Tea at Trianon: The Queen's House, Greenwich

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, October 4, 2023

The Queen's House, Greenwich

Henrietta Maria and Charles I

I was able to visit in 2022. From Royal Museums Greenwich:

The architect Inigo Jones was commissioned to design the building in 1616 by King James I’s wife, Anne of Denmark – supposedly a gift from the king to apologise for swearing in front of her after she had accidentally killed one of his favourite dogs during a hunt.

However Anne of Denmark never lived to see Inigo Jones’s progressive Classical design realised, dying in 1619 with only the first floor completed. It was not until 1629, when James’s son Charles I gave Greenwich to his wife Henrietta Maria, that work on it resumed.

The Queen’s House was completed around 1636 and is considered remarkable for its break with the traditional, red-brick Tudor style of building, and for its elegant proportions and the high quality of its interiors. It was the first fully Classical building in England. (Read more.)

From Country Life:

Staircases were and remain a great indicator of status in a house, from the main staircase to the back staircase for staff. Cantilevered stone staircases are the most eye-catching, with a slim, elegant section showcasing the beauty and strength of stone. With wrought or cast-metal balusters and a mahogany curving handrail, they have so much to display. Revived from Palladian times by Inigo Jones at the Queen’s House in Greenwich, they continue to impress.

Their place in the plan for the layout of a building is critical to allow it both to be seen and control the house’s circulation, and their sculptural potential is something that we always endeavour to bring out, whatever their material combination; simple metal flowing shapes, glass to emphasise the light, stone, or beautifully turned timber. (Read more.)

Greenwich in the times of Anne Boleyn, HERE.