Tea at Trianon: Joan of Acre, Rebel Princess

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, September 14, 2015

Joan of Acre, Rebel Princess

Not Joan of Arc, but Joan of Acre. From History...The Interesting Bits:

Edward and Eleanor went on to England, arriving there in 1274, and Edward’s coronation.

By the time Joan finally arrived in England, in 1278, her father was in the process of arranging a marriage for her; to Hartman, son of the King of the Romans, but he died before the wedding could take place.

Towards the end of the 1270s Joan, along with her elder sister Eleanor and her younger brother Alfonso, were allowed to accompany the royal court, for parts of the year at least. They would have been allowed to take part in the Christmas and Easter celebrations with their parents, whilst their younger siblings remained in the royal nursery.

Little is known of Joan’s every day life. She may have been close to her baby brother, Edward – the future Edward II – as she lent him the use her own seal when he was at odds with his father. It is said that she was distant from her parents; however this stems from their leaving Joan with her grandmother during her early years and doesn’t necessarily mean the same relationship continued when she finally arrived in England. (Read more.)