Preparation for the Feast of the English Martyrs

Although this Feast is only celebrated in the dioceses of England on the Fourth of May, I always highlight it here and with an interview on the Son Rise Morning Show. Annie Mitchell and I will discuss the protomartyr of all the Reformation martyrs, St. John Houghton, this morning after the 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. break. That's during the first "local" Ohio/Kentucky hour and then the interview will repeat during the EWTN national broadcast hour on May 4 (6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central).

St. John Houghton was the first of the Carthusian martyrs who suffered under Henry VIII, and he was the first of the Catholic martyrs who suffered under the Tudors and Stuarts. Dom David Knowles praises Houghton in his Saints and Scholars: Twenty-Five Medieval Portraits, noting how as the prior of the Charterhouse in London, he formed his community in constancy, fidelity, and particularly, love of the liturgy and liturgical prayer.

It was through the liturgy, specifically a votive Mass of the Holy Spirit, that Houghton decided that he could not accept Henry VIII's efforts to name himself the Vicar of Christ in England. Houghton and the monks fasted and prayed three days and then gathered to celebrate Mass. When Father Houghton elevated the Host, he felt the Holy Spirit's call to remain united with the universal Church, and refuse the Supremacy Oath. As Vincent Cardinal Nichols stated in a 2011 sermon at an evening prayer service offered at the Charterhouse in 2011 when reflecting on this outpouring of the Holy Spirit and where it led them:

It is so fitting that we are reminded of that outpouring of the Holy Spirit during this season of Eastertide. For Our Lord‟s Passion, Death and Resurrection is also the time of the new coming of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus had promised in the Upper Room where he kept his Passover with the Twelve. Jesus, the Christ, consecrated by the Father with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, gave up his spirit on the cross so that risen he may bestow it upon his Apostles. “Receive the Holy Spirit”, he says. Then, just as he himself was sent, so he calls the Apostles to be ministers of, and witnesses to, that peace and reconciliation which are the fruits of the new creation inaugurated by his death and resurrection. This apostolic mission is given its definitive manifestation on the day of Pentecost. Full of the strength of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles go out to fulfil faithfully their vocation, even though in so doing they encountered suffering and death.

That same Holy Spirit came upon the Carthusian martyrs whom we commemorate today. The gift of the Holy Spirit moved them to be reconciled with God and with one another. That soft murmur carried sweetly and strongly, to their inner ear, the very word of God: “Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine”; I will be with you through river and fire to bring you to the glory for which I have created you. Yes, a gentle breath convincing them utterly that the fiery trial ahead would make them nothing less than partakers in Christ‟s sufferings - thus something in which to rejoice! And it was “the spirit of glory and of God” resting upon them which enabled this brave brotherhood to believe unswervingly that “when [Christ‟s] glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.” The sound from Heaven heard just after the consecration of the Mass was indeed the promise of future glory: a sure hope on which to draw during their courageous witness to the truth of God and His holy Church.

The painting, which shows St. John Houghton offering his heart to Jesus, is by Francisco de Zurbarán, who fulfilled several commissions for the Carthusians. Houghton's last words were "Jesus, Jesus, what will you do with my heart?" before the executioner cut it out of his chest.

St. John Houghton, pray for us!

Laws, Sausages, and Little House Books

In 2012, the Library of America published a hardcover, slipcased edition  of the Little House on the Prairie books. A review of the books in the Wall Street Journal by Meghan Clyne emphasized certain aspects of the books, their composition, and their theme:

The fictionalized account of a girl's transformation into a young woman is also the story of America's growth and maturation. Wilder's stories for children document the Westward Expansion and explore surprisingly grown-up themes—the nature of self-government, the responsibilities that go along with freedom and what it means to be an American.

Essential to understanding those themes is the fact that Wilder wrote the "Little House" books during the Depression and New Deal, at a time when she saw the nation sliding into an unhealthy dependency on government. In addition to educating American children about a crucial period of their history, Wilder wanted to show them a freer way of life. "Self reliance," she explained in a speech in the winter of 1935-36, is one of the "values of life" that "run[s] through all the stories, like a golden thread."

The "Little House" books are virtual manuals of self-provision, with exhaustive descriptions of how the Ingalls and Wilder families secured their own food, shelter, clothing, education and entertainment through the work of their own hands. In "Little Town on the Prairie," for instance, a flock of blackbirds destroys the crops that the family is relying on to make ends meet, but the setback is no match for Ingalls ingenuity. Pa kills the blackbirds and Ma uses them to feed the family, even turning them into a pot pie. "The underside was steamed and fluffy," Wilder wrote. "Over it [Pa] poured spoonfuls of thin brown gravy, and beside it he laid half a blackbird, browned, and so tender that the meat was slipping from the bones." " 'It takes you to think up a chicken pie, a year before there's chickens to make it with,' Pa said."

