Tea at Trianon: The Christening of Prince Arthur

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

Monday, September 27, 2021

The Christening of Prince Arthur

From Virtual Grub Street:

We have already seen the lying-in instructions [link] that Margaret Beaufort wrote for her daughter-in-law’s royal servants and visitors. The weeks among lavish hangings and every possible protection, physical and emotional, ended in a successful delivery, mother and son both healthy by all indications. The kingdom had an heir.

The instructions are provided in the great antiquary John Leland’s de rebus Britannicis collectanea, V4, where we also are informed of details around the prince’s christening. All involved were aware that the condition of mother and/or child could suddenly decline. In those days, a royal child was baptized immediately in order to assure salvation should it suddenly die.

ON St. Eustachius’ Day, which was in the Year of our Lord M.CCCC.LXXXVI. the Dominical Letter A, and and the ij^de Yere of the Reigne of our saide Souveraigne, the Prince Arture was born at Winchester, whiche was the firste begotten Sone of our said Souveraigne Lorde King Henry the VII^th, and cristened in Manner and Forme as ensueth,…
The John, the 13^th Earl of Oxford, was at his seat, at Lavenham, at the time. (Read more.)