The Ordinariate Restart

The Ordinary of the Our Lady of Walsingham Personal Ordinariate has called for a restart of the Ordinariate. The Tablet reports on his comments at the Chrism Mass this past Holy Week:

The leader of the ordinariate has lamented the lack of growth of the group, set up in 2011 to allow former Anglicans to enter Communion with the Catholic Church.

Mgr Keith Newton, the ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, said more must be done to boost the numbers in the canonical structure, established under Pope Benedict XVI to allow Anglicans become Catholics while preserving their “Anglican patrimony”.

In a Chrism Mass homily on Monday, Mgr Newton conceded: “We must be honest and say the ordinariate has not grown as much as we hoped it might. The vision has not been caught … We must communicate our message much more widely and with more vigour and enthusiasm.”

The group, which has around 85 priests and 1,500 lay members, is preparing an “exploration day” on 6 September named “Called to be One”. Each “cluster” of ordinariate branches should “organise an event and invite those who might be interested to learn more about that vision for unity and truth in communion with the successor of Peter,” Mgr Newton said.

Those who led the Ordinariate in formation must have had an idea of how many from the Anglican Church could be coming, and know that many of those haven't come in to what Blessed John Henry Newman called "the one true fold of Christ". Therefore, in spite of all the excellent work achieved to date (the liturgy formation, a central church in London, various programs like the annual pilgrimage to Walsingham, The Portal newsletter, etc.), the Ordinariate needs to sustain growth to remain alive.

From the Ordinariate website:

The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has announced the details of a major evangelisation initiative planned for September this year. Saturday, 6 September has been set aside as an "exploration day" when Ordinariate groups will organise local activities designed for people who are not currently part of the Ordinariate, but who wish to learn more about it. Among those invited to the events, which will be widely publicised, will be Anglicans - both lapsed and practising - who might be interested in the vision for truth and unity in communion with the successor of Peter which the Ordinariate offers. Typically, local events might include an address, a question and answer session with input from local lay members of the Ordinariate, refreshments and Evensong and/or Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

Speaking at the Ordinariate's Chrism Mass on 14 April, the Ordinary of the Ordinariate, Mgr Keith Newton, said the exploration day, which has been named "Called to be One", was part of renewed efforts on the Ordinariate's part to communicate its message "much more widely and with more vigour and enthusiasm".

Mgr Newton went on to remind the congregation of the vision that was set out in the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus. He said: "It is to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared. It is this vision which we need to foster within our own communities and which we need to communicate, both with our fellow Catholics... but also with our friends and former colleagues in the Church of England and equally Anglicans who have lapsed from the practice of the Faith. It is an important work of ecumenism".

For the success of this program: Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us! Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!

My Easter Mystagogy

Now that I have finished reading Volume I of Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth trilogy, I am reading an old book that is experiencing quite a revival: Romano Guardini's Meditations Before Mass. I have the 1959 "A Newman Paperback" from The Newman Press in Westminster, Maryland with me to read. I also have the hardcover edition from Sophia Institute Press (1993) on the shelf:

Sophia has reissued Guardini's book in a blue paperback (there's also an ebook) with an introduction by Archbishop Samuel Aquila:

The profound wisdom found in this Romano Guardini classic will help you to quiet your soul, concentrate your mind, and grow more receptive to God's grace in the Holy Mass.

Written for ordinary Catholics who are struggling to become closer to Christ, Meditations Before Mass is full of wisdom and yet offers practical, straightforward advice that will help you overcome distractions and restlessness while leading you into a more enriching experience when you enter into Holy Communion with God.

Over fifty years ago, Msgr. Romano Guardini resolved to help his parishioners move beyond the petty hindrances to full participation in the Mass—hindrances to which we are all prone. Just before Mass each Sunday, he gave a brief talk on some aspect of the Mass, teaching them week by week, topic by topic, how to prepare themselves to participate more prayerfully.

So helpful were these 32 talks that they were soon published and have since been reprinted countless times in numerous countries and languages, helping generations of Catholics to deepen their devotion during Mass.

And Ave Maria Press has issued their own edition (also with an ebook), with an introduction by Reverend Eugene F. Hemrick:

A treasury of spiritual wisdom on how to prepare your mind, body, and heart for Mass from one of the twentieth century’s great theologians, Meditations before Mass is Romano Guardini’s smart and beautiful guide to spiritual preparation for the source and summit of Christian worship.

