Tea at Trianon: Tudors Versus Stewarts

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

Monday, November 17, 2014

Tudors Versus Stewarts

Linda Porter’s new tour de force covers ground left out of most histories of the Tudor period while not constantly rehashing well-known information. Tudors Versus Stewarts, published in the UK as Crown of Thistles, gives an in-depth look at the turbulent Stewart dynasty in the 15th and 16th centuries, and how the fluctuations of power in England influenced the Stewarts and the people of Scotland.

I learned a great deal more about the monarchs of Scotland, their dealings with the Reformation and with the Tudors, all of which build a stage for the tragic destiny of Mary Queen of Scots. The reign of Mary Stewart is placed in a fresh context in which to discover her anew. After spending time with Mary’s grandparents and great-grandparents I feel that I am finally becoming acquainted with her. One is also treated to the doings of the French court and the Empire, and Henry VIII’s endless connivances. If it was not already clear, it is now abundantly so, that having a male heir was the obsession of every monarch in Europe, to which the love of women was secondary. Porter’s research is seemingly inexhaustible for presenting intriguing new facts, along with a storyteller’s gift for a heartrending tale.

*Note: This book was sent to me by the Historical Novel Society in exchange for my honest opinion.

(This review originally appeared in the November 2014 edition of the Historical Novels Review.) Share