Coincidentally: Three Births on October 14

On October 14, 1630, Sophia of Hanover,  the twelfth child of Frederick V, the Elector Palatinate and Elizabeth, the Queen of Bohemia (and James I/VI's daughter) was born.

On October 14, 1633, James, the Duke of York, and future King James II, second son of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria,  was born.

On October 14, 1644, William Penn, son of Sir William Penn and his wife Margaret, was born.

All very coincidental at the time when each of these three were born, but portentous for the future, especially in matters of the English succession and religious toleration.

Sophia of Hanover replaced the direct descendants of James II in the line of succession after his daughter Mary and son-in-law William invaded England and he was declared deposed. She is pictured on the right (wikipedia source) in an Indian costume, painted by her older sister Louise. Sophia of Hanover was chosen by Parliament in 1701 because she was the closest Stuart heir who was NOT Catholic--even her elder brother Edward's children could not succeed to the throne because they were Catholic (he had married a Catholic princess and converted). This Act of Succession was necessary because William and Mary had no children (and Mary was dead by 1701 and William would not remarry), and Princess Anne Stuart's only child to survive infancy, William, Duke of Gloucester, died in 1700. James II's son, James Francis Edward, considered by his supporters to be the Prince of Wales and by his detractors, the Old Pretender, were completely shut out, of course, because what had the Glorious Revolution of 1688 been for, after all! (BTW, Sophia's elder sister Louise, the artist, had also become Catholic and a Cistercian nun and abbess!)

James II converted to Catholicism in about 1668; he succeeded his brother Charles II because Charles had no legitimate heirs. The English Parliament was opposed to his succession from the start and his son's birth and fears of another Catholic Stuart succeeding led to the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. His connection with William Penn comes because they were allies in King James' efforts to promote the Declaration of Indulgence and religious toleration in England for dissenters from the Church of England.  As this book explored the issue:

This is a critical study of the astonishing friendship between William Penn and James II—"two cardinal personalities of the modern era, authoritative men who deflected the political current of their time and left lasting influences that still can be felt on both sides of the Atlantic." Their friendship is no mere sidelight to seventeenth-century English history; indeed, it is not so much the friendship of a Quaker and a Catholic that intrigues us but, rather, the closeness of a Quaker leader and a Catholic monarch, standing together at the center of power in England for three decisive years.

Vincent Buranelli introduces his problem thus: "Nothing else in the life of William Penn has puzzled the biographers and historians so much as his persistent loyalty to James II. The antithesis between Catholic monarch and Quaker subject would seem to make any real understanding between the two men improbable; their presumed inability to speak to one another is compounded by the customary interpretation of James as a would-be tyrant and of Penn as an apostle of religious liberty; and yet Penn was not only a courtier throughout his reign but also a friend, possibly the best friend, of the King. . . . James II is one of the most reviled figures of modern history. William Penn is one of the most revered. How is their steadfast friendship to be explained?"

"Penn was loyal to James II, and he was right," argues Buranelli. His book texts (sic) this hypothesis and, in doing so, makes sense of a hitherto baffling side of William Penn.

Blogging about Blogging: The Quebec Act @ NCReg

So this is a meta blog post, posting about another blog post at the National Catholic Register: a follow-up with background to explain why Fanny Allen's mother and stepfather were so worried about her going to Catholic Canada:

This fear of Catholics and of Canadian Catholics in particular had deep colonial roots in the French and Indian War (part of the Seven Years’ War fought between France and England in several colonial territories) and the 1774 Quebec Act. Great Britain, with help from their British colonists in North America, won the war in 1763 and had obtained the French territory of Quebec in Canada. The colonists were pleased with the defeat of Catholic France.

Eleven years later, Parliament passed the Quebec Act, integrating the former French colony into British Canada. American colonists were not pleased with many of the decisions reached by Parliament. Although the issue of religious liberty among Protestants was tremendously important in the revolutionary period, as Thomas S. Kidd recounts in God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (Basic Books, 2012), American Protestants did not think that Catholics should be free to practice their faith.

