Tea at Trianon: The Daemonologie of King James

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

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

The Daemonologie of King James

From Eleanor Swift-Hook:

In 1597 King James VI of Scotland felt the need to publish his book Daemonologie in which two characters, Philomathes and Epistemon, argue over whether or not witches even exist. The sceptical Philomathes is eventually persuaded by Epistemon that ‘that witchcraft, and Witches haue bene, and are, the former part is clearelie proved by the Scriptures, and the last by dailie experience and confessions.’ Epistemon sets out his case, calling upon Biblical authority and examples from history, touching upon tales of ‘Pharie’ and which aspects of astrology are legal and which are not.

Aside from offering an intriguing glimpse into the mindset of King James, who of course became King of England a few years later, it is a reminder of the power such belief had throughout society. And a huge red flag regarding the assumption of the universality of such belief as well.

James says in his preface that he wrote the book to ‘to resolue the doubting harts of many’ and Philomathes says that the existence of witches and witchcraft is something: ‘but thereof the Doctours doubtes’.

In other words, far from there being a strong belief throughout society that these things were true, a major reason James felt the need to write his books because the level of scepticism about the existence of witches and witchcraft was held by the ‘harts of many’ to be very much in ‘doubtes’. (Read more.)