If Wilder's pioneer families are resourceful, government is depicted as meddling and incompetent—a contrast that emphasizes the importance of providing for oneself. Indeed, Washington's bungling is blamed for the Ingallses' forced departure from Indian Territory in "Little House on the Prairie," and in "The Long Winter" a family friend denounces politicians who "tax the lining out'n a man's pockets" and "take pleasure a-prying into a man's affairs." Fear of debt hangs over these stories like a dark cloud; to be "beholden" to anyone is a mark of shame. The only respectable path to subsistence—let alone comfort—is hard work. "Neither [my parents] nor their neighbors begged for help," Wilder explained in a 1937 speech. "No other person, nor the government, owed them a living."

This book provides great background on those themes of independence and explains in fact the philosophical underpinnings of the books, based upon the shared values of the mother and daughter who wrote them: Libertarianism.

From the publisher, Arcade:

Generations of children have fallen in love with the pioneer saga of the Ingalls family, of Pa and Ma, Laura and her sisters, and their loyal dog, Jack. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books have taught millions of Americans about frontier life, giving inspiration to many and in the process becoming icons of our national identity. Yet few realize that this cherished bestselling series wandered far from the actual history of the Ingalls family and from what Laura herself understood to be central truths about pioneer life.

In this groundbreaking narrative of literary detection, Christine Woodside reveals for the first time the full extent of the collaboration between Laura and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. Rose hated farming and fled the family homestead as an adolescent, eventually becoming a nationally prominent magazine writer, biographer of Herbert Hoover, and successful novelist, who shared the political values of Ayn Rand and became mentor to Roger Lea MacBride, the second Libertarian presidential candidate. Drawing on original manuscripts and letters, Woodside shows how Rose reshaped her mother's story into a series of heroic tales that rebutted the policies of the New Deal. Their secret collaboration would lead in time to their estrangement. A fascinating look at the relationship between two strong-willed women, Libertarians on the Prairie is also the deconstruction of an American myth.

The Little House Books should have two names on their covers as the authors, mother and daughter: Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane. The mother had the memories and the descriptive power, while the daughter had the narrative skill and the publishing connections to get the books in print. In Christine Woodside's  interpretation of their collaboration, Lane rather took over the direction of the last few books as her own interest and commitment to Libertarianism increased during the Depression and World War II. In addition to telling the story of how these incredibly popular books came to be written, Woodside's book provides insights into the career of a writer, Lane, who was writing for a living: submitting stories and articles, tracking her submissions, waiting for the checks, balancing her budget, making connections and finding writing or editorial jobs, etc. Her formal education ends with the eighth grade, but Lane's foreign travel, language skills, and intelligence clearly fostered her writing career. Woodside also provides a thumbnail sketch of Libertarian party history, including the interest of the Koch brothers, whose companies are headquartered in my hometown, Wichita, Kansas.

Woodside cannot completely unravel the mystery of who wrote what, because not all of the manuscripts are extant. She is not the first to deconstruct the "American myth" of Laura Ingalls Wilder's extraordinary literary achievement. The first writer to do that received hate mail! She also tries too often to understand motivation, especially Rose's, using a comment like "perhaps she was tired" as an explanation. When Woodside can't find some documentation, she conjectures that "maybe they discussed it on the telephone".

Some of the detail about how mother and daughter tried to avoid paying Income Taxes and opted out of other government programs--Lane did not participate in World War II rationing, for example, instead subsisting on her own garden--are amusing. Laura writes to Rose about just not working so much and living on what she absolutely needs to avoid paying Income Tax.

For all their collaboration, mother and daughter are not close. Their conflicts, sadly, are engendered by their attitudes to money and debt. Neither wants to be indebted to the other and that includes love and affection: they are misers. They are not misers (of love or money) because of Libertarianism , however, because their estrangement, partial or complete, dates from before Rose's adoption of that philosophy. As generous as she is to her parents when she finds some great success and they need help, she doesn't feel appreciation from her parents because everything is measured in terms of debt and repayment.

Fascinating book: I checked it out from the public library!

My husband and I like to spend a few days on the White River in Arkansas every few months. Perhaps we'll work in an overnight stop at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum in Mansfield, Missouri!

Henry VIII's Last Will and Testament

The UK version of this book has a beautiful cover, emphasizing the document in question. Suzannah Lipscomb is the author of 1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII and A Journey Through Tudor England, both of which I have purchased, read, and reviewed. I borrowed this book, The King is Dead: The Last Will and Testament of Henry VIII, from our local public library on a rainy Saturday morning and read it through that day. The US version shows Henry VIII, large as life (please pardon the pun), dominating the cover. 

As Lipscomb wrote for History Today in 2015, the central issues of this book are 1) Henry VIII tried to control the succession of the Tudor dynasty from beyond the grave in tremendous detail, trying to account for every contingency, and thwarting the usual primogeniture rules for succession (ignoring his elder sister Margaret's family claims to the throne) based upon the Acts of Succession passed by Parliament that gave him this power. 2) Some historians, including G.R. Elton, believe that there was a conspiracy against the conservatives (the Catholics) at Court when Henry VIII revised his will. 3) For all his effort to control the future, Henry VIII's will was--except for the fact that Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I succeeded him as he planned--was not executed by those he'd given that responsibility:

A month before he died, on 26 December 1546, Henry VIII had amended his will, which was signed and witnessed four days later. This, his last will and testament, is one of the most intriguing and contested documents in British history.