The Quebec Act allowed Catholics in Canada, unlike Catholics in England or other British colonies, not only to practice their faith freely, but to serve in government offices without taking an oath that denied their faith. Catholics in England, Scotland and Ireland could not serve in political office because they would have had to deny the Real Presence in the Eucharist (which the government called Transubstantiation), the invocation of saints, and the authority of the pope. Catholics in Canada could simply swear loyalty to King George III.

In the background for all the British American colonists, even those in Pennsylvania, like Benjamin Franklin (picture in the fur hat that he procured in Canada and that became such a fashion statement in Paris), the specter of James II--and the more remote horrors of the Gunpowder Plot, the Spanish Armada and even the fires of Smithfield--dominated their view of Catholics and the Papacy. Franklin, with his career in Pennsylvania, should have known a little about William Penn's support of James II's efforts to bring religious toleration to England. His speaking and campaigning for the Act of Toleration got Penn in trouble: he was imprisoned and accused of being a Papist!

Speaking of Coincidences! Two Champions of Religious Toleration Born

Two allies in the effort to bring religious toleration and freedom of conscience to England were born on the same date, in 1633 and 1644, respectively: James, the Duke of York (later James II) and William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania.

On October 14, 1633, King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria welcomed the birth of their second son and third child, further securing the succession. James was titled the Duke of York. During the English Civil War he was captured by Fairfax but escaped to Holland.

He served in the armies of France and of Spain while on the Continent after the fall of the monarchy and the execution of his father. He secretly married Anne Hyde, the daughter of Lord Clarendon in 1660, but continued his womanizing ways. Anne bore him two daughters, Mary and Anne. When Charles II returned to England and the throne, James became the Lord High Admiral and declared himself a Catholic in 1672.

Anne Hyde, the Duchess of York had also become a Catholic and died in 1671--James then married Mary Beatrice of Modena, a Catholic Italian princess.

 

Of course, the crucial event of his life--at least as it influenced his reign--was the birth of his only son, James Francis Edward on June 10, 1688. In combination with his efforts to make religious toleration and freedom of conscience the law the in England, this birth of a Catholic prince led to the Glorious Revolution, as his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange deposed him in 1688.

His reputation for courage in battle suffered after the invasion of William of Orange. He panicked and fled for France. Before the Battle of the Boyne he suffered nose bleeds and did not execute a successful battle plan. The Encyclopedia Britannica in 1910 offered this harsh assessment:

"The political ineptitude of James is clear; he often showed firmness when conciliation was needful, and weakness when resolution alone could have saved the day. Moreover, though he mismanaged almost every political problem with which he personally dealt, he was singularly tactless and impatient of advice. But in general political morality he was not below his age, and in his advocacy of toleration decidedly above it. He was more honest and sincere than Charles II, more genuinely patriotic in his foreign policy, and more consistent in his religious attitude. That his brother retained the throne while James lost it is an ironical demonstration that a more pitiless fate awaits the ruler whose faults are of the intellect, than one whose faults are of the heart."

The line, "But in general political morality he was not below his age, and in his advocacy of toleration decidedly above it" does give James the credit he deserves although it does not go far enough. James did not just advocate toleration or tolerance; his Declaration of Indulgence addresses freedom of conscience for his subjects.

Also, as I have alluded to Edward Corps' The Court in Exile before, he seems to have repented both for the moral harm he did in being unfaithful to both his wives and for the political errors he made in ruling while he lived in France at St. Germain-en-Laye. James became prayerful and devout, and more sincerely lived up to his religious beliefs.

 

James II's ally in the campaign for religious liberty and freedom of conscience was William Penn, born on November 14 in 1644. He was an early Quaker leader, the founder of Pennsylvania, and, in a way, the founder of Philadelphia, according to this wikipedia article. On October 21, 1692William and Mary removed him from the governorship of Pennsylvania, accusing him of being a Papist--all because he had worked with James II on religious freedom in England.

