Tea at Trianon: The Real Story of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon’s Doomed Romance

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, December 21, 2017

The Real Story of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon’s Doomed Romance

From Vanity Fair:

As depicted in both seasons of The Crown, Margaret was an active fixture in London’s high-class social scene, which makes it easy to believe she asked her lady-in-waiting, Elizabeth Cavendish, to introduce her to anyone but a man who “breeds horses, owns land, or knows my mother.“ Antony Armstrong-Jones fit the description, but by the time he and Margaret began spending time together in the spring of 1958, he was already acquainted with the royal family. In 1957, he had taken portraits of the Queen and her family on the grounds of Buckingham Palace—something he would continue to do for decades, even after his and Margaret’s divorce. So while the dinner-party meet-cute depicted on The Crown is fairly close to reality, his relationship with the royal family had already begun. (Read more.)

More on Season 2 of The Crown, HERE. [Spoiler Alert] Share