Tea at Trianon: An Eighth Sacrament?

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

Saturday, May 6, 2023

An Eighth Sacrament?

Coronation of William I

Coronation of Elizabeth II

From Charles Coulombe at One Peter Five:

The anointing was the most sacred part of the Catholic coronation rite – even more than the placing of the crown upon the new Monarch’s head. This was so when Bl. Karl was crowned King of Hungary in 1916, when Ferdinand of Austria was crowned King of Bohemia in 1838 and King of Lombardy-Venetia in 1836, when Charles X received the French Crown in 1830, and when Franz II was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1792 – all the way back through successive Emperors and Kings to the early Middle Ages. It was seen as a renewal of the rite performed by Samuel for King David. This was an important sign and more than symbol for our Catholic ancestors. For them, Kingship was participation in the Kingship of Christ – which participation was actualised by the coronation, which gave the Monarch authority to rule. The anointing for most Monarchs was done with the oil of catechumens; but by Papal permission, those of France, England, Scotland, Sicily, and Jerusalem were done with chrism. In a word, the oil being prepared for King Charles – although blessed by a Greek Orthodox Patriarch for an Anglican rite – is what it is because of the Popes – not unlike the King’s title of “Defender of the Faith.”

Charles III’s coronation will follow the same basic structure and use most of the words and prayers of its Catholic prototype. The individual called “Archbishop of Canterbury” to-day will officiate, in emulation of those prelates in Catholic times. In every Catholic realm, it was the Primate – Canterbury in England, Reims in France, Toledo in Castile, etc., that performed the rite, as the highest cleric in the country; but to the Pope was reserved the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor in Rome – just as, on a few occasions, they had crowned the Byzantine Emperor while visiting Constantinople. (Read more.)