Tea at Trianon: Isabella of Castile: History and Character

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 5, 2012

Isabella of Castile: History and Character

Two interviews with author C.W. Gortner.

From Reading the Past:

Isabella requested that this Council investigate corruption in the church, as it was deemed, as well as reports of non-conformity among conversos – Jews who’d converted to Christianity, most of them under duress during an intense period of persecution in the medieval era. She was troubled by ongoing rumors that many conversos were practicing Christianity at face-value or combining Judaism with Christian practices. Some, it was said, hadn’t really converted at all. To Isabella, this would have been gravely disturbing. The souls of her subjects, the very spiritual health of her kingdom, were at risk. Yet again, at first caution overrode even her piety. It took her almost four years to implement the papal bull that granted her permission to authorize the Inquisition’s revival. She instituted a program of spiritual education, dispatching trained priests to guide her subjects back to the ‘proper’ way of worship; it failed, but I did not make this up. If I hadn’t seen those reports in Spanish, I wouldn’t have understood the complexity of what she faced. I’m not condoning her role in the Inquisition, of course; I think she made a horrifying mistake that unleashed a monstrous wave of terror and suffering, but I do believe she agonized over her decision. I think she believed she had done everything she could to avoid persecution. (Read entire post.)

From A Bloody Good Read:

Some people apparently are determined to see her as this ruthless fanatic without redeeming qualities. I even got an e-mail recently from someone accusing me of glorifying a mass murderer. They blame her for things she had no control over, such as the rapine of the Americas. However, if you read her testament, you’ll see that she never wanted the New World destroyed as it was; that occurred under her grandson, Charles V, and his son, Philip II. She was human and extremely fallible; I do not seek to excuse her mistakes, which were grave and caused much suffering, but to assume she was a monster because of them is simply misguided. Her outer strength concealed inner conflict; anyone who researches her in depth will see that while she could be obdurate, she was not innately cruel. I think she hid her vulnerability because she was a woman, ruling a kingdom; and that she privately worried over some of her more controversial deeds. Her hesitation of years in authorizing the Inquisition indicates as much. But Isabella wasn’t prone to displays of emotion; she comes across, especially in her later years— the years we’re most familiar with—as remote, extremely pious, cold. She suffered the losses of her children, of her health, and the fear of her leaving her kingdom without a capable ruler with stoicism; you never hear her complain. This paints a picture of someone detached, when in fact she was deeply engaged. (Read entire post.)