Meditations before Mass is a wise, pastoral, and timeless classic on preparing for Mass—it is an example of twentieth-century theologian Romano Guardini at his very best. Meditations before Mass was written before Vatican II, but its relevance has endured over the past sixty years. Not a “how to” book for either the old or the new Roman Rite, it is instead a spiritual feast for the mind and heart, and a guide for modern people who wish to make sense of the Church’s feasts and liturgies. Meditations before Mass has helped thousands of readers participate more fully in Christian liturgy and continues to do so today.

In the early 1990's Sophia Institute Press began to re-issue many titles by Monsignor Romano Guardini, and I (just as I had with Thomas B. Costain's books) bought and read them all: 

The Inner Life of Jesus

The Rosary of Our Lady

Living the Drama of Faith

And the Word Dwelt Upon Us

The Art of Praying

Then I found more:
 

The Lord

The End of the Modern World

Sacred Signs

The Spirit of the Liturgy

The last title, you might recall, was re-used by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in 2000, paying homage to Guardini's great efforts in the renewal of liturgy before the Second Vatican Council. As then Cardinal Ratzinger stated in the foreword to his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, "My purpose here is to assist this renewal of understanding of the Liturgy. Its basic intentions coincide with what Guardini wanted to achieve. The only difference is that I have had to translate what Guardini did at the end of the First World War, in a totally different historical situation, into the context of our present-day questions, hopes and dangers. Like Guardini, I am not attempting to involve myself with scholarly discussion and research. I am simply offering an aid to the understanding of the faith and to the right way to give the faith its central form of expression in the Liturgy."

The Black Mass at Harvard and the English Reformation

Catholic print and social media have been reporting and commenting frequently the last several days about the planned, but cancelled, Black Mass to be "celebrated" at Harvard University, sponsored by the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club. First it was announced that the event organizers had obtained a Consecrated Host, which to Catholics meant that the Real Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity was to be desecrated in the mockery of the Black Mass--then they backed off from that claim. According to the updated accounts, the venue that was to "host" this educational event, "The Queen's Head" pub cancelled the reservation. Harvard's president descried the campus organization's plan to present the Black Mass but declined to cancel the event herself--she announced her intention to attend the Holy Hour and Benediction scheduled at St. Paul's Parish on Harvard Square. The Harvard Crimson published a student editorial against the event, while the organizers tried to have it both ways--yes, we're mocking Catholic beliefs but we don't really mean anything by it. This controversy has certainly rallied Catholics at Harvard to defend the Real Presence and make reparation for this abuse of our Faith.

The name of the pub originally set to host the Black Mass--and the fact that a pub was initially chosen for the site--called to mind some aspects of English Reformation history. The Queen's Head in Cambridge, Mass., was named for The Queen's Head pub at Southwark in London, founded by John Harvard's family; he is honored in Southwark Cathedral, the former Catholic church, now Anglican, where he was baptized. Harvard willed his library and half his estate to found a college in the Massachusetts's Bay Colony; he was a Puritan minister and his family had connections with William Shakespeare.

But the significance of the location of the Black Mass re-enactment goes deeper, I think. The true Catholic Mass was indeed celebrated in pubs, secretly, during the Penal/Recusant period in England, which lasted from the reign of Elizabeth I to the late eighteenth century. Bishop Richard Challoner celebrated Mass at The Ship Tavern as Vicar Apostolic--the pub's website gets its history wrong, indicating that Henry VIII had made the Catholic Mass illegal during his reign, when of course he still attended Catholic Mass. Under the Elizabethan recusancy laws, lay attendance at Catholic Mass was a felony; the presence of a Catholic priest in England an act of treason, and both "crimes" were punishable by execution. John Harvard probably would have viewed the celebration of the Catholic Mass at his family pub an act of idolatry--but he also would have been appalled at the worship of Satan in a pub on the campus of the university that bears his name.

Stations of the Cross in the Easter Season

The Church of the Blessed Sacrament recently acquired and restored a set of Stations of the Cross that had once been in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception here in Wichita, Kansas. Some parishioners hung them in the church on Friday last week and I went to pray the Stations of the Cross that afternoon. They replaced a set of stations that depicted just the face of Jesus at each station--so where before we had a rather minimalist interpretation of the Way of the Cross, now we have a set of dramatic vignettes. These new/old stations show each scene with Jesus at the center, of course, but with many other characters in the background or the foreground.

