Thursday, May 27, 2010
On the Air Again, Just Can't Wait to Get on the Air Again . . .
I'll be talking to Brian Patrick early Friday morning, May 28 on The Son Rise Morning Show! At 6:45 a.m. Central/7:45 a.m. Eastern he and I will discuss Blessed Margaret Pole, the mother of Reginald Pole, featured in today's other post. Tune in on your local EWTN station!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Of Secret Treaties and Promises to Convert
Kings Charles II of England and Louis XIV of France met in Dover, England on May 26, 1670 to sign the secret Treaty of Dover. Charles promised to support Louis in the French king’s war of conquest against William of Orange in Holland and even to become a Roman Catholic, while Louis promised financial support so that Charles could pay for his part in the war with Holland without Parliament.
In Supremacy and Survival, I note how the connections and engagements between the House of Stuart and the Catholic kings of France and Spain made the Protestants—particularly the Puritans—nervous and doubtful about Stuart loyalty to the Church of England. I reference J.P. Kenyon’s The Popish Plot, in his consideration of why the ruling classes of England were still so concerned about Catholics in their country and therefore so ready to believe Titus Oates’ perjury.
1. At the beginning of his reign, James I wanted to hold an ecumenical council with the Pope! He also negotiated a treaty with Spain for his son and heir Charles to marry the Infanta. That treaty, like the one eventually signed when Charles married Henrietta Maria of France, sister of King Louis XIII, allowed the foreign bride to remain a Catholic, to have priests at Court as her chaplains and confessors, and to have a chapel in which to worship—and even promised leniency to Catholics.
2. Charles I indeed allowed his wife that freedom and members of his Court were often concerned that his uxoriousness might lead him to become Catholic. Henrietta Maria was a devout Catholic, processing to Tyburn Tree to honor the Elizabethan and Jamesian martyrs, refurbishing her chapel in the latest baroque style, and attracting converts. The presence of the Capuchin friars and the celebration of Catholic Mass shocked and disturbed Anglican courtiers. When Parliament was not in session, Charles indeed showed leniency to Catholic priests and Henrietta Maria often pled for clemency. Parliament indicted her for treason during the Civil War and she fled the country for exile in France.
3. Charles II returned to England in 1660 in the security of the re-established Church of England, the Book of Common Prayer, the Authorized Version of the Bible, and the monarchy. He married a Catholic princess, however, Catherine of Braganza, and refused to divorce her even though she bore him no sons. He treated her as well as possible considering his rampant infidelity, maintaining both Protestant and Catholic mistresses—thus the occasion when Nell Gwynn called out to the crowds jostling her carriage, “Good people, I am the Protestant whore!” If Charles’s cabinet had known what he had agreed on this day in 1670, they would have been stunned. Although they did not know about the Treaty of Dover (no one did until the 19th century), they knew that Charles attempted to extend freedom from the penal laws to Catholics in his Declaration of Indulgence in 1672. Imagine their surprise when they discovered that he had converted on his deathbed.
4. Years of Charles II’s reign were taken up in the Exclusion Crisis—the effort of Parliament to prevent the succession of his brother, James, the Duke of York, who had become a Roman Catholic, along with his first wife, Anne Hyde. Charles had demanded his nieces continue their Anglican religious practices, so that there were two Protestant heirs in waiting. The fact that Charles continued to support his brother as his heir, even if James had to resign his position as Lord Admiral and go into exile, frustrated Parliament. And then Charles allowed James to remarry after Anne died—and marry another Catholic princess (Mary Beatrice of Modena)!
This Stuart track record of favoring or at least allowing a Catholic presence at Court, along with other historical circumstances (the endurance of Catholics in England and the success of the Catholic Counter-Reformation and Reformation on the Continent) led Parliament and the English people to accept whole-heartedly the fictitious Popish Plot. That background also contributed to their response to the news that the Catholic Queen of England had borne a healthy Catholic son thus displacing the king’s Protestant daughters in the succession.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Henry VIII in Hell? wonders Rowan Williams
If we wonder where Elizabeth I is now, Heaven or Hell, would it be by the prayers of one or many of those Catholic priests so hideously tortured and executed during her reign that she enjoys paradise? Or Mary I, one of the victims at the stake (if they ever did utter such prayers)?
