Tea at Trianon: New Film about Mary Queen of Scots

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, May 23, 2008

New Film about Mary Queen of Scots

A new film about Mary Queen of Scots is in production, starring Scarlett Johansson as the ill-fated monarch. (Via World of Royalty Blog) I hope it's good. There really has never been a decent film made about Mary. The one with Katherine Hepburn had its moments, but it took too many liberties. The film with Vanessa Redgrave was even worse, although it started out beautifully, with Redgrave as the perfect Mary. Once Bothwell came onto the scene, it went down hill, and was not even faithful to the biography by Antonia Fraser upon which it was loosely based. Mary and Elizabeth never met face-to-face. And Fraser makes it clear that Mary was kidnapped and raped by Bothwell, who probably drugged her. It is highly doubtful that he was her great love. It is interesting how some biographers, novelists and filmmakers always want to romanticize certain relationships which in reality were not romantic in the least. Share