Tea at Trianon: World War II and the Scandinavian Monarchies

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

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

World War II and the Scandinavian Monarchies

From the Mad Monarchist:

In 1907, when he came to the throne, King Gustav V had extensive legal authority in political matters. However, in the reign of his father, parliament had more strongly asserted itself and, originally, King Gustav V went along with this new way of doing things. This changed with the coming of World War I. The King favored increasing Swedish military strength while the recently elected Liberal government did not. When a crowd of concerned citizens demonstrated in front of the palace in favor of strengthening the Swedish military in case the country were to become engulfed in the upcoming conflict, the King acted on his own to address the crowd, whose views were in accord with his own, to assure them that this would be done. The Liberal prime minister objected to this, King Gustav V responded that he was well within his rights to speak to his subjects on such a matter, as both their sovereign and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, which prompted the government to resign at which time the King appointed a more conservative administration to replace them. (Read more.)