The Future Pope Blessed Innocent XI Born

Benedetto Odescalchi, the future Pope Innocent XI was born in Como, Italy on May 16, 1611. He was elected Pope on September 21, 1676, over the objections of King Louis XIV of France, succeeding Pope Clement X. He died on August 11, 1689 but his feast on is August 12 (St. Clare of Assisi is celebrated on August 11--that's also why Blessed John Henry Newman's feast is on October 9 even though he died on August 11, to avoid conflict with such an important saint).**

Speaking of conflicts, Pope Innocent XI and Louis XIV were in conflict throughout his reign and that conflict spilled over into the pope's official relations with King James II of England, even as that monarch tried to advance Catholic freedom of worship in his country, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The tension between the pope and the king [Louis XIV] was still increased by the pope's procedure in filling the vacant archiepiscopal See of Cologne. The two candidates for the see were Cardinal Wilhelm Fürstenberg, then Bishop of Strasburg, and Joseph Clement, a brother of Max Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria. The former was a willing tool in the hands of Louis XIV, and his appointment as Archbishop and Elector of Cologne would have implied French preponderance in north-western Germany. Joseph Clement was not only the candidate of Emperor Leopold I of Austria but of all European rulers, with the exception of the King of France and his servile supporter, King James II of England. At the election, which took place on 19 July, 1688, neither of the candidates received the required number of votes. The decision, therefore, fell to the pope, who designated Joseph Clement as Archbishop and Elector of Cologne. Louis XIV retaliated by taking possession of the papal territory of Avignon, imprisoning the papal nuncio and appealing to a general council. Nor did he conceal his intention to separate the French Church entirely from Rome. But the pope remained firm. The subsequent fall of James II of England destroyed French preponderance in Europe and soon after Innocent's death the struggle between Louis XIV and the papacy was settled in favour of the Church. Innocent XI did not approve the imprudent manner in which James II attempted to restore Catholicism in England. He also repeatedly expressed his displeasure at the support which James II gave to the autocratic King Louis XIV in his measures hostile to the Church. It is, therefore, not surprising that Innocent XI had little sympathy for the Catholic King of England, and that he did not assist him in his hour of trial. There is, however, no ground for the accusation that Innocent XI was informed of the designs which William of Orange had upon England, much less that he supported him in the overthrow of James II. . . . 

Yesterday, I highlighted Innocent XI's refusal to allow Father Edward Petre, SJ, to accept the (Anglican?) See of the Archdiocese of York at James II's request. 

Pope Innocent, like Pope St. Pius V before, rallied the Holy League to defend Europe from the invasion of the Ottoman Empire:

It was due to Innocent's earnest and incessant exhortations that the German Estates and King John Sobieski of Poland in 1683 hastened to the relief of Vienna which was being besieged by the Turks. After the siege was raised, Innocent again spared no efforts to induce the Christian princes to lend a helping hand for the expulsion of the Turks from Hungary. He contributed millions of scudi to the Turkish war fund in Austria and Hungary and had the satisfaction of surviving the capture of Belgrade, 6 Sept., 1688.

Because of his assistance to the Austro-Hungarians during the siege of Vienna and until the Turks were driven from Belgrade, he is called the "Savior of Hungary." Pope Leo XIII paid tribute to him in his August 22, 1886 encyclical Quod Multum on the liberty of the Church, written to the Bishops of Hungary:

We have long and ardently desired an opportunity to address you with an apostolic letter. Just as We have addressed the bishops of many other nations, We desire to inform you of Our plans, which concern the prosperity of the Christian cause and the salvation of the Hungarian nation. These days present Us with an excellent opportunity, since Hungary is celebrating the liberation, two centuries ago, of Budapest. - That victory will stand out forever in the memory of the Hungarian people. It was granted to your ancestors, because of their strength and perseverance, to recapture their capital city, which for a century and a half had been occupied by their enemies. That the grace and memory of this divine blessing might remain, Pope Innocent XI justly decreed a celebration throughout all Christendom in honor of St. Stephen, the first of your apostolic kings, on the second day of September, the anniversary of this great event. Moreover it is well-known that the Apostolic See took a significant part in the almost spontaneous victory three years before over the same foe at Vienna. This victory, rightly attributed in great part to the apostolic efforts of Pope Innocent, began the decline of the influence of the Mohammedans in Europe. - Besides, even before that age and under similar circumstances, Our predecessors assisted the Hungarian forces with counsel, aid, money, and treaties. From Callistus III to Innocent XI, many Roman Ponfiffs are recorded whose names deserve to be honored for their activity in such affairs.

