Tea at Trianon: The Dark Side of Edwardian England

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, June 27, 2013

The Dark Side of Edwardian England

From the Daily Mail:

The historical discovery was unearthed by family-tree website ancestry.co.uk. A spokesman said: 'In order to enforce the 1902 Sale of Liquor to Habitual Drunkard’s Licensing Act, the Watch Committee of the City of Birmingham provided licensed liquor sellers and clubs with photos and descriptions of people deemed "habitual drunkards", who were not to be sold liquor.

'The 82 persons in the book were convicted of drunkenness between 1903 and 1906, typically at the Birmingham City Police Court.' Many of the women featured on the list bore physical deformities and tattoos, which would have marked them out from respectable Edwardian society. However, most of them managed to hold down jobs, working as charwomen, wood-choppers, polishers or grease merchants. (Read entire article.)