Tea at Trianon: From Balmoral to Franco: Spain’s ‘Cursed’ British Queen

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, December 9, 2025

From Balmoral to Franco: Spain’s ‘Cursed’ British Queen

From The Sunday Times:

Arantxa Domingo, curator of the exhibition Victoria Eugenia at the Royal Collections Gallery in Madrid, said: “She is a very attractive figure who is unknown in Spain. We felt that she deserved to be rediscovered because she played an important role in the modernisation of Spain and the monarchy.
“In a very subtle way, with great agility and tact, as probably characterised the English character, she knew how to introduce changes that we can still appreciate in Spanish society today.”
She was born at Balmoral and her life stretched from the final decades of the Victorian era to the birth of the current king, Felipe VI, before her death in 1969 aged 81. Felipe opened the exhibition this week at the royal palace, pausing before its photograph depicting Victoria Eugenia holding him in her arms at his baptism. (Read more.)