Tea at Trianon: Of Nunneries and Fair Rosamund

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, April 8, 2025

Of Nunneries and Fair Rosamund

My sympathies have always been with Queen Eleanor. From The Abbey of Misrule:

Rosamund was the high-born daughter of a Norman Lord from the Welsh marches. Not very much is actually known about her, which is why it is so easy to fill the gaps with stories. What we do know is that she became the mistress (or one of the mistresses: medieval kings were not especially faithful creatures) of Henry II. When their affair became public, in 1174, the Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, unsurprisingly soured on the King, and it is said that she swore revenge on both Rosamund and her husband. Soon enough, she had joined with the King’s sons in a public rebellion against him. It failed, and she was imprisoned for fifteen years.
All of which, of course, was great news for Rosamund - and, indeed, the King, who could now dedicate himself fully to his mistress. Henry had built her a palace at Woodstock, complete with a labyrinth, a well to bathe in (which can still be seen today) and a secret bower where she and the King would meet when the Queen’s back was turned. Now, there was no need to hide. The King and his lover could be out and proud.
Chroniclers of the time tended to paint Rosamund as a whore and a temptress, who had seduced the King away from the straight and narrow path - a standard treatment of women at the time. In fact, though, we know nothing much about her, or about her real relationship with the King. All we have today are a burgeoning mass of Romantic stories. Rosamund and Henry became, for a long while, an archetypal love story from the Age of Chivalry. (Read more.)