Tea at Trianon: Sudeley Castle

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

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Sudeley Castle

From Victoria:

On the castle grounds, tendrils of clematis vines wind around seemingly brittle ruins that have endured centuries of weather and war, as well as a number of monarchs. Vestiges of the estate’s earlier days, the stones are what remains of the old Banqueting Hall and the Tithe Barn.

The gardens are simply breathtaking. Elizabeth, Lady Ashcombe, chatelaine of the castle, explains: “Sudeley’s gardens are made up of a collection of cameo gardens, each expressing a theme or period of [the estate’s] history.” Among these botanical inspirations is the Queens’ Garden, named for the four queens who have strolled the grounds, and the Tudor Physic Garden, which contains healing herbs and plants the Tudors and the Elizabethans would have grown. (Read more.)