Tea at Trianon: Richard II

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, July 10, 2016

Richard II

From Once I Was a Clever Boy:

Fletcher gives a very significant re-interpretation of the King's policy and aims, and of the reign in general. Those who do not know this fascinating period would probably need to read Nigel Saul's Richard II (Yale UP) or a similar narrative biography first, but Fletcher is certainly now essential reading to begin to assess the King and his reign.

King Richard II was an image conscious monarch if he was nothing else, and this gives me the oportunity to post a photograph of one of the lesser known depiction of the King. It is from a charter granted to Shrewsbury in 1389, and an image that has only become widely known ( if that yet indeed) in the last quarter of a century or so. This image relates, I suspect, to the use of Christ-like imagery to describe the King in 1392 at the time of his reconciliation with the city of London which Christopher Fletcher discusses in his book. (Read more.)