Tea at Trianon: Women During the English Civil War

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, August 10, 2021

Women During the English Civil War

From Atlas Obscura:

Women were effective spies partly because they were below, rather than beyond, suspicion. “It was believed that women were physically incapable of having political thoughts,” says Akkerman. Spymasters on both sides exploited that stereotype by using women intelligencers to write and pass coded letters, sometimes smuggled within raw eggs or written in artichoke ink. However, by the start of the Restoration in 1660, with England again a monarchy and the upheaval of the wars fading, Akkerman says the number of women agents shrank.

The end of the war appears to mark a return to the status quo for women, including those who had fought and spied, but Stoyle believes women’s roles during the English Civil War may have helped shift societal attitudes towards women, at least a notch. “I think it sets some seeds in the wind that never really disappear,” he says.

As for Trooper Jane, she did not live to see the return of the monarchy she had fought to save. She spent her final years working on a nearby farm, possibly to help pay off Parliament-imposed fines on her Royalist family. She died of unknown causes and was buried at Ripley on December 20, 1651. She was 50 years old. “The Civil War undoubtedly hurt,” says Ingilby, reflecting on the courage he believes Jane showed while helping her brother avoid capture and execution. Says Ingilby: “Of all the virtues you can be born with, the virtue of survivability is worth a hell of a lot.” (Read more.)