Tea at Trianon: Some Liturgical Privileges of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

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, March 30, 2025

Some Liturgical Privileges of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

From The Missive:

From A.D. 1816 to A.D. 1861, the island of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula comprised the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The origin of this uniquely and confusingly named kingdom, as it contained only one Sicily, goes back to A.D. 1130 when the Norman Roger II was recognized as the King of the Kingdom of Sicily, which included the island and the southern part of the peninsula. Through the twists and turns of history, the Kingdom of Sicily was divided into two, with both parts still being called the Kingdom of Sicily. So, there were, at this point, two Kingdoms of Sicily, one of which contained Sicily (with its capital at Palermo) and the other which was comprised of the peninsular lands (with its capital at Naples and which did not contain any Sicily). When the two Kingdoms of Sicily were reunited in A.D. 1816, instead of the united kingdom simply being called the Kingdom of Sicily, it was dubbed the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In any case, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had, like other kingdoms, certain liturgical privileges granted to it.¹(Read more.)