Tea at Trianon: Magna Carta’s Family Ties

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, July 18, 2023

Magna Carta’s Family Ties

From Sharon Bennett Connolly:

As I have been pursuing the various strands of research into the female personalities in medieval England, I have been struck, time and again, by how closely related the nobility were, through blood and marriage. Just look at the women who surround the Magna Carta story. Each of the women I wrote of had at least one familial connection to another great noble family; some had a number of links to several families. It is a tangled and complicated web, but I will try and give you a brief overview here.

As you may have noticed, my favourite medieval woman is Nicholaa de la Haye, castellan of Lincoln Castle; she successfully defended the castle through at least 3 sieges, the last 2 when she was a widow in her 60s. Nicholaa was related to King John’s half-brother, William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury, through her son, Richard, whose daughter Idonea was married at a young age to William (II), Longespée’s son by his wife, Ela of Salisbury. It was as a result of this connection that William (I) Longespée claimed Lincoln Castle and the shrievalty of Lincolnshire following the Second Battle of Lincoln in May 1217. Longespée claimed that as they were his daughter-in-law’s inheritance, it was his right to administer them. Idonea’s father, Richard, had died sometime in the previous 12 months, leaving Idonea as his sole heir. Longespée appears to have conveniently forgotten – or ignored – the fact that the castle of Lincoln was Nicholaa’s by hereditary right – and Nicholaa was still very much alive! (Read more.)