It was also a document with unique constitutional clout. The Succession Acts of 1536 and 1544 had empowered Henry to designate his successor and to appoint a regency council, should his heir be a minor at the time of his death, through letters patent or his last will. As a result, Henry’s will is dedicated in large part to outlining possible succession scenarios. He may have died, but that didn’t mean Henry was prepared to cede power, and his will was intended to be his chief instrument of control from beyond the grave.

Historians have disagreed, however, about whether the last will really represents Henry’s final wishes. Until now, the consensus has been that the contents of the will were the result of a court conspiracy. This conspiracy theory argues that the will was the product of a coup, that it was not signed when it was dated, and that it was later doctored.

Lipscomb presents cogent arguments against the conspiracy theory of Evangelicals versus Catholics--which was also the centerpiece of Robert Hutchinson's The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracies, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant--citing Henry VIII's control of events at Court up to his final illness. He was in charge and Lipscomb denies that he could have been manipulated by the Evangelical courtiers to act against the "Catholics" in leadership. I put the word "Catholics" in quotation marks because these courtiers had accepted and supported and even profited from Henry VIII's caesaropapism. Henry had his reasons for rejecting Bishop Stephen Gardiner's influence in his son's council and he imprisoned and attainted Thomas and Henry Howard because he thought they were trying to take the throne from his son. 

She offers her interpretation of Henry VIII's religious principles and notes that he does not reveal a particularly pious relationship to God the Father--although he does rely dutifully on the Paschal mystery of Jesus's death and resurrection and the Real Presence of Holy Communion in the sacrifice of the Mass--but almost seems to think himself an equal, ordained by the Father to rule England and the Church. He almost orders the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints to pray for his soul and his salvation (without really mentioning Purgatory but allowing for the contingency that he might not go straight to Heaven after he dies).

Certainly one way that Henry VIII's will was not carried out as he intended was that the Masses he required, the prayers that he wanted, the Altar near the Grand Tomb he desired--none of these signs of a Catholic belief in prayer for the dead were carried out. This also bolsters her argument against the Evangelical conspiracy/Henry VIII wanted the Evangelicals to succeed in England theory.

Very well illustrated, with excellent appendices and a comprehensive bibliography, Lipscomb's book to me demonstrates another facet of Henry VIII's hubris and his focus on controlling life after his death. Those attempts received the answer pride often does as his will was not fulfilled and his desires were indeed forgotten.

The Consequences of Newman's Warnings about Liberalism

John Nicholas Blaha writes for Touchstone Magazine, noting Blessed John Henry Newman's warnings about the influence of Liberalism on religion from his days as an Anglican in Oxford to his biglietto speech in Rome when he was named a Cardinal in the Catholic Church:

From his years at Oxford in the 1830s till the end of his life in 1890, Newman saw that to indulge in this "false liberty of thought" was to depart in a fundamental way from the heart of Christianity. For Christianity is grounded upon the claim of a divine revelation, however much its adherents may reflect upon and parse that revelation through rational discourse. A disclosure by the deity such as one claimed by Christians must be understood on its own terms rather than trimmed to fit comfortably into the Procrustean bed of human rationality.

Newman's diagnosis was that religious liberalism did just that, with the consequence that religious doctrine soon unraveled into either complete subjectivism on the one hand or, on the other, a denial of any real content to revelation at all. As to the former, Newman protested strenuously against the tendency to direct attention only to the heart at the expense of anything external, as inevitably productive of a narrow and egoistic temper of mind that culminates in placing trust in man rather than God. As to the latter, many in Newman's day claimed that divine revelation was unable to be captured in human language, and therefore could admit of wide, even contradictory interpretations that were of equal value so long as they were sincerely held. Newman's insistent rejoinder to this latitudinarian stance was to inquire, "Why should God speak, unless He meant to say something? Why should He say it, unless He meant us to hear?"

In a letter to his brother Francis that forcefully rebuked liberal views, Newman insisted that "if the fact of a revelation be granted, it is most extravagant and revolting to our reason to suppose that after all its message is not ascertainable and that the divine interposition reveals nothing." Here, Newman echoes St. Paul himself, who squares off against a similar antagonist: "Mere man with his natural gifts cannot take in the thoughts of God's Spirit; they seem mere folly to him, and he cannot grasp them, because they demand a scrutiny which is spiritual" (1 Cor. 2:14).

Please read the rest there. The consequence, however, of following Newman's argument to its completeness is that there is One Truth and at some point, diversity can't be tolerated. Gasp! For Newman to have said that in the nineteenth century, was already inconvenient. To say that again in the twenty-first century is tantamount to hate speech!

