Tea at Trianon: Lady Jean Scott

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, August 3, 2014

Lady Jean Scott

A fascinating post about Lady Ferniehurst, who discreetly represented the imprisoned Mary Stuart at the court of her estranged son, James VI. To quote:

Much of the credit for the King’s change in attitude toward his mother and his tendency to reward the remaining Marians with positions in his government both before and after he went to London in 1603 is given to his Catholic Chancellor of Scotland Alexander Seton, Lord Fyvie. That, too, is testimony to the successful management style of Lady Ferniehirst who operated behind the scenes. She had an uncanny ability to exert political influence devoid of any hint of pressure likely to be viewed as inappropriate to her sex. In male dominated Scotland she presented a public image of a loyal and long-suffering wife, a devoted mother and stepmother, and a true if sometimes misguided Scotswoman.

In summary, when Jean Scott wrote to the imprisoned Queen, she enclosed letters from those who wished to show friendship to the Queen, and she made personal recommendations as to who might deserve Marie Stuart's favor. She promoted those same people in her dealings with the King.

After the Queen was executed, she continued to actively present to James VI a view of his mother he had not been allowed to see when he was younger. In essence,she was Marie Stuart’s secret agent at the court of James VI, and perhaps even more than Alexander Seton, it is she who inspired the king's new-found reverence for the Queen of Scots manifested in the tomb in Westminster that James VI commissioned to commemorate his mother, a display which conspicuously outshines the one he erected for Elizabeth Tudor. (Read more.)