Charles Woodcock

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charles Woodcock reading aloud to Queen Olga of Württemberg in the armchair and two ladies-in-waiting

Charles Burger Woodcock (born May 1, 1850 in New York City ; † June 26, 1923 there ), who was first appointed Baron Charles von Woodcock-Savage and later called himself Charles Savage , was the lover of King Karl , who was 27 years his senior I. of Württemberg .

Life

Charles Woodcock was born in New York to Jonas Gurnee Woodcock (1822-1908) and Sarah Savage Woodcock (1824-1893). He went to study abroad and found a position as chamberlain at the court of Württemberg, where he became the favorite of the king, who had previously had several male lovers. In 1888, his preferred position with the king and his influence on personnel and political decisions led the political leaders of the Kingdom of Württemberg , in particular Prime Minister Hermann von Mittnacht , to force his departure abroad. Shortly before, the king had appointed him "Baron von Woodcock-Savage". From there he extorted compensation of 300,000 marks with private and state correspondence that the king had given him and that he had taken with him. In New York he took the surname "Savage".

On June 14, 1894, he married a widow, Henrietta Knebel Staples, who brought four sons into the marriage. On June 19, 1897, all of their sons (Joseph, Harry, Herbert, and Leslie Curtis) legally changed their last name to Savage. Leslie Curtis also changed his first name to Charles.

A Lady in Waiting: Being extracts from the diary of Julie de Chesnil, sometime lady-in-waiting to her Majesty, Queen Marie Antoinette (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1906)

In 1906 he published excerpts from the diary of Julie de Chesnil , a former maid of Queen Marie Antoinette, under the title A Lady in Waiting . He dedicated it to a noble soul whom he knew, loved and mourned: d. H. the beloved king who died in 1891. The introduction gives a fictional account of the circumstances surrounding the discovery of Julie de Chesnil's diary, the yellowed pages of which were found in the locked secret compartment of a Louis Seize cupboard that was bought at the auction house of the Hôtel Drouot by the translator and dear friend from Paris's days, an esthete who had given permission to publish. The memoirs published in this context are in fact a fictional pseudo-autobiography of Woodcock.

swell

literature

  • Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller : Mann für Mann - Biographical lexicon on the history of love for friends and male-male sexuality in the German-speaking area . Hamburg 1998.
  • Jürgen Honeck: The King's Lover. Scandal at the Württemberg court. Mühlacker Irdning / Styria 2012. ISBN 9783798704084 .
  • Jonathan Ned Katz: Americans in Württemberg Scandal. OutHistory in 4 parts.
  • Paul Sauer: Regent with a mild scepter . King Karl of Württemberg. DVA , Stuttgart 1999. ISBN 3-421-05181-X . (On Woodcock: p. 229ff)
  • Charles Savage: A Lady in Waiting: Being extracts from the diary of Julie de Chesnil, sometime lady-in-waiting to her Majesty, Queen Marie Antoinette New York: D. Appleton & Company 1906.
  • Geoffrey Dayton Smith: American Fiction, 1901-1925: A Bibliography (Cambridge University Press, 1997) no.W-847.

Individual evidence

  1. Hergemöller, pp. 409f; different: sour.
  2. Sour.
  3. A Lady in Waiting (see: Bibliography).
  4. "To a Noble Soul I Knew and Loved and Mourn,"