Tea at Trianon: Richard I: An English King or a Crusader King?

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

Saturday, January 27, 2024

Richard I: An English King or a Crusader King?

He was both. The Crusades were defensive wars to return the Holy Land to Christian hands and to save Christian pilgrims from capture, slavery, imprisonment and death. There were twelve crusades and they were each unique. The notorious Fourth Crusade gave the others a bad name. Many crusaders behaved badly but then so did the Moslems. From The Collector:

Richard was born on 8 September 1157 in Beaumont Palace, Oxford, England. He was the fourth child of King Henry II of England (r. 1154-89) and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Richard had two older brothers, William IX, Count of Poitiers, who died in infancy, and Henry the Young King, who was crowned as King of England while Henry II was still alive, but who also died before Henry II did, thus leaving Richard as heir to the English throne.

Much of Richard’s early life was spent in France with his mother, who had separated from Henry II due to claims of his adultery. In hindsight, this was a valuable move: Richard knew from an early age that being a ruler of any sort, let alone a king, meant that familiarising oneself with one’s subjects was hugely important. It also taught him that he had Plantagenet lands on the continent to protect, too. (Read more.)