Tea at Trianon: Queen Gerberga

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

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Queen Gerberga

How medieval queens had to protect their children. To quote:

We don’t know much about Gerberga, except that she was a Frankish noblewoman selected by father-in-law Pepin to marry Carloman, but we can make a few guesses. Women typically were teenagers when they married and could be as young as 13. Men could marry at age 16. The most Gerberga and Carloman could have been married was four years, and their elder son was no more than 3 years old, barely old enough to start riding.

That this queen mother, perhaps as young as 17, made a dangerous journey to Lombardy with these two little boys tells us something about her character.

Seeking aid from Desiderius, the king of Lombardy, was not the safest thing to do, either, but she had no other choice. Desiderius had clashed violently with Rome before, and his retaliation was brutal and typically medieval (for more about him, see my guest post on Tinney Heath’s Historical Fiction Research blog). However, he was the powerful ally she needed – and one who was furious with Charles over the Frankish monarch’s repudiation of his daughter. (Read entire post.)