Tea at Trianon: Praying for Her Majesty

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, June 3, 2022

Praying for Her Majesty

From CNA:

As the United Kingdom prepares to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years as monarch, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has released prayers for the occasion.

“We pray for Elizabeth, our Queen; may she continue to know the steadfast love of God and serve her people faithfully,” reads the model intention published by the bishops’ conference.

The bishops’ conference said that at all Sunday Masses this coming weekend, June 4-5, each parish in England and Wales should pray “for Her Majesty the Queen to mark her Platinum Jubilee.” Each parish should include an intention in the Prayer of the Faithful and at the end of the Mass recite the “Prayer for the Queen.”

Queen Elizabeth II acceded to the throne on Feb. 6, 1952 at the age of 25, after the death of her father, King George VI. She is the first British monarch to hold her throne for 70 years. Queen Victoria, Elizabeth II’s great-great-grandmother, ruled for 63 years and seven months. (Read more.)