After I prayed the Stations, I went back around to take some pictures in the available light of the late afternoon (in a church on a north/south axis) with my husband's Canon S95. The pictures that turned out best, because of the angle at which I was taking them (perhaps four feet above my head), were those in which I zoomed in on a portion of the scene. As I viewed and re-viewed these stations, I noticed these details. From the Seventh Station: Jesus Falls the Second Time, see the dog growling at Jesus:

 

This was in the darkest part of the church in the late afternoon so it's a little grainy. From the Eighth Station: Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem: He stretches out His hand in blessing even as the soldiers are moving on from this meeting:



The sky in the background of the Tenth Station, Jesus is Stripped of His Garments, is beautiful:

Notice the argument beginning over Pilate's sign to be placed above Jesus on the Cross (do not say that "He is King of the Jews"; say that "He Said He was King of the Jews"--and Pilate's reply, What I have written, I have written) in the background of the Eleventh Station as Jesus is Nailed to the Cross:

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus consult in the background as the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. John, and St. Mary Magdalen mourn the death of Jesus in the Deposition station (the Thirteenth Station):

 

I think these Stations of the Cross complement the stained glass windows above them which depict different parables from the Gospels. The general style of garments and the colors in both the windows and the paintings match well.

 

It can seem strange to pray the Stations of the Cross and meditate on Christ's Passion and Death during the Easter Season, but it is true that without Good Friday there can be no Easter Sunday and without Easter Sunday, Good Friday has no meaning or purpose. Throughout the Easter Season, the readings from the Acts of the Apostles describe how St. Peter and the Apostles, and St. Paul preach how Jesus was crucified, died, and rose from the dead--and is alive, the Savior of the world!

The Tsar's Four Daughters: OTMA

During David Lean's epic Doctor Zhivago, the doctor/poet and his family escape the city for their country estate (but have to live in the servant's quarters because the local Communist organization has claimed the manor house for the People and the Party). They receive a newspaper with the story about the execution of the Tsar and his entire family and wonder why all of them had to die. Doctor Zhivago states that because it makes it clear there's no going back.

I have read and re-read Helen Rappaport's recounting of the last days of the family at Ekaterinburg and the eventual discovery of their bodies, confirmation of their DNA matches, and canonization as martyrs in the Russian Orthodox Church. In fact, it was the depth of religious feeling that Rappaport uncovered in the family, and in the four daughters especially, that impressed me. Rappaport tells the story of how the family attended their final Divine Liturgy; the priest who sang the service recounted an extraordinary event and changes in the family:

According to the liturgy governing a low Mass, at a determined moment, the following prayer must be read: May the souls of the departed rest in peace with Thy saints. I do not know why he did it, but my deacon, instead of merely reading the prayer, began to chant it. [This prayer is never sung except at funerals.] I followed suit, though somewhat irritated at his violation of the canons. We had barely begun when we heard, behind us, the noise of the whole imperial family throwing themselves on their knees.... At the end of the service they all approached to kiss the Cross and the deacon gave the Blessed Bread to both Emperor and Empress.... The deacon and I left in silence.... Suddenly, in front of the School of Fine Arts, the deacon said to me, Do you know, something has happened to them. As his words corresponded exactly to what I was, thinking, I stopped and asked him why he thought so. I am sure, he said; they seem so changed, and not one of them sang today. He was right, because for the first time, on July 14, not one of the Romanovs accompanied us by singing.

In her new book, Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses, Helen Rappaport focuses on Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, the young women who were horribly murdered in the cellar at Ekaterinburg on July 7, 1918. The author was interviewed in the April issue of the BBC History Magazine and commented on how devoutly Christian the four sisters were.

From the author's website:

The four captivating young Romanov sisters were perhaps the most photographed and talked about young royals of the early twentieth century. And with good reason; they were much admired for their happy dispositions, their looks, and their devotion to their parents and sick brother. From an early age they were inevitably at the centre of unceasing gossip about the dynastic marriages they might make. But who were they really beyond the saccharine image perpetuated by those now familiar photographs of them as pretty girls in white dresses and big hats? What were their personal hopes, dreams and aspirations and how did they interact with each other and with their parents? What was life really like within the highly insular Imperial Family and how did they really feel about their mother’s obsessive and all consuming love for their spoilt brother Alexey? 

