The Battle of Prestonpans and King Charles III

There was a comment/meme on Facebook when the King of England, etc., after Elizabeth II's death and his immediate succession, announced that he would be known as King Charles III, that there'd already been a King Charles III! 

Of course, the meme was referring to the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the grandson of King James II and VII, and the son of the Old Pretender, James Frances Edward Stuart!

On September 21, 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie, fighting for his father's succession to the throne as King James III and VIII thirty years after the first attempt to invade England and claim the throne ("the Fifteen"), won a great battle at Prestonpans. 

This was last, best chance of the Catholic Stuarts to take the throne of Great Britain by force. The Act of Succession denied them the legal right to rule, so it had to be through conquest. 

The Young Pretender's forces won a stunning victory at the Battle of Prestonpans against a larger, better supplied, and supposedly more disciplined Hanoverian Army, defending King George II's occupation of the throne. This website describes the two armies:

In September 1745, an army of British regulars mustered near the village of Prestonpans on the shores of the Firth of Forth.

The commander of the Redcoats was Sir John Cope. He was supremely confident of victory. Although the two sides were equal in number, Cope had more cavalry and artillery, and his infantry was trained to deliver well-aimed volleys. Facing west, moreover – towards Edinburgh, from which his opponents had marched – there were the walls and dykes of two grand houses providing protection for his men.

Cope’s opponents were the Jacobite army raised in rebellion some weeks before by Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the ‘Young Pretender’; he was the son of James Edward Stuart, the ‘Old Pretender’, who was in turn the son of King James II, ousted in the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688. Charles’s shock troops were Scottish Highland clansman, most of whom spoke Gaelic, and were regarded as barbarians by most Lowland Scots and the English.

What was to happen at Prestonpans on 21 September 1745, however, was a signal humiliation for the British Army.

It was the charge of the Jacobite army that took the Hanoverian forces by surprise and routed them. The Young Pretender returned to Edinburgh and entered Holyrood House, as depicted in the painting above (Public Domain), by John Pettie, c. 1892. Sir John Cope and fewer than 500 survivors returned to England; Cope and his commanders faced a Court Martial.

King George II recalled his son Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and 12,000 troops from the War of Austrian Succession on the Continent to prepare a new army to prevent any further success of the Jacobites. And at the Battle of Culloden, Cumberland defeated the Young Pretender's army decisively on April 16, 1746. Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart fled Scotland, protected by many Jacobite Highlanders, including Flora MacDonald, leaving on September 19 and arriving in France on September 29, 1746.

The Young Pretender never returned to Scotland, although he did travel to London in September, 1750. According to The Jacobite Heritage website, "It is commonly believed that on this occasion he apostasized from the Catholic Church and conformed to the Established Church of England." He thought that would strengthen his claim to the throne. He did return to the Catholic Faith before he died on January 30, 1788 (January 30 was the anniversary of his great-grandfather Charles I's beheading). He and his father and brother (Henry Cardinal Stuart) are buried in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, Rome, in a monument to which the future George IV (the Prince Regent) donated funds to complete!

Schiller's "Maria Stuart" at Newman University

My sister and I went to an adaptation of Friedrich Schiller's romantic play, Maria Stuart (the source for Donizetti's opera) at Newman University Saturday night, March 5th. They used the title Mary, Queen of Scots. The director, Mark Manette, used the translation of Schiller's play by Joseph Melish, which includes this poignant scene of Mary, finally being comforted by a priest before her execution:

MARY. 

Melvil! Oh, yes, I understand you, Melvil! 

Here is no priest, no church, no sacrament; 

But the Redeemer says, "When two or three 

Are in my name assembled, I am with them," 

What consecrates the priest? Say, what ordains him 

To be the Lord's interpreter? a heart 

Devoid of guile, and a reproachless conduct. 

Well, then, though unordained, be you my priest; 

To you will I confide my last confession, 

And take my absolution from your lips. 

MELVIL.

 If then thy heart be with such zeal inflamed, 

I tell thee that for thine especial comfort, 

The Lord may work a miracle. 

Thou say'st Here is no priest, no church, no sacrament— 

Thou err'st—here is a priest—here is a God; 

A God descends to thee in real presence. 

[At these words he uncovers his head, and shows a host in a golden vessel.] 

I am a priest—to hear thy last confession, 

And to announce to thee the peace of God 

Upon thy way to death. I have received 

Upon my head the seven consecrations. 

I bring thee, from his Holiness, this host, 

Which, for thy use, himself has deigned to bless. 

MARY. 

Is then a heavenly happiness prepared 

To cheer me on the very verge of death? 

As an immortal one on golden clouds 

Descends, as once the angel from on high, 

Delivered the apostle from his fetters:— 

He scorns all bars, he scorns the soldier's sword, 

He steps undaunted through the bolted portals, 

And fills the dungeon with his native glory; 

Thus here the messenger of heaven appears 

When every earthly champion had deceived me. 

And you, my servant once, are now the servant 

Of the Most High, and his immortal Word! 

As before me your knees were wont to bend, 

Before you humbled, now I kiss the dust.

And she makes her Confession, not mentioning any involvement in the plots to kidnap, depose, or murder Elizabeth. Father Melvil presses her on this point and she denies have anything to do with such plots, while admitting that she requested aid from Catholic monarchs in Europe to secure her release from her captivity in England. So she ends up the moral victor in the play, regal, resolute, and composed, as she goes to the block.

Elizabeth's last scene, on other hand, depicts her as equivocating and irresolute, accusing others, like William Cecil, Lord Burleigh and Sir William Davison, her Secretary of State, of carrying out her wishes--she'd signed the death warrant--against her wishes. So she ends up left alone on the throne, with Leicester on the way to France (with Mary's heart?), and Shrewsbury, who had counselled mercy to Mary earlier in the play, calling her out for her duplicity and leaving her service:

ELIZABETH. (speaking to Burleigh)

And dared you then to execute the writ 

Thus hastily, nor wait to know my pleasure? 

Just was the sentence—we are free from blame 

Before the world; yet it behooved thee not 

To intercept our natural clemency. 

For this, my lord, I banish you my presence; 

And as this forward will was yours alone 

Bear you alone the curse of the misdeed! 

[To DAVISON.] 

For you, sir; who have traitorously o'erstepped 

The bounds of your commission, and betrayed 

A sacred pledge intrusted to your care, 

A more severe tribunal is prepared: 

Let him be straight conducted to the Tower, 

And capital arraignments filed against him. 

