Reflections on the Royal Wedding

I did not think that I would have time to watch the Royal Wedding early in the morning on Friday, April 29 because my husband and I were getting ready to drive to a friend's wedding three and a half hours away later that day. But he encouraged me to watch some of the ritual. Born and raised in the USA, I cried when they sang "God Save the Queen." And I also cried when they sang "Jerusalem", because it's just so glorious. And I just wished that Diane Sawyer and the ABC News crew would quit talking about all the incidentals and concentrate on the reality of the wedding.

Some weeks before the Royal Wedding I happened to see a segment on one of those silly celebrity shows featuring supplies for those who wanted to be in London that day. The supplies included things like barf bags and packages of condoms(!), all emblazoned with William and Kate's pictures. Like Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts, they really did not understand the reality of the wedding. It was not just a fancy dress day; the couple will someday soon announce the birth of a child to continue the succession; perhaps not as quickly as the father hoped in Yentl, but sometime in the not-too-distant future.

The sermon from the Anglican Bishop of London, the hymns chosen for the ceremony--

"Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer" (which was sung at Prince Williams' mother's memorial service in 2008)
"Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" (by Charles Wesley)
"Ubi Caritas et Amor"
"Jerusalem" (by William Blake and known to American audiences, as the news anchors intoned "from the movie Chariots of Fire")
"Blest Pair of Sirens" (by John Milton), not to mention
"God Save the Queen" (the National Anthem)

--the ritual of the wedding ceremony, the prayers of the Bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the prayer the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wrote indicated the reality of the day: they are giving themselves to each other in the service of their country, of their people. This was not just another celebrity wedding with some additional pomp and circumstance.

Elena Maria Vidal linked to a great article from the Daily Mail in which columnist Melanie Phillips commented:

For here was one of the most striking aspects of that day. We are repeatedly told that Britain has now left religion far behind. And similarly, traditional marriage is said to be a thing of the past.

But last Friday, people in this apparently godless nation were held spellbound by a wedding ceremony which was explicitly not just religious but Christian.

What was even more notable was the special prayer composed by the happy couple themselves.

For in this they prayed for help to focus on the important things in life, to serve and to help the needy — all ‘in the spirit of Jesus’.

This was in effect an explicit dedication of themselves to a life of service to the nation on behalf of the Christian institution of the monarchy.

I just hope that if Charles, the Prince of Wales, does survive his mother, he leaves the coronation ceremony alone and ensures the continuity demonstrated by this Royal Wedding.

More on Syon Abbey

I posted a brief excerpt about the original Syon Abbey from the Syon Park website on May 4.

The history goes on to explain what happened after the dissolution of the Abbey in 1539:

After the suppression of the abbey, the estate became Crown property and became the possession of the 1st Duke of Somerset, the Lord Protector to the young son of King Henry VIII, Edward VI. He built Syon House in the Italian Renaissance style, over the foundations of the west end of the huge abbey church, (which was the size of a cathedral), between 1547 and his death by execution in 1552. Syon was then acquired by a rival, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland (no relation to the present family.) The Duke's son, Lord Guildford Dudley, had married Lady Jane Grey, the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII and it was at Syon that she was formally offered the Crown by the Duke. She accepted reluctantly, was conveyed to London by river and proclaimed Queen. Nine days later, she was displaced by King Henry VIII's eldest daughter, Mary Tudor. The following year Lady Jane Grey was executed. In 1557, the Roman Catholic Queen Mary recalled the nuns to re-establish their abbey at Syon. But she died suddenly in 1558 and the nuns left the country on the accession of her Protestant sister, Queen Elizabeth I. (In 1861 the nuns returned to England to found their religious community in Devon, where they reside to this day). In 1594, Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, acquired Syon through his marriage to Dorothy Devereux and the Percy family has lived at Syon House ever since.

The history page also includes this link to a description of excavations and information about the "Lost Abbey of Sion".

