Tea at Trianon: Richard I, Troubadour King

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

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Richard I, Troubadour King

Author Christy English discusses Richard the Lionhearted. To quote:

Richard the Lionhearted, or Richard "Oc et No" ("Yes and No" in the langue d'oc) as he was known during his lifetime. His Grace the King, as he was most often known in the last ten years of his life. Duke of Aquitaine from the age of fifteen. The greatest Western European general of his age, equaled only by the Saladin in the Levant.

Richard was a man who gave his word and kept it, a man of honor in a world without. Though Richard almost always kept his word, others rarely kept their word to him. Betrayed by his father, his brothers, his "brother kings" while on Crusade and after, Richard only found honor in his constant companions and in his enemy, Saladin.

After the Third Crusade, returning overland to his lands in Normandy and Anjou, Richard fell ill in Vienna. He was captured and held captive by his "brother king" Leopold of Austria, who quickly turned Richard over to the Holy Roman Emperor. After three years under guard, Richard was only released after his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, raised his exorbitant ransom, and after Richard swore an oath of fealty to the Holy Roman Emperor. The idea was that Richard would not make war on his lord, though he had made almost constant war on his father years before. (Read entire post.)