Tea at Trianon: A Jacobean Manor

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, August 4, 2021

A Jacobean Manor

From Mansion Global:

A 500-year-old castle-sized Jacobean manor house, spanning 35,376 square feet, in England was listed last week for £9 million (US$12.4 million). Dubbed Yarnton Manor, the nearly 30-acre estate is located in the village of Yarnton, outside the educational mecca of Oxford. Both the manor and its gardens have Grade II historical designations and date to the 16th century, according to listing agent Emma Cleugh, head of the institutional, charities and education team at Knight Frank.

“People think there are a lot of these estates, but in reality, properties of this scale and in this location are few and far between,” she said.
The property has a rich political history, and was owned by the Spencer family from 1580 to 1712, according to Knight Frank. Sir Thomas Spencer, elected as a member of Parliament in 1660, was responsible for the manor house, and his conversion included a secret room above the main entrance where he could hide in the event of an attack, Ms. Cleugh noted.
The manor served as a military hospital for the King’s Royalist troops during the English Civil War in the 17th century, and King Charles I, took refuge on the property during that time, according to the listing. An academic from Oxford University bought the property in 1936, and novelist Iris Murdoch visited the estate in 1939 as part of a touring theater group, the listing said. The grounds have been featured on the television show “Britain’s Most Historic Towns” and the ongoing BBC mystery series “Father Brown.” (Read more.)