Tea at Trianon: The Tithe Wars of Ireland

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

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The Tithe Wars of Ireland

From English Historical Fiction Authors:

Known as Cogadh na nDeachúna in Irish, the Tithe War was a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience, complicated by sporadic violence, in Ireland between 1830 and 1836. The conflict came about in response to the enforcement of tithes on subsistence farmers and others for the upkeep of the Church of Ireland. These required tithes, which could be paid in cash or kind, did not consider an individual's religious attachment.

Tithes were an obligation for those working the land to pay 10% of the value of certain agricultural produce for the upkeep of the clergy and the maintenance of the church. In the 16th Century (after the Reformation in Ireland), the church's assets were allocated by King Henry VIII to the new established church. This action created a "double" obligation to those who remained loyal to the old religion, who were then obliged to make tithe payments to both their own church and to the reformed one. Many at the time were also making voluntary contributions to the construction or purchase of new churches to provide Roman Catholics places to worship. The new established church was supported by a minority of the population, 75% of whom continued to adhere to Roman Catholicism. (Read more.)