Catholic Emancipation via Antonia Fraser

This book is coming out in paperback now so the hardcover is well-priced. I read it as some background for final preparation of my second Newman Retreat talk last weekend on Newman and the Laity.

From the publisher:

In the eighteenth century, the Catholics of England lacked many basic freedoms under the law: they could not serve in political office, buy or inherit land, or be married by the rites of their own religion. So virulent was the sentiment against Catholics that, in 1780, violent riots erupted in London—incited by the anti-Papist Lord George Gordon—in response to the Act for Relief that had been passed to loosen some of these restrictions.

The Gordon Riots marked a crucial turning point in the fight for Catholic emancipation. Over the next fifty years, factions battled to reform the laws of the land. Kings George III and George IV refused to address the “Catholic Question,” even when pressed by their prime ministers. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O’Connell and the support of the great Duke of Wellington, the watershed Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed, opening the door to the radical transformation of the Victorian age. Gripping, spirited, and incisive, The King and the Catholics is character-driven narrative history at its best, reflecting the dire consequences of state-sanctioned oppression—and showing how sustained political action can triumph over injustice.

I certainly agree that Fraser writes "character-driven narrative history": her profiles of historical figures from Lord George Gordon to Cardinal Consalvi, Bishop Milner to Daniel O'Connell, Maria Fitzherbert to Father John Lingard describe their contributions to the ongoing social, political, and Royal struggle to allow Catholics to practice their faith freely. Each chapter describes the proponents and opponents of Catholic Emancipation and the slow progress of Parliamentary efforts toward it. She begins with the Gordon Riots, continues with the situation of the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert (the heir to the throne married to a Catholic widow through a wedding not recognized by the State), King George III's breakdown, English sympathy for Catholic refugees from the French Revolution, Daniel O'Connell's efforts, etc.

Along the way I learned that Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington's older brother, married Marianne Canton Patterson, the grand-daughter of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (her mother was Carroll's daughter Mary). I was surprised that Fraser did not highlight this revolutionary connection, since Carroll was the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence and the only surviving signer at that time.

Fraser dedicates two-thirds of the book to the events and personages dealing with the cause of Catholic Emancipation in Ireland and in England. The last section details the final, reluctant assent of Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, and King George IV to Catholic Emancipation after Daniel O'Connell had won a landslide election in County Clare. The remarkably horrid fear of Catholics--King George IV's brother, Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland (future King of Hanover) actually thought that Catholic Emancipation would mean that England would become a Catholic country with a Catholic government--when Catholics were such a minority in England (but not in Ireland!).

The irony that none of George III's sons were able to marry and successfully beget legitimate male heirs was also remarkable! George IV left Maria Fitzherbert for his consort wife Caroline of Brunswick in 1795 but separated from her in 1796; his only legitimate child, the Princess Charlotte, died in 1817. Of all his brothers, only Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, had a surviving child, the Princess Alexandrina Victoria, who would succeed her uncle William IV, the former Duke of Clarence (whose two legitimate daughters died in childbirth or infancy).

George IV's Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, used this dangerous line of succession against the monarch: an unstable Ireland--provoked by the injustice of an elected representative not being able to take his seat because he's Catholic representing a Catholic constituency in a land 85% Catholic--and an unstable succession of old men without sons to succeed them, should not be an obstacle to the will of his elected government (the future William IV was 64 in 1829; Victoria's father was 62; Ernest Augustus was 58, etc). Two of George IV's brothers, the Duke of Kent and Prince Augustus Frederick, the Duke of Sussex, were in favor of Catholic Emancipation, besides.

So finally Catholic Emancipation was achieved, except that important supporters of O'Connell in Ireland were stripped of the vote when the property value limits were increased for freeholds from forty shilling to ten pounds, reducing the number of Catholic men who could vote. O'Connell regretted that part of the deal. He also had to stand for election again because the law didn't grandfather him in: under his original election, he still had to take an oath denying the Real Presence, etc.

Fraser rightly pays tribute to O'Connell's rhetoric eloquence and strategic brilliance: while not allowing any violence, especially after he had won election, Wellington's government knew there was a threat and the possibility of insurrection. He was one of the heroes of this effort. She also acknowledges Wellington's commitment and even Peel's change of mind. This is a great work of historical storytelling with important consequences. Rather whets my appetite for her Perilous Question: Reform or Revolution: England on the Brink, 1832.

The Gordon Riots marked a crucial turning point in the fight for Catholic emancipation. Over the next fifty years, factions battled to reform the laws of the land. Kings George III and George IV refused to address the “Catholic Question,” even when pressed by their prime ministers. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O’Connell and the support of the great Duke of Wellington, the watershed Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed, opening the door to the radical transformation of the Victorian age. Gripping, spirited, and incisive, The King and the Catholics is character-driven narrative history at its best, reflecting the dire consequences of state-sanctioned oppression—and showing how sustained political action can triumph over injustice.

"The King and The Catholics"

The Catholic Herald posts an excerpt from Antonia Fraser's new book, The King and the Catholics: The Fight for Rights 1829 published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson:

From beloved historian Antonia Fraser comes the dramatic story of how Catholics in Britain won back their rights after two hundred years of official discrimination.

