Tea at Trianon: Margaret St John, Abbess of Shaftesbury

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, April 2, 2013

Margaret St John, Abbess of Shaftesbury

Margaret Beaufort had a half sister who was a nun. From Status, Scandal and Subterfuge:

So far there has been no evidence of impropriety to stain the reputation of Margaret St John, elected Abbess at Shaftesbury on March 9, 1460.

Shortly before her death in 1492 Margaret established a chantry, an endowment to fund either a chapel or a priest to pray for the souls of her royal relations and her parents.

Following the dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 by Margaret's great nephew, Henry VIII, the fabric of the Abbey was plundered for building projects in the town. (Read entire post.)