Learning Something New Every Day! What, Yet Again? Queen Victoria's Neutrality!

The Son Rise Morning Show will be airing a "best-of" program on Monday, May 25, Memorial Day, so I've moved my "Learning Something New Every Day" post up. On Tuesday, May 26, I'll post on Saint Philip Neri and Saint John Henry Newman. 

On Monday, June 1, we'll start a new series on the Son Rise Morning Show, with a topic Anna Mitchell suggested to me. More to come on that next week!

I saw a story about Queen Victoria's government not taking any side the U.S. Civil War and looked into the topic further. There is a connection to my second "Learning Something New Every Day" story because the U.S. Minister to the Court of Saint James in the United Kingdom during the Civil War era was Henry Adams's father, Charles Francis Adams, Sr. Henry was with his father in England.

Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman's "A Dangerous Neutrality" begins where Susan Hanssen's article about Henry Adams in 1912 began, with plans for a trans-Atlantic journey:

Charles Francis Adams, distinguished scion of Boston and son of John Quincy Adams, had heard the stories since childhood about his father’s and grandfather’s long, frightening trip to France in 1778. The surging, implacable Atlantic had tried to drown the emissaries even before their mission began. Now, in May 1861, it took little more than a week to cross the pond, and it was Charles’s turn to duel England as his country’s representative in London.

He had little time to lose; a major diplomatic crisis was unfolding. After the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln blockaded the 3,000-mile coastline between Virginia and Texas. Foreign ships could no longer enter any port in the South, upon penalty of forfeiting both ships and cargo if caught. Yet Lincoln had not anticipated what to do if the Europeans objected to this interference of their profitable trade. And they did.

While Adams was en route, the United Kingdom declared neutrality with the result that the nation would trade with both the United States of America and the Southern states, under the name of the Confederate States of America:

Queen Victoria proclaimed neutrality in the American Civil War on the advice of her ministers. At a stroke, she granted parity to the Confederacy and the United States. Each belligerent could contract for munitions in English ports, sell goods confiscated from their enemy and purchase ships as long as they were not obviously outfitted for war.

The rest of article recounts different reactions to this neutrality in newspapers. Many in the United States of America were more than a little angry with the UK and accused it of hypocrisy over the issue of slavery. Hoffman describes Adams's reaction once he had arrived in England:

Charles Francis Adams reacted to England’s Neutrality Proclamation with uncanny calm. Renowned for his polite, stiffly formal manners, he adopted the cool tone set by Lord John Russell. It allowed him to relay unpleasant tidings, Adams observed, in “the most indifferent, businesslike, mechanical way, as if it was a matter of course and not particularly important.”

The unrecognized Confederate States of America nevertheless sent envoys seeking more than trade, according to this "story of diplomacy" from The National Museum of American Diplomacy, "The Trent Affair: Diplomacy, Britain, and the American Civil War":

Confederates, however, rejoiced in the news. The declaration was an opening to lobby European powers for full recognition. Recognition would allow the Confederates to borrow from international lenders to fund the war. Because of this, sending diplomatic envoys to Britain and France became a top priority for southern ambitions.

This particular diplomatic crisis for Charles Francis Adams came when a ship of the United States fired upon a British ship ("two shots across the bow") to seize two envoys from the CSA. Queen Victoria's government was not amused:

The British were furious at the United States for blatantly disrespecting their sovereignty. Prime Minister Palmerston and Foreign Secretary Earl Russell erupted in a fury at a cabinet meeting. Palmerston shouted, “I don’t know whether you are going to stand this, but I’ll be damned if I do!”

All Charles Francis Adams could do was send letters to Secretary Seward, letting him know of the hot temperature in London. Unable to speak on behalf of the U.S. government without instructions from Seward, Adams could only wait, watch, and avoid meetings with Lord Russell.

With counsel from the deathly-ill Prince Consort, the British demanded an apology and that the two envoys from the South, James Mason and John Slidell, be released to a British ship and allowed to proceed to England. While the apology the Queen's government received was couched mostly as disavowing Wilkes's actions, Mason and Slidell did proceed to England. 

As for Wilkes, he was placed on the retirement list at the end of the year, but later returned to service. While he was known as "a distinguished explorer, author, and naval officer"[33], "he also had a reputation as a stubborn, overzealous, impulsive, and sometimes insubordinate officer".[34] Treasury officer George Harrington had warned [Secretary of State] Seward about Wilkes: "He will give us trouble. He has a superabundance of self-esteem and a deficiency of judgment. When he commanded his great exploring mission he court-martialed nearly all his officers; he alone was right, everybody else was wrong."[35] He had taken a decision--entirely on his own--in this case that provoked a diplomatic, financial, and almost a military crisis (the British had troops in Canada, of course).

Cooler heads like Adams and even Prince Albert prevailed, however. 

Image Credit (Public Domain): Charles Francis Adams, 1861

Image Credit (Public Domain): Queen Victoria, 1860

Prince Philip, the Queen's "liege man of life and limb", RIP

I was sad to hear about the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, mostly because I empathize with Queen Elizabeth II, as I am a widow too. Since the man who had been her stay and support is gone, as is mine, I feel for her. 