My honest Talbot, you alone have proved, 

'Mongst all my counsellors, an upright man: 

You shall henceforward be my guide—my friend. 

SHREWSBURY. 

Oh! banish not the truest of your friends; 

Nor cast those into prison, who for you 

Have acted; who for you are silent now. 

But suffer me, great queen, to give the seal, 

Which, these twelve years, I've borne unworthily, 

Back to your royal hands, and take my leave. 

ELIZABETH (surprised). 

No, Shrewsbury; you surely would not now 

Desert me? No; not now. 

SHREWSBURY. 

Pardon, I am 

Too old, and this right hand is growing too stiff 

To set the seal upon your later deeds. 

ELIZABETH. 

Will he forsake me, who has saved my life? 

SHREWSBURY. 

'Tis little I have done: I could not save 

Your nobler part. Live—govern happily! 

Your rival's dead! Henceforth you've nothing more 

To fear—henceforth to nothing pay regard.

Those last lines will soon prove false: King Philip of Spain will plan his great Armada against England after the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. England and the weather will defeat his Armada, but Elizabeth still has something left to fear. She still fears dissent--both Catholic and Puritan--among her people; she still regrets that she will leave the throne upon her death with no heir of direct family succession and yet she lived her life without ever marrying and being the mother of her heir! 

Schiller depicts another example of that same kind of equivocation in her method of dealing with great issues: wanting one end while living and acting toward another end: wanting the threat that Mary of Scotland poses removed without accepting the responsibility for causing her removal (signing the warrant while not wanting it carried out); maintaining the security of her rule alone while preventing a smooth transition of the throne by never naming her successor or marrying to "produce" an heir of her own. 

Both Elizabeth and Mary rely upon plots and subterfuge to obtain their ends and both are aghast at what those plots require of them. Mary recoils from Mortimer's zeal when she discovers its source is his lust for her; Elizabeth recoils from sentencing Mary to death because she realizes the danger it poses to the idea of monarchy, undercutting her own claim to rule. 

But at the end of Schiller's play, Mary is at peace while Elizabeth is left frustrated and alone: "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." (Henry IV, Part Two, Act 3; Scene 1). Mary may have lost her head, but she, the Catholic queen of Scotland, is Schiller's heroine, while Elizabeth, the Protestant queen of England, is his villain.

By the way: here's a 2009 review of a New York production of Schiller's Maria Stuarda from First Things. David P. Goldman reflects on how sympathetically the anti-Catholic Schiller portrays both Mortimer's conversion to Catholicism on the Continent and Mary's reception of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion. He offers excellent background on Schiller and his historical views.

Image Source (End of Act 5, Scene VII): Melvil giving Mary Holy Communion ("This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org")

Image Source (Public Domain): Portrait of Elizabeth I from 1586 to 1587, by Nicholas Hilliard.

Regent Queen Katherine and the Battle of Flodden

Today is the 507th anniversary of the English defeat of the Scottish army led by King James IV of Scotland on Flodden Field. Among those killed among the Scots on September 9, 1513 were:

·         James IV, king of Scotland—Henry VIII’s brother-in-law (Margaret Tudor)

·         George Douglas, Scottish nobleman

·         William Douglas of Glenbervie, Scottish nobleman

·         William Graham, 1st Earl of Montrose, Scottish politician

·         George Hepburn, Scottish bishop—uncle of Adam Hepburn the Earl of Bothwell and brother of Adam Hepburn of Craggis

·         Adam Hepburn, 2nd Earl of Bothwell, Scottish politician, Lord High Admiral of Scotland

·         Adam Hepburn of Craggis, Scottish nobleman

·         David Kennedy, 1st Earl of Cassilis, Scottish soldier

·         Alexander Lauder of Blyth, Scottish politician

·         Alexander Stewart, Scottish archbishop—James IV’s illegitimate son who had studied with Erasmus

·         Matthew Stewart, 2nd Earl of Lennox, Scottish politician

Those losses, and thousands more, inspired a lament, "Flowers of the Forest".

But Henry VIII was not in England to lead his troops near Branxton in Northumberland--he was in France and had left his Queen, Katherine of Aragon as Regent. She had to respond to King James IV's declaration of war. Thomas Howard, the 2nd Duke of Norfolk, his sons Thomas (future 3rd Duke) and Edmund, Thomas Dacre, 2nd Baron Dacre, and Edward Stanley, lst Baron Monteagle led the English troops into battle. This website provides details of the battle and why the English defeated the Scots.

Catherine, whom historian John Edwards argues may have been Henry VIII's greatest Queen or consort in this BBC History Magazine article (registration required), sent Henry VIII a letter about the victory, carefully according him all the glory, and offering her prayers and humble service:

My Lord Howard hath sent me a letter open to your Grace, within one of mine, by the which you shall see at length the great Victory that our Lord hath sent your subjects in your absence; and for this cause there is no need herein to trouble your Grace with long writing, but, to my thinking, this battle hath been to your Grace and all your realm the greatest honor that could be, and more than you should win all the crown of France; thanked be God of it, and I am sure your Grace forgetteth not to do this, which shall be cause to send you many more such great victories, as I trust he shall do. My husband, for hastiness, with Rougecross I could not send your Grace the piece of the King of Scots coat which John Glynn now brings. In this your Grace shall see how I keep my promise, sending you for your banners a king’s coat. I thought to send himself unto you, but our Englishmens’ hearts would not suffer it. It should have been better for him to have been in peace than have this reward. All that God sends is for the best.

My Lord of Surrey, my Henry, would fain know your pleasure in the burying of the King of Scots’ body, for he has written to me so. With the next messenger your Grace’s pleasure may be herein known. And with this I make an end, praying God to send you home shortly, for without this no joy here can be accomplished; and for the same I pray, and now go to Our Lady of Walsingham that I promised so long ago to see. At Woburn the 16th of September.

I send your Grace herein a bill found in a Scotsman’s purse of such things as the French King sent to the said King of Scots to make war against you, beseeching you to send Mathew hither as soon as this messenger comes to bring me tidings from your Grace.

Your humble wife and true servant, Katharine.

Catherine was pregnant at the time of her Regency and the battle; on September 17, 1513, she delivered a baby boy, who died soon after birth.

