Tea at Trianon: Anne Boleyn's Pets

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

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Anne Boleyn's Pets

From Under These Restless Skies:

Pourquoi was Anne Boleyn's lapdog. Some sources claim he was a Havanese, a dog breed that originated in Cuba, closely related to the Bichon. Havanese dogs are known to have a charming habit of tilting their heads in an inquisitive fashion, which may have been the root of Pourquoi name: For What? in French. The name is most commonly rendered in English as "Purkoy," a phonetic spelling which was also used in Old French.

Pourquoi was given to Anne by Honor, Lady Lisle. Honor was a very ambitious woman who strove to advance her family by cultivating a close relationship with the queen. She was born Honor Grenville and her second husband was Arthur Plantagenet, the bastard son of King Edward IV. (Arthur was Henry VIII's uncle, half-brother of Henry's mother, Elizabeth of York.) Honor traveled with Anne on that momentous visit to Calais in 1532, and remained behind in the city when her husband was appointed governor. Honor kept up with the comings and goings of the court through letters to her family and friends, 3,000 of which are preserved in the National Archives as the Lisle Letters. They form an incredible archive of information about the royal court. (Read more.)

Via Supremacy and Survival. Share