Deborah Kerr and The English Reformation

Today is the anniversary of the birth of one of my favorite actresses, Deborah Kerr, in 1921. You might think that there is no connection between that anniversary and the subject of this blog, but you would be wrong!

First, Deborah Kerr played Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's last wife, in the 1953 movie, Young Bess, based on Margaret Irwin's novel of the same title. Parr's Protestant evangelical tendencies are depicted when Henry VIII (played by Charles Laughton, again) accuses her of authorizing an English translation of the Holy Bible without his permission.

Secondly, Kerr played an Irish girl who hates the memory of Oliver Cromwell so much that she won't spend her honeymoon in an inn named the "Cromwell Arms" in the movie titled either The Adventurous or I See a Dark Stranger.

Thirdly, Deborah Kerr played the role of Sister Clodagh in the movie based on Rumer Godden's Black Narcissus. Rumer Godden is one of the authors I mention in my litany of conversions in the last chapter of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation. Interesting, Kathleen Byron, who plays Sister Ruth, the mad, bad nun, also appeared in Young Bess, as Anne Seymour, Edward Seymour's wife.

Finally--and this is obscure indeed--Kerr played Gulielma Maria Springett, William Penn's first wife, in Penn of Pennsylvania, a rather unsuccessful biopic of King James II's ally in the attempt to bring religious freedom to England before the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Convinced?

Making Toleration and "The Glorious Revolution"

From Harvard University Press. Definitely a new view of James II and his efforts to promote the Declaration of Indulgence for religious toleration:

In the reign of James II, minority groups from across the religious spectrum, led by the Quaker William Penn, rallied together under the Catholic King James in an effort to bring religious toleration to England. Known as repealers, these reformers aimed to convince Parliament to repeal laws that penalized worshippers who failed to conform to the doctrines of the Church of England. Although the movement was destroyed by the Glorious Revolution, it profoundly influenced the post-revolutionary settlement, helping to develop the ideals of tolerance that would define the European Enlightenment.

Based on a rich array of newly discovered archival sources, Scott Sowerby’s groundbreaking history rescues the repealers from undeserved obscurity, telling the forgotten story of men and women who stood up for their beliefs at a formative moment in British history. By restoring the repealer movement to its rightful prominence, Making Toleration also overturns traditional interpretations of King James II’s reign and the origins of the Glorious Revolution. Though often depicted as a despot who sought to impose his own Catholic faith on a Protestant people, James is revealed as a man ahead of his time, a king who pressed for religious toleration at the expense of his throne. The Glorious Revolution, Sowerby finds, was not primarily a crisis provoked by political repression. It was, in fact, a conservative counter-revolution against the movement for enlightened reform that James himself encouraged and sustained.

Table of Contents

Note to Readers
Introduction

1. Forming a Movement: James and the Repealers
2. Writing a New Magna Carta: The Ideology of Repeal
3. Fearing the Unknown: Anti-Popery and Its Limits
4. Taking Sides: The Three Questions Survey
5. Seizing Control: The Repealers in the Towns
6. Countering a Movement: The Seven Bishops Trial
7. Dividing a Nation: The Geography of Repeal
8. Dancing in a Ditch: Anti-Popery and the Revolution
9. Enacting Toleration: The Repealers and the Enlightenment

Appendix: A List of Repealer Publications
Abbreviations
Notes
Manuscripts Consulted
Acknowledgments
Index

This book, which I have ordered, should be an excellent rebuttal to works like Michael Barone's tedious and tendentious Our First Revolution, which somehow ignores the anti-Catholic legislation of the Glorious Revolution and the overturning of religious tolerance in Colonial Maryland while claiming that "the Revolutionary settlement was also a step forward for religious liberty". (Barone does add the caveat that the step forward did not include Catholics or Quakers, so it was a tiny step.) You might remember that I've mentioned William Penn's support of James II's toleration before and commented on the limited tolerance granted by the Glorious Revolution's Act of Toleration here.