As John Edwards comments in the article linked above:

Looking back from a distance of 500 years, the battle of Flodden can be regarded as a high point in Catherine’s life. Here was a queen who, almost from the day she arrived in England, had been a favourite of the English people. Here was a woman whose keen intellect had impressed some of the sharpest minds in 16th-century Europe. And now to these accomplishments could be added a display of grit, initiative and no little skill in the midst of a national emergency.

But as well as being a moment of triumph, the autumn of 1513 was also a high point for Catherine’s marriage. Though she couldn’t have known it at the time, it marked the start of a long decline – one that, by 1533, had led to acrimony, the annulment of her marriage and a long exile into the margins of history. So where did it all go wrong for Henry’s first, and arguably greatest, queen?

As readers of this blog--and Tudor history--know, hundreds of books and articles have been written to answer that question either with regret or satisfaction.

September 9, 1587: A Catholic Martyr from Scotland

Blessed George Douglas is one of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales, executed on September 9, 1587. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and according to Volume 1 of the Lives of the English Martyrs, 1583-1588, edited by Edwin H. Burton, D.D. and J.H. Pollen, SJ, he was aided in his exile in France by Mary, Queen of Scots:

George Douglas was of the house of Douglas of Bongedward now Bonjedburgh, of which family the Earl of Angus was the head. He was born in Edinburgh somewhere about 1540, his father John Douglas being a burgess of that city. Archibald Douglas, "the Parson of Glasgow," was his kinsman and coeval ; they were companions as scholars under John Douglas, sometime Archbishop of St. Andrews.

From the earlier examination [in 1570-1571] we learn that George Douglas ''was sometime a 'graye Freer' [sic: Friar] in Edinborough [sic]". About the year 1556 he betook himself to France where he tarried six years, and was maintained upon the exhibition (or pension) of the Queen of Scots as long as he tarried there. He was meantime made priest at Notre Dame ''by the testimonial of the Queen of Scots."

Then, when Father Douglas had gone to England as a missionary priest, he wrote to his patron in 1570-1571 (she had been in Elizabeth I's "care" since 1568) and his letter brought him to the attention of the authorities (he had been serving as tutor in a couple of households):

This he did, and his Latin letter, which is not signed, is still preserved. The letter is little more than an expression of his gratitude to Mary 'because you nourished me in the bountiful academy of Paris," and of sympathetic consolation in her trials, "with the assistance of the divine grace, your sorrow will be turned into joy". But the letter was seized and brought to Francis Cave, a Justice, in whose judgment its writer "seemeth to myselyke the usage of the quene's majestic towardes the quene of Scottes, & also of our relligion used here in Inglond contrary to the honour of the quene's majestic & the laws of her realm". He accordingly examined Douglas, and sent the examination with the letter up to London to the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire, with the suggestion that if he "confer with Mr. Secretary or some other of the Council, & peruse his letters, I think you will find that he deserves punishment". Meanwhile Cave detained Douglas in the jail.

Mary was held in South Yorkshire in 1570-1571. Evidently, Douglas was released. Burton and Pollen believe that the Father George Douglas described above with his connection to Mary, Queen of Scots, was the same Father George Douglas executed on September 9, 1587 in York:

This martyr's name is found in Wilson's Catalogue, the appendix to his English Martyrologe, published at St. Omer's in 1608, and is included in nearly all subsequent lists of the martyrs. What is known for certain concerning him is found in the Collectanea of Father Christopher Grene, S.J., who tells that he suffered at York on 9 September, 1587. The substance of what Father Grene had ascertained is as follows. At Ripon George Douglas fell into a discussion in which he asserted that the offspring of priests are illegitimate, and denied that the State bishops were real bishops. For this he was denounced, examined and imprisoned for about the space of a year. He was put in the stocks and then kept in irons in a dark dungeon. . . .

Finally tried, and refusing to accept Queen Elizabeth I as the supreme governor of the Church in England, he was condemned to death. Blessed George Douglas endured a horrific execution:

Commending himself unto God, he was cast off the ladder, and the sheriff commanded to cut the rope. The topman not being hasty, one of the bailiffs with his halbert burst the rope asunder, and the martyr fell on his back, and quickly sat up. Then came two butcherly slaves, the one took hold of his feet, and the other of the rope, and so strangling him, and trailing him to the fire, ripped him. He offered to put his hand to the place, and to rise up, but was held down for all his struggling. His tongue was heard to go. Thus cruelly this holy martyr died, and was executed for the profession of the Catholic faith, September 9, 1587. He is described as "a learned man, sharp in speech ; a stout champion, who handled Catholic controversy with much force. Marvellous stout, and zealous to suffer anything for Christ's sake."

King James I's Grandfather, RIP

On September 4, 1571, King James I/VI's paternal grandfather died. His son Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, consort of Mary, Queen of Scots, had been murdered almost four and a half years earlier--this image depicts his younger son, Charles, himself, and his wife Margaret (Douglas), and young James VI (who was not even a year old when his father died) praying for the soul of Henry.

Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox was the 4th Earl of Lennox (sic), and leader of the Catholic nobility in Scotland. He was the son of John Stewart, 3rd Earl of Lennox. His grandson was James VI of Scotland.

The Lennox Stewart lands lay mostly north of the Clyde, but the family also had close connections with nobles from the west highlands and the Isles. Matthew´s younger brother Robert Stewart was nominated bishop of Caithness in 1541, though he was never consecrated. They had also gained renown in France; Lennox´s uncle Robert Stewart, seigneur d´Aubigny (c.1470–1544), had moved to France in the 1490s and there enjoyed a distinguished military career.

He had various marriage prospects:

Although Lennox had come to Scotland possibly with the prospect of marriage to Mary of Guise, by September Lennox had been offered the chance to marry Margaret Douglas, daughter of Margaret Tudor and half-sister of the deceased James V. Meanwhile François I continued to regard him as an ambassador of France, and when the French king finally sent representatives (Jacques de la Brosse and Jules de Menage) to Scotland they were strictly instructed to liaise with Lennox and to place all their trust in him. Thus they went to Dumbarton in late September and unloaded the entire contents (weapons, powder, presents, and money) of their seven vessels into the castle´s keeping. Just how much was brought by them is not certain, but during their embassy they promised pensions of over 2500 crowns of the sun and their total costs came to 41,700 livres tournois. None of the money was ever seen again: Lennox was becoming a very rich and well-armed man. The money and supplies were not intended for the earl´s personal use, however, and by commandeering them he was weakening the French cause in Scotland, faced as it was by a party backed by England. Lennox´s reluctance to co-operate with potential allies in Scotland itself worked to the same effect. Presumably it was in the hope of retaining his loyalty that Mary of Guise proposed that he should marry her daughter, Queen Mary, on condition of his handing over the French money and supporting the Franco-Scottish alliance. It was not until November 1543 that the French appreciated how damaging to their cause his actions had become.

