Tea at Trianon: Unforgivable

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, January 11, 2023

Unforgivable

From The Spectator:

I’m just going to say it: I’m Team William. In that scrap that Prince Harry says happened at Nottingham Cottage, where Prince William allegedly lost his rag and pushed Harry to the floor, I’m cheering Will. Everyone who has a brother — I have five — knows they sometimes need a clip round the lughole. And I trust Will made the right decision when he physically reprimanded his little bro. There are many reasons I’m in the Cambridge camp. The Sussexes are just saps, aren’t they? I’m far more shocked that Harry called his therapist after William allegedly attacked him than I am by the incident itself. After having an altercation with his brother? Harry really went from killing radical Islamists in Afghanistan to phoning his life coach because his brother broke his necklace?
If I went to a quack every time I had a blow-up with one of my brothers I’d have spent a lot of my teenage years and 20s on the couch. Thankfully I haven’t fallen under the spell of psychobabble, so I did what all self-respecting blokes do when they row with their brothers: drank, talked, patched things up, moved on. The Cambridges, at least, have some dignity. Harry, the Moaner of Montecito, appears to have misplaced his. Spare, his book that’s causing a storm even before its official publication next week, apparently contains all kinds of sordid details about his life. Like the ‘inglorious’ time he lost his virginity to an ‘older woman’ who ‘liked horses’. Apparently they had sex in ‘a grassy field behind a busy pub’.

For someone who values his privacy, Harry sure does like sharing secrets. There are people I’ve known for decades whose first sexual encounter remains a mystery to me. Thank God. Yet here comes Harry telling me about the time a horsey lady took his virginity and then ‘smacked my rump’. Did Jilly Cooper ghostwrite this? He spills the beans on his own dad and stepmum. He blabs about his and Will’s concern about Charles marrying Camilla. They worried she’d be a Wicked Stepmother. He tells all about Charles’ exasperation with his bickering sons. Apparently he pleaded with them not to make his ‘final years a misery’. Spare is essentially a middle finger to that plea.

Imagine how your father would feel if you wrote a book quoting his most private, mournful thoughts. Mine would go mad. Harry says he wants his dad and brother back in his life. Okay, then maybe don’t write a posh misery memoir in which you expose their failings to the world? Maybe just have a drink with them, and a chat, men to men. No Netflix cameras.
Probably the most grating thing about the Sussexes is their refusal to take responsibility for things. Everything is always someone else’s fault. I suppose it’s entirely coincidental that drama and tension seem to accompany Harry and Meghan everywhere they go. Apparently in Spare Harry even hints that Will and Kate encouraged him to wear that Nazi uniform. Oh grow up, Harry. Own your errors.

We’re witnessing the Californication of a Prince. The old bantering, streaking fun Harry who later signed up for military service has been replaced by a self-pitying celeb who squeals with glee when he gets a text message from Beyonce. Warring royals once marshalled armies and battled it out in muddy fields; now they write tear-stained tell-alls about their hurt feelings. God help us.
The main reason I’m Team Will is because Harry has actually done something unforgivable: he’s broken the unwritten code that says brothers never gab about their tensions to other people. Of course brothers scrap and argue. Fraternal fighting is as old as time. But you don’t tell everyone about it. This is the most intimate form of conflict, one bound up with all sorts of emotions, including love. You don’t share this. Ever. What happens between brothers stays between brothers. All brothers know this. (Read more.)