Tea at Trianon: The Exeter Conspiracy

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 28, 2023

The Exeter Conspiracy

How Henry VIII rid himself of those with the old royal blood. From Nancy Bilyeau at The Anne Boleyn Files:

Of the remaining Yorkists, the two orphaned children of the Duke of Clarence, Edward IV’s brother, were in the most vulnerable position. The young Earl of Warwick was confined in the Tower of London beginning at age 10 and finally executed at age 24. His sister Margaret was married to Sir Richard Pole, a minor courtier far below her in rank who the Tudors were sure was loyal. Neutralized, she had a family with her husband–three sons and a daughter–and was given positions of importance at the court. Margaret became particular friends with Henry’s queen, Catherine of Aragon. The royal couple valued Margaret Pole enough to make her Countess of Salisbury, to ask her to be godmother to their heir, Princess Mary, and to put Margaret at the head of Mary’s household when she lived in Wales. Margaret was very pious, which Henry VIII often praised.
The most important figure in the Exeter Conspiracy was Henry Courtenay. When Henry VIII was still a child, his parents brought this young cousin into the orbit of the royal family so that the Tudor prince would have a playmate. (Young Courtenay’s mother was Elizabeth of York’s sister.)
Margaret Pole’s sons never seem to have been as close to Henry VIII as Courtenay but were close enough to the center of court to make informed observations of the royal family. Later, the oldest son, Henry Pole, Lord Montague, said that Henry VII did not like his son. Another Pole, Reginald, was a brilliant scholar, and Henry VIII generously paid for his studies when he went to Padua to launch a church career.
The fate of Henry Stafford, third Duke of Buckingham, can be seen as something of a dress rehearsal for the Exeter Conspiracy. When Henry VIII was a teenaged prince, foreign ambassadors who got an eyeful of the adult Buckingham wrote that he could make a more impressive king. He was a major landholder who directly descended from Edward III. He was also arrogant and short-tempered and did not make much of an effort to ingratiate himself with Henry VIII. In fact, he was outraged when either Henry VIII or his favorite William Compton seduced Buckingham’s married sister and the duke insisted she be sent to a nunnery.

This had become a tense dynamic by 1521. Henry and Catherine of Aragon did not have a male heir after 12 years of marriage and dukes with royal blood had been known to cause problems before in this kind of situation. (Read more.)