Tea at Trianon: Coronation of Charles III

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

Sunday, May 7, 2023

Coronation of Charles III

A view from Whitehall. From Tatler:

We glimpsed the King and Queen and I wondered now how their nerves were holding up. Some 2,200 guests had been arriving at the abbey since 7.30am. As the service was relayed over loudspeaker, the crowd fell silent. And when, an hour later, the King was crowned, the crowd roared. They’d waited in the cold and rain, but all was well, they had a new King.
At 1.15pm, the Coronation procession approached us in Whitehall to huge cheers as onlookers caught sight of the newly crowned King Charles III and Queen Camilla, now travelling in the Gold State Coach drawn by eight Windsor Greys. Someone close by screamed in delight: ‘The King waved at us.’ I think she was right. Gazes were fixed on the ornate gold carriage – a 260-year-old living part of British history that has been used in every coronation since that of William IV in 1831. It was clear that the rigorous midnight-till-dawn rehearsals had paid off as the armed forces from the Commonwealth and British Overseas Territories processed alongside the new monarch in perfect unison, a procession of 4,000 personnel, the largest military ceremonial procession since the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Was every guardsman in the country parading today? Close behind the King and Queen was the carriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, Princess Charlotte, Prince George and Prince Louis. The crowd cheered and screamed as they passed, little Louis waving enthusiastically through the window. More carriages and cars followed with family members, including the Edinburghs, the Gloucesters, and Vice Admiral Tim Laurence, whose wife, Princess Anne, was riding behind her brother the King, serving as Gold-Stick-in-Waiting. (Read more.)

More pictures HERE and HERE.

Watch the coronation HERE. I watched it with The Royal Rogue, HERE.