Tea at Trianon: The Groans of the Britons

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

Monday, September 30, 2013

The Groans of the Britons

As Rome fell, Britain found itself in chaos. To quote:

In 402, the garrison of Hadrian's wall was recalled due to increasing pressures by the Goths and Vandals. Around this time we have the last evidence of minting of Roman coins in Britain. In 406, the Vandals stormed across a frozen river Rhine and assaulted Gaul. Fearful that they would be next, the Britons dispatched a certain Constantine with what remained of the Roman legions to try and stem the barbarian flow. Constantine declared himself the western Roman emperor and initially drove the Vandals back but in the end he failed to stem the flow.

Rome was by now itself under immense pressure, and the Emperor Honorius took the radical step of forever abandoning the province of Britainia. In 410, we have a record of a letter to the Britons called the Receipt of Honorius. In this he addressed the leaders of his city in Britain and directs them to look to their own defense. Rome would never again claim dominion or offer any protection over this province. (Read more.)