Tea at Trianon: England and the Aquitaine

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

Friday, January 22, 2016

England and the Aquitaine

From English Historical Fiction Writers:

The importance of the Aquitaine to Eleanor (as her name suggests) can hardly be underestimated or overstated. Eleanor was Aquitaine. She was the unquestioned heiress to the wealthy Duchy, and as such she brought the Aquitaine with her into the two marriages she contracted. This is an important point: the Aquitaine was not her dowry. Ownership of the Aquitaine did not transfer to her husband at her marriage; it remained her property or “honor” and could only be transmitted in her lifetime with her consent—or by force of arms.

To be sure, the Aquitaine was also a large territory filled with unruly barons and lords wealthy enough to build castles and maintain mercenaries. Even exceptionally powerful men (e.g. Henry II, Richard the Lionheart) found it difficult to control the Aquitaine. Frequent uprisings by the independently-minded lords meant that the rulers of the Aquitaine were almost perpetually engaged in subduing one rebellious vassal or another, usually by force of arms. (Read more.)