Tea at Trianon: The Infamous Lady Rochford

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, June 6, 2011

The Infamous Lady Rochford

Was Jane Parker framed? Claire at The Anne Boleyn Files has a guest post from author and historian Julia Fox. (Via Confessions of a Ci-Devant) To quote:

Let me nail my colours to the mast: I believe that when Anne Boleyn knelt before the Calais swordsman on that May morning in 1536 she was entirely innocent of the charges levelled against her. She had committed neither adultery nor incest. And because she was innocent, so was each and every one of the five men accused with her. Their deaths, and hers, were totally unjust. Over the centuries, Anne and her fellow victims have been ably defended. So they should be. Therefore, because like everyone else, I abhor injustice, I am happy to champion the cause of another maligned woman: Anne’s sister-in-law, George’s wife, Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford.

People think they know about Jane and don’t like what they think they know. Who can blame them? Allegedly, she bore false witness against George and Anne, so bringing about their deaths together with those of Norris, Brereton, Weston and Smeaton, and was then handsomely rewarded for her lies. So when she herself was executed for keeping watch while Catherine Howard met Thomas Culpepper, she deserved all she got. Nemesis had caught up with her, the deaths of the innocent were avenged at last. It’s a satisfyingly moral story. But is it true? (Read entire article.)