Tea at Trianon: Wimbledon Palace

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

Friday, May 6, 2022

Wimbledon Palace

Wimbledon Palace no longer exists, and its village has been swallowed up by London, but it plays a part in my next book, so I was glad to find a picture of it. In the late 1630's Queen Henrietta Maria wanted a house of greater intimacy and privacy where she and King Charles could enjoy time together. Wimbledon was small enough to limit the size of the royal retinues, so that there were not people everywhere as at the other palaces. From Lost City of London:

Wimbledon House or Palace was built in c. 1588 for William’s son Thomas Cecil, 1^st Earl of Exeter. It was subsequently rebuilt – by Inigo Jones and Nicholas Stone – in 1639, for King Charles I’s Queen, Henrietta Maria, taken away from her during the Civil War in 1642, and only given back after the Restoration in 1660, and sold – in a sorry state of repair – in 1661. It was eventually demolished in 1717. (Read more.)

From Wikipedia:

The estate stood within a day's ride of Westminster, making it eminently suitable for an active courtier; there, the Cecils entertained Queen Elizabeth I of England for three days in 1599.^[16] John Thorpe's undated plan of Wimbledon's ground floor and forecourts of ca 1609,^[17] suggests that they were about twelve acres in extent, divided among eleven separate spaces, featuring plantations, walks, and parterres, laid out asymmetrically on the sloping site.^[18] The house was damaged in 1628 by the accidental igniting of gunpowder stored there.^[19] The glories of this house, after repairs had been effected, were concentrated in the long Gallery, one of two in the house, which was richly painted and marbleized, no doubt by Francis Cleyn, who was responsible also for the exterior that was painted en camaieu in tones of yellow and burnt ochre.^[20]
Immediately after Viscount Wimbledon died, in 1638, the manor together with manor house was sold by his heirs to trustees for the queen of Charles I, who gave it to Queen Henrietta-Maria. Alterations and expansion were made in 1640–41, just at the outbreak of the English Civil War. Overseeing plans and construction was the court architect Inigo Jones, Surveyor of the King's Works, and on site was the prominent sculptor-builder Nicholas Stone.^[21] The two-storey house with a flat balustraded roof was severe in outward aspect. Thomas Fuller calls Wimbledon manor house "a daring structure;" and says, that "by some it has been thought to equal Nonsuch, if not to exceed it."^[22]
The magnificent gardens which were created for the Queen by French garden designer Andre Mollet, were later described in a Parliamentary inventory taken in 1649; after noting the lower court and the upper court, the survey reported its several ascents in detail, counting the very steps:^[23]
The scite of this manor-house being placed on the side slipp of a rising ground, renders it to stand of that height that, betwixt the basis of the brick-wall of the sayd lower court, and the hall door of the sayd manor-house, there are five severall assents, consisting of three-score and ten stepps, which are distinguished in a very graceful manner....
(Read more.)