Tea at Trianon: Age of Chaucer

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, October 5, 2015

Age of Chaucer

From author Regina Jeffers:

Edward III astounded much of Europe with his military prowess, which aroused a sense of patriotism and nationalism in England. This happened even despite the prolonged war with Spain. By the 1370s, the continued wars took its toll on England. John of Gaunt and the Earl of Pembroke suffered severe losses on the Continent, and English continental possessions fell into the hands of its enemies. English towns were sacked. Moreover, the Black Plague spread across England three times in one century.

The heavy loss of life created a shortage of labor, providing the serfs an opportunity to claim their freedom. Demanding a high pride for his expert services, the serf became an important figure in England’s social strata.

1349 saw the passage of law forbidding the increase of wages and the fixing of food prices, but the law’s passage of could not hold off economic exigency, and laborers went wherever they could earn the most money for their work. The peasant class became a nomadic population, and the laborer developed a spirit of independence.

To bring an end to these trends, a law was passed allowing the killing on sight of any laborer who violated the law. A wave of lawlessness resulted, which culminated in the march on London in 1381. The peasants demanded freedom under the inspiration of John Ball, Wat Tyler, and Jack Straw. (Read more.)