Also my mother and she share the same birthday, April 21--we always joked about whose turn it was the make the official birthday greeting call.

And I am not a royalist. If I was a royalist, I would have to be a Jacobite and regard the current occupant of the throne as the usurper of the Catholic Stuart line, descendants of King James II and VI, the Old Pretender, and the Young Pretender, since there aren't any descendants of the Cardinal Pretender! So I'm not posting this because of burning interest in the House of Windsor. By the way, my parents lived on WINDSOR Street in their own little palace.

No, my interests are mostly because of the issue of Catholicism and/or religion in England, and secondarily just because of the human interests of family and history.

Prince Philip was born on the island of Corfu as the Greek ruling family was going to exile. He was baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church, which probably means that he received all three Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism, Chrismation (Confirmation), and Holy Communion as an infant. 

He certainly endured and survived a confusing and disrupted childhood in the early to mid twentieth century. Yet I recall reading a review in the Wall Street Journal of a recent biography last year (I can't access the full review now) that he never revealed much about that childhood and youth. His biographer stated that “For him duty is at the center of everything. It is not a choice.” so he just did his duty and didn't talk about it that much. That's probably one reason his death is receiving so much attention now: that almost unheard of sense of duty and reserve when self-promotion is the norm combined with self-proclaimed victim-hood.

His family separated after their exile from Greece in the throes of the Greco-Turkish war and World War I; Philip studied on the Continent and in England and fought for England in World War II (in the Royal Navy); his four sisters had married Germans and Philip's brothers-in-law fought for Germany and some joined the Nazi Party. His father, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, resided in the south of France and Monaco; his mother, Princess Alice of Battenburg (known as Princess Andrew in Greece after her marriage), who was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, was congenitally deaf and was committed to an asylum in Switzerland for a time.

Alice had joined the Anglican Church, but when she and Prince Andrew were married, their ceremonies were first Civil, then Lutheran AND Greek Orthodox. She later became Greek Orthodox, while her son Philip joined the Anglican Church. I don't know if his Orthodoxy (if he had remained a member of the Greek Orthodox Church) would have been any impediment to his marriage to the then Princess Elizabeth, but Geoffrey Fisher, then the Archbishop of Canterbury received him into the Church of England in October 1947 before their wedding on November 20 that year. Prince Philip's surviving sisters could not attend the wedding (nor Elizabeth's coronation in 1953) because of their Nazi connections.

His mother is the person who fascinates me most: she is known as a "Righteous Among the Nations" because of her aid to the Jews in Greece during World War II. She followed the example of her relative, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, becoming a religious sister in the Orthodox (Greek) Church while Elizabeth became a nun in the Russian Orthodox Church. She died in England but is buried in the same church as Elizabeth, the Church of Mary Magdalene at Gethsemane in Jerusalem. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna has been canonized a saint in the Russia Orthodox Church and is honored as a martyr at Westminster Abbey!

Since Prince Philip died on the Friday of the Octave of Easter, and Gospel readings for the Masses of the Catholic Church have been filled with references to St. Mary Magdalen, I've chosen a painting of St. Mary Magdalen with the Resurrected Jesus to illustrate this post: Appearance of Jesus Christ to Maria Magdalena (1835) by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, a Russian painter (1808-1858).

In the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection of the Dead, may Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, rest in the peace of Christ.

Diana Rigg as the Duchess of Buccleuch?

I watched the first episode of the second season of Victoria on PBS last night, tuning in a little late and was shocked to see Diana Rigg (primarily because I barely recognized her). Then I discovered that she was playing Charlotte Anne Montagu Douglas Scott, Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry, Queen Victoria's Mistress of Robes from 1841 to 1846 during Sir Robert Peel's second administration. Why the producers of Victoria chose to cast Diana Rigg, who is 80, to play the role of a woman who is 30 (Charlotte Anne was born in 1811) boggles the mind. The real Duchess of Buccleuch was a young wife and mother of four, who would have a daughter, the Lady Victoria Alexandrina Montagu Douglas Scott, while serving Queen Victoria (mother and child pictured together at left)--Queen Victoria was Lady Victoria's Godmother.

Changing the Duchess' age throws the dynamic of their relationship off and in the context of the theme of the episode as Queen Victoria was learning how to juggle being a wife, monarch, and mother--there was quite a dispute about who would open the boxes (documents from the Prime Minister) to review--an actress portraying a slightly older young wife  and mother with noble duties would have been more appropriate.

Queen Victoria liked the Duchess and found her "an agreeable, sensible, clever little person." One thing that Queen Victoria probably thought contradicted that notion of being sensible was that the Duchess of Buccleuch became a "Roman" Catholic in 1860, 14 years after leaving the queen's household. The Duchess's brother, an Anglican minister, the Reverend Lord Charles Thynne, had became a Catholic in 1853. Lord Charles and Charlotte Anne's brother, the Reverend Lord John Thynne, was prominent High Church Anglican, so these "defections" would have been particularly difficult for him to accept. More about him at the Westminster Abbey website.

