Tea at Trianon: Lady Dervorgilla and Sweetheart Abbey

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, July 7, 2021

Lady Dervorgilla and Sweetheart Abbey

From Medievalists:

In addition to owning and maintaining these vast areas of England and Scotland, Dervorgilla used some of her wealth to establish prominent buildings and structures throughout the land. Balliol College at Oxford University is named after her and her husband. John de Balliol, in 1255, established an almshouse in Oxford for 16 poor scholars who were to receive an allowance of 8 pence a day. It was not John, however, but Dervorgilla who actually turned this almshouse into the college that still stands today. Nearly thirty years after the almshouse was founded, Dervorgilla created the permanent endowment and statutes necessary to turn it into the official Balliol College at Oxford University.
In Dumfries, there is a bridge over the River Nith known as ‘Devorgilla’s Bridge’. This seventeenth-century construction is named after a bridge that was said to be constructed by Dervorgilla in the 1230s, however, since it was likely made of wood, no trace of the original bridge remains. Also in Dumfries, Dervorgilla established the Friars Minor, a house for Franciscan friars, and further down the road in Wigtown she established a Dominican house of Friars. In Dundee, she founded the Franciscan Friary.
Dervorgilla’s marriage to her husband John must have been one of true love, for when he passed away in 1268, Dervorgilla was devasted. She commemorated her husband in two ways: one traditional, for a woman of her wealth and status, and one not so traditional. In John’s memory, Dervorgilla founded New Abbey, a Cistercian sister-house of Dundrennan Abbey, in her homeland of Galloway. Curiously, she also had John’s heart embalmed so she could carry it with her wherever she went. She had an expensive case made for the heart, decorated with silver, enamel and ivory. This unique way of mourning her husband made such an impression on the monks of New Abbey that they renamed their abbey Dulce Cor, or Sweetheart, in her honour.
Sweetheart Abbey is in remarkably good shape for a building that is nearly 800 years old. Although it was left to fall into ruin after the Reformation in the late sixteenth century, its red sandstone walls still stand, and you can visit the site in the quaint town of New Abbey, Dumfries. (Read more.)