He was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1956. There's a video of a new report of the event! 

**Note that Newman's feast of October 9 will be the mandatory feast to be celebrated on that date in England and Wales, once he has been canonized. The optional memorials that are on that date will be moved:

The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales agrees to the raising of Bl. John Henry Newman to the rank of Feast on 9 October, subsequent to his canonisation, in the National Calendar for England and the National Calendar for Wales.

It requests the optional memorials of St Denis and Companions and St John Leonardi be transferred to 10 October.

Belloc's Summing Up: Louis XIV and the "Drawn Battle"

Anna Mitchell and I will wrap up our discussion, which we began in October last year, of Hilaire Belloc's Characters of the Reformation this morning after 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central on the Son Rise Morning Show.

At the end of Characters of the Reformation, Hilaire Belloc sums up Louis XIV in war and religion: the War of Spanish Succession (in which England took part during the reign of Queen Anne), French aid to the Jacobites, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. As Belloc had begun his book with the portrait of Henry VIII, a monarch who sought to impose his will on his countrymen, he concludes with Louis XIV, who attempted to impose his will on France, Spain, England, and the faith of his subjects:

The last piece of fighting at the very end of Louis XIV's reign turned upon the succession to the huge Spanish Empire at home and beyond the Atlantic. This had been left by will to the grandson of Louis XIV, and Louis XIV determined to maintain that grandson's claims. He succeeded in this. The Spanish Empire was governed by that younger branch of his family for a hundred years to come. In the struggle, the Spanish Netherlands, which Louis had claimed to govern, with their capital at Brussels, were taken out of the Spanish Empire and given to Austria, in whose hands they remained until the wars of the French Revolution. 

Belloc notes that Louis did what was better for Louis and France, not what would strengthen the Catholic Church in Europe:

Regarded therefore politically, Louis XIV's reign as a whole was the triumph of himself as a person, and of the French power. Though not the triumph of the Catholic cause in Europe which as we have seen was divided, at any rate his rule established the maintenance of preponderant Catholic power in Europe. But France only achieved this position at the expense to Catholic culture of continually supporting the smaller Protestant powers in Germany against the Empire. Even in the English struggle Louis XIV was lukewarm. When the issue lay between the success or failure of James II in Catholic Ireland, Louis XIV, though willing to help his cousin, only consented to do so in a very half-hearted fashion, with few men —-just enough to keep up the Catholic resistance in Ireland, but not enough to make that resistance finally successful. 

Perhaps it is appropriate that Belloc ends with Louis XIV, for he believes that Louis' revocation of the Edict of Nantes was a tactical error that led to exactly the opposite of what the king intended:

If we turn from the political side to the purely religious, we find in Louis XIV's reign the source of nearly all that has followed on the Catholic side in Western Europe from that time onward, and particularly the source of what has happened in France. 

The situation stood thus when Louis XIV had come to the throne as a boy: French Protestantism, led by many of the great nobles, backed by their wealth, and numerically strong all over the place, but especially in the south, was in a kind of hostile truce against the rest of the nation and of the Catholic monarchy which governed it. But socially things were going in favour of the old religion. As the young King increased in power, won victories beyond the frontiers and led his French civilization which morally dominated Western Europe, the greater and lesser Protestant nobles began to waver. Their religious feelings had never been so strong as their political, and indifference or conversion became commoner and commoner among them. 

It is probable that if the pressure had been allowed to go on uninterruptedly it would have ended in the disappearance of most of the Huguenot centres, and France would have been as uniform in culture as England later became upon the other side. But at a critical moment about halfway through the reign, a grave error was committed. The King thought he could hasten the process of unity and proceeded to outlaw the Calvinist religion in his dominions. Men professing Calvinism could no longer hold office or officer's rank. Every obstacle was put in the way of the practice of the Calvinist religion, even in private, and a worse feature was the quartering of troops upon recalcitrant districts, especially in the central mountains where Protestantism had a hold upon the middle and lower middle classes, and even, in some places, upon the peasantry. 

