Tea at Trianon: Fabric as Power

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, November 7, 2023

Fabric as Power

From Judith Arnopp:

We have all become so familiar with royal Tudor images that we no longer really see them. One glance tells us who they are. We think we know them. They exude power, majesty and the iron fist of mastery. Earlier portraits of the Plantagenet kings, and even the early portraits of Henry VII are very different to that of his son and grandchildren. But it was Henry VII, the first ‘Tudor’ king who began to develop the ‘Tudor’ brand.

The Tudors were the new kids on the block; nobody could foresee what sort of King Henry would make and his popularity depended very much on that of his wife, Elizabeth of York. Yorkist propaganda demeaned his claim to the throne, declaring that his mother’s line was illegitimate; that Lancaster had stolen the crown in 1399.

Henry, realising he needed to reinforce his hold on the country, embellished his family history to create an impressive Tudor dynasty. He stressed the royal connection of his mother, Margaret Beaufort, and her descent from John of Gaunt and, to strengthen his claim further, he legally removed the stigma of bastardy from the family. He reiterated the royal descent of his grandmother, Katherine of Valois and, more surprisingly, claimed descent from the ancient Welsh King Cadwaladr, and King Arthur. To further cement his link to Arthur he named his first-born son in his honour and embellished the round table at Winchester with the Tudor rose.

With the blood of both York and Lancaster flowing in the veins of his two sons and several daughters, the Tudor line looked set to continue but Arthur’s sudden death in 1502 taught Henry that a king can never have too many sons. He lost no time in teaching his remaining son, later to become Henry VIII, the finer points of kingship. He stressed the importance of his role, the unreliability of the fickle populace, and the crucial need for strong male heirs to perpetuate the dynasty. The importance of heirs was a lesson young Henry never forgot, and one he fought hard to achieve for the rest of his life. (Read more.)