Tea at Trianon: Recusant Queen: The White Martyrdom of Henrietta Maria

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, July 16, 2023

Recusant Queen: The White Martyrdom of Henrietta Maria

Queen Henrietta Maria wearing the diamond cross given her by Pope Urban VIII

Kristen Van Uden has written a most insightful and poignant review of My Queen, My Love at Catholic Exchange:

After the Anglican revolution of Henry VIII, the English royal house was divided. Protestant Elizabeth I died with no issue. Despite Mary Queen of Scots’ heroic witness unto death for the true Faith, her son James was effectively hijacked by her enemies and groomed into a Tudor heir. By the time James’ son Charles ascended the throne, the Stuart dynasty was strongly within the Protestant camp, though his potential conversion remained a hoped-for (or dreaded) eventuality.The long line of English Catholic martyrs marched forward even during the “tolerant” reign of the Stuarts....Anti-Catholic sentiment reigned supreme. The “ringing island” rang no longer, instead clamoring dissonant peals of error.

Into this hostile territory entered a young Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria of France. The daughter of Henry IV, a French Huguenot, and Catholic Marie de’Medici, Henrietta was sent not only as a political envoy, as was the routine purpose of royal marriages, but also as a religious ambassador. Her parents’ marriage, by which the Church partially attempted to heal the French Huguenot schism, provided a model, albeit a rocky one.

The marriage of Henrietta and Charles required a dispensation from the pope, as Catholics were forbidden to marry non-Catholics except in extreme or unusual circumstances. The dispensation came with a weighty caveat: that Henrietta would endeavor to convert her husband, and consequently his country, back to the true Faith. Henrietta was instructed to imitate saint Berthe, who had converted her pagan husband, and sent into the spiritual war zone.

Henrietta arrived in England at the tender age of fifteen, with this outsized supernatural mission to complete. (Read more.)