The story of Catholic Emancipation begins with the violent Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in 1780, fuelled by the reduction in Penal Laws against the Roman Catholics harking back to the sixteenth century. Some fifty years later, the passing of the Emancipation Bill was hailed as a 'bloodless revolution'.

Had the Irish Catholics been a 'millstone', as described by an English aristocrat, or were they the prime movers? While the English Catholic aristocracy and the Irish peasants and merchants approached the Catholic Question in very different ways, they manifestly shared the same objective.

Antonia Fraser brings colour and humour to the vivid drama with its huge cast of characters: George III, who opposed Emancipation on the basis of the Coronation Oath; his son, the indulgent Prince of Wales, who was enamoured with the Catholic Maria Fitzherbert before the voluptuous Lady Conyngham; Wellington and the 'born Tory' Peel vying for leadership; 'roaring' Lord Winchilsea; the heroic Daniel O'Connell. Expertly written and deftly argued, The King and Catholics is also a distant mirror of our times, reflecting the political issues arising from religious intolerance.

The excerpt describes those Gordon Riots:

The story begins with violence: in the summer of 1780 London was the scene of the worst riots the city had ever experienced, and which were to prove the “largest, deadliest and most protracted urban riots in British history”. The death toll was probably about 1,000 people altogether (in proportion to the population of the capital, this remains the highest percentage of deaths in a riot yet known).

The physical damage to the structure of the city would not be surpassed until the Blitz in the Second World War. Known to history as the Gordon Riots – famously commemorated by Dickens in Barnaby Rudge, when he wrote of “a moral plague” running through the city – they were initiated by the militantly anti-Catholic son of a Scottish duke, who was a Member of the British Parliament.

Riots were certainly not unknown in 18th-century London: there had been the so-called Wilkes Riots in the 1760s and the Keppel Riots after that; but in degree of violence, the Gordon Riots excelled them. Symbols of the state were attacked; 10 Downing Street, already the official residence of the prime minister, Lord North, was assaulted at two o’clock in the morning by protesters bearing lighted flambeaux and faggots: they had to be driven off by 20 dragoons on horseback. Meanwhile the prime minister’s dinner guests climbed onto the roof in order to see the fires burning as far as the horizon.

If prime ministers were obvious targets for attack, private individuals were not safe either. Lady Anne Erskine was a Scottish lady living quietly in a house attached to Spa Fields Chapel in Clerkenwell. She wrote: “Such a scene my eyes never beheld, and I pray God I never may again. The situation of the place which is high and very open gave us an awful prospect of it. We were surrounded by flames.

“Six different fires – with that of Newgate towering to the clouds … with every hour we were in expectation of this house and chapel making the seventh. The sky was like blood with the reflection of the fires.” Ten years later, the literary Ladies of Llangollen, gazing at a fierce crimson sunset, were still irresistibly reminded of the Gordon Riots.

The book won't be released until September this year in the USA, published by Penguin with a cover I don't like half as much as the UK version. Note the details in the blurb for US readers, adding context:

In the summer of 1780, mob violence swept through London. Nearly one thousand people were killed, looting was widespread, and torch-bearing protestors marched on the Prime Minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street. These were the Gordon Riots: the worst civil disturbance in British history, triggered by an act of Parliament designed to loosen two centuries of systemic oppression of Catholics in the British Isles. While many London Catholics saw their homes ransacked and chapels desecrated, the riots marked a crucial turning point in their fight to return to public life.

Over the next fifty years, factions battled one another to reform the laws of the land: wealthy English Catholics yearned to rejoin the political elite; the protestant aristocracy in Ireland feared an empowered Catholic populace; and the priesthood coveted old authority that royal decree had forbidden. Kings George III and George IV stubbornly refused to address the “Catholic Question” even when pressed by their prime ministers–governments fell over it–and events in America and Europe made many skeptical of disrupting the social order. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O’Connell and with the support of the Duke of Wellington, the Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed. It was a watershed moment, opening the door to future social reform and the radical transformation of the Victorian age.

The King and the Catholics is a gripping, character-driven example of narrative history at its best. It is also a distant mirror of our own times, reflecting the dire consequences of state-sanctioned intolerance and showing how collective action and the political process can triumph over wrongheaded legislation.

Mary, Queen of Scots in Edinburgh this Summer

The National Museum of Scotland will host an exhibition on Mary, Queen of Scots which includes quite a few events and lectures, including one by Lady Antonia Fraser and one by John Guy, both of whom wrote biographies of this fascinating queen:

Mary, Queen of Scots is arguably one of the most enigmatic figures in Scottish history. Her story arouses strong emotions: was she betrayed by those she trusted, condemned to die a Catholic martyr or was she a murdering adulteress with her husband’s blood on her hands?

The exhibition will provide an opportunity to re-visit much that has been written and speculated about Mary, one of the most charismatic monarchs of all time. Taking a fresh, innovative approach, using jewels, textiles, furniture, documents and portraits, Mary’s dramatic story and this fascinating period in Scottish history will be explored in detail.

