Tea at Trianon: The Knights of St. John and Henry VIII

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

Monday, July 19, 2010

The Knights of St. John and Henry VIII

How one of the oldest orders of chivalry was destroyed in England. Share

3 comments:

Julygirl said...: Not only wives.....even old friends were murdered.; July 19, 2010 at 7:27:00 AM EDT
lara77 said...: King Henry VIII was proof that an absolute monarch can be a disaster. If poor King Louis XVI had lived a normal life and instituted reforms peacefully throughout his kingdom I believe he would have been one of France's greatest absolute monarchs. Alas, that was not to be. Unfortunately for both nations the consequences were horrific.; July 20, 2010 at 8:51:00 AM EDT
Hans Georg Lundahl said...: French Monarchy was never as "absolute" as the English one from Henry VII to James I.

It was absolute only in the sense of not depending on "balancing powers" in both cases, but in France there were more of them.; September 8, 2010 at 3:25:00 PM EDT