St. John Baptist de la Salle and King James II

St. John Baptist de la Salle's feast day was yesterday, but I noticed this detail when reading a brief biography of him: he made an exception to his policy of educating the poor when King James II of England, in exile, made a specific request:

Although the schools had originally been founded for orphans and the children of the poor, a new departure was made at the request of King James II of England, who was then living in exile. He urged the founding of a college for the sons of his adherents, mainly Irish, who were living in France, and Father John opened such a school for fifty young men of gentle birth.

Because de la Salle emphasized teaching in the vernacular, the Irish youth learned French and French history so they could be of service to King Louis XIV.

Manhattan College in New York posts an explanation of a stained glass window depicting James II visiting this special school, which de la Salle founded in Paris:

This window is based on a drawing by 19th century artist Edouard Garnier.

Catholic King James II of England was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne, July 12, 1690 by his son-in-law, William of Orange. Supported by the French King, Louis XIV, he took up residence at St. Germain-en-Laye near Versailles, France. He asked La Salle to establish a school for the children of his Irish followers. La Salle established the school in Paris in 1700 for the Irish children.

James II, along with Archbishop Noailles of Paris, is here visiting the Irish children.

The cathedral in the background of the window is Notre Dame of Paris, the seat of Archbishop Noailles.

A rather old fashioned life of the saint offers these comments about his Irish students:

Of the subsequent careers of the lads who studied under St. John de la Salle in the exiles' boarding- school we know but little. Some of them doubtless remained at the court of Louis XIV and discharged satisfactorily the offices for which they were fitted. Some of them, we may be sure, took part in the several unsuccessful attempts to place the son and grandson of King James known respectively as the Old Pretender and the Young Pretender on the throne of England. More of them probably imitated the example of their fighting sires and in the French army struck stout blows against their English foes at Blenheim and Ramillies and, maybe, even half a century later, at Fontenoy. The wanderlust, always so potent in Irish blood, may have lured others of them across the Atlantic to Canada and the southern colonies. All that is but a matter of conjecture. But it is pleasant to reflect that through them the influence of St. John Baptist de la Salle spread into divers professions and into various parts of the world, and that the young Jacobites were better and wiser men because of their contact with the holy founder.

After Catholic Emancipation in England

While Catholics had finally been granted the rights that were theirs by birth in 1829, much work remained for them to exercise those rights, including in the field of education. Richard J. Janet, PhD., professor of history, and director of the Thomas More Center for the Study of Catholic Thought and Culture at Rockhurst University, Kansas City, Missouri writes about this crucial period for Homiletic & Pastoral Review:

It was a particularly difficult time to be Catholic in Britain. While the repeal of the penal laws granted Catholics full political rights in 1829, a deep, popular, anti-Catholicism permeated British society. The Oxford Movement, culminating in the conversion of John Henry Newman to Catholicism in 1845, seemed to confirm fears that closet Catholics lurked everywhere. The influx of Irish immigrants into England, many fleeing the effects of the Great Famine in Ireland, fed the resentment of this largely foreign, ignorant, and Catholic underclass. Respectable newspapers like the Times routinely stoked the fires of anti-Catholicism, engaging in the most blatant racial profiling of Irish Catholics (often caricatured as monkeys in political cartoons). The growth of the Catholic population inspired some Catholic leaders to plan for the reorganization of the Church, including the return of the Catholic hierarchy to a land that, since the Reformation, had been administered as mission territory. English nativists responded with attacks on this “papal aggression,” and, within five years, the government would contemplate legislation to prevent such an incursion. While controversy reigned, the mass of Irish Catholics in English cities remained desperately poor and uneducated.

English Catholic schools proved incapable of improving the situation, existing (in the words of a recent history) in “a decentralized, irregular, and poverty-stricken condition.”1 The Catholic Institute was founded in 1838 to improve Catholic schools but could do little to improve conditions, given its lack of resources. Effectively rubbing salt in Catholic wounds, in 1839, the English government proposed changes in educational policy, establishing a Committee of the Privy Council on Education to dispense public grants to private schools, including those operated by the Church of England, and by dissenting denominations. Catholics were to be excluded from these grants unless they consented to use the protestant Bible in their curriculum—a blatant discrimination that was felt keenly by the leadership of the English Catholic community.

What to do? The ecclesiastical head of the English Church, Vicar-Apostolic Nicholas Wiseman, was preoccupied with Vatican negotiations for the return of the English hierarchy. The most popular figure in the Catholic community—Irish reformer Daniel O’Connell, the great “Emancipator”—focused on efforts to repeal the Act of Union with Ireland, and the devastating effects of the Great Famine. O’Connell died on May 15, 1847. The remaining lay leadership of the Catholic community was, unsurprisingly, deeply divided. The old Whig Catholic gentry favored a patient, moderate approach stressing quiet negotiation and keeping a low profile. The new converts were more aggressive, polemical, and unattached to any political faction. Neither side was willing to defer to the other. Prospects did not look good for a Catholic campaign to secure government grants for desperately needy Catholic schools.

He describes the personalities involved in the crisis--laymen dealing with practical issues, as Father John Henry Newman would argue they should in his famous article on "Consulting the Faithful" in The Rambler--and the compromise finally reached, referencing the book pictured above:

English Catholic schools still faced obstacles in achieving parity with Anglican and secular schools. The historian, Eric Tenbus, in a revealing book entitled [sic] English Catholics and the Education of the Poor, 1847-1902 (Pickering and Chatto, 2010), argues that efforts to promote English Catholic schools helped form a more cohesive Catholic community in 19th century Britain. And Catholic schools have earned high regard in English educational circles, as evidenced by recent government attempts to require Catholic schools to register a higher number of non-Catholic students in an effort to “improve social cohesion” in the kingdom.13 What began as an apparently one-sided attempt of poor Catholic schools to share in the public largesse has evolved to the point that the broader English society recognizes (and covets) the values on which Catholic education rests.