Archbishop also cites H.F.M. Prescott's novel, The Man on A Donkey, reflecting on Robert Aske hanging in chains from York Castle in his agony:
In one of the great historical novels of the twentieth century, Hilda Prescott's 'The Man on a Donkey' we follow the events around the Pilgrimage of Grace, events around the time, of course, of the martyrdoms we commemorate today. And towards the end of that extraordinary novel, we watch and listen to Robert Aske, the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, in his last anguished moments, hanging in chains from the Keep of the Castle in York: "God did not now nor would in any furthest future prevail. Once he had come and died. If he came again, again he would die, and again and so forever, by his own will, rendered powerless against the free and evil wills of men. Then Aske met the full assault of darkness without reprieve of hoped for light, for God ultimately vanquished was no God at all. But yet, though God was not God, as the head of the dung worm turns, so his spirit turned blindly, gropingly, hopelessly loyal, towards that good, that holy, that merciful - which though not God, though vanquished - was still the last dear love of a vanquished and tortured man."
and
"Robert Aske hangs in chains still, but (as Hilda Prescott Prescott's novel portrays it) a discovery has been made as he falls from level to level of despair and desire 'For now, yet with no greater fissure between then and now, and as a man's eyes are aware where no star was of the first star of night, now he was aware of One, vanquished God, Saviour who could as little save others as himself. But now, beside him and beyond, was nothing - and he was silence and light.'"
The Archbishop made these comments in his sermon on May 4, commemorating the Carthusian martyrs, an annual observance since 2004. This year was the 475th anniversary of their executions.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Toleration, not Freedom of Religion
On May 24, 1689 Parliament passed an “Act for Exempting their Majesties Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of Certain Lawes” as part of the legislation enshrining the so-called Glorious Revolution. Obviously Catholics were not included in this law, and some Protestant dissenters, Quakers and Unitarians were also excluded.
This law did not establish religious freedom in England; there were still religious tests for holding government office. It did allow freedom of worship to Protestant dissenters who would swear an Oath of Supremacy and allegiance and deny Transubstantiation while assenting to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Quakers could not swear the oath; Catholics could not deny Transubstantiation, and Unitarians did not believe in the Trinity.
James II, before the invasion of England by William of Orange, had proposed not just toleration, but freedom of religion and liberty of conscience for both Catholics and dissenting Protestants. He had tried to force several bishops of the Church of England to read his toleration act from their pulpits, but they refused—because they did not think James would guarantee that the Church of England remained the established church. James was in the midst of working to elect a pro-indulgence Parliament when his son was born. The specter of a Catholic successor to the first Catholic monarch since Mary I—or, ever so briefly, Charles II who was received into the Church on his deathbed—was too much for some members of the nobility. A group of them invited William of Orange who arrived on November 5 (Guy Fawkes Day), 1688 (100 year anniversary of the Spanish Armada). William became king with his wife Mary, James II’s elder, ungrateful daughter as queen and Parliament set about ensuring that no Catholic would ever reign again, nor be married to a monarch.
Many Catholics fled to France with James, his wife Mary Beatrice of Modena and his infant son, James Francis Edward to live in exile as guests of Louis XIV at St. Germain-en-Laye. Catholics became an ever-dwindling minority in England, suspected for their involvement in Jacobite plotting to restore the Catholic Stuarts to the throne.
The Church of England, which might have sought protection from William and Mary, was actually weakened by the defection of the Non-jurors and by this act of toleration which did not include a statement of religious faith beyond the assent to the Trinity and the denial of Transubstantiation. To cite my own book (p. 115):
The Church of England had no control over who would be tolerated, since the religious test consisted of an oath of Loyalty to the Crown, not to any confession of faith, and involved no examination of doctrine or sacramental initiation.
It was not personal, but corporate; the Act of Toleration discounted the notion that Truth in religious doctrine mattered. It was legislation of what Newman called the "anti-dogmatic" spirit, of Liberalism in Religion!
Or, as Alister McGrath notes in his study of Protestantism, