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FOREWORD
Though
this is a book about the surging power and fame of the English-Hanover
and
Prussian Royal Families in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it
is much
more. It is a story of the great private tragedies of many family
members
sacrificed along the road to glory, of the ruthless smashing up of
illicit love
affairs, of indestructible wills.
Two love
affairs are covered in great detail.
Only one
winner emerged from the bitter, ruthless power struggle played out
within the
northern German House of Brunswick-Luneburg, George the First of
England-Hanover. The
big loser, his wife Sophie Dorothea of Celle (1666-1726),
was imprisoned for the last thirty-two years of her life. Her lover
Count Philip
Konigsmark was murdered by George’s family.
Just
like her grandmother Sophie Dorothea of Celle,
Princess Amalie of Prussia
(1723-87), the youngest sister of Frederick the
Great, was also struck down by a life-shattering love affair. Her
lover, Baron
Frederick von der Trenck, sat for eleven years in her brother
Frederick’s gaols,
chained up like a dog in a damp, dark cell. Amalie became embittered
and never
married. Instead,
she became a great musician. Trenck, a tearaway with immaculate
aristocratic
breeding, lost everything because he dared to love a Princess. He
eventually
died in the guillotine in the madness that was called the French
Revolution.
This is
also a story of George the First (1660-1727) of England and his
grandson Frederick the Great (1712-1786) of Prussia, of
their unquenchable lust for power, interlaced with an intimate look
into their
tragic private lives and those of their parents and nearest relatives. Frederick quite
rightly earned his esteemed title of ‘the Great’
through his military
prowess.
During the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) his tiny kingdom of
just 3
million
Prussians fought against a combined enemy of 45 million French,
Russians,
Austria-Hungarians, Swedes and Saxons and was NOT defeated!
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