Tea at Trianon: The Later Stuarts

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, December 29, 2021

The Later Stuarts

From Medium:

The years 1685 to 1714, during which the monarchs mentioned in the title had their reigns, were of vital importance in the history of Great Britain, because the consequences of what took place had a huge effect on the British Constitution down to the present day.

In 1685 King Charles II died without leaving any legitimate heirs other than his brother James. Charles, who had been restored to the throne after the 11-year interregnum of Oliver Cromwell, had the good sense to balance his own desires with those of Parliament and, although they sometimes clashed, he had the skill to avoid the sort of conflict that led to his own father (Charles I) losing his head. Above all, Charles knew that the country was now firmly Protestant and, despite suspicions that he had Catholic sympathies (his mother was the Catholic Henrietta Maria, the sister of Louis XIII of France), he was wise enough to keep his own religious beliefs, such as they were, out of the public domain.

Despite having a Catholic mother, James’s own Catholicism came about from conversion, due to the years he had spent in exile in France along with other members of the Royal family. He had two daughters by his first wife (Anne Hyde) who had been brought up as Protestants, and these offered some sort of safeguard that the monarchy, and thus the country, would not revert to Catholicism in the long term.

However, as it became clear that Charles’s successor would be his brother, strenuous moves were made to exclude James from the throne. Parliament had debated an “Exclusion Bill” that eventually failed at Charles’s insistence, and also led to the emergence of two political groups, the Tories and the Whigs, who respectively opposed and supported the Bill.

When James did succeed to the throne in February 1685 he did so smoothly enough, being generally welcomed as king in the belief that he would recognise that England was now a Protestant country and not seek to rock the boat. At first there was little cause for alarm, with James being happy to call a Parliament and to re-appoint most of his brother’s ministers.(Read more.)