Tea at Trianon: Anne Boleyn’s Prayer Book

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

Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Anne Boleyn’s Prayer Book

From Smithsonian:

Following Anne’s beheading, her devotional Book of Hours, which included several inscriptions in her own hand, disappeared for centuries. As Craig Simpson reports for the Telegraph, the illustrated manuscript only reemerged in the early 20th century, when wealthy businessman William Waldorf Astor purchased Anne’s childhood home of Hever Castle.

Now, a former steward at the castle thinks she knows what happened to the text for at least part of the time that it was missing. Per a statement, historian Kate McCaffrey, who studied the Book of Hours for nearly a year, found markings bearing the names of women who may have passed it along—at great personal risk—so it could be preserved for Anne’s daughter, the future Elizabeth I.

“It really comes full circle,” McCaffrey tells the Telegraph. “What makes the book so dangerous to preserve, its association with Anne, actually becomes the main reason for preserving it when Elizabeth I comes to the throne [in 1558] and wants her mother to be remembered.” (Read more.)

Hels said...: I can understand why Queen Anne’s husband, King Henry VIII would have wanted no relic of his dead queen to survive. After all he had ordered her death on b.s charges of adultery, incest, witchcraft and high treason. Since he lied about her as often as he ate meals, he could pretend after the execution that she had never existed!

And I can understand why her women being caught with the dead queen’s book could have been seen as a treasonous act. I would also have hidden the book!

But here is the important question. Anne's “Book of Hours” was very beautiful, and very valuable as well. Why didn't the murderous king-husband keep the book and simply lie about its original ownership?; June 8, 2021 at 3:59:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Good question!! But I think too many people would have recognized it because they had seen it with her in church.; June 8, 2021 at 7:43:00 PM EDT