The sufferings and brutalities accompanying this policy have been exaggerated, as such things always are, but they were very great. A considerable number of the French Protestants who could afford to do so, emigrated. Those who remained behind, many of them very wealthy men holding a disproportionate number of posts in the commerce and finance of the country, were roused to a tradition of hatred against the monarchy, and of course to still stronger hatred of the traditional national religion. It was from this that, later on, the opposition to the principle of monarchy in France, and the fashionable anti-clericalism of the eighteenth century proceeded. 

This sudden decision of Louis XIV to impose unity by force is known as " The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes," because, a lifetime before, it was by an edict called the "Edict of Nantes" that the French Protestants had been given their privileges, when the great religious wars had ended in a sort of truce. 

It was with this " Revocation of the Edict of Nantes," as with so many other things in history. An apparent success proved, in the long run, not only to be a failure, but the weakening and threatened destruction of what had seemed to be the successful side. 

Belloc began this book with the notion that if England would have remained Catholic--if Henry VIII had not broken away from the universal Catholic Church--then the Protestant Reformation might have failed and would not have divided Christendom. Catholic reforms and reiterated, clarified teaching could have addressed the issues and the Church could have been stronger and even more influential. From that what might have been, Belloc then proceeded to highlight the great men and women of the English Reformation era--the best part of the book in my opinion--and then to show how French rulers like Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV prevented a more unified Catholic response, in the Holy Roman Empire and in Europe after the end of the Thirty Years War. 

Belloc, half French and half-English but all Catholic, thus sees how those two countries damaged and divided Christendom, and left Europe in a "Drawn Battle" which would weaken response to anti-religious philosophies and movements in later centuries:

When Louis XIV died the "Drawn Battle" appeared to have been settled once and for all on its last lines. The small but vigorous Protestant culture had been maintained, and was in possession of Great Britain, Scandinavia and a large minority of the German-speaking people; but the Catholic culture was still overwhelmingly the most numerous in Europe, and seemed secure from further molestation. 

As is nearly always the case, the thing which seemed obvious to contemporaries was, as a fact, an illusion. Catholic culture in Europe was to meet a new foe within its own body, to wit, the sceptical anti-religious movement which has marked all the last two hundred years in France and Italy. The small Protestant powers were destined to increase vastly in political strength, and still more in wealth through commerce and activity overseas. But all that was for the future. 

The death of Louis XIV may be taken to be the final term of the great see-saw struggle of the seventeenth century. The "Drawn Battle" had resulted by 1715 in the position I have described.

So neither side won but both sides lost. But we know that Christ has won the victory through His Cross and Resurrection. Unfortunately, this "Drawn Battle" of the early modern era weakened His Church's efforts to proclaim that victory and all it means for life on earth.

Belloc on William of Orange and Louis XIV of France

Anna Mitchell and I will conclude our discussion of Hilaire Belloc's Characters of the Reformation on the Son Rise Morning Show with his views of William of Orange aka William III of England and King Louis XIV of France tomorrow morning. Belloc concludes this study of the Reformation with these two kings of England and France representing the stalemate of divided Europe: Protestant and Catholic. He does not provide as much character analysis as political and historical context and background. As in the two chapters on Descartes and Pascal, Belloc compares and contrasts the two monarchs and then analyses them separately:

William of Orange is the last but one of the typical figures of the great seventeenth-century "Drawn Battle" between advancing Protestantism and Catholic resistance. There were many Williams in this family, and more than one have the tide of Orange. But when one talks of " William of Orange" without additional words, one generally means this particular William of Orange, who became, so far as the rich men of England could make him so, the King of England at the end of the seventeenth century. On the Protestant side of the battle he corresponds to — though a man of far less importance — the Catholic Louis XIV. He stands for the successful Protestant resistance which caused the battle to be a drawn one; just as Louis XIV, his contemporary, stands for the later declining, but still most powerful, Catholic tradition in the west of Europe. 

