Tea at Trianon: Scottish Royal Garden Party Jewels

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 23, 2023

From The Court Jeweller:

The diamond thistle brooch, representing Scotland’s national flower, originally belonged to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Above, she wears the brooch on her hat in May 1944 as she meets with paratroopers preparing for the upcoming D-Day invasion. Camilla has been wearing the brooch since she was Duchess of Cornwall. The piece was a personal gift to her from her late mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II, who had inherited the brooch from her mother in 2002. Camilla debuted the brooch in Wellington during a tour of New Zealand in November 2015.Camilla has worn the brooch often over the years, especially at events in or related to Scotland. Above, she wears the diamond thistle in October 2021 for the opening of the Scottish parliamentary session. And last September, she wore the brooch in Edinburgh as the world mourned for the late Queen Elizabeth II. (Read more.)