Over the years, the story of the four Romanov sisters and their tragic end in a basement at Ekaterinburg in 1918 has clouded our view of them, leading to a mass of sentimental and idealized hagiography. They are too often seen merely as set dressing, the beautiful but innocuous background to the bigger, more dramatic story of their parents – Russia’s last Tsar and Tsarina, Nicholas and Alexandra. They are perceived as lovely, desirable and living charmed lives. But the truth is somewhat different.

For most of their short lives the four Romanov sisters were beautiful birds in a gilded cage, shut away at their palaces at Tsarskoe Selo or Livadia as a reaction to the fear of terrorist attacks on the Imperial Family. In reality the sisters had few friends and were largely cut off from the real world outside and the normal life experiences of other girls – that is, until everything changed in 1914. Suddenly, with Russia’s entry into the war, the girls had to grow up fast.

In a deliberate echo of the title of Chekhov’s play, Four Sisters sets out to capture the joy as well as the insecurities and poignancy of those young lives against the backdrop of the dying days of late Imperial Russia, drawing on previously unseen and unpublished letters, diaries and memoirs of the period.

The book is also the subject of a forthcoming documentary ‘Russia’s Lost Princesses’, which the author has been working on with Silver River Productions for BBC2. A transmission date will be announced soon.

The book is scheduled for release in the USA in June from St. Martin's Press (with a different, less Chekhovian title: The Romanov Sisters). It looks like an interesting book, although it seems from reviews in the U.K. that the book reveals more about the Tsarina, Alexandra Feodorovna and her control over the family, than it does about the four daughters (between 17 and 22 when they were murdered). That's certainly the view of the reviewer in The Telegraph. The reviewer in The Guardian notes the same "family dynamic" but also that the entire royal family would have been so much happier if they hadn't been reigning over the Russian Empire (the Tsar's dream is to be a farmer in England!):

Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia are bright, wilful girls who are devoted to their parents and to their precious little brother Alexey. The tsarevitch appeared just when Nicholas was despairing of ever providing the country with a male heir, and the girls grow up conspiring to keep his constantly life-endangering haemophilia a secret from the nation. Anxious to protect her son and fearing the moral iniquity of St Petersburg society, Alexandra keeps her children secluded in their countryside palace. The "girlies" (as Alexandra persists in calling them) long for news of "outside life" but have little interest in court intrigues. They are delighted when they can wander around an English village with money of their own to spend.

For all four sisters, the ideal life would be one of quiet middle-class domesticity with a soldier husband. Infantilised by Alexandra, they are allowed to run wild with the soldiers who escort them on their annual holiday to Crimea. Even as teenagers, they play boisterous games of hide and seek with the handsome young officers; at one stage 10 people crammed into a wardrobe. Everything changes in the first world war when Alexandra, Olga and Tatiana train as nurses (typically modest, they take the titles of Sister Romanova numbers 1, 2 and 3). Now at last the girls have the contact with the outside world they have longed for as they change dressings and help with operations. But again it's the ordinariness they most love. "It's only at our hospital that we feel comfortable and at ease," Olga tells one of her patients.

As both reviewers note, since we know the end of the story, these young, beautiful lives are very sad in their promise and its thwarting.

Happy Birthday to Thomas B. Costain!

According to this Time Magazine article preview from 1952:

Novelist Thomas Costain has taught history to more people outside the classroom than any professional historian has ever taught inside. His swashbuckling sagas, The Black Rose and The Moneyman, not only gave readers a bowing acquaintance with the courts of Kublai Khan and medieval France, but made Costain himself the contemporary king of historical romance.

The article goes on to express disappointment with the novel under review, The Silver Chalice. You might recall that Paul Newman consistently expressed disappointment in his performance in the movie based on that novel about the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper!

Thomas Bertram Costain was born on May 8, 1885 in Canada.

When I was in high school I read all of his books: and I mean all of his books: history, historical fiction, biography, etc. I have not read them for a long time and perhaps need to review them after the passage of so many years. As I recall the pattern of his historical fiction is that he created a fictional character, usually a male, who interacted with the main true historical character. The fictional protagonist always had some disability or detrimental distinction that set him apart from his family or social class: a limp, bastardy, poverty, etc.The protagonist becomes almost a sidekick to the historical character, who can even be a rival for the romantic relationship the protagonist wants to have with the main female character. This pattern does not reply to all his novels, however, because he wrote about a great variety of eras and several very different types of stories:

For My Great Folly is set during the reign of James I and is about English buccaneers.