Of how far Louis XIV fills this role, and how the very fact that he does not fill it altogether but only in a mixed way is characteristic of the time, I shall describe in my next chapter. William of Orange, the antagonist of Louis, is then typical of the Protestant side of the "Drawn Battle" in every way. 

To begin with, he is typical of the way in which the great leaders, who made the survival of Protestantism possible and secured its further expansion, were not — as had been the early zealots of the Reformation — men chiefly occupied with religion. They were men chiefly occupied with political power, and to an almost equal, sometimes to a greater extent, with the great personal income to be derived from political power. They were not men chiefly marked for their enthusiasm against the Catholic creed and practice, but rather marked for their determination to establish their independence from the old unity of Europe, and men who depended for their power upon wealth.

Belloc explains how William of Orange became King of England after covering the position of the House of Orange in the Netherlands and its opposition to the rule of Philip II of Spain. William's great grandfather William the Silent had led the rebellion against Philip and had been assassinated. William III of Orange and England married the Duke of York's daughter Mary:

This Mary, William's wife, had been brought up a Protestant, as a piece of state-craft insisted upon by Charles II, her uncle, who was the reigning king during her girlhood. He hoped thus to save the dynasty by counteracting the effect of his brother's conversion. Mary's mother, Anne Hyde, the daughter of Lord Clarendon, a woman of strong character and intelligence, had been converted to Catholicism, and she had brought over her husband, James, Duke of York, Mary's father, who was the immediate heir to Charles II. By the time James became King, Anne Hyde was dead. There was no boy to inherit the kingdom after James II died. James II's second wife, Mary of Modena, was of bad health and had lost her children. It was believed she would have no more. When this Catholic king came to rule, it was over an England which was by this time Protestant as to the great majority of its inhabitants, and as to a large minority of those inhabitants violently anti-Catholic (especially in London). Yet even those who most disliked the idea of the Catholic James being king over the country, and who had intrigued against his succession, were half prepared to accept him — because they took it for granted that he would be succeeded by his Protestant daughter Mary, the Princess of Orange. Not only was she a Protestant, but she was married to the man who was regarded as one of the leaders of the Protestant cause on the Continent of Europe. 

It was in 1685 that James II had become English King. The discontent of the active Protestant minority led to rebellions in Scotland and in the South. They were easily put down. That in the South had been led by an illegitimate son of the late King, Charles II. This illegitimate son was called the Duke of Monmouth. He had no particular religion, but he took up the Protestant cause with violence, and naturally enough, as it was his best chance of getting rid of his uncle, James II, and of capturing the throne for himself. He gave it out that Charles II had married his mother. A very large number of the more intense anti- Catholics in the country believed this legend, and a still larger number were prepared to let it pass for truth so that they might have a Protestant champion immediately at hand against the reigning Catholic King. But when Monmouth's rebellion had been put down, and Monmouth himself executed, there remained, even for those who believed that Monmouth had been legitimate, no leader of the Protestant cause, no one whom they could regard as a possible substitute for James II, except his daughter Mary, and her husband, James' son-in-law, William of Orange. 

The whole thing was mixed up with the now determined policy of the rich English families to take over the government of the country, and in their own selfish interests to destroy what was left of power in the crown. There was not much left of such power. The crown had become the puppet of the wealthy landed classes in England, who assumed the government of the country unchecked, through their two great committees, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which were composed of their own landed class. They would far rather have had a new King, who should owe his nominal title to them, than to have the legitimate King James, who had behind him the full traditions of monarchy. But to these traditions, the masses of the English people were still strongly attached, and the wealthier classes who desired to get rid of the King and to take over the Government for their own advantage, could not openly upset the principle of monarchy in the face of popular opposition. It would be their object, I repeat, to have someone called king who should replace James II, but they would take care that this new king should have no real power and should be their servant. 