He finally arranged the marriage of his son to Mary:

He returned to Scotland upon Elizabeth I of England´s urging during the marriage negotiations of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1564. He quickly took up his position as the most powerful lord in the Glasgow area and was instrumental in the marriage of his son, Lord Darnley, to Mary. Whether Elizabeth had intended this (in order to eliminate the threat of a continental marriage), as is sometimes conjectured, remains doubtful. Elizabeth reacted with disapproval and had Lennox´s wife confined in the Tower of London. By August 1565, William Cecil had heard that Darnley´s insolence had driven Lennox from the Scottish court.

After Darnley was murdered early in 1567, Lennox was the most ardent pursuant of justice against the lords who had conspired in the murder. He also became the main witness against Mary.

In 1570, Lennox became regent for his grandson, James VI, but the queen´s party declared war against him. He was shot dead next year in a skirmish when the queen´s party attacked Stirling. The raid on Stirling on 4 September 1571 was led by the Earl of Huntly, Claude Hamilton, and the lairds of Buccleuch and Ferniehurst. Early reports said he was killed by his own side. William Kirkcaldy of Grange said the shot was fired by the queen´s party, and another account names David Bochinant as the assassin.

June 17, 1567: Mary Queen of Scots Imprisoned

After her army lost the Battle of Carberry Hill on the 15th of June, Mary of Scotland was taken as a prisoner to Loch Leven Castle. As this website notes:

Mary was taken here in mid-June 1567 after her defeat at Carberry Hill by Lords Lindsay and Ruthven, under her half-brother's instructions, Lord Moray. The castle was the property of Sir William Douglas, Moray's half-brother, where he lived with his wife, children, mother, another of his brother and another youngster. The mother was Margaret Erskine, known as Lady Douglas, who had married his father, Robert Douglas. Robert Douglas had died at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547 but Margaret had borne him seven children. Before her marriage, Margaret had been the mistress of Mary's father, James V, and six children were born out of the relationship. Margaret always resented Mary's presence on the throne, when her own son, Moray could have been there instead. The other son on the island was George Douglas, young and handsome, who fell in love with Mary from the start and would later help her escape from Lochleven. The other youth, a boy between fourteen and sixteen years of age, was Willie or "Wee Douglas", reputed to be an orphaned cousin but possibly an illegitimate son of William Douglas. Willie Douglas was also bewitched by the Queen and played an important part in her escape.

It is on this island that Mary gave birth for the second time. It is disputed at what stage of pregnancy she was. Mary herself allegedly said that she was seven months pregnant in July, which would mean that she was already with Bothwell months before Darnley's murder. The second dispute is over what happened to the child. The most widely accepted theory as narrated by Claude Nau, her secretary who wrote under her authority, is that there were stillborn twins who were buried on the island. Nevertheless, another version, found in Castelnau's memoirs, is that Mary gave birth later to a daughter who was smuggled out of Lochleven and sent to France. Mary's French relatives would have sent her to a convent in Soissons where she became a nun. Although improbable, the story is not impossible. Whatever the truth, Mary did fall very ill on the island, and it was in this weakened and vulnerable state that Moray sent Lords Ruthven, Melville and Lindsay to present her with abdication papers. She was forced to sign them under threat from Lindsay on 24 July 1567. Forever wanting to see the good in people, Mary continued her plea to Moray who deceitful as always, maintained that he kept her in Lochleven for her own safety. On 22 August, he was made Regent.

She would escape on May 2, 1568, aided by Willie Douglas and George Douglas. Mary gathered a new army to regain the throne from Moray and her one year old son, but was defeated again at the Battle of Langside on May 13 that year. Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll was the commander of her army and he continued to support her for a time but eventually allied himself with the regency of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox in 1571. Mary fled to England, hoping for Elizabeth's help and ended up her cousin's prisoner for years.

The painting, Mary, Queen of Scots Escaping from Loch Leven Castle is by William Craig Shirreff:

In 1805, this painting won a student prize for Shirreff while he was at the Trustees’ Academy. He chose an episode from the life of Mary, Queen of Scots which had been related by Gilbert Stuart in his influential ‘History of Scotland’ (1783). In a letter to his father the young artist wrote: "I have taken the point of time when Lord Seaton is receiving Mary from the boat, and young George Douglas handing her on and one of the attendants holding the horse that the Queen is to ride on. I am very pleased with it myself." By the early nineteenth century, Mary was a popular romantic heroine. William Lizars, one of Shirreff’s friends, engraved this painting after the young artist’s premature death.

I find this genre of historical paintings so fascinating: the artist imagines a historical scene and depicts it to whatever degree of verisimilitude he or she finds appropriate (dress, props, etc). The artist's efforts tell us more about his or her own era than the event or era depicted. Mary, Queen of Scots was an incredibly romantic and tragic figure in the early 19th century. Schiller's play, Maria Stuart, had influenced her historical reputation--and Donizetti's 1835 opera would continue that romanticizing trend.

Shirreff wants to depict her beauty and her charm--indeed, her effect on men--in this painting. I think he succeeded (and so did he!).

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.

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.

The Lost Songs of St. Kilda

This kind of story and endeavor resonates with me. Although the Catholic faith and culture in England didn't come down to one man giving that knowledge to another, there was a remnant left to sustain it and help revive it when the time came. The new CD, The Lost Songs of St. Kilda represents an even more tenuous remnant: one man remembering the old songs of a forsaken home and teaching them to another; that other man in old age remembering the old songs of that forsaken home and playing them; and a third man, recording the songs for the rest of us to hear and glimpse the life that is gone. As BBC Scotland News tells the story:

It all began when Trevor Morrison sat down at the piano in Edinburgh's Silverlea Care Home 10 years ago and began to play.

The magic did not go unnoticed.

The tunes were simple, naive even, but memorable and with an extraordinary emotional depth.

As a 10-year-old child on the west coast island of Bute during World War Two, Trevor had been taught piano by a former resident of St Kilda.

His teacher had left the remote archipelago in the outer Hebrides when they were evacuated in 1930.

Somehow, a lifetime later and in failing health, Trevor managed to remember the tunes his teacher had shown him.

Stuart McKenzie, who had been volunteering in the care home, offered to record them.