Ride with Me is set during the Napeoleonic wars in Spain and Russia.

The Black Rose, perhaps his most famous novel (made into a movie with Tyrone Power in the lead role) is set in China as the protagonist travels with Bayaan of the Baarin, one of Kublai Khan's generals

High Towers is set in French Canada and New Orleans, with the LeMoyne family as the historical characthers

The Moneyman is about Jacques Coeur, Charles VII's financier

Son of a Hundred Kings is set in nineteenth century Canada and is about an orphan trying to find out his parentage (many think he is rich and noble!)

The Silver Chalice is the other most famous novel--Loyola Classics published a new edition with an introduction by Peggy Noonan 

The Tontine is an almost Dickensian work about a lottery: the survivor wins and Costain follows the story of each of the ticket holders through life

Below the Salt is a medieval time travel novel to England while King John  and the barons are in conflict and the Magna Carta is at is center

The Darkness and the Dawn is about Attila the Hun and beautiful horses

The Last Love is about Napoleon at St. Helena and Betsy Balcome

Costain also wrote popular history: a four volume work on the Plantagenet Dynasty in England; the history of the French Regime in Canada, and even the story of Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone. My paperback copies of The Conquerors, The Magnificent Century, The Three Edwards, and The Last Plantagenets fell apart from constant reading.

He died on October 8, 1965. You may read contemporary opinions of his works at Kirkus Reviews, but I will remember all the enjoyment I had reading all his books, found in used bookstores or in new paperback editions.

Happy birthday, Thomas B. Costain! Thank you!

Catholic Liturgical Beauty and Anti-Catholicism

I've read this letter from John Adams to his wife, describing the Catholic (Tridentine Rite) Mass, in which he sums up the experience: "Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear, and imagination–everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant." The same sentiments were often expressed at the Court of St. James when Henrietta Maria or Catherine of Braganza's chaplains celebrated Mass--the Protestant onlookers were shocked by the incense, candles, music, art, and beauty in the service of the worship of God (evidently they had not read the Book of Revelation!). 

Oxford Movement converts were often chastised by their relatives and friends remaining on the Anglican side of the Tiber for falling for the beauty and sensuousness of Catholic worship. Gerard Manley Hopkins, for instance, responded to those charges by pointing out how simple the liturgies were in most Catholic churches. Low Mass would have been the norm, with far fewer "smells and bells". The Catholic rebuilding projects of the mid-to late-nineteenth century included great artistic structures by Hansom and Pugin but they also included small parish churches in simple buildings.

This attraction-repulsion pattern--outside viewers acknowledging the beauty and its attractiveness while expressing distaste and disgust for its sensual appeal--continued in nineteenth century America, as demonstrated in Ryan K. Smith's Gothic Arches, Latin Crosses: Anti-Catholicism and American Church Designs in the Nineteenth Century, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2006:

Crosses, candles, choir vestments, sanctuary flowers, and stained glass are common church features found in nearly all mainline denominations of American Christianity today. Most Protestant churchgoers would be surprised to learn, however, that at one time these elements were viewed with suspicion as foreign implements associated strictly with the Roman Catholic Church. Blending history with the study of material culture, Ryan K. Smith sheds light on the ironic convergence of anti-Catholicism and the Gothic Revival movement in nineteenth-century America.

Smith finds the source for both movements in the sudden rise of Roman Catholicism after 1820, when it began to grow from a tiny minority into the country's largest single religious body. Its growth triggered a corresponding rise in anti-Catholic activities, as activists representing every major Protestant denomination attacked "popery" through the pulpit, the press, and politics. At the same time, Catholic worship increasingly attracted young, genteel observers around the country. Its art and its tangible access to the sacred meshed well with the era's romanticism and market-based materialism.

Smith argues that these tensions led Protestant churches to break with tradition and adopt recognizably Latin art. He shows how architectural and artistic features became tools through which Protestants adapted to America's new commercialization while simultaneously defusing the potent Catholic "threat." The results presented a colorful new religious landscape, but they also illustrated the durability of traditional religious boundaries.