One event the history omits is that Catherine Howard was kept sequestered in the former abbey while Henry VIII and his courtiers investigated the charges of treason against her. Then she was moved to the Tower of London when Parliament passed a Bill of Attainder against her, in preparation for her execution.

Bess of Hardwick: Formidable Indeed!

Once I Was a Clever Boy featured this post of "Bess of Hardwick (1527-1608), the remarkable self-made, or self-improving, Derbyshire woman who became the matriarch of the Cavendish family."

I read her biography a few years ago by Mary S. Lovell--since Bess and her fourth husband the Earl of Shrewsury "hosted" the imprisoned Queen of Scots, Mary Stuart, great pressures came to bear on their finances and their already contentious marriage.

Bess of Hardwick's granddaughter Arbella is another fascinating figure of the the Stuart era--but not that much connected to the issues of the English Reformation.

May 4th, Feast of the English Catholic Martyrs

Six years ago on this feast day of the Catholic Martyrs of the English Reformation, Anglican Bishop Richard Chartres of London and Catholic Auxiliary Bishop George Stack of Westminster held an ecumenical service in honor of the first Catholic martyrs under Henry VIII. Catholic News Service carried the story the next day:

"We who today give thanks to the witness of these Carthusian martyrs and the martyrs of every age may not be called upon to die for the faith that we profess, but there is no doubt that, whatever our Christian tradition, each of us who believe are challenged to live for that faith by Jesus Christ, the king of martyrs who gave his life as a ransom for all of us," he said.

Red roses, each representing a martyr, were then placed into a model of the "Tyburn Tree," the triangular London gallows where 105 Catholics were executed during the Reformation.

St. John was the first of four priests hanged May 4, 1535, after they were convicted of treason for refusing to take the oath of the Act of Supremacy, the law that made the king the supreme leader of the Church of England.

St. Thomas More, watching their departure from the window of his cell in the Tower of London, remarked to his daughter, Margaret, how the men went "to their deaths as cheerfully as bridegrooms to their marriage."

St. John was said to have remained conscious throughout an ordeal that involved partial hanging and disembowelment.

[N.B.: The execution of the Carthusians was made more torturous by the fact that they wore their habits and St. John also wore a hair shirt.]

Two other Carthusian abbots, St. Robert Lawrence and St. Augustine Webster, and a Brigittine monk, St. Richard Reynolds, were executed in the hours that followed.Afterward, King Henry ordered one of St John's arms to be nailed over the main entrance of the Charterhouse as a warning to others.

Within five years, six more Carthusians were executed and nine others tied to posts and starved to death in London's Marshalsea Prison.St. John, St. Robert, St. Augustine and St. Richard were among 40 English and Welsh martyrs canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970. May 4 is the feast of the English and Welsh martyrs.

According to the Archbishop of Canterbury's website, the death of the Carthusians and St. Richard Reynolds has been remembered with such as service since 2004:

Since 2004 there has been a Commemoration of the Carthusian Martyrs at Sutton's Hospital each year.

In 2005 the Bishop of London attended with Bishop George Stack representing the Cardinal.

In 2006 the Commemoration was combined with a Requiem for Fr Geoffrey Curtis CR who caused the Carthusian Martyrs' Memorial to be erected at Sutton's Hospital on the site of the ancient Priory Church.

In 2007 the first public Roman Catholic Service was held since the Reformation - Latin Vespers were sung by the Choristers of Westminster Cathedral and Monsignor Mark Langham, Administrator of Westminster Cathedral, gave the address.

In 2008 the preacher was Bishop John Flack who had been the Director of
the Anglican Centre in Rome.

In 2009 the homily was by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor but sadly he was unable to deliver it in person – Bishop George Stack did so. The Apostolic Nuncio was in attendance and read the Second Lesson.

And in 2010 Rowan Williams delivered the sermon I commented on last year--reflecting on Henry VIII, Hell, Robert Aske in H.F.M. Prescott's novel, and St. John Houghton.

