Tea at Trianon: Six Unpublished Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria

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

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Six Unpublished Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria

From R. A. Beddard:

With the Scots preparing to invade England, and his English supporters on the point of launching an insurrection in Kent, the King held it necessary for the Prince, his son, to leave France. To that end he wrote to the Queen in May 1648, commanding her to summon certain of his councillors to attend and advise the Prince. They included Secretary Nicholas, Lord Treasurer Cottington, and the elderly Earl of Bristol, all of whom had escaped to France, and Sir Edward Hyde, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, almost alone of the King's advisers, had stayed behind in Jersey, preferring to remain on British soil. The Queen's letter of 9 June, directed to Nicholas, and published here, was therefore written in obedience to the King's command. In her letter Henrietta Maria referred explicitly to *the present revolutions' taking place back home, as making it 'no longer fitt' for the Prince of Wales 'to sitt idle' in France at a time when his engaging in military action might 'contribute much to His Majesty's re-establishment': the object of all their endeavours. Earlier news of dissension in South Wales, of Lord Inchiquin's declaring for the King in Ireland, of the raising of a Scots army, and of the seizure of Berwick and Carlisle by Sir Marmaduke Langdale and Sir Philip Musgrave in the North of England was overtaken by even more encouraging news of disturbances in London, a popular uprising in Kent, and - an unexpected bonus - a revolt in the Parliamentarian navy. The latter event, which involved a detachment of six ships, seemed particularly auspicious, Hyde hailing it as a 'very extraordinary' accident, which 'looked like a call from Heaven' summoning the exiled Prince to action. No wonder it was now thought opportune for him to remove from Paris to the Channel coast, so as to be in readiness 'to transport his person' to whichever part of his father's dominions should be judged most advantageous for the King's service. (Read more.)

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