When Mary of Modena successfully delivered a male who seemed healthy enough to survive and succeed, displacing the Protestant Mary from the throne, those rich English families and William worked to usurp the throne:

There followed a series of the worst plots, conspiracies, and falsehoods in English history. A perfect orgy of lying, cheating and betrayal. William of Orange sent over to England an illegitimate relative of his, who had married an English wife, giving him the special message to congratulate James on the birth of an heir, and at the same time to intrigue secretly with anyone he could get hold of for turning James out and the new-born child with him. William of Orange further began to intrigue in Holland for the support of the Dutch. He began to try to raise money from the Dutch bankers on the securities of the taxes which his backers would, if he were made king, impose on the English. While he was doing this he protested in the loudest manner his loyalty to his father-in-law, James, and continued to proclaim that loyalty until the very hour of sailing with a large expedition to invade James' Kingdom. 

James had a considerable army with which to defend his throne, but the officers were drawn from the landed classes who were conspiring against the throne and were ready to betray their King. William's force landed in Devonshire. It was made up of mercenary soldiers drawn from every country, with only a few Englishmen among them. Most of the officers were French Protestants, rebels, but the strongest thing in the force was the finely disciplined and armed Dutch (Blue) Guards of William himself.

There was no battle, because just when the issue would have been joined James was betrayed. The leader of those who betrayed him was John Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough, whose career as a soldier James himself had made. The Prince of Orange marched on London. The Dutch Guards occupied the western part of that town and appeared before the Palace. James was thrown out, and the rich men who had helped William of Orange made him their king. After long negotiations, he and his wife were declared equal partners, King and Queen side by side; so that the reign of the usurper is now officially known as that of "William and Mary." 

Politically the thing was a complete revolution, or coup d'tat: that is, an illegal, unconstitutional act of force by which a legitimate Government is supplanted. The English hereditary monarchy was disposed of, and a new, unheard of title called "Parliamentary tide" was substituted for right of birth. The legitimate King, James II, lived on in France, protected by the King of France, his cousin Louis XIV. He attempted to get back his throne with the help of the French King, both through an Irish land campaign and through a maritime one in the Channel. He failed in both enterprises, and died at the beginning of the next century, within a few months of the son-in-law who had betrayed and dethroned him, and some time after the unnatural daughter who had aided her husband to act in this manner. The claim of the legitimate Stuart line was not given up, but their Catholicism was a fatal bar to their restoration, and they died out within a century, their attempts to regain the throne all proving futile.

Thus Catholicism in England was once again suppressed and would return as a foreign faith in the nineteenth century with French and then Irish immigrants supplementing the remaining native, recusant Catholics.

On to William III's enemy, King Louis XIV:

Louis XIV, the great king of France whose reign covers the last half of the seventeenth century, is the typical figure on the Catholic side of the great "Drawn Battle." He is what we may call the "opposite number" to William of Orange, though ten times greater and more important. There was no one on the Protestant side as yet, standing out sufficiently to make a prominent figurehead for that side. Therefore William of Orange is always regarded (in the later part of his life at least, after about 1680) in that capacity. Later the typical figures opposed to Catholic France, and to the Catholic German Empire, were the kings of Prussia. In less than a lifetime after Louis XIV's death, Frederick the Great of Prussia became the champion of the increasingly powerful anti-Catholic cause in Europe. But as early as 1650-1700 it is the house of Orange, and, in the later part of the period, William III of England, who represents, as we have seen, the resistance of the Protestant minority in Christendom. 

It is very important when we are following the history of all this, not to "read history backwards"; that is, not to think of Europe as she later became, a civilization divided into two more or less equal halves, the Catholic culture and the Protestant culture, with the latter gradually advancing and the former divided against itself. In the later seventeenth century at the end of the "Drawn Battle" the Protestant culture had saved itself, but it was still very much weaker than the Catholic. It included the small populations of Scandinavia, the Dutch merchants of Holland and the majority of their dependents (for Holland had a very large Catholic minority), Great Britain, and a certain proportion — perhaps one- third — of the populations who spoke German. But the overwhelming majority of Europeans were still Catholic. The Greek Church had as yet no weight, for Russia had not yet risen to be a power affecting the affairs of Europe, and the Balkan States were under the government of the Turk. 

On this account the men who led the Protestant culture everywhere regarded themselves as being on the defensive; they were maintaining what they felt to be a very difficult and gallant resistance against greatly superior forces, and the fact that they were able to make the battle a drawn one reinforced their courage and confidence in themselves. 