Smith quotes one Protestant minister's confusion: "Why do we abuse the papists, and then imitate them?" John Adams certainly did not want to imitate them--he was uncomfortable with either the Episcopalian or Presbyterian church service or meeting and much preferred Congregational or Independent services.

The Last Years of the Last Catholic Queen Consort of England

Queen Mary Beatrice of Modena died on May 7, 1718--after living in exile since the "Glorious" Revolution of 1688. She had known great trouble throughout her life after marrying James, the Duke of York. Exiled during the Popish Plot and the Exclusionist Crisis in 1678, she had endured her husband's affairs, including one with Catherine Sedley even as they were in exile. She, like Catherine of Aragon before her, had also experienced several pregnancies that ended in miscarriages, stillbirths, or infant death. Finally, she bore her son James Francis Edward Stuart, and her success led their final exile and fall--or at least, was a contributing cause because the English feared a Catholic heir--so off she and her infant son went to exile in France. Then James II joined her, with his Court in exile, at St. Germain-en-Laye.

She served briefly as her son's regent when James II died in 1701 and would not accede to Scottish demands that her son, James III, renounce Catholicism for the throne of Scotland--but compromised on restrictions of the number of Catholic priests in England and leaving the Church of England intact when he should succeed William of Orange. Perhaps Mary of Modena erred in not allowing the young king to go Scotland in 1702 and she ended her regency when he turned 16.

Mary of Modena remained at St. Germain-en-Laye but also spent time at the Convent of the Visitation nuns at Chaillot in Paris (destroyed, of course). She had wanted to be a nun before her marriage in 1673 and thus her attraction to the convent, where she met the former mistress of Louis XIV, Louise de la Valliere. Her daughter Louisa Maria had been born in France in 1692, but died in 1711 of smallpox--and the loss her daughter, along with the departure of her son after the Treaty of Utrecht removed French support of his claim to the throne, devastated her. She was buried in the Convent of the Visitation and thus her grave has been lost.

The Tablet, perhaps in less bitter days, published this review of Carola Oman's The Saintly Queen Mary of Modena in 1962:

The Queen Consorts of England were for the most part nonentities but two were, and are still, candidates for at least beatification, and for the same reason—the source of their holiness was the Sacrament of Marriage, Catherine of Aragon in defence of the bond, Mary of Modena in devotion to it. To the shame of the nation, each was discarded for opposite reasons, Catherine for failing to provide a male heir (she lost two in infancy) and Mary for, at long last, succeeding—she had four miscarriages and lost three girls and a boy in infancy before the birth of James Francis Edward, on Trinity Sunday, 1688. His survival, against all odds, secured the Catholic Succession and that tipped the scales, already heavily weighted by his father's indiscreet zeal for the Faith. James II had to go. It had been said of his grandfather, Henri IV, that Paris was worth a Mass. History has taken no note of the remark of the Bishop of Rheims, as he watched the exiled James come out of Notre Dame: "There is a good man, he has renounced three Kingdoms for a Mass."

What didn't happen--per Leanda de Lisle

Leanda de Lisle, author of Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family (the U.S. title) considers what could have happened if Henry VIII would have been granted the decree of nullity he sought:

In 1533, Henry VIII broke with Rome and claimed power over Church and state in England. This enabled him to get the marriage annulment Pope Clement VII had denied him. But what if Clement had overcome the great doctrinal obstacles of Catholic teaching and granted it? Would there have been a Protestant Reformation in England? And how might the history of the dynasty have then unfolded?

In 1527, when Henry first requested his annulment, he and his people were among the most contented Catholics in Europe, and loyal to the papacy. Henry had even written a book (with some help) condemning Luther’s attacks on papal authority. But Henry had long believed himself to be more than a mere secular monarch. Granted his annulment he would not have broken with Rome, but his ego would still have needed to be satisfied in this regard.

It would have pleased Henry to see the humanist scholar John Fisher made a cardinal and invited to the Council of Trent in 1535 (as Fisher was, shortly before being executed for his loyalty to Rome). Through Fisher, and later English cardinals, England would have helped shape the reformation of the Catholic Church. At home, the price of Henry’s loyalty would have been an Anglican Church, in communion with Rome, building on its own traditions, with the crown exercising greater power in the appointment of bishops, a concession granted to the kings of France.

