Tea at Trianon: Catherine Howard's Proclamation as Queen at Hampton Court, 1541

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, July 12, 2025

Catherine Howard's Proclamation as Queen at Hampton Court, 1541

From Gareth Russell at Historic Royal Palaces:

Hampton Court was where the business of Catherine’s queenship truly began. As Queen, Catherine was head of the largest female-run establishment in England, with a substantial income and a large number of staff.

On 8 August 1540 – the same day as Catherine reached Hampton Court – the government announced that Catherine was the lawful Queen of England. According to the contemporary chronicler Edward Hall, Catherine was also ‘showed openly as Queen at Hampton Court.’ This meant that she was presented to the entire court with the honours and titles of a queen. Hall does not specify but, very likely, there would also have been a quasi-public component to this, whereby Catherine walked in procession from the Queen’s Apartments to hear Mass in the Chapel Royal.

With protocol satisfied, Queen Catherine and King Henry left Hampton Court for an extended hunting trip that would last until October. Moving through the sweltering countryside, they stayed at smaller royal homes at Reading, Grafton (where Henry’s grandparents Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville had married), Ampthill, Dunstable, and St Albans. (Read more.)