Tea at Trianon: Henrietta Maria in Red

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, February 14, 2022

Henrietta Maria in Red

A series of portraits from ArtUK:

Some said that Henrietta Maria had far too great an influence on Charles and that her Catholic beliefs, following the trauma of Mary I's short but long-remembered reign, were a problem. People feared that Charles was becoming more and more tolerant towards the Catholics of the country – and therefore, the queen was becoming a problem for the intolerant Protestant state.

When it came to religion, Henrietta Maria was unapologetic and expressed her feelings openly. She was close to her French and Scottish entourage at court, including her Scottish chaplain and confessor Robert Phillip, who eventually spent his last years in France.

Attacks on Henrietta Maria intensified. In 1632 a Puritan, William Prynne, published a book entitled Histriomastix: the Player's Scourge or Actor's Tragedy, which was a critique of English Renaissance theatre and actors. (Read more.)