"He played the most astonishing tunes. They were so different. Complicated, but simple," Mr McKenzie says.

"I went home, got my computer, downloaded a bit of software and went along to a local electrical store and paid £3 for a microphone we could put down the back of the piano for him. And away he went."

Decca has combined the recordings of Morrison made by McKenzie with orchestrations of the melodies and works inspired by the music. This website has samples of the music and a timeline of the history of St. Kilda, which is not really named for any saint as far as anyone can tell.

The album won't be released in the United States until early October. It is a remarkable survival of aspects of a lost culture.

Scotland and Catholic Revival

Once a name pops up, it keeps popping up! Here's George Mackay Brown again, this time in an article by Tracey Rowland for The Catholic World Report:

On a recent trip to Scotland Bishop Gilbert of Aberdeen asked me whether I was familiar with the Scottish writer George Mackay Brown. I had to confess that I had never heard of him. A few days later I was rummaging through second-hand book stores searching for everything and anything by Mackay Brown.

Bishop Gilbert had got me hooked by suggesting I read Mackay Brown’s essay “The Treading of Grapes,” which takes the form of three homilies on the Wedding Feast of Cana. One is delivered in 1788 by a classically Calvinist Presbyterian minister, down on every kind of human enjoyment from wine to party dresses. He uses the story of Cana to berate his flock about spending too much money on their wives’ wardrobes, and drinking too much at weddings. He compared their enjoyment of ale to piglets sucking on the teats of a sow.

The second homily is delivered in the 20th century by a modern liberal Protestant minister, who uses the homily to explain that Jesus didn’t really turn water into wine. There was no miracle. Jesus was simply a good organizer who saw to it behind the scenes that supplies were sufficient. 

Finally, one is treated to a homily by a Catholic priest delivered in 1548. Rather than berating people as piglets, or denying the reality of miracles, the priest tells his congregation that at the wedding feast of the Lamb they will all be princes. Therefore, he says, I will call you Olaf the Fisherman and Jock the Crofter no longer, but I will call you by the name the Creator will call you on the last day—princes! Prince Olaf! Prince Jock!, et cetera.

Professor Tracey Rowland is Dean and Permanent Fellow of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family (Melbourne) and a member of the International Theological Commission.. She earned her doctorate in philosophy from Cambridge University and her Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. She is the author of Culture and the Thomist Tradition after Vatican II (2003),Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (2008) and Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed (2010).

Because of her interest in Pope Benedict, she knows how he likes cats (he met the Oratorian cat in Birmingham during his 2010 visit to England and Scotland) and so she noted the popularity of the Pluscarden Abbey cat:

An unanticipated surprise was my discovery of Baxter, the monastery cat, who is named after the soup factory in the nearby town. He is famous. Baxter memorabilia brings in more money at the gift shop than sales of any other item, including Rosary beads, books, soap, and medicinal products. Baxter cards, calendars, and coffee-table booklets outsell everything. He is at his best with the many families who visit during the summer months. He meets and greets and plays with the children. Even though he has only half a tail, he is not shy or self-conscious.

I was pleased to hear that the monastery had a pro-cat policy. I said that I thought Pope Benedict would strongly approve, and I was told that Pope Benedict knows about Baxter.

Pluscarden's on-line gift shop isn't open now, but you can see a photo of Baxter on the 2016 calendar (May). I'm not going to get a cat (can't breath around one) but I guess I'd better get some books by George Mackay Brown!

Happy Birthday, Hugh Blair!

Hugh Blair, minister and rhetorician, was born on April 7, 1718. After his sermons, he is best known for his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres, in which he argued against sophistry (defending a position you don't believe in yourself) and analysed works of literature from the ancient Greeks and Romans to eighteenth century French and English plays.

The University Bookman posts an appreciation:

One of the most successful of all nineteenth-century textbooks was Hugh Blair’s weighty Rhetoric. Between 1783 (the date of their first publication) and 1911 (the last full edition before that here under review) at least one hundred and thirty issues of this memorable course of lectures saw the light. Where English was spoken, Blair and rhetoric became almost synonymous; and in many another tongue translation brought similarly high repute. Now, thanks to the University of Southern Illinois’ “Landmarks in Rhetoric and Public Address” series, it is once again possible for the teacher and apprentice in this most civil and public of disciplines to inquire why his predecessors thought so well of the Edinburgh cleric-professor’s handiwork and to re-examine with Blair’s “original” in facsimile before them, the grounds and normative (i.e., historical) implications of their (ordinarily) very different preferences. . . .

Blair’s Rhetoric was by his own admission not a revolutionary, experimental, or speculative book, not a scholar’s treatise designed to rival George Campbell’s The Philosophy of Rhetoric or Whately’s Elements of Criticism; instead (and most simply) it was intended as a useful tool—an adaptation of classical rhetoric and rhetorical criticism to suit the purposes of post-Augustan gentlemen, an affirmation of certain constants in the conduct and relations of civilized men and (by implication) of the “ethics” that belong to both: in the terms of two of its present-day admirers, a “rhetoric of belles lettres” for “all comparing in and judging of language.”

Blair knew very well what ends he would serve. For he was among the leading citizens of the old Scots capital in some of its greatest days, a friend of Lord Kames, Hume, and Robertson, a familiar of Boswell, Dr. Johnson, and Adam Smith; and for forty years he gave himself to the local university, to the perpetuation of his kind. As the first Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh—and even before—the rector of the High Kirk of St. Giles practiced upon Scotland’s future leaders and spokesmen what his own education, pulpit experience, and conversations with men of parts and learning convinced him was the art of rhetoric—of both the spoken and written word when considered as purposive, “designed.”

Please read the rest there.

The Southern Illinois University Press describes their latest (2005) edition of Blair's Rhetoric thus:

This new edition of Hugh Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, edited by Linda Ferreira-Buckley and S. Michael Halloran, answers the need for a complete, reliable text. The book seeks to generate a renewed interest in Blair by provoking new inquiries into the tradition of belletristic rhetoric and by serving as both aid and incentive to others who may join in the project of improving understanding of this landmark rhetorical scholarship.

This edition contains forty-seven lectures and remains faithful to the text of the 1785 London edition. The editors contextualize Hugh Blair’s motivations and thinking by providing in their introduction an extended account of Blair’s life and era. The bibliography of works by and about Blair is an invaluable aid, surpassing previous research on Blair.