Of course, if man-made Global Warming/Climate Change is the One Truth, it must be accepted and no dissent is allowed.

But if one says, with Newman, that Jesus founded One Church and that He gave that Church infallible authority to teach the Gospel with all that means for how we worship, think, pray, and live--that's unacceptable.

When I gave a presentation at the Eighth Day Institute Symposium in January this year, discussing Newman's insistence that Theology must be included as a subject in a university curriculum, one attendee asked me if Newman meant any Theology, including Buddhist or Hindu Theology. Of course not: Newman meant Christian Theology: Newman meant Catholic Theology because Catholic Theology teaches about Revelation based upon Catholic dogma and doctrine because Catholic dogma and doctrine is True because God guarantees its infallibility. Once you start following Newman's arguments against Liberalism in Religion, you realize that he leads you to the Catholic Church, just as his own "great dissent" to use the title of Robert Pattison's 1991 study of  "John Henry Newman and the Liberal Heresy", led Newman to what he called the "one, true fold of Christ".

Gareth Russell on Henry VIII's Fifth Wife

The publisher sent me a copy of this book for my honest opinion about it. I should also mention that the author Gareth Russell asks me to write for The Tudor Times occasionally and that he lists me as one of those who assisted--in a very small way--in the writing of this book (we consulted on the identity of one man). According to Simon and Schuster:

Written with an exciting combination of narrative flair and historical authority, this interpretation of the tragic life of Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, breaks new ground in our understanding of the very young woman who became queen at a time of unprecedented social and political tension and whose terrible errors in judgment quickly led her to the executioner’s block.

On the morning of July 28, 1540, as King Henry’s VIII’s former confidante Thomas Cromwell was being led to his execution, a teenager named Catherine Howard began her reign as queen of a country simmering with rebellion and terrifying uncertainty. Sixteen months later, the king’s fifth wife would follow her cousin Anne Boleyn to the scaffold, having been convicted of adultery and high treason.

The broad outlines of Catherine’s career might be familiar, but her story up until now has been incomplete. Unlike previous accounts of her life, which portray her as a naïve victim of an ambitious family, this compelling and authoritative biography will shed new light on Catherine Howard’s rise and downfall by reexamining her motives and showing her in her context, a milieu that goes beyond her family and the influential men of the court to include the aristocrats and, most critically, the servants who surrounded her and who, in the end, conspired against her. By illuminating Catherine's entwined upstairs/downstairs worlds as well as societal tensions beyond the palace walls, the author offers a fascinating portrayal of court life in the sixteenth century and a fresh analysis of the forces beyond Catherine’s control that led to her execution—from diplomatic pressure and international politics to the long-festering resentments against the queen’s household at court.

Including a forgotten text of Catherine’s confession in her own words, color illustrations, family tree, map, and extensive notes, Young and Damned and Fair changes our understanding of one of history’s most famous women while telling the compelling and very human story of complex individuals attempting to survive in a dangerous age.

The emphasis on her household includes first Catherine's life at home and then with her step-grandmother, Agnes Tilney Howard, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk in Chesworth House and Norfork House. Russell thus introduces us to the powerful Howard family and particularly to Catherine's father, Lord Edmund Howard, who escaped to Calais to avoid his creditors. Edmund's first wife and Catherine's mother, Joyce Culpepper had been married before and had children from that union too. The family tree for the Howard family could have been a little more detailed or there could have been an additional family tree for Lord Edmund's family to clarify all these relationships. Because all these relationships are very important to any story in Tudor England! The connections between families engendered by marriages and offspring create the webs that have to be unwoven and rewoven with every crisis. For Russell's discussion of possible portraits of Catherine Howard in chapter 12, I wish that the publisher had included figure numbers on the illustration inserts and that the text included those figure numbers when referencing the different portrait candidates.

Russell delves into Catherine's life in the Dowager Duchess's household carefully, because this is the source of Catherine's eventual downfall. The lines between what Catherine thought was harmless dalliance and what constituted premarital sex or a contract of marriage will become very important in just a few years. Russell describes her relationships with Henry Manox and Francis Dereham carefully, attentive to Catherine's views of how far was too far and what commitments she had made to them. He also notes that a couple of the other girls tried to warn Catherine of the danger she was in: remember the name of Mary Lascelles . . .

The next household Catherine moves into is that serving Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves (and that household will soon become Catherine's household). Russell clears up some of the myth regarding Anne of Cleves, the so-called "Flander's Mare" and begins to hone in on the real problem with that marriage: Henry VIII. As Russell's portrayal of Henry continues, it's clear that this monarch was supremely selfish. He seems to have wanted all the perquisites of being the king without the responsibilities, especially if those responsibilities discomfited him. Russell notes that while Henry VIII was looking for a fourth wife, the royal households of Europe were offended by his need to evaluate their eligible women. Thomas Cromwell would suffer for his insistence that the king needed to marry in furtherance of national interests (and Henry's own status in Europe). As Russell tells the story, Anne of Cleves wasn't the ugly, awkward woman of Tudor mythology at all. Henry VIII wanted to marry for love, not policy. Cromwell, as Russell notes, forgot this one time to let Henry have his way.

