Tea at Trianon: Ena of Battenburg

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, February 9, 2012

Ena of Battenburg

The Mad Monarchist reports on the granddaughter of Queen Victoria who became a Catholic — and Queen of Spain.

Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg was born Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena on October 24, 1887 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland to Prince Henry of Battenberg and Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom. Her father was the third son Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine by his morganatic wife Countess Julia von Hauke, a fact which put Princess Victoria Eugenie on a rather lower rung of the social ladder than other royals. On the other hand, her mother was the youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and royals did not come much more prestigious than that. She was named in honor of her grandmother, Queen Victoria, and her godmother the Spanish-born Empress Eugenie of France who was living in exile in Britain at the time after the downfall of the Second French Empire. She grew up at the court of Queen Victoria and Princess Ena (as she was called) grew to be a very lovely young lady, good natured but rather distant. Her mother, Princess Beatrice, considered her rather problematic as a youngster but she was well liked and her family, Queen Victoria included, were very protective of her. (Read entire post.)