Before he died, St. John prayed the first six verses of Psalm 31 and his last words are reported as "Jesus, Jesus, what will you do with my heart?":

In finem. Psalmus David, pro extasi: In te, Domine, speravi; non confundar in æternum : in justitia tua libera me. Inclina ad me aurem tuam; accelera ut eruas me. Esto mihi in Deum protectorem, et in domum refugii, ut salvum me facias: quoniam fortitudo mea et refugium meum es tu; et propter nomen tuum deduces me et enutries me. Educes me de laqueo hoc quem absconderunt mihi, quoniam tu es protector meus. In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum; redemisti me, Domine Deus veritatis.

Since the Vatican approved the revised liturgical calendar for England and Wales, this May 4th Feast there has honored both the 40 martyrs Pope Paul VI canonized in 1970 and the 85 martyrs Blessed John Paul II beatified in 1987.

St. Richard Reynolds, "The Angel of Syon"

I've blogged about St. John Houghton and the Carthusians of the Charterhouse of London before, but have not yet focused on St. Richard Reynolds of the Bridgettine House of Syon. St. Richard was also executed on May 4, 1535. This website offers some information (with a few errors--St. John Fisher was not executed before the Carthusians and St. Richard, as the article states!):

Further turning the King against the frightened Brigittines (sic) was Richard Reynolds, a priest-confessor. Not only was he exceptionally loyal to the Holy Father but he refused to accept that Henry could divorce his wife, Katherine, and that his monarch could be head of the Church of England.

. . .This infuriated Henry because Father Richard was something of a folk hero. He could not be killed summarily, largely because of the widespread unrest among the laity. So he was brought to trial and interrogated by Chancellor Audley, a successor to St. Thomas More, who also was martyred for maintaining papal authority.

Tragically, Richard got little support from the bishops and senior clergy. They had recently seen the Cardinal Bishop of Rochester, John Fisher, go to the block (sic), and now was not the time for heroics.

In fact, Cardinal Reginald Pole, later the Papal Legate under Queen Mary, lamented that Richard was let down by the bishops. All 19, except St. John Fisher, had agreed to severing ties with Rome, and this acquiescence was used as a cudgel against him. Thus, he was characterized as a rebellious priest who was disloyal to England's hierarchy.

Richard did not yield. According to Cardinal Pole, he kept a level head and reminded Audley that, more importantly, on his side were "all Church general councils, all the historians, the holy doctors of the Church for the past 1,500 years, especially St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Gregory."

St. Richard Reynolds attended Christ’s College and Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge and became a Fellow of Corpus Christi in 1510. He then entered the Bridgettine Order in 1513 at Syon Abbey, Ilseworth near London. Noted for his scholarship and personal holiness, he was arrested on April 28, 1535 because he would not acknowledge Henry VIII as the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church in England. This site provides information about Bridgettine life at Syon today (and the portrait of St. Richard above.) It is now located in Devon. The original Syon Abbey is now the home of the Duke of Northumberland. The website includes this note about the history of Syon Abbey, St. Richard Reynolds and Henry VIII:

Originally the site of a medieval abbey, Syon was named after Mount Zion in the Holy Land. The abbey was dedicated to the Bridgettine Order, established in the 14th century by the great Swedish mystic St Bridget. One of the last great abbeys to be built (founded by King Henry V in 1415), Syon was dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1539.

Syon Abbey had become renowned for its spiritual learning, public preaching and library. It was favoured and visited by King Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon but it got embroiled in the religious turmoil of the King’s divorce and his subsequent action of making himself Supreme Head of the Church in England. The Father Confessor, of the nuns, Richard Reynolds, could not accept the King’s supremacy and was brutally executed in 1535, his body placed on the abbey gateway. He was later canonised as a martyr.

In 1547, King Henry VIII's coffin was brought to Syon on its way to Windsor for burial. It burst open during the night and in the morning dogs were found licking up the remains! This was regarded as a divine judgement for the King's desecration of Syon Abbey.

I could not have said it better myself.