Drawing together surviving relics intimately connected with Mary Stewart and wider Renaissance material from public and private collections, the exhibition will tell the incredible story of the sovereign and the woman.

I look forward to seeing reviews and commentary on this exhibition, which open June 28.

Reform or Revolution in Britain? The Latest by Antonia Fraser

Antonia Fraser, biographer of Mary, Queen of Scots and Marie Antoinette, Cromwell, and Charles II has written a history of the Parliamentary reform movement in 1832:

Antonia Fraser, international and bestselling historian, tackles the two-year revolution that totally changed Britain in her new book, The Perilous Question. Fraser brilliantly evokes the key period of pre-Victorian political and social history - the passing of the 1832 Great Reform Bill.

For our inconclusive times, there is an attractive resonance with 1832, with its 'rotten boroughs' of Old Sarum and the disappearing village of Dunwich, and its lines of great resistance to reform. This book is character-driven - on the one hand, the reforming heroes are the Whig aristocrats Lord Grey, Lord Althorp, Lord John Russell, Lord Brougham and the Irish orator Daniel O'Connell. They included members of the richest and most landed Cabinet in history, yet they were determined to bring liberty, which whittled away their own power, to the country. The all-too-conservative opposition comprised Lord Londonderry, the Duke of Wellington, the intransigent Duchess of Kent and the consort of the Tory King William IV, Queen Adelaide. Finally, there were 'revolutionaries' and reformers, like William Cobbett, the author of Rural Rides.

This is a book that features a most eventful year, much of it violent. Riots in Bristol, Manchester and Nottingham, and wider themes of Irish and 'negro emancipation' underscore the narrative. The time-span of the book is from Wellington's intractable declaration in November 1830 that 'The beginning of reform is the beginning of revolution', to 7th June 1832, the date of the extremely reluctant royal assent by William IV to the Great Reform Bill; under the double threat of the creation of 60 new peers in the House of Lords and the threat of revolution throughout the country. These events led to a complete change in the way Britain was governed, a two-year revolution that Antonia Fraser brings to vivid and dramatic life.

Because this great reform movement begins just a year after the passage of Catholic Emancipation in Parliament, I would be interested in exploring the connections between these reform movements. Some of the same characters are involved in these reforms--Daniel O'Connell, the Duke of Wellington, Robert Peel, etc--and these major steps in reform are related. Yet another book to consider on a reading list! Her main challenge, I am sure, is to make the achievement of relatively moderate advances in voting rights and  reapportioning parliamentary districts a compelling story without making the Tories seem horribly reactionary.

February 8, 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle

Soon we will consider the executions of Lady Jane Grey and her husband Guilford at the orders of Mary I of England during the crisis of the Wyatt Rebellion. As I read different on-line accounts on their deaths, I certainly noticed the effects of their mythology and legend--with comments about Mary's panic and cruelty in ordering their deaths. Yet she had delayed those orders and had really intended that they be freed at some point. Jane's father participated in Wyatt's rebellion--Mary had forgiven him once and she had not ordered their executions in November of 1553, even though they pled guilty. Yet, their executions are used to further bloody Mary.

If those minor legends hold such sway, the legend--and the real impact--of Mary, Queen of Scots' execution on February 8, 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle looms tremendously over our imaginations and reactions. I admit that my knowledge of Mary is formed by Antonia Fraser's 1969 biography. The epilogue still has great impact when Fraser writes about all the childrens' coffins found when the vault was opened and the fact that all the kings and queens of England after the Tudors were and are her descendants--in contrast to the barrenness of Elizabeth and Mary of England; and the summary with Mary's motto: In My End is My Beginning--Fraser really wraps it up!

Like her half-sister Mary regarding Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth also regretted the deposed Queen of Scotland's execution--especially since Mary of Scotland had been anointed and crowned. For one anointed and crowned Queen to say that another anointed and crowned Queen could be executed was a bad precedent--one that Mary of Scotland's grandson would inherit. Elizabeth also knew that this death would have a wide-ranging impact, as Mary herself had pointed out--the reactions of France and Spain [Armada, anyone?] had to be considered. The manifest unfairness of the trial, as Mary was without legal counsel, could call no witnesses, did not see the evidence to be presented against her, and had never been a subject of Queen Elizabeth (a prisoner, yes, but how can an anointed and crowned Queen be a subject?) and thus could not be accused of treason--and then there was the whole issue of entrapment! Please note that the same injustices in the conduct of Charles Ist's trial are levied against Cromwell and his Rump Parliament--no legal counsel, no knowledge of the charges beforehand--and the same dilemma of the authority of the court over the king!

And then the theatrics of the execution: her weeping attendants, Mary's pointed references to martyrdom and her Catholicism, the reports of her head falling out of its wig in the executioner's hand and the piteous image of her little terrier on the scaffold! A public relations nightmare for Elizabeth!

But Elizabeth had signed the death warrant and although she had the privy councillor who enacted it (William Davison) thrown in the Tower, he was eventually freed. Philip II of Spain and the other Catholic courts on the Continent reacted just as Mary had predicted.