Tea at Trianon: The Royal Response to the American Revolution

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, July 11, 2016

The Royal Response to the American Revolution

King George III

From The Mad Monarchist:

Starting with the royals most affected, the British, the first thing that must be done is to set aside the entire list of crimes cited as “evidence” of the tyranny of King George III in the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson. It is as close as one could possibly get to being completely untrue. King George III was not a tyrant, never acted against the wishes of his government and never overstepped his legal authority. It was only that the King presented an easier target to vilify than the nameless, faceless members of Parliament who passed the legislation which the American colonists objected to. In fact, if one reads his own words on the subject, King George III was at every step leading up to the outbreak of war, always anxious to avoid conflict and resolve the matter peacefully. He was prepared to be reasonable but certainly felt that what was being asked of the colonists was not at all out of order. Once violence did erupt, however, he was the most committed in all of Britain to continuing the war until victory was secured. He threatened, more than once, to abdicate rather than accept American independence or to accept the Whig party into government who would push for such a thing.

As the war went on, the King became understandably bitter and voiced contemptuous views of the American populace, despite the fact that two-thirds were active or passive loyalists. However, as he said to John Adams, the first U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, while he was the last to agree to the independence of America, he was indeed the first to extend a hand of friendship to the new nation and work to retain it as part of the British trade network and commercial empire. What many would find more surprising though, is that the King’s son and heir, the Prince of Wales and future King George IV, was allied with a political faction that practically cheered every American victory in the war. This group was backed by the Prince of Wales and focused around Charles Fox, the Marquis of Rockingham and Edmund Burke. Members of this group even took to wearing the colors of Washington’s Continental Army to show their solidarity with the American cause and most of these men were wealthy and/or aristocratic which says something about just how “revolutionary” the war in America really was. Fox and Burke would later part company over the much more revolutionary war in France with Fox supporting the revolutionaries and Burke staunchly opposing them. (Read more.)