And so he set in motion his divorce/annulment from Anne of Cleves, generously rewarding her for her cooperation, and then had Thomas Cromwell beheaded on the same day he married Catherine Howard, July 28, 1540. Russell then describes the household Catherine took over, how it served the queen, who was in her household and the different ranks and responsibilities, and how she behaved within that household. With the example of the Dowager Duchess's laxness in supervision, Catherine did not, Russell points out, fulfill her responsibilities to her ladies very well--part of her duty was to find the unmarried good husbands and thus she needed to make sure their virtue was intact. The difficulty was that Catherine wasn't sure what that meant.

On the other hand, Russell makes it clear that Catherine excelled in all her public roles: she was attractive, graceful, careful to comport herself well. She visited Henry's three children: Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. (Russell makes an uncharacteristic error on page 201 when he refers to Elizabeth as "the youngest, least loved, and most ignored of Henry's children." Obviously, Edward was the youngest child.) Catherine and Mary did not get along very well and Russell notes a characteristic of Catherine's: once she took umbrage, she would get her way. 

Russell describes the Royal Progress to the North, when Henry VIII visited parts of his kingdom he had never seen before, as an effort to heal the divisions caused by the Pilgrimage of Grace. As Russell recounts Henry's negotiations with the Irish Parliament and with James V of Scotland in 1541, he notes again that Henry's counselors had a hard time getting the king to see statesmanship in distinction to his personal honor. At the same time as Henry was negotiating these matters, Queen Catherine and Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, were negotiating the hidden stairways and entrances of the palaces and castles the Court stayed in during the progress, so that Thomas Culpepper, one of Henry VIII's favorites, could be alone with Catherine.

Once John Lascelles, Mary Lascelles Hall's brother, tells the Archbishop of Canterbury about what Mary knows about the Queen, the pace of the narrative in this book picks up. The king has to be told that his wife might have had a precontract of marriage with another man, and then Henry wants to know everything. His officials begin interviewing Catherine, Dereham, Manox, Lady Rochford, other ladies at Court, the Dowager Duchess and other Howard family members. Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, separated himself--as Catherine had from him previously--from the matter immediately and he was not included in the round-up of Howards that would follow.

Catherine exhibited another great character flaw: she immediately started blaming others for what had happened. Initially, she admitted that she and Francis Dereham could have had an understanding or precontract. In that case, her marriage to Henry VIII would be annulled and she would have been sent off in disgrace and there would have been some repercussions to the family. Since there weren't any nunneries anymore, she probably would been held under house arrest fair away from Court. But then, she accused Francis Dereham of raping her before she came to Court and mentioned the name Thomas Culpepper. So then the interrogations of all the involved began again and those interrogations included the repeated torture of Dereham, Culpepper and another unfortunate man, Robert Damport. When confronted with reports of her adultery against the king with Thomas Culpepper, Catherine again blamed somebody else: Lady Rochford.

Russell tells this part of the story particularly well, noting again the web of relationship and opportunity as the government this time made information public about what had been discovered. The Privy Council was more open about these matters than it had been about the fall of Anne Boleyn or the last bloodletting of the Yorkists in the White Rose affair. This time, they made it known why the queen had to be executed and why the Howard family had to suffer for not disclosing her past.

In the last chapter, however, when Russell sums up Catherine's character, I cannot agree with him that "Her faults were obvious, but usually trivial." She was unfaithful and disloyal. Anachronistically speaking, she was too ready to "throw people under the bus". Those are not trivial faults and Russell does not finally acknowledge her selfishness as cogently as he identifies Henry VIII's (who never did anything for the good of his people!).

I have some quibbles with some of Russell's choices in earlier chapters. He tells about Thomas Wyatt's arrest and imprisonment in 1540, but never mentions that he was involved in the Anne Boleyn affair before in 1536. I also wondered why he never mentions the name of Anne Askew, the evangelical woman burned alive at the stake during Henry's reign when he brings her up twice. In Church tradition, St. Joachim is identified as the Blessed Virgin Mary's father, not St. Jerome (p. 189). Russell obviously is conversant with the standard Tudor bibliography and he steers a clear path through the sea of religious confusion during Henry VIII's reign. Very well-written with some really elegant turns of phrase ("Henry VIII was a man who had somehow gone rotten without ever being ripe." p. 134), this is a biographical study that will appeal to Tudor fans and would be of benefit to those wanting to know the story of Henry VIII's penultimate wife.

