Tea at Trianon: The Man Who Killed the Duke of Buckingham

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

Thursday, November 17, 2022

The Man Who Killed the Duke of Buckingham

From Brumafriend:

On this day 392 years ago, John Felton died. A man who might otherwise have not gone down in history at all, those that do not recognise his name will most likely be familiar with George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Felton’s connection to Villiers is rather morbid: he was the man who killed him.
Prior to assassinating the Duke, Felton was a lieutenant in the English Army who fought in Spain and France under his command. The expedition he participated in at Saint-Martin-de-Ré failed spectacularly, costing some 5,000 English lives to a French loss of around one-tenth the size, despite the English army outnumbering the French. Felton had also attempted to gain captaincy of some troops during the expedition but had been denied his request. This would have undoubtedly led to some resentment of Villiers on Felton’s part along with his belief that he was owed — but had been denied — £80 pay. Despite this, it’s hard to imagine that Felton would have gone as far as murdering Villiers were it not for his extreme unpopularity among the nobility and the general public. (Read more.)