Henry would have continued to take part in public discussions on theology, closed failing monasteries and addressed superstitious practises, in line with his humanist Catholic ideals. There would have been no Pilgrimage of Grace—the great rebellion in England triggered by opposition to the Reformation. But Henry would still have confronted “heretics” especially in areas with close trading contacts with Europe (he burned Lutherans until he died).

I find that note about Bishop John Fisher at the Council of Trent fascinating. As I read John O'Malley's book on that great council, I was surprised at how actively Henry VIII opposed the convening of it, because he and his ally King Francis I were determined to thwart their common enemy, the Emperor Charles V.

She also has some interesting "counter facts" about the reign of Henry VIII's son and heir by Anne Boleyn, Henry IX, and his cooperation with Reginald Cardinal Pole, were the latter elected pope as he almost was in 1550:

The Tudors were conservative and ruthless in temperament, and had Reginald Pole been elected Pope in 1550, as he nearly was, he could have persuaded Henry IX to institute an Inquisition to police orthodoxy in England. Henry’s kingdom would thus have been spared France’s Wars of Religion. But disgust at the suffering of fellow countrymen burned at the stake would also fuel English anticlericalism. This Henry IX would have exploited in any quarrels with the Pope on matters of ecclesiastical authority, a cause close to Pole’s heart, and one over which English kings had quarrelled with popes before.

In other areas, however, Pole and Henry IX would have continued to find agreement. On reform, Henry IX, influenced by his Boleyn inheritance, but also backed by Pole, would commission an orthodox bible in English (as Mary I actually did). In 1560 Henry IX would have helped to crush the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, a country eventually absorbed by dynastic marriage, and conquest, with future Tudors encouraging elite marriages with Scottish and Irish families to create a sense of Britain.

Read the rest here--what do you think?

King St. Henry VI?

 

Desmond Seward writes about the veneration of Henry VI in spite of his failings as a monarch in the April issue of the BBC History Magazine. According to the article, which is not available free on-line of course, pilgrimage to his tomb at Windsor rivaled and even eclipsed the pilgrimage traffic to Canterbury and St. Thomas a Becket's tomb. He was never canonized even though Henry VII supported his  cause for sainthood and Henry VIII maintained devotion to him. This blog from the College of St. George at Windsor Castle provides some of the same background as Seward highlights:

 

The tomb of Henry VI became the object of veneration and the scene of miracles of healing attracted many pilgrims.  Miracles attributed to the King included those connected with one of his treasured relics – an old hat – the King’s Medicine against Headache.   Relics were kept at Windsor until the Reformation.  The metal collecting box for alms still stands beside the tomb. . . .

Henry VI was not considered a successful king but rather a good and holy man widely regarded as a saint.   His one lasting achievement was in education, founding Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge.  At Windsor we commemorate his birthday with the ceremony of the Lilies and Roses.  Boys from Eton College attend an obit service together with representatives from Eton and King’s to lay lilies and roses on the tomb of Henry VI while special prayers are said.

“Let Thy blessing O Lord, be upon the Colleges of Thy servant King Henry VI and as Thou has appointed unto them diversities of gifts, grant then also the same spirit, so that they may together serve Thee to the welfare of Thy realm, the benefit of all men, and Thy Honour and Glory; through Jesus Christ Our Lord”.

Seward notes that one reason Henry VI was held in veneration was his mistreatment and death: not accused or tried, but simply murdered in the Tower of London. Known for his piety, leniency and charity, Henry's death seemed so undeserved. Although Henry VII may have supported his Lancastrian cousin's cause for political reasons, it seems clear that the source of devotion to Henry was lay piety--at least two men condemned to death prayed to Henry and reported that he prevented their being hanged to death by placing his hand between their necks and the rope!

Although he was a failure as a monarch, Henry VI successfully founded two great institutions: King's College, Cambridge (The King's College of Our Lady and St. Nicholas at Cambridge), and Eton (The King's College of Our Lady at Eton besides Windsor), both in 1441. Seward also describes Henry's devotional life, as he was dedicated to spiritual reading, prayer, and monastic retreat--it seems he might have been a better monk than monarch.

I look forward to the May issue of the BBC History Magazine as it will feature an article by Jessie Childs about recusants during Elizabeth I's reign, based upon her book, God's Traitors!