Tea at Trianon: The Trial of Sir Thomas More

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

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The Trial of Sir Thomas More

Stephanie Mann quotes the transcript of the trial:

Sir, my Silence is no sign of any Malice in my Heart, which the King himself must Own by my Conduct upon divers Occasions; neither doth it convince any Man of the Breach of the Law: for It is a Maxim amongst the Civilians and Canonists, Qui tacet consentire videtur, he that holds his peace; seems to give his Consent. And as to what you say, that no good Subject will refuse to give a direct Answer; I did really think it to be the Duty of every good Subject, except he be such a Subject as will be a bad Christian, rather to obey God than Man; to be more cautious to offend his Conscience, than of any thing else in the whole World ; especially if his Conscience be not the Occasion of same Sedition and great Injury to his Prince and Country : for I do here sincerely protest, that I never revealed it to any Man alive. . . .

Stephanie A. Mann said...: Thank you for the link--St. Thomas More defended himself well without panic and then accepted his martyrdom with tremendous grace.; July 5, 2011 at 9:31:00 AM EDT
Mikhail Ramendik said...: I pray God that some of us, as high as we seem to sit treading heretics under our feet like ants, that we live not to see the day we would gladly wish to be at league and composed with them, to let them have their churches quietly to themselves so that they would be content to let us have our quietly to ourselves. [...] Upon conditions that all heresies were suppressed, I would wish that all my books were burned up and all my labour utterly lost. (St. Thomas More)

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/ecumenism/noncath.htm; July 8, 2011 at 8:02:00 PM EDT