The Queen of Scotland's Confessor, RIP

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913, Father Robert Abercromby was:

A Jesuit missionary in Scotland in the time of the persecutions, born 1532; died at Braunsberg, in Prussia, 27 April, 1613. He was brought into prominence chiefly by the fact that he converted the Queen of James I of England, when that monarch was as yet James VI of Scotland. The Queen was Anne of Denmark, and her father, an ardent Lutheran, has stipulated that she should have the right to practice her own religion in Scotland, and for that purpose sent with her a chaplain named John Lering who, however, shortly after his arrival, became a Calvinist. The Queen, who abhorred Calvinism, asked some of the Catholic nobles for advice, and it was suggested to call Father Abercromby, who, with some other Jesuits, was secretly working among the Scotch Catholics and winning many illustrious converts to the Church. Though brought up a Lutheran, Queen Anne had in her youth lived with a niece of the Emperor Charles V, and not only knew something of the Faith, but had frequently been present at Mass with her former friend. Abercromby was introduced into the palace, instructed the Queen in the Catholic religion, and received her into the Church. This was about the year 1600. As to the date there is some controversy. Andrew Lang, who merely quotes MacQuhirrie as to the fact of the conversion, without mentioning Abercromby, puts it as occurring in 1598.

This portrait of Anne dates from about 1600. So Anne was a fairly recent Catholic when she went to England with her husband in 1603 after Elizabeth I's death.

Intelligence of it at last came to the ears of the King, who, instead of being angry, warned her to keep it secret, as her conversion might imperil his crown. He even went as far as to appoint Abercromby Superintendent of the Royal Falconry, in order that he might remain near the Queen. Up to the time that James succeeded to the crown of England, Father Abercromby remained at the Scottish Court, celebrating Mass in secret, and giving Holy Communion nine or ten times to his neophyte. When the King and Queen were crowned sovereigns of Great Britain, Anne gave proof of her sincerity by absolutely refusing to receive the Protestant sacrament, declaring that she preferred to forfeit her crown rather than take part in what she considered a sacrilegious profanation. Of this, Lang, in his "History of Scotland", says nothing. She made several ineffectual attempts to convert the King. Abercromby remained in Scotland for some time, but as a price of 10,000 crowns was put upon his head he came to England, only to find that the King's kindly dispositions toward him had undergone a change. The alleged discovery of a Gunpowder Plot in 1605, and the attempts made to implicate the Jesuits in the conspiracy had excited in the mind of the King feelings of bitter hostility to the Society. He ordered a strict search to be made for Abercromby, who consequently left the country and betook himself to Braunsberg, in Eastern Prussia, where he died, in his eighty-first year.

Abercromby was born in Scotland, studied in Rome, and served in Poland/Prussia:

He was born and educated in Scotland, and studied in the Collegium Romanum in Rome, where on 19 August 1563 he became a Jesuit. From 1564 he lived in Braunsberg (then in Royal Prussia), now Braniewo in Poland) where he was professor of grammar in the biggest Polish Jesuit collegium and a novice master. In 1565 he was ordained a priest. In Braniewo he was in constant contact with Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius. He was considered a good priest, but learning Polish was difficult for him, and he had some problems with the finances of the school. Due to these problems he was permitted to leave Poland in 1580, when he met the Scottish king for the first time. In September 1580 he went back to Poland - from 1580 to 1587 he performed similar tasks in Kraków, Poznań and Wilno. In 1587 he left Poland and went back to Scotland. During the journey to Scotland in 1580 and during his second stay there he was organizing transports of Scottish youths to be trained in Polish schools.

After his sojourn in Scotland and England, Father Abercromby returned to the Continent:

Abercromby went back to Braunsberg in 1606. His name was connected to the allegiance oath controversy when a pamphlet "pasquil", Exetasis epistolæ nomine regis, written under the pseudonym Bartholus Pacenius against James I was traced to Braunsberg; but the investigation by Patrick Gordon was inconclusive. He died there on 27 April 1613.

"Eugene Onegin" on the Radio

After some morning errands and shopping, I came home to listen to the last two acts of Eugene Onegin on the Metropolitan Opera broadcast. When I read Pushkin's Eugene Onegin in translation in college, I was told that reading the original in Russian was the only way to understand the full impact of this novel in poetry. Fortunately, Tchaikovsky's operatic version of the novel, which shifts the dramatic focus from Onegin to Tatiana, can be appreciated by anyone because of the music.

I was in the grocery store while Anna Nebtreko was singing the Letter Scene, but I found the scene from the 2013/2014 production here. The staging--how she wrote the letter holding the notebook in the air and twirling around--made the line "I'm afraid to read it over." unintentionally funny. She won't be able to read her own writing! On the drive home, I heard Onegin's aria when he brushes Tatiana off so coolly.

