Tea at Trianon: Execution of Anne Boleyn

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

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Execution of Anne Boleyn

Whatever one thinks of Anne, Gareth Russell's moving account is not to be missed. Share

4 comments:

Gareth Russell said...: Thank you for the link. I'm very flattered. And a little bereft, now that the series is over!; May 22, 2010 at 1:04:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, me too. I looked forward to the daily installment.; May 22, 2010 at 1:30:00 PM EDT
Julygirl said...: a beautiful piece of writing. Puts things in perspective just as Trianon does for M.A. and Louie XVI. She certainly did nothing that demanded a death sentence. It was murder. She was legally murdered, is that an oxymoron?; May 22, 2010 at 9:33:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: I have never understood the degree of loathing and hatred that Henry came to have for Anne so that he had to not only kill her but utterly destroy her as a person.; May 22, 2010 at 9:41:00 PM EDT