (I got 10 for a pound at The Works), but an alternative I'm keen the try is little glass bottles that can be turned into necklaces. How the herbs and plants are stored isn't what's important here therefore, but they must be individually charged. This charging is as simple as holding the pile of the dried herb you are using and concentrating your energy into it, feeling it flow down your arms and charging the herbs as you concentrate on what you want to spell to achieve. Another of my trademarks when writing a spell is that there should be FOUR ingredients, one for each of the four elements; earth, air, water, and fire. Below is a transcription of the spells above;

Nightmare Banishing

Lavender (Mercury/ Air)

- sleep, depression, wish, divination

Rosemary (Sun/ Fire)

- under pillow ensures good night's sleep and drives away nightmares

- under bed protects against all harm.

Vervain (Moon/ Water)

- chases away evil spirits and malignant forces and calms emotions

- drives away nightmares

Thyme (Venus/ Water)

- under pillow ensures peaceful sleep and no nightmares

1. Charge individually

2. Put in herb bag

3. Place under pillow

Attracting Love

Rose petals (Venus/ Water)

- used in love spells for hundreds of years

Daffodil (Venus/ Water)

- on altar or carried for love spells. 

- Fresh flowers in bedroom increase fertility 

- plucked or worn next to heart for luck

Orange peel (Sun/ Fire)
- peels and seeds added to sachets for love magic. Flowers to those sachets lead to wedded bliss.

Apricot stone (Venus/ Water)
- carried to attract love

1. Carry all in herb bag to attract love.
2. If you want to encourage a certain someone to make their feelings known to you, place the ingredients out on the altar next to a small dish or cup of water and a lit candle and think of them as you hover your hands of them, before placing the ingredients in the bag.

Flower pressing

My book of shadows is also a record of my natural environment, and flower pressing is my main method of creating this. It is important to learn what kinds of plants grow around you as some of them may come in handy for a spell. Whilst I do use an Encyclopaedia of Magical Herbs, a Green witch must also rely on their instincts, and take note of what kinds of magical properties speak to them when they encounter a plant in the wild.

The quotes I have jotted down on these pages are;

"A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy." 
- Luis Barragan

"Those who do not believe in magic will never find it."
- Roald Dahl

Research

This is the research that is likely to form the basis for posts on this blog, but the reason that my research on folklore, magical creatures, and witchcraft ends up in this book is that I believe it is important to learn of the history of these Pagan beliefs, and to allow this to inform my practice. If you have access to Jsor, there are some intriguing articles in the Folklore journal, but sacred-texts.com has a wide array of primary sources that you may find interesting. Fae magazine is a quarterly publication that also publish relevant articles.

For the beginners amongst you, below are a few of the books I'd recommend. They are by Wiccan writers, but these particular books seemed to have more of a secular approach so I still found them accessible and relevant. Whilst they helped me to get started, I'd still say to take anything you read in books about practising Witchcraft with a pinch of salt. You are your own authority and teacher when it comes to harnessing your power, so trust yourself, you're as much a part of nature as the plants in your spells, and you are just as powerful.

   

Thanks for reading! I'm going to be blogging regularly from now on, so expect another post next Monday! See you then :)