Tea at Trianon: The Red Ensign

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, March 2, 2014

The Red Ensign

The old Canadian flag. Some prefer it to the maple leaf. To quote:

The adoption of the new flag was part of a larger project, undertaken by the Liberal Party, bureaucrats and public intellectuals, to remove historical symbols from public life and invent a new Canadian identity. There were various reasons why they did this. One was the rise of Quebec separatism.

‘The British connection’ had always been central to English Canadian identity. The Loyalists and the Founding Fathers had rejected revolution in favour of British institutions. That was why we were a parliamentary democracy, why our history had been more orderly and why we were more moderate and polite—so we believed—than our neighbours to the south.

The Red Ensign, which bears the Union Jack in its corner and the shield from Canada’s coat of arms in the fly, reflected this identity. However, Liberals such as then-prime minister Lester Pearson believed that by discarding British symbols and creating a “distinctly Canadian” identity, they could appease the separatists. But here’s the problem: Canada’s history was bound up with the British Empire, so the new identity would have to bear no relation to the history of the country.

So what would fill in the void? Aha. Here we get to a second reason why the Liberals were vandalizing Canada's traditional culture: ideology. (Read more.)