User:Somej/sandbox

See also: User:Somej/JMH

Pages
William Curtius, Sir William Curtius

fr:Andrée Lévesque Andrée Lévesque

Draft:Dunedin Collective for Woman

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants

Special:NewPagesFeed

Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(New_Zealand)

WikiProject New Zealand/politics/New MPs/Teall Crossen

Party_lists_in_the_2020_New_Zealand_general_election

Uff
sju (born September 1983) is a New Zealand politician. The Member of Parliament for since replacing former National Party leader Simon Bridges in a 2022 by-election, U is best-known for being accepted by his party despite having been a school bully. He is a former international banking executive.

In the controversy that followed his election, the National Party caucus learnt that its Board and electorate selection committee had not shared its knowledge that U had once been expelled from King's College for bullying. The party found that U had "publicly acknowledged that he was a bully at King’s College", and re-instated him into its parliamentary caucus after a six-week investigation brought forward no new witnesses to support other allegations that he had abused his university flatmates.

He attended King's College, but at age sixteen was expelled after participating in a violent attack on a younger student. The victim, who was 13, suffered severe bruising and trauma. Police were not involved. After the matter came to light in 2022, U said he could not recall if he and the other attackers used wooden bed legs as a weapon, but could not rule it out. He later acknowledged the attack, saying he was “a thug”.

new curtius summary
William Curtius worked as secretary and diplomat during the Thirty Years' War, promoting the cause of the Palatinate and the restoration of the fortunes of the sons of the House of Stuart. His work for Queen Elizabeth included introducing her sons Charles Louis and Rupert to the English court, and working with and for English diplomats in the Stuart cause. During Parliamentarian government and the interregnum in England, he was Elizabeth's secretary as she applied herself to her cause of restoring the prospects of her family. He wrote her correspondence in three languages, visited the courts of Europe on her behalf as she tirelessly promoted the restoration of her son Charles Louis to as the Elector Palatine, supported her other sons in their military adventures in the English Civil war and in the Germanies, and secured good marriages and alliances for her daughters.

While based with the exiled Palatinate and English courts in The Hague, Curtius also became a financier, part of raising the extraordinary loans and cash payments that paid for the armies involved across Europe.

In the second part of his life, Curtius took great advantage of the restoration of both the Palatinate and of Charles II of England. He married into a network of Dutch and Huguenot merchants and bankers, with strong connections to the French court and to the mayoralty of the city of Frankfurt. His administrative roles in the new Palatinate brought him feudal taxation rights there, and manorial residence and governorships in two counties (Amt). His support for the Stuarts was rewarded with a Baronetcy of England, a formal role as Britain's ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire, and membership of the Royal Society.

He remained a loyal and close supporter of Elizabeth until her 1662 death. One of his last voyages to England was to attend her funeral as one of the chief mourners.

However the government of the United Kingdom moved on. Elizabeth's return to England and her death there was almost un-noticed by most. In the following century, Curtius' involvement in English politics was little known in Germany, and his German role poorly remembered in England.

A multi-lingual German diplomat based in The Hague, representing royal families and the interests of the Palatinate through decades of civil and inter-state wars, intrigues and religious strife, appears to have been too complicated and possibly too European to be well-remembered in any one country.

Curtius is better remembered in and around his hometown of Groß-Umstadt, where the Curtius name lives on in street-names and the commemorative Curti-peal.

Curtius and the House of Stuart
In 1632, in the midst of the Thirty Years' War, Curtius went to the Swedish King campaigning in Germany as secretary to the English ambassador Henry Vane. Curtius then remained in Germany as an Agent of Charles I of England until December 1633. He represented England at the Imperial Diet of Nürnberg in 1639 and 1649, and at Frankfurt in 1642. He also supported Sir Thomas Roe in Vienna in 1641-42.

After serving as secretary to King Charles' Hanoverian brother-in-law, Frederick V, Elector Palatine, Curtius was appointed by Charles I as official resident of the English Crown in the Holy Roman Empire. At the time of his appointment to the Baronetcy by Charles II, Curtius was described as "resident for his majesty, with Gustavus, King of Sweden, and the princes of Germany". From 5 August 1664 until September 1677, he was Resident Ambassador at Frankfurt am Main.

In 1655, in Frankfurt, Sir William was go-between for Frederick V's son, Prince Rupert, and Rupert's first cousin, Charles II of England. "Prince Rupert ... sent the King (through Sir William Curtius) some venison, half-baked and half-stinking". Looks like Charles was in germany in 1654 or 55? see eg https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=It1XAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA469&dq=william+curtius&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZhQNVfq9AcTX8gWPqoLwCw&ved=0CCAQ6AEwATge#v=onepage&q=william%20curtius&f=false - makes sense, he was in exile at the time...

Prince Rupert was later the 3rd founding member of the Royal Society. (according to wikipedia)

Sir William was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1667. He was a correspondant of both Henry Oldenburg, the Secretary of the Society, and Leibniz, bringing the latter a copy of Wilkin's  Encyclopaedic Essay.