Once home and the groceries put away, I listened to the last two acts with attention. The Met's program for the opera describes the music thus:

Tchaikovsky’s universally beloved lyric gifts are at their most powerful and multilayered in this opera. Rich ensembles punctuate the work, including a quartet for women near the beginning, an elaborate choral ensemble that concludes the first scene of Act II, and a haunting fugue for tenor and baritone in Act II, Scene 2. The vocal solos are among the most striking in the repertory: anyone who can remember the first stirrings of love will be moved by Tatiana’s extended “Letter Scene” in Act I, in which she rhapsodically composes a letter to Onegin in an outpouring of gorgeous melody. This is rivaled in popularity by the tenor’s moving farewell to his young life in Act II, while Onegin’s Act III narrative on the pointlessness of life borders on Wagnerian. Interspersed among these great solos are finely honed character pieces, such as the French tutor’s charming name-day serenade to Tatiana (in French) and the bass Prince Gremin’s moving ode to the surprise of finding love late in life. Throughout the opera, Tchaikovsky’s unique mastery of dance music provides episodes of ballet that reflect and augment the drama.

I heard a little of Anna Nebtreko's interview with Renee Fleming about her role and the opera: she urged listeners to read the book too, because there's so much more there! As this blogger explains, Lensky's aria, which I was looking forward to, is indeed one of the great highlights of the opera:

The only reason that impresarios can convince leading tenors to take the part of Lensky in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is the second act aria ‘Kuda, Kuda’, hereafter referred to as Lensky’s aria. Even then tenors dislike playing a character who dies in the second act. This was why Richard Tucker dropped the role after 1957-58 . “My public doesn’t like to see me die in the second act,” was the explanation he offered.

The aria doesn’t make great demands on a tenor’s range, rather it requires great style and cantabile. I’ve put an English translation of the aria’s words below. I’ve made no attempt to present the words actually sung by the singers included in this compendium as they do the piece in Russian, English, German, Swedish, and Italian. I can offer no insight on the accuracy of the Russian diction by the singers who are not Russian but who sing Lensky’s Aria in the original language.

The blogger then provides numerous versions of Lensky's Aria, something opera fanatics often like to do (splice together different singers performing the same aria and either decide which singer is performing or which is the best performance). After sampling several of these performances, I have to admit that the native Russian singers--like the native Russian readers of Pushkin--have the advantage.

The question opera companies and performers face now is: are there enough fanatics to kept the art alive? Opera is the most extraordinary art, combining music, storytelling, drama, tradition, stage production, costumes, make-up, dance, etc. Is there still an audience for such riches? Renee Fleming is retiring from the operatic stage after her final performance of Der Rosenkavalier this season at the Met. The New York Times brought up the issue in the context of her retirement (my husband brought this article to my attention):

Her departure is a watershed moment for her extravagant, expensive art form, which is always imagining itself in trouble — what is opera about except crises? — but may really be in peril this time. Not only is opera more divorced than ever from mainstream culture, but also its core audience, the people who buy subscriptions, is literally dying off. The Met has had some luck attracting new operagoers through social media, collaborations with theater and visual artists, and fresher branding, but the most reliable way of ensuring attendance is still by casting big international stars, and one of Ms. Fleming’s magnitude is almost impossible to replace. Plácido Domingo, the only singer on her level still performing, is 76, and, though he keeps defying time, can’t go on forever; younger artists like Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann may be opera-famous, but are hardly household names.

Fleming's Marschallin will be on the radio for that last performance--can you imagine the ovation? In Gottes Namen. Amen.

St. George and the English Martyrs

In England today both Catholics and Anglicans are celebrating the Feast of St. George. He is best known as the slayer of a dragon but St. George of Lydda was a martyr. His feast is usually celebrated on April 23, but since that was the Second Sunday of Easter and the last day of the Easter Octave, it's been translated to April 24 this year in England.

This image of him being dragged through the streets to his execution, a panel from a 15th century painting by Bernat Martorell, explains why Westminster Cathedral has a chapel dedicated to St. George and the English Martyrs. Those martyred saints who were accused of treason because they were Catholic priests, or were converts or had influenced the conversion of others, were dragged through the streets just like St. George had been.

More about the painting here and here. (It's one of those art history mysteries recently solved; the pieces of a retable were separated during the Spanish Civil War and still are: one piece in Chicago, the rest in Paris!)

Like some of the English Martyrs honored in the Cathedral's chapel, St. George was tortured before being dragged and beheaded as this painting by Michiel Coxie from the 16th century shows.

The Cathedral's website has not been updated yet, but the page for the chapel explains the plans and this story from The Catholic Herald describes the changes after they'd been unveiled last year. I posted information about the dedication of the chapel here.

St. George and the English Martyrs, pray for us!

Meanwhile, in Scotland

According to a story in The Catholic Herald, more Catholics attend Sunday services (Mass) than Protestants (the Kirk):

The Catholic Church is likely to become the largest churchgoing denomination in Scotland.

Figures from the 2016 Scottish Church Census reveal that the Catholic Church and Church of Scotland both make up 35 per cent of the churchgoing population, but that the Catholic proportion is expanding.

The report found 135,600 weekly Catholic Mass attenders compared to 136,910 attending Church of Scotland services. The figures also showed a total of 389,510 weekly attenders of churches of any denomination.

