Tea at Trianon: Of Antelopes & Kings

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, September 24, 2018

Of Antelopes & Kings

From Lauren Johnson:

Henry VI inherited the thrones of England and of France before his first birthday and he never met his famed father. The antelope heraldry they shared recurs throughout Henry’s reign. In 1432, when the ten-year-old king returned to England after 2 years in his French realm, he was greeted on his arrival in London by a series of pageants. The poet John Lydgate wrote an account of Henry’s entry into the city, recording how at London Bridge, a giant greeted the king, promising to serve as his champion. Flanking the giant were:

“Two antelopes standing on either side
With the arms of England and of France,
In token that God shall for him provide,
As he hath title by just inheritance
To reign in peace, plenty and pleasance.”

Read more of Henry VI’s triumphal entry into London.

The antelope on the cover of SHADOW KING is based on an illuminated manuscript produced around the time of Henry’s marriage in 1444. In a genealogical roll celebrating Henry VI’s descent from both English and French royalty, an antelope appears upholding the arms of Henry impaled with those of his new wife Margaret of Anjou. The book was presented to Queen Margaret by one of Henry’s noblemen, Lord John Talbot. (Read more.)