 Louis XIV, by far the most powerful government on the Catholic side, was typical of the mixed state into which the religious cause had fallen. He was typical also of the way in which what had been a fairly clean-cut issue in the first lifetime of the Reformation — the issue as to whether the Catholic Church should or should not survive, whether the new heretics should also not break up civilization — had gradually settled down to something more complicated, much mixed up with local and individual interests. It had become on the Protestant side not only a question of maintaining Protestant culture, but (for the leaders) of keeping the enormous fortunes which they had suddenly made out of looting the Church during the troubles. Meanwhile, on the Catholic side, the defence of the general civilization of Christendom and of its old traditions was confused and debased by something much less ideal, to wit, the particular national and dynastic ambitions of this and that Catholic monarch. That was why the French, during the whole affair, were hostile to the Empire; why Paris and Vienna, the two centres of Catholic civilization, were hostile to each other. And that is why you so often find Rome in alliance, or half-alliance, with non-Catholic forces against the private ambitions of the Catholic Prince. 

Louis XIV's whole reign, from when he ascended the throne as a little boy to when he died as an old man in 1715, is illustrative of this. He was the head of the Catholic cause, the strongest individual power in that cause, and yet he devoted half his energy to keeping the French Church wholly subject to his Government and resisting Papal authority therein, and all his energy to reducing Catholic Austria. 

Like Cardinal Richelieu opposing the Holy Roman Empire when it might have brought Catholic unity and strength, Louis XIV put French power and hegemony about Catholic unity and culture in Europe: he wanted to be its center, not the Church.

Music for Royalty at a Commoner's House

My husband and I visited several royal courts Thursday night: in France, including Provence and Burgundy, Italy, Spain, Germany, Prussia. I suppose we spent the most time at Versailles, listening to works by Mouret, Couperin, Lully, de Lalande, Philidor, Naudot, Chedeville, and de Boismortier! 

We had visited Spektrum Muzik in Wichita's Delano shopping district and bought several Nonesuch, Turnabout, and Everest classical music recordings from the mid-1960s to late 1970s. The first two LPs pictured above were in great shape; perhaps the previous owners had made reel-to-reel recordings the first time and never played the LPs again; the fidelity was great throughout. The fidelity and sound quality on the Rampal flute sonatas record was not as good: my husband gave it a C. Rampal played all the flute parts on the album, using sound-on-sound recording techniques when the composition was for two or more flutes.

The liner notes for the Symphonies And Fanfares For The King's Supper were quite eloquently written by Edward Tatnall Canby, as he explained some aspects of courtly life during the reign of King Louis XIV, the role of music at the Court, and the expanding appreciation of this French music. Music does not have to ponderous and heavy with meaning as the nineteenth century thought, he concluded. We can even enjoy marches played on drums without fear of war and conflict! The David Munrow/Christopher Hogwood Early Music Consort album was varied, with many vocal selections sung by countertenor James Bowman but the second side was pretty short, even by LP standards (21:17). All three LPs had brilliant and comprehensive liner notes, providing composer biographies, historical context, and musical exposition.

We have three more to listen to: Mozart's piano concertos (15 and 11); Handel's oboe and string orchestra concertos, and some Monteverdi Madrigals, one Turnabout and two Nonesuch records. My favorite record cover? The Handel, with the composer at the keyboard:

It reminds me of the history essay Richard Lederer gathered from teachers: "Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large." 

More to come.

Blessed Pope Innocent XI and James II

Blessed Pope Innocent XI died on August 12, 1689. His papacy is known for his efforts to reform and simplify life in the Vatican and throughout the Church. He was also an opponent of King Louis XIV's Gallicanism and absolutism. As the Catholic Encyclopedia tells it, that opposition spread to concerns about King James II's "autocratic" reign in England:

The whole pontificate of Innocent XI is marked by a continuous struggle with the absolutism of King Louis XIV of France. . . . All the efforts of Innocent XI to induce King Louis to respect the rights of the Church were useless. . . . Innocent XI did not approve the imprudent manner in which James II attempted to restore Catholicism in England. He also repeatedly expressed his displeasure at the support which James II gave to the autocratic King Louis XIV in his measures hostile to the Church. It is, therefore, not surprising that Innocent XI had little sympathy for the Catholic King of England, and that he did not assist him in his hour of trial. There is, however, no ground for the accusation that Innocent XI was informed of the designs which William of Orange had upon England, much less that he supported him in the overthrow of James II.

