Tea at Trianon: Prince Charles and the Death of Lord Mountbatten

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, November 30, 2020

Prince Charles and the Death of Lord Mountbatten

From Express:

In The Crown, they make a point about the Prince of Wales’ many relationships but strangely they do not mention Amanda Knatchbull, who he proposed to shortly after Mounbatten’s death. Mountbatten was Charles’ great uncle and mentor, who was murdered by the IRA. Episode one of the Netflix drama depicts that terrible day when he was out with his family on a boat and a bomb exploded.
The explosive killed Mountbatten himself, his 14-year-old grandson Nicholas Knatchbull, a 15-year old schoolboy who was helping out as a bootboy and the 83-year-old Dowager Lady Brabourne. Nicholas’ twin brother, father and mother ‒ who was Mountbatten’s daughter ‒ survived with serious injuries.
Not long after this incident, Charles asked Nicholas’ sister Amanda to marry him, but she declined. Mountbatten had suggested the match as early as 1974, according to Jonathan Dimbleby’s 1994 book ‘The Prince of Wales: A Biography’. (Read more.)