Tea at Trianon: James I’s Love Affair with Apethorpe

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

Thursday, December 12, 2024

James I’s Love Affair with Apethorpe

From Country Life:

Whatever the case, Sir Walter remained a loyal, hard-working servant of Elizabeth I. He sat in judgement on Mary, Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay and was a noted orator in Parliament, where, by admiring family report, he delivered the first ever speech to last for more than two hours. He founded Emmanuel College, Cambridge, too, which he received a royal licence to establish on January 11, 1584. The Queen is reputed to have asked if he had established ‘a Puritan foundation’, to which he evasively replied: ‘No, madam, far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your established laws; but I have set an acorn which, when it becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof.’

Sir Anthony Mildmay succeeded to his father’s estate in 1589 and, considering the connections he enjoyed, had a disappointing public career, including a disastrous embassy to Henry IV of France. On one occasion, he delivered a message so maladroitly that the King threatened to strike him and ordered him out of the room.
Happily, relations with his own sovereigns were easier. James I visited Apethorpe on his journey south from Scotland in April 1603 to claim the English throne. After his entertainment, which included dainties prepared by Lady Mildmay, who had a reputation as a ‘confectioner’, the King graciously accepted Sir Anthony’s gift of a ‘gallant barbary horse and a very rich saddle’. Thereafter, he was a regular visitor to the house on his summer progresses, drawn by the excellent hunting that was his abiding passion.

These visits were magnificent occasions and the Venetian ambassador, Antonio Foscarini, was dazzled when he joined a progress that passed through Apethorpe in August 1612. ‘His Majesty’s charges,’ he wrote, ‘are borne by the owners of the houses where he lodges; their splendour, both on account of the number of servants and of the table with its decorations and its plate… surpass all belief. The sumptuous food and the abundance of comfits which they consume is amazing.’ It may reflect the degree to which the Court took over houses that in the same letter he mentioned the ‘palace called Aptorpe’ and mistook it for a property of the Earl of Exeter, the courtier — actually a neighbour of the Mildmays — who was charged with looking after him. (Read more.)