Of course, popes are not impeccable; they can err in political and strategic matters. Blessed Pope Innocent XI was either misinformed or unaware that James II was pursuing freedom of conscience in England through Parliamentary elections and that he had the backing of many other Christians and even William Penn, the Quaker.

As this blogger sees it:

In the north there were more problems. Catholic hopes had soared when King Charles II of Britain converted on his deathbed and was succeeded by his openly Catholic brother King James II. The Pope advised the new King of England, Scotland and Ireland to move slowly and carefully, knowing that the English had developed a paranoid fear of Catholics, before trying to restore religious freedom to Catholics and dissenting Protestants. However, James II was tied by blood and money to the King of France and he paid no attention to the warnings of Innocent XI. He went ahead with his program of religious freedom, British Protestants were terrified and James was promptly overthrown by a Protestant coup in concert with a Dutch invasion. The chance for a Catholic revival in Britain had been lost and Pope Innocent XI, whose opposition to Louis XIV had put him on the generally Protestant side of that conflict, died only the next year in June of 1689.

The image of Pope Innocent XI depends a great deal on who is painting the picture. Many British and French Catholics still have a little lingering dislike of him. In fact, more than 50 years after his death French cardinals still blocked efforts to canonize the pontiff in 1744. It was not until 1956 that the Pope was declared Blessed Innocent XI and a declaration on his sainthood seems unlikely. However, despite the considerable opposition he aroused, it was mostly due to his staunch defense of the independence of the Church. He was not a lavish pontiff and left the treasury in surprisingly good shape, he was sincerely and devoutly religious and committed to cleaning up the Church and defending Christianity. All in all, a great man.

The Death of James II and VII

On September 16, 1701, the deposed King of England, Ireland and Scotland died in exile. Reading his list of titles, demonstrating the ups and downs of his life, I wonder if he read Boethius:

~~From 14 October 1633 to 6 February 1685: Prince James
~~From 27 January 1644 to 6 February 1685: The Duke of York
~~From 10 May 1659 to 6 February 1685: The Earl of Ulster
~~From 31 December 1660 to 6 February 1685: The Duke of Albany
~~Before 1 January 1665 to 6 February 1685: His Royal Highness
~~From 6 February 1685 to 11 December 1688: His Majesty The King
~~From 11 December 1688 to 16 September 1701: His Majesty King James II, but to the Jacobites in exile and in England, Scotland, and Ireland: His Majesty The King

In March 1701, John Drummond, the Duke of Melfort, sent a letter that ended up in England, where his avowal that King Louis XIV would restore King James II to the throne created an international and diplomatic panic. When James found out about it at St. Germain-en-Laye, he suffered a massive stroke on March 4 in the midst of a Lenten prayer service. He and Queen Mary Beatrice went to take the waters at Bourbon for a month, but when they returned he was really no better. (He managed to exile Lord Melfort!) James suffered another stroke in July and another massive stroke on September 2--the end was clearly near.

King Louis XIV promised James on September 13 that he would recognize "the Prince of Wales", James Francis Edward as the rightful King of England upon the former's death. When James II died on September 16, 1701 French heralds indeed proclaimed his son "King James III of England and Ireland; King James VIII of Scotland". King Philip V of Spain, Louis' grandson, and Pope Clement XI also recognized the young king.

Queen Mary Beatrice mourned her husband for a long time and found consolation in religious devotions and stays at the convent in Chaillot.

As I have noted before, I think that James II suffered horrible betrayals--his daughters, the Churchills, and other leaders of Parliament. He seems to have repented of his past sins of the flesh and infidelity to his two wives while in exile. He suffered the humiliation of exile and defeat and yet he worked to have his son prepared as well as possible for the duties of rule in England. May he rest in peace.