Tea at Trianon: The First King of Great Britain

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

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

The First King of Great Britain

I think the ruby brooch in his hat was among the jewels sold by Henrietta Maria to finance the war.

James I. From The Royal Mint:

The Sovereign was first struck on the orders of Henry VII in 1489, possibly as a statement of his emerging political power, and was struck by each subsequent monarch until the reign of James I. James I was the first monarch to style himself the king of Great Britain – a title he adopted in 1604 – which suggested the unification of the kingdoms a full century before the formal Acts of Union were passed in the English and Scottish parliaments. Tellingly, James I ‘rebranded’ the Sovereign as the Unite, thereby consolidating his position and displaying his intent.

James I politicised the currency across the board, using coinage as a means to hammer home the fact that he ruled a newly united kingdom. His overt use of coinage in this regard is illustrated by the Latin inscriptions that feature on his coins, which translate as ‘James by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland’ and ‘I will make them one nation’, with the latter taken from the Bible.

The change to the king’s title necessitated a new royal Coat of Arms to accommodate Scotland. Apart from a brief period when Mary I was married to Philip II of Spain, the Arms of England were arranged with the lilies of France in the first and fourth quarters and lions of England in the second and third. Under James I, the lion rampant of his native land was included in a new design that also saw the addition of the harp of Ireland. (Read more.)