Tea at Trianon: Portrait of a Young Henry VIII

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, June 9, 2024

Portrait of a Young Henry VIII

From The BBC:

A portrait of a young Henry VIII has gone on display. The picture of the monarch appears in a charter granted to King's Lynn, Norfolk in 1524. He is depicted as a young, slim and dashing king on the eve of his 33rd birthday. The charter is on show to mark its 500th anniversary in the town which was known as Bishop's Lynn in 1524. The charter gives the town the right to appoint a mayor, 12 aldermen and 18 members of the "common council", according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. At the time, the town was known as Bishop's Lynn because it had a connection to the Bishop of Norwich. It was renamed King's Lynn in another charter of 1537, which severed the connection with the Bishop. (Read more.)