Tea at Trianon: The Howards Revisited

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

Thursday, July 28, 2011

The Howards Revisited

A review of Robert Hutchinson's House of Treason by Stephanie Mann.

As the synopsis accurately states, the Howard family was certainly one of the most important noble families in England, but Hutchinson aptly describes the difficulty of staying on the right side of any of the Tudor monarchs. The Howard family definitely started out at a great disadvantage, since they had fought for Richard III! The factions at the Tudor Court and the desire for power, influence, and wealth are the sources of the drama involved, especially during the reign of Henry VIII, as Thomas Howard struggled against first Wolsey and then Cromwell for years and then the Seymour family at the end of his life to influence the king and maintain his favor. Even after his first two great rivals had fallen, Howard and his son found themselves out of favor and sentenced to death under Henry VIII's elastic definition of treason. Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey was executed, but his father survived simply because Henry VIII died before signing the death warrant.

Surrey's son also ventures too near the throne, dealing with Mary of Scotland and threatening Elizabeth's shaky hold on power; he is also executed. In the next generation, Philip Howard endures imprisonment and death when he returns to the Catholic Church after hearing Edmund Campion speak. The next generation holds on, in spite of one Howard's suspected Catholicism, during Elizabeth I's reign and the Howard family is secure, for a time, when James VI of Scotland comes to the throne. (Read entire review.)