Tea at Trianon: The Making of Alfred the Great

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, November 11, 2026

The Making of Alfred the Great

From Historical Chronicles:

At the time of the Great Heathen Army's Invasion of England in AD 865, Alfred was a young, quite unassuming, prince (Atheling) of Wessex.
He was studious and interested in religious matters, and when he was just a boy, he undertook a pilgrimage to Rome and met with the Pope. Because Alfred had four older brothers and was therefore well down the royal pecking order, this may have been intended to prepare him for a life of the cloth.
However, any hopes of a peaceful monastic life were dashed in late 870 when the Viking menace turned its furious gaze to Wessex.
By this time, only Alfred and his older brother, King Aethelred, remained. The pair rose to the occasion and marched out to meet the Great Heathen Army at Reading, but here they were taught a brutal lesson, and both were rather lucky to escape with their lives.
Alfred’s first major bout with the Vikings ended in disaster. It was, in fact, very nearly his last. Yet, in what would become the defining pattern of his reign, Alfred refused to stay down. (Read more.)