Tea at Trianon: Rise of the Howards

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

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Rise of the Howards

From English Historical Fiction Authors:

The Howards created an amazing dynasty for themselves and it was clear that they took family honour to the absolute limit and coupled it with unparalleled ambition for power cutting just shy of actually seizing the throne, though it does seem evident that Henry Howard had this intent. Historians often dwell on the two women who, through the 2^nd Duke of Norfolk, found themselves as Henry VIII's queens, and the other, who produced some of his illegitimate children, but it may be said that without the cleverness, patience and political acumen of Thomas Howard the elder and the younger, neither would have worn their crown, nor indeed, would the family have risen from the ashes like a phoenix of lore. (Read more.)