Peter Brierley, who conducted the study, told the Scottish Catholic Observer the Catholic Church would have the most Sunday churchgoers if trends continued.

The Scottish Catholic Observer provides more detail:

Fr Thomas Boyle, the Catholic Church’s representative on the panel that commissioned the report, said it reflected the fact that ‘Scotland is a very different place from 50 or even 30 years ago.’

“On a simplistic level there are many more different things which people can do on a Sunday than they could decades ago and that has had an effect,” he said. “The traditional Scottish Calvinistic Sabbath observance just doesn’t exist anymore. Social changes mean that there isn’t the same proportion of the Scottish population which professes the Christian faith or belongs to a Church.”

He said that the ‘continuing hostility of the liberal consensus to religious belief and organised religion has its effects, particularly on younger generations,’ but that ‘from a Catholic perspective the residual loyalty of many means that they continue to have their children Baptised and send them to Catholic schools.’

“This is best exemplified in the 2011 census where the figure for people self-identifying as Catholic was recorded as 100,000 higher than what the Church had registered,” he said. “This could be seen as tribal, but equally it can be seen as people who are religious or spiritual but simply don’t attend Church. Non-attendance at Church doesn’t mean that people don’t pray or live a Christian life with the values that inspire them.”

One reason both papers note for the Sunday Mass attendance is the influx of Polish Catholics, who are faithful to that obligation and opportunity.

Carthusian Gardens: Cells and Horticulture

Via Tea at Trianon: English Heritage describes how the Carthusians at Mount Grace Priory had gardens outside their cells:

The garden of the Mount Grace Priory cell is English Heritage’s best preserved example of monastic horticulture. It was replanted for the first time in 1994, following archaeological excavation of the cells. The excavations showed that the lay-out and use of each garden varied according to the inclination and interest of the individual monk.

The pattern of paths and beds in the garden was based on archaeological evidence, but it was uncertain which plants were used or how they may have been arranged in the beds. None of the recent planting was intended to be a restoration or reconstruction of the original garden. It instead was a demonstration of the kinds of plants that were grown in gardens at the time the monastery flourished.

Equipment, too, has changed how we tend to our gardens today. Monk’s tools would have been simple wooden and metal ards (like a small hand pulled plough) or mattocks rather than the mechanised marvels of today’s horticulture. Rather than a tractor, power for larger plots would have been provided by oxen.

Cell gardens as at Mount Grace Priory provided monks with the opportunity for manual labour within the confines of their own cell, which was a key part of the Carthusian ideal. As a hortus conclusus (enclosed garden) they also had biblical associations including the garden of the ‘Song of Solomon’, and alluded to the ‘original’ Garden of Eden, or to ‘Paradise’ itself. These spaces were not primarily for food production but had multiple functions of spirituality, health and utility. The mass of food for the monks came from much larger kitchen gardens, plots and farms elsewhere.

These cell gardens were strongly geometric in form, often compartmentalised (defining spaces for medicinal or poisonous species) and in the 15th century started to become decorative. This included a mix of medicinal and aromatic herbs, and flowering plants to lift the mind and spirit and to aid contemplation.

English Heritage also describes how Mount Grace was a thriving community as late as 1523, with a waiting list of men wanting to become Carthusians. The last prior, John Wilson, tried to save the house:

Though the Carthusians featured prominently in the early opposition to Henry VIII’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon and the consequent break with Rome, Mount Grace remained relatively untroubled during the first years of the Reformation.

The monks refused to become involved with the Pilgrimage of Grace, the popular rising that broke out in Yorkshire in the autumn of 1536 in reaction to the suppression of the lesser monasteries.

When Mount Grace was eventually suppressed in December 1539 the community were given generous pensions. The prior was granted the hermitage and chapel of The Mount in nearby Osmotherley, which belonged to the priory.[11] He, with one of his monks and two lay brothers, was to join the charterhouse of Sheen when it was refounded under Mary I in 1555.[12]

The last prior of Sheen Priory in Richmond, named the House of Jesus of Bethlehem, was Maurice Chauncey. He was:

one of the few religious of the London charterhouse who purchased their lives of Henry VIII. by compliance with his wishes, and on its dissolution obtained a pension of £5. In his future penitence he deeply bewailed that he had not shared the crown of martyrdom, and spoke of himself as 'the spotted and diseased sheep of the flock.' The Carthusians, who were for a short time gathered together under Prior Maurice at Sheen during Mary's reign, were the scattered remnant of the various English charterhouses. Several died during their brief sojourn at the restored house, and the rest followed their superior into exile on Elizabeth's accession. Prior Maurice died at Paris on 12 July 1581; two years later his history of the sufferings of the Carthusians under Henry VIII. was printed, of which Mr. Froude made so much use in his graphic and sympathetic account of their treatment. (fn. 34)

In exile, the remaining Carthusians gathering in Belgium under Chauncey's leadership in the Sheen Anglorum Charterhouse.