The Duchess and Cecil, the Marchioness of Lothian, became partners in charity and support for Catholic causes because Cecil, waiting until her husband died, became a Catholic in 1851 and her brother-in-law, another Anglican minister, the Reverend Lord Henry Kerr, "poped" in 1852. Cecil's sons, Lord Ralph Kerr and Lord Walter Kerr, and her daughters.

The Duchess of Buccleuch particularly supported the former nursing partner of Florence Nightingale, Frances Margaret Taylor in her life as Sister Mary Magdalen of the Sacred Heart, foundress of the religious order, the Poor Servants of the Mother of God. Taylor was also a convert to Catholicism.

Although she probably never reconciled with her former lady's "crossing the Tiber", Queen Victoria sent condolences when the Duchess of Buccleuch died on March 28, 1895, as this obit from The Tablet describes.

Another Papal Bull Irritates Another English Queen

"Am I the Queen of England or am I not?" So said Queen Victoria when news of the Restoration of the English Catholic hierarchy was announced in 1850. Pope Pius IX issued the Papal Bull "Universalis Ecclesiae" on September 29th that year. The first Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Nicholas Wiseman issued a pastoral letter to English Catholics, "Out of the Flaminian Gate," on October 7, 1850. His tone of exultation offended the Queen and her government, especially in its praise of the Pope:

And in nothing will it be fairer or brighter than in this, that the glow of more fervent love will be upon it. Whatever our sincere attachment and unflinching devotion to the Holy see till now, there is a new ingredient cast into these feelings; a warmer gratitude, a tenderer affection, a profounder admiration, a boundless and endless sense of obligation, for so new, so great, so sublime a gift, will be added to past sentiments of loyalty and fidelity to the supreme see of Peter. Our venerable Pontiff has shown himself a true shepherd, a true father; and we cannot but express our gratitude to him in our most fervent language, in the language of prayer. For when we raise our voices, as is meet, in loud and fervent thanksgiving to the Almighty, for the precious gifts bestowed upon our portion of Christ’s vineyard, we will also implore every choice blessing on him who has been so signally the divine instrument in procuring it. We will pray that his rule over the Church may be prolonged to many years, for its welfare; that health and strength may be preserved to him for the discharge of his arduous duties; that light and grace may be granted to him proportioned to the sublimity of his office; and that consolations, temporal and spiritual, may be poured out upon him abundantly, in compensation for past sorrows and past ingratitude. And of these consolations may one of the most sweet to his paternal heart be the propagation of holy religion in our country, the advancement of his spiritual children there in true piety and devotion, and our ever-increasing affection and attachment to the see of St. Peter.

As Cardinal Wiseman progressed on the Continent toward the British Isles he heard about the anger expressed in the British papers. Queen Victoria expressed herself in the strongest terms and the Cardinal responded by publishing a pamphlet and giving lectures that indicated the Catholic Church had no intention of opposing Her Majesty's Government in any way.

Queen Victoria's Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, introduced a bill in Parliament which passed making it illegal for the new Catholic Bishops to be physically present in their new dioceses--a law which was never enforced by the next government under Gladstone. There were still flare ups of anti-Catholic rioting and violence, but the Cardinal Archibishop had toned down his rather triumphalistic rhetoric and settled down to the restoration of simple things, like schools, chapels, seminaries, and churches. Because of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act of 1851, the hierarchy did not restore the pre-Reformation sees.

Lord John Russell, Future Prime Minister

John Russell, a younger son of John Russell, the 6th Duke of Bedford, was born on 18 August 1792. He would serve twice as Prime Minister during the reign of Queen Victoria, from 30 June 1846 to 23 February 1852 and from 29 October 1865 to 28 June 1866. He was a Whig, as was his father and his father before him. Lord John Russell received the title Earl Russell in 1861--he was the grandfather of Bertrand Russell, Nobel Prize winner and 3rd Earl Russell.

The Russell family estates, which John would not inherit as younger son, include Woburn Abbey, which is on the site of a Cistercian Abbey built in 1145. The last abbot of Woburn Abbey was Robert Hobbes, founded guilty of treason and executed. More about Robert Hobbes here.

The abbey was suppressed in 1538. There had been an Eleanor Cross at Woburn Abbey, built at the command of King Edward I to mark the procession of her body from Lincoln to London after she died in November, 1290--it was destroyed probably as the abbey was. Edward VI granted Woburn Abbey to Sir John Russell in 1547, but it did not become a family home until 1619.

During his first term of office, Lord John Russell had to deal with the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in 1850 by Pope Pius IX. When Nicholas Wiseman's celebratory letter was distributed, Russell termed the action "Papal Aggression". More about that crisis here.

In the House of Commons before he became Prime Minister, Lord Russell was instrumental in the passage of the great Reform Act of 1832, extending the franchise. He had also been in favor of Catholic Relief in 1829.