Tea at Trianon: Mary Queen of Scots and Her Dogs

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, May 18, 2014

Mary Queen of Scots and Her Dogs

From Grace Elliot:

As a 5 year old child, Mary was betrothed to French dauphin, Francis, and sent to live with him abroad. Uprooted, disorientated, and unable to speak French, Mary would only talk to her Scottish governess or one of the twenty-two dogs at Francis’s court. Mary confided in those dogs, a collection of pugs, spaniels and Maltese terriers, and in turn, Francis used them to teach his bride the French language. Her early love of dogs was established.

When she was just 18, Francis died, leaving Mary a widow in a foreign country. Devastated by the loss of the husband she had grown to love, she returned to Scotland to reclaim her throne. She took with her some of her favorite Maltese dogs.

But things were very different from when she left as a child. Scotland had become a Protestant country, and Mary was a devote Catholic. Queen Elizabeth I sat on the English throne and was deeply suspicious of her cousin, Mary’s motives. Added to that Mary unwisely married another Tudor, her cousin, Lord Darnley, which put further pressure on Elizabeth to recognize Mary as successor to the English throne. (Read more.)