Tea at Trianon: Roman Fort Found North of Hadrian’s Wall

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

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Roman Fort Found North of Hadrian’s Wall

From The Jerusalem Post:

Ruins of a Roman “fortlet” built along the Antonine Wall may have been used as part of the empire’s defense against the unconquered Scottish lands to the north, according to a March statement from GUARD Archaeology. While the fortlet was originally discovered in the back gardens of three homes in Bearsden, Scotland during 2017 excavations ahead of various property development projects, the complete findings were recently published in Archaeology Reports Online.
The Antonine Wall, constructed on the orders of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius in the second century CE, was a defensive border built to separate the conquered southern Scotland from the unconquered lands to the north. However, about 20 years after its construction, the wall and its fortifications were abandoned by the Romans during their retreat south to Hadrian’s Wall. (Read more.)