John Donne and The Resurrection; Anne Hyde and Her Conversion

Last year, I posted on the death of John Donne, the Dean of St. Paul's, poet, pamphleter, Anglican preacher and former Catholic: Find that post here. For Easter Sunday this year, here is his Resurrection poem from the Holy Sonnets:

Moist with one drop of Thy blood, my dry soul
Shall--though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly--be
Freed by that drop, from being starved, hard or foul,
And life by this death abled shall control
Death, whom Thy death slew ; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death bring misery,
If in thy life-book my name thou enroll.
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
But made that there, of which, and for which it was;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sin's sleep and death soon from me pass,
That waked from both, I again risen may
Salute the last and everlasting day.

More on Donne here.

March 31 is also the anniversary of Anne Hyde's death in 1671--the Duchess of York, mother of two queens, Mary II and Anne, she had become Catholic (secretly) soon after the Restoration in 1660. Her conversion to Catholicism influenced her husband, James, the Duke of York and later King James II and VII, to become a Catholic himself. The great compendium of English Catholic spiritual writing, Firmly I Believe and Truly, contains this account of her conversion!

Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. --Meditation Number XVII, from John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.

It tolls for thee, John Donne (March 31, 1631)--and it tolls for Anne Hyde, the Duchess of York (March 31, 1671) and her nephew Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, former governor of New York(1701-1708), deserter of James II (March 31, 1723)! Obviously, a mixture of Old and New (calendars, that is!). Of the three, I will focus on John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, poet, pamphleter, Anglican preacher and former Catholic:

John Donne was born in Bread Street, London in 1572 to a prosperous Roman Catholic family - a precarious thing at a time when anti-Catholic sentiment was rife in England. His father, John Donne, was a well-to-do ironmonger and citizen of London. Donne's father died suddenly in 1576, and left the three children to be raised by their mother, Elizabeth, who was the daughter of epigrammatist and playwright John Heywood and a relative of Sir Thomas More.

Donne's first teachers were Jesuits. At the age of 11, Donne and his younger brother Henry were entered at Hart Hall, University of Oxford, where Donne studied for three years. He spent the next three years at the University of Cambridge, but took no degree at either university because he would not take the Oath of Supremacy required at graduation. He was admitted to study law as a member of Thavies Inn (1591) and Lincoln's Inn (1592), and it seemed natural that Donne should embark upon a legal or diplomatic career.

In 1593, Donne's brother Henry died of a fever in prison after being arrested for giving sanctuary to a proscribed Catholic priest. This made Donne begin to question his faith.

Donne also made the bad decision of clandestinely marrying his employer's niece in 1601 and spent time in jail. He was not able to gain any preferment from James I, even though he wrote two anti-Catholic pamphlets, and therefore became a minister in the Church of England in 1615.

Donne reluctantly entered the ministry and was appointed a Royal Chaplain later that year. In 1616, he was appointed Reader in Divinity at Lincoln's Inn (Cambridge had conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity on him two years earlier). Donne's style, full of elaborate metaphors and religious symbolism, his flair for drama, his wide learning and his quick wit soon established him as one of the greatest preachers of the era.

Then his wife died in 1617, just as the couple had gained some security. He was appointed Dean of St. Paul's in the City of London in 1621 and remained there until his death. Donne prepared for his death by having his portrait painted wearing a shroud. The portrait was used to create his monument. Of all the Metaphysical Poets (as Samuel Johnson disparagingly called them), Donne is my favorite. The wit of his conceits in his secular poetry and the depth of his devotion in his religious poetry are both delightful and stirring.

Anne, Future Queen of Great Britain, Born

Anne, the second daughter of James, the Duke of York and Anne, the Duchess of York, was born at 11:39 p.m. on 6 February 1665 at St James's Palace, London. She was baptised into the Anglican faith at the Chapel Royal at St James's. Her older sister, Mary, was one of her godparents, along with Archbishop of Canterbury Gilbert Sheldon and Anne Scott, Duchess of Monmouth.

According to the wikipedia summary:

As a child, Anne suffered from an eye condition, which manifested as excessive watering known as "defluxion". For medical treatment, she was sent to France, where she lived with her paternal grandmother, Queen Dowager Henrietta Maria, at the Château de Colombes near Paris. Following her grandmother's death in 1669, Anne lived with an aunt, Henriette Anne, Duchess of Orléans. On the sudden death of her aunt in 1670, Anne returned to England. Her mother died the following year. As was traditional in the royal family, Anne and her sister were brought up separated from their father in their own establishment at Richmond, London. On the instructions of Charles II, they were raised as Protestants. They were placed in the care of Colonel Edward and Lady Frances Villiers and their education was focused on the teachings of the Anglican church.

Around 1671, Anne first made the acquaintance of Sarah Jennings, who later became her close friend and one of her most influential advisors. Jennings married John Churchill (the future Duke of Marlborough) in about 1678. He was the brother of the Duke of York's mistress, Arabella Churchill, and was to be Anne's most important general.

In 1673, the Duke of York's conversion to Roman Catholicism became public (Anne's mother had also become a Catholic before her death). He married a Catholic princess, Mary of Modena, who was only six and half years older than Anne. Charles II had no surviving legitimate children, and so the Duke of York was next in the line of succession, followed by his two surviving daughters from his first marriage, Mary and Anne. Over the next ten years, the new Duchess of York had ten children, but all were either stillborn or died in infancy, leaving Mary and Anne second and third in the line of succession after their father.

Mary Beatrice of Modena and Queen Anne of Great Britain thus had a similar history of pregnancy. Anne married Protestant Prince George of Denmark brother of King Christian V of Denmark in 1683. Anne was pregnant seventeen (17) times: six stillborn babies, six miscarriages, and five live births. The only child to survive infancy was William, Duke of Gloucester, and he died at age 11.

The Official Website of The British Monarchy summarizes her reign as queen here.