Although the extent of its influence cannot be measured fully, Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres was undoubtedly a primary vehicle for introducing many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholars to classical rhetoric and French belletristic rhetoric—its success due in part to the ease with which the lectures combine neoclassical and Enlightenment thought, accommodating emerging social concerns. Ferreira-Buckley and Halloran’s extensive treatment revives the tradition of belletristic rhetoric, improving the understanding of Blair’s place in the study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century discourse, while finding him relevant in the twenty-first century.

The Scottish "War on Christmas"

You've heard of the Puritan ban on Christmas in England and the British Colonies: but the Reformation in Scotland, led by John Knox, led to a long, long ban on the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus (starting in 1640), according to this article in The Catholic Herald:

Unlike the recent “wars on Christmas”, the four centuries-long Scottish indifference to the birthday of Jesus was rooted in the Reformation and John Knox’s rejection of many forms of Catholic worship. Until then Yule had happily been celebrated with “games and feasting”.

The present minister at Canongate, the Rev Neil Gardner, explains that “Knox took a dim view on this, and associated Christmas with excessive frivolity”. Knox, having abandoned the grandeur of St Andrew’s Cathedral, also rejected celibacy for priests and nuns, bishoprics, belief in purgatory, the Virgin Mary, rosary beads, saints, the Pope, holy water and incense. The fiery preacher did not stop there. He set his face resolutely against the observance of the Christian year and all its festivals, including Christmas, on the grounds that the Lord’s Day alone could claim scriptural authority.

In 1640, an Act of the Parliament of Scotland abolished the “Yule vacation and all observation thereof in time coming … the kirke within this kingdome is now purged of all superstitious observatione of dayes…”

The historical basis of the Christmas feast was not difficult for Knox and other Reformists to challenge. As Jews didn’t celebrate birthdays, there is nothing in the Gospels, or even in the books by Josephus, about the month, let alone the day, when Jesus was born. But it is well known that in the 4th century Emperor Constantine introduced December 25, the feast day of his former god, Mithras, as the birthday of Christ – a convenient date as it coincided with multitudes of other pagan celebrations around the European winter solstice.

The Rev Charles Robertson admits that Christmas is “a Christianised pagan festival” but thinks it is a special date for all Christians as “it is important to walk through the year with Christ, marking it with the events of Jesus’s life – Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost”. When I asked what he thought had brought around the change in Scottish attitudes to Christmas, he spoke of the influence of the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, such as David Hume and Adam Smith, and the inheritance of their liberalising attitudes.

I doubt that David Hume, who thoroughly despised Catholicism, would have much to do with the revival of Christmas. The Enlightenment did not really liberalize attitudes toward Catholics or anything connected to Catholicism. Remember that John Locke in England denied that Catholics were even Christian! Perhaps it was the number of Irish coming to Scotland in the nineteenth century adding to the numbers of native Catholics who had survived the long period of oppression or the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in Scotland by Pope Leo XIII in 1878 that brought the celebration of Christmas back. 

Christmas became a public holiday in 1958.

Dowager Queen of France, Mary Queen of Scots

With the death of her husband, Francis II, on December 5, 1560, Mary, the Queen of Scotland entered a period of mourning and seclusion--just in case she was pregnant with her late husband's heir. As this website points out, however, that was as unlikely as the supposed pregnancy at the beginning of the reign:

About a month after Henry [II]’s death, Mary started to believe that she was pregnant. Given the accepted view that Francis was sterile, it is hard to envisage that she genuinely thought this. If true, it would have placed her in an unassailable position as the mother of a Valois heir. She would be positioned behind the throne in the event of her husband’s early demise. Yet by September she realised this was a false alarm. Although the Guises must have been disappointed, they made light of it, pointing out that a sixteen-year-old king and his young bride had plenty of time to produce children.

Yet Catherine and the Guises had great concerns about Francis’s well-being. They will have been well aware of his sexual shortcomings, with such matters being common knowledge within the inner circle close to the Crown. He was also increasingly unwell. His face had become blotchy and his continuing running nose and dizziness were caused by an abscess developing behind his ear. He progressively deteriorated for about a year before he died, and Catherine positioned herself in the event of having to face the worst. Already an adept political intriguer, she remained at Mary’s side showing her maternal kindness, while almost imperceptibly weaning her from her uncles’ influence, loosening their grip on power. She eventually became the principal force in government, Regent in all but name. Yet she too faced criticism. Pamphlets were describing her as a whore with a leper for a son. . . .

In mid-November, after hunting near Orléans, Francis complained of a recurring dizziness and a buzzing in his ear. On the following Sunday, he collapsed in church and had a swelling ‘the size of a large nut’from an abscess behind his ear, causing stabbing pains in his head. When the doctors lanced it, puss was discharged through his mouth and nostrils, providing temporary relief, but he remained gravely ill. By late November, he was suffering seizures and was unable to move or speak. Mary and Catherine nursed him between them and sought divine aid by walking in procession with his brothers to nearby churches. The doctors bled him, purged him with enemas including rhubarb and considered boring through his scull to relieve the pressure. This was averted when the discharge appeared to stop, only to be followed by another substantial eruption of puss from his ear, nose and mouth, which made him delirious. On the morning of his death on 5 December 1560, he was completely debilitated and, after lying prostrate all day, died in the late evening. He had not reached his seventeenth birthday. The lingering hopes of the Guises were left in tatters. Catherine de Medici had no further need to cosset her daughter-in-law, and Mary had little choice but to return to her kingdom in Scotland.

Mary was returning to Scotland after living in France for 13 years. Her mother, Mary of Guise, had died on June 11, 1560, and Scotland was in the grip of John Knox's Reformation. Mary and the Catholics at her Court would be able to attend Mass and receive the Sacraments (there would be priests at Court obviously) but she agreed not to oppose the Reformation--thus she would go home, the Dowager Queen of France and Queen of Scotland.

David Cardinal Beaton, RIP

On May 29, 1546 the Cardinal Archbishop of St. Andrews, David Beaton, the last Catholic Cardinal named before the Scottish Reformation erupted, was murdered at St. Andrew's Castle. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Beaton was very much involved in diplomatic events throughout the reigns of James V and Mary, Queen of Scots:

His first ecclesiastical preferment was to the rectories of Campsie and Cambushing, to which he was presented by his uncle, the Archbishop of Glasgow, and when the latter was translated to the primatial see in 1522, he resigned to his nephew the commendatory Abbacy of Arbroath, obtaining for him from Pope Adrian IV a dispensation from wearing the monastic habit. Beaton returned from France in 1525, took his seat in Parliament as Abbot of Arbroath, and was soon created by the young king Lord Privy Seal, in succession to Bishop Crichton of Dunkeld. James dispatched him to Paris in 1533, with Sir Thomas Erskine, in order to renew the Scottish alliance with Francis I, and to negotiate for the marriage of James with Magdalen, only daughter of the French king. Beaton was present at the marriage of the royal pair at Notre-Dame on 1 January, 1537, and returned with them to Scotland in May; but the young queen died of consumption two months later. We next find Beaton on a mission in England, negotiating about certain difficulties which had arisen on the Border. The Queen-Mother (Margaret) wrote specially commending the Abbot of Arbroath to her brother, Henry VIII, mentioning that he was "gret wyth the Kyng" (of Scots). A few months later he was again in Paris, arranging for the marriage of his widowed king with Mary of Guise. After the ceremony (by proxy) in the French capital, Beaton conducted the bride to Scotland, assisted at the solemnization of the marriage in St. Andrews Cathedral, and was afterwards sponsor (together with the Archbishop of Glasgow) to the first child that was born of the union. His elevation to the episcopate took place during this second embassy to the French court. King Francis nominated him to the Bishopric of Mirepoix (a suffragan see of Toulouse, with an annual revenue of 10,000 livres), and he received the papal confirmation on 5 December, 1537. Two months later he assisted at the coronation of James and Mary at Holyrood, himself crowning the queen.

Cardinal Beaton urged resistance to Henry VIII's attempts to sway King James V--Henry wanted James to follow his lead in usurping ecclesiastical authority and breaking away from the Catholic Church and the Papacy. Henry especially urged James to suppress the monasteries and take all their wealth:

His intrigues being baffled, Henry had recourse to force; and hostilities broke out between the two kingdoms in 1542. The Scotch, successful in the first engagement, were hopelessly defeated by the English forces on Solway Moss, and James died broken-hearted at Falkland soon afterwards, leaving a daughter (Mary) a week old, to inherit the crown. Beaton produced a document in which he, with three nobles, was appointed regent by the late monarch's will; but the nobles assembled in Edinburgh refused to act on this, declared the Earl of Arran (heir- presumptive to the throne) regent during the queen's minority, and imprisoned the cardinal on a false charge of conspiring with the Duke of Guise against Arran's authority. Henry now commenced negotiations with the Scottish regent and Parliament with the object of arranging a marriage between the infant queen and his own heir (afterwards Edward VI), of getting the Scottish fortresses and the government of the country committed into his hands, and the person of Mary entrusted to his custody. Arran and the Parliament agreed to the project of marriage, but were resolute against the rest of Henry's schemes. Meanwhile the unjust imprisonment of the cardinal-primate had been followed by the proclamation of an interdict throughout the kingdom; and so deep was the feeling aroused among the still Catholic people by the closing of the churches and the suspension of the sacraments that it was thought prudent at once to release Beaton. The undaunted primate instantly summoned the bishops and clergy to St. Andrews; and the assembly, fully alive to that imminent danger (menacing both Church and State) of Henry's insolent demands, spontaneously voted a large sum, taxed on their own benefices, in defence of the national rights. Beaton by his patriotic ardour awakened similar sentiments in the people at large; the person of the baby queen was safeguarded, and a number of the nobles, including the regent himself (who about this time abjured the new doctrines and submitted to the Catholic Church), abandoned their unnatural alliance with the enemies of Scotland, and ranged themselves on the cardinal's side.

Cardinal Beaton was therefore an enemy to Henry VIII, who attempted to have him assassinated through the efforts of George Wishart, whom Beaton had put on trial for heresy in March, 1546--Wishart was found guilty of heresy, having denied the Real Presence, the Sacrament of Confession, and free will. He was strangled and then burned at the stake on March 28, 1546. Norman Leslie,Master of Rothes, with his uncle John Leslie, Kirkaldy of Grange, and James Melville murdered the Cardinal two months and a day later. The Catholic Encyclopedia article denies it, but other reports indicate that Beaton had a mistress, Marion Ogilvy, with whom he had several children. He served more as a statesman than as a priest--he was Chancellor of Scotland when murdered--and he requested a dispensation from Pope Paul III from attending the Council of Trent because of his work in Scotland.

"Tudors v. Stuarts" or "Crown of Thistles"

Deep as I am in Jessie Childs' God's Traitors, reading about the Babington Plot and the Vaux family connections to the eponymous plotter, and Mary Stuart's role in the plot to depose "the usurper" so she could be free and reign in England--reading about Linda Porter's new book about the Tudors and the Stuarts resonated immediately.

From the U.K. publisher, with the U.K. title:

Mary Queen of Scots fervently believed she had a right to the English throne - a belief that cost her her head. A vivid account of why she came to this belief from an acclaimed Tudor historian

The struggle between the fecund Stewarts and the barren Tudors is generally seen only in terms of the relationship between Elizabeth I and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. But very little has been said about the background to their intense rivalry. Here, Linda Porter examines the ancient and intractable power struggle between England and Scotland, a struggle intensified during the reigns of Elizabeth and Mary's grandfathers. Henry VII aimed to provide stability when he married his daughter, Margaret, to James IV of Scotland in 1503. But he must also have known that Margaret's descendants might seek to rule the entire island. Crown of Thistles is the story of a divided family, of flamboyant kings and queens, cultured courts and tribal hatreds, blood feuds, rape and sexual licence on a breath-taking scale, and violent deaths. It also brings alive a neglected aspect of British history - the blood-spattered steps of two small countries on the fringes of Europe towards an awkward unity that would ultimately forge a great nation. Beginning with the unlikely and dramatic victories of two usurping kings, one a rank outsider and the other a fourteen-year-old boy who rebelled against his own father, the book sheds new light on Henry VIII, his daughter, Elizabeth, and on his great-niece, Mary Queen of Scots, still seductive more than 400 years after her death.

 

From the U.S. publisher with the U.S. title:

 

The war between the fertile Stewarts and the barren Tudors was crucial to the history of the British Isles in the sixteenth century. The legendary struggle, most famously embodied by the relationship between Elizabeth I and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, was fuelled by three generations of powerful Tudor and Stewart monarchs. It was the marriage of Margaret Tudor, elder sister of Henry VIII, to James IV of Scotland in 1503 that gave the Tudors a claim to the English throne—a claim which became the acknowledged ambition of Mary Queen of Scots and a major factor in her downfall.

Here is the story of divided families, of flamboyant kings and queens, cultured courts and tribal hatreds, blood feuds, rape and sexual license, of battles and violent deaths. It brings alive a neglected aspect of British history—the blood-spattered steps of two small countries on the northern fringes of Europe towards the union of their crowns. Beginning with the dramatic victories of two usurpers, Henry VII in England and James IV in Scotland, in the late fifteenth century, Linda Porter's Tudors Versus Stewarts sheds new light on Henry VIII, his daughter Elizabeth I and on his great-niece, Mary Queen of Scots, still seductive more than 400 years after her death.

 

It's interesting to note, not only the change in title for the U.S. audience, but the subtle changes in wording for the U.S. blurb (fertile vs. fecund!)--not to mention the different spellings of the same word (licence/license). The original title is much more evocative--the "crown of thistles" Mary of Scotland inherited contains an allusion to the "crown of thorns"; but I presume the publishers judged that U.S. audiences wouldn't get the meaning, or know that the thistle is the symbol of Scotland as the shamrock is the symbol of Ireland.

 

I also find it so fascinating now that there is a school, almost, of Tudor-Stuart biographers and historians available to review each other's works: Linda Porter, Leanda de Lisle, John Guy, Alison Weir, Giles Tremlett, etc. Here's a link to Leanda de Lisle's review of Crown of Thistles, summarized thusly:

 

In giving us the history of family rivalry to Mary’s reign and fall, Linda Porter has found a fresh approach to her biography, and told it with grace and humanity. She brings alive a thrilling story of cultured courts and violent deaths, of ambitious kings and tragic queens: executed on Elizabeth’s orders in 1587, Mary’s family’s past had indeed proved a fatal inheritance. 

St. John Ogilvie, SJ

According to this CNA story, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI encouraged devotion to St. John Ogilvie in February of 2010, before his visit to Scotland and England in September that year--then mentioned him again at the Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow the day of his arrival:

 March 10 is the liturgical memorial of Saint John Ogilvie, a 16th-and 17th-century Scotsman who converted from Presbyterianism to Catholicism, served as a Jesuit priest, and died as a martyr at the hands of state officials. St. John was executed for treason, refusing to accept King James I’s claim of supremacy over the Church. Pope Paul VI canonized him in 1976, making him Scotland’s first canonized saint for several hundred years [since 1250!]

In February 2010, during a visit to Rome by the Scottish bishops’conference, Benedict XVI asked the bishops to promote devotion to St. John Ogilvie among priests – since the Jesuit martyr had been “truly outstanding in his dedication to a difficult and dangerous pastoral ministry, to the point of laying down his life.” Later that year, during the Scottish segment of his U.K. visit, the Pope again encouraged priests to look to the saint’s “dedicated, selfless and brave” example.

The Jesuit Vocations website in Great Britain describes his early life and conversion:

John Ogilvie was born in 1579 and brought up in the Calvinist tradition. He was six or seven years old when Mary Queen of Scots died on the scaffold. He grew up as a child in a Scotland which had rejected her, and with her the old faith of his fathers. At the age of twelve he crossed to the continent in pursuit of education. But travelling in Europe broadened his mind, and he decided to become a Catholic, ending up at a Jesuit college in Austria. A year later, in 1599, he entered the Jesuit novitiate, and followed the normal Jesuit programme of noviceship, philosophy, and school teaching, in Vienna, before he was ordained in Paris in 1610.

After his capture in Glasgow, he endured great tortures:

The archbishop hit John Ogilvie in the face and said, "you are over bold to say your Masses in a reformed city," to which the Jesuit, replied, "You act like a hangman, not a bishop, in striking me." He was then beaten up by the archbishop's men, and taken off to prison and interrogation, but he never lost his spirit.

The cell they put him in stank, his feet where weighed down, and he was tortured before being taken to Edinburgh to appear before a council appointed by King James I of England (James VI of Scotland). There he was tortured by sleep deprivation for nearly ten days until December 22, but still refused to divulge names of those he had worked with or lived with. So he was sent back to prison in Glasgow, where he managed to write an account of what had happened to him since his arrest, and have it smuggled out and sent to his Jesuit superior.

His final interrogation was in January, when King James who considered himself a theologian and had taken an interest in the case, had devised some questions for him, the answer to which must be either the denial of the pope's supremacy and the assertion of the king's in religious matters, or must condemn him for treason. John Ogilvie replied that only the pope, and not the king, had power in religious matters, and also that the pope could both excommunicate and depose the king. When the king read these responses he gave orders that John was to be tried on March 10 and executed if he would not change.

At 11 a.m. at Tollbooth in Glasgow John went on trial for high treason. He was found guilty by lunchtime, and executed at 4 p.m. He kissed the scaffold as he went, and spent some time in prayer, then was pushed off the ladder Since he did not die immediately, the hangman pulled on legs to finish the agony. Unusually, and despite the sentence he had been given, his body was not quartered but buried in a criminal’s graveyard.

The CNA story offers these further details of his execution:

Attempts to ply John with bribery – in exchange for his return to Protestantism, and his betrayal of fellow Catholics – continued even as he was being led to his execution. His own defiant words are recorded: for the Catholic faith, he said, he would "willingly and joyfully pour forth even a hundred lives. Snatch away that one which I have from me, and make no delay about it, but my religion you will never snatch away from me!"

Asked whether he was afraid to die, the priest replied: “I fear death as much as you do your dinner.” St. John Ogilvie was executed by hanging on March 10, 1615.

As a last gesture before his hanging, St. John had tossed his Rosary beads into the crowd where they were caught by a Calvinist nobleman. The man, Baron John ab Eckersdorff, later became a Catholic, tracing his conversion to the incident and the martyr’s beads.

A prayer for the courage to imitate St. John Ogilvie:

God our Father, fountain of all blessing, We thank you for the countless graces that come to us in answer to the prayers of your saints. With great confidence we ask you in the name of your Son and through the prayers of St John Ogilvie to help us in all our needs.   

Lord Jesus, you chose your servant St John Ogilvie to be your faithful witness to the spiritual authority of the chief shepherd of your flock. Keep your people always one in mind and heart, In communion with [Francis] our Pope, and all the bishops of your Church.   

Holy Spirit, you gave St John Ogilvie light to know your truth, wisdom to defend it, and courage to die for it. Through his prayers and example bring our country into the unity and peace of Christ’s kingdom. Amen.