Tea at Trianon: Remembering Charles I

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, March 27, 2019

Remembering Charles I

Last January, members of the English Civil War Society met in London to commemorate the execution of King Charles I. From The Daily Mail:

The streets of central London were filled with a troupe of 17th Century Civil War re-enactors yesterday as they marched down The Mall in honour of Charles I. Hundreds of history enthusiasts, dressed in armour and uniforms from the period, led a procession from St James Palace on the Mall to the Banqueting House in Whitehall to commemorate the historic event 370 years ago. The King's Army Annual March follows the route the English king took before he was executed in 1649 and has become a key event etched in the diary of the society since 1951. Charles I, who became the nation's king at the tender age of 24 following the death of his brother Henry, was put on trial for treason by MPs, including the Parliamentarian general Oliver Cromwell, after they claimed he had committed 'wicked' abuses of power'. The society aim to re-create the atmospheric moment before his untimely death and retain the historical authenticity of the turbulent 17th century. (Read more.)