Tea at Trianon: Relics of the Escape of Charles II

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, April 24, 2023

Relics of the Escape of Charles II

Young Charles II

From the BBC:

A rare "wanted" poster for Charles II has been sold for just over £33,000 at an auction in Shropshire. The poster offers a reward of £1,000 for the capture of the king, who had escaped after the battle of Worcester in 1651. Auctioneer Richard Westwood-Brookes said the sale price was "astonishing". It had a guide price of £700 to £1,000. The poster was bought by someone from the Boscobel area of Shropshire, where Charles II had hidden in an oak tree. (Read more.)

I never heard that Fr. Huddleston was a monk, but he was the priest who received Charles II into the Catholic Church on his deathbed. "You once saved my body; now it is time to save my soul," the dying King said to him. Also from the BBC:

The prayer book of a priest who helped King Charles II flee to France at the end of the English Civil Wars is due to be auctioned. It belonged to Father John Huddleston, who also attended the monarch's deathbed in 1685. Concerning the book, auctioneer John Crane said it was "the first time in 40 years since being an auctioneer I could use the word 'unique"'. The copy has an estimated sale price of more than £2,000.
Born in Lancashire, Father Huddleston was a Roman Catholic monk who arranged for Charles II to escape in 1651, at the end of the English Civil Wars between royalists and their opponents. His actions are believed to have saved the young monarch, who had been crowned King in Scotland two years after the execution of his father Charles I. (Read more.)