Tea at Trianon: ‘When the Queen Should Have Taken her Chamber’

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, February 5, 2026

‘When the Queen Should Have Taken her Chamber’

From Down the Cobbled Path:

On the first occasion, Mary and her physicians were so sure of her condition that in late April 1555 she did indeed ‘take to her chamber’. The royal nursery was prepared, but heartbreakingly for Mary there was no baby. In August of that year, she reluctantly re-entered public life. Similarly, in 1557, Mary’s pregnancy was once again announced, but by the spring of the following year it was clear that the queen was not expecting new life but that rather her own was ebbing away. Mary died on 17 November 1558 aged 42 and was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth. The word ‘shoulde’ then, I think, is a poignant embodiment of Mary’s greatest hopes and her shattered dreams.
More broadly and less sentimentally, this account provides a revelatory window into Mary’s household and royal protocol around a Tudor queen ‘taking to her chamber’. Presumably the roles listed came into direct contact with the queen or at the very least required access to her private apartments, which is why women were assigned to them for this period. The fact that this information was considered a useful precedent is also revealing. Of course, Elizabeth’s court expected her to marry and provide the realm with heirs, but did Elizabeth herself in the opening days of her reign envisage that this would be her path? I think we best leave that question for another day! (Read more.)