Tea at Trianon: A Matter of Dates

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, July 18, 2010

A Matter of Dates

Commemorating the Battle of the Boyne.

At the time of the Glorious Revolution, England was still on the Julian Calendar. The Catholic world had made the transition to the Gregorian Calendar after Pope Gregory XIII proclaimed it on February 24, 1582. It was a scientific adjustment with a religious purpose: the correct celebration of the date of Easter according to the First Council of Nicaea. Protestant Europe refused to accept the reform of the calendar. Elizabeth I was on the throne in England and distribution of the Papal Bull ordering adoption of the new calendar was indeed illegal at that time. So the religious divisions in Europe affected not only what date it was but what date Easter was each year.

Thus, according to the Julian Calendar, the Battle of the Boyne occurred on July 1, 1690, while according to the Gregorian Calendar, it occurred on July 12, 1690. England did not adopt the Gregorian Calendar until 1752, at which time the people of England seemed to "lose" eleven days, going to bed on September 2, 1752 and waking up the next morning on September 13, 1752. The Gregorian Calendar is now the internationally accepted calendar dating system, although it still requires adjustment.

Gareth Russell said...: In 1916, the 36th Ulster Division marched into battle at the Battle of the Somme on July 1st, which would have been the technical date their ancestors fought at the Boyne. They proceeded farther than any other regiment and sustained heavy losses, which is why today many Orange Order banners commemorate the 36th rather than the Boyne.; July 18, 2010 at 10:54:00 AM EDT
J.K. Baltzersen said...: I believe July 11 would be the correct Gregorian date, madam, as the correction is 10 days for 1500-1700.; July 22, 2010 at 5:43:00 AM EDT