Tea at Trianon: The Lost Tomb of Cardinal Wolsey

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

Sunday, December 22, 2019

The Lost Tomb of Cardinal Wolsey

From The Tudor Travel Guide:

Leicester Abbey, also known as the Abbey of St Mary de Pratis (Abbey of the Meadows) was an Augustinian monastery situated just one kilometre north of the medieval city of Leicester. It was the largest and one of the most influential Augustinian Abbeys in England. The monastery complex occupied about 13 hectares of land. It was home to around 24 canons at the time of Wolsey’s visit; these were not monks, but priests who worked in the local parishes and who lived under the rule of St Augustine. The ‘Black Canons’ (as they were called because of their dark, outer garments), were ‘supervised’ by an abbot; in this case, Abbott Pescall. He was notorious for his religious laxity and financial incompetence and was already under the close scrutiny of the powers that be in London – but that’s another story!

The entire compound was surrounded by a wall (which still survives). The main abbey church and conventual buildings were sited adjacent to the west bank of the River Soar, which meandered through the meadows in which the abbey had been built. The main outer gateway to the abbey compound, which Cavendish mentions in his account, was situated towards the middle of the northern section of the abbey’s perimeter wall. It remains the main entrance to the park today, but sadly, the gatehouse has gone (see image above).

A track led southwards to a second, inner gatehouse. Beyond that, a yard opened up directly outside the main west facade of the church and a range of conventual buildings, which ran directly southwards from the abbey church, forming the western range of the abbey’s cloisters. This range comprised the Abbot’s lodgings, the most splendid and luxurious accommodation in the abbey (see image below).

We know from Cavendish’s account that ‘they brought him [Wolsey] on his mule to the stairs foot of his chamber, and there he alighted, and Master Kingston then took him by the arm and led him up the stairs’. So, we know for sure that Wolsey was housed in a first-floor chamber. It is quite possible that the Abbot ceded his own lodgings to the Cardinal. However, we cannot be sure, for another possible contender might be the guest lodgings, located across a small courtyard, south of the cloister. (Read more.)