Tea at Trianon: The Pope's Gift

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

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

The Pope's Gift

Here is the lapis lazuli orb Our Holy Father Pope Francis recently presented to the Queen for her great grandson Prince George of Cambridge. Stephanie Mann reports:

Pope Francis wisely featured St. Edward the Confessor...in his gifts to both Queen Elizabeth II and her great grandson Prince George. St. Edward is a shared saint between the Church of England and the Catholic Church--primarily because he was canonized by Pope Alexander in 1161 and his cult extended to the entire Catholic Church by Blessed Pope Innocent XI in 1679 (!) According to the Vatican's report of their meeting, "The Pope . . . presented the Queen with a replica of a decree from the Vatican archives, dating from 1679, by which Pope Innocent XI extended the veneration of St Edward the Confessor to the Universal Church, establishing his feast day on October 9^th." (Except that sources I found say his feast day is October 13, since that is the date of the translation of his relics to Westminster Abbey.) It is interesting to think that Blessed Pope Innocent promoted this feast while Catholic priests in England were being executed because of Titus Oates' "Popish Plot". It's also important to remember that Innocent did not approve of Catholic King James II's methods in promoting Catholicism in England--nor of James's closeness with King Louis XIV of France (and probably not of Charles II's, either).

Additionally, St. Edward the Confessor was featured in the other gift Pope Francis presented to the Queen for Prince George, third in the line of succession to the throne: "It was a blue, lapis lazuli orb, topped with a cross of St Edward the Confessor and around the base a dedication reading ‘Pope Francis to His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge’."

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip faced a greater challenge in giving ceremonial gifts to Pope Francis: what do you give to the man who does not really want anything? In keeping with the informal nature of the visit, they gave him a hamper "stuffed with goodies from her royal estates: honey from the gardens of Buckingham Palace, venison, beef and some best bitter from Windsor Castle, cider, apple juice and a selection of chutneys from Sandringham and some shortbread and whiskey from the Balmoral estate in Scotland." (Read more.)