Tea at Trianon: The Iron Age Tribes of Britain

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, February 7, 2021

The Iron Age Tribes of Britain

From Heritage Daily:

The names associated with the Iron Age tribes were recorded by Roman and Greek historians during the second century AD (after Roman Britain had already supplanted the British Iron Age), leading to historians and archaeologists to speculate as to where the tribal centres were situated, or where territorial boundaries extended.

These are also not necessarily the names by which the tribes knew themselves; for instance, “Durotriges” may mean “hillfort-dwellers”, but it is unlikely that the Durotriges themselves considered this their defining name.

Archaeologists have been able to gain some insight into the population extents and tribal boundaries, by studying the spacial distribution of coins of the various groups, and the pottery assemblages associated with each distinct culture. (Read more.)