Tea at Trianon: Katherine's Jewels

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

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Katherine's Jewels

Gareth Russell on the glittering but tragic marriage of Katherine Howard. More HERE. Share

5 comments:

May said...: Poor girl, what a sad and brutal fate.; April 18, 2010 at 4:24:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Poor girl, indeed.; April 18, 2010 at 5:34:00 PM EDT
Julygirl said...: I recently saw a documentary on King Henry's medical problems. He weighed 400 lbs during the time of his last wives, and they say he smelled horribly from the putrifying sores on his legs. It seems his vile deeds not only rotted his soul but his flesh as well.; April 18, 2010 at 7:52:00 PM EDT
tubbs said...: Dying like the Herod he was.; April 18, 2010 at 9:24:00 PM EDT
Gareth Russell said...: Julygirl is right about the disgusting state of the King's body, particularly the leg ulcer. And the records of the King's physicians show that by the time the King married Catherine Howard, the ulcer had reached its worse state thus far. Hideous and physically disgusting relapses occurred throughout the winter and summer of 1541, precisely the period when Queen Catherine's liaison with Thomas Culpepper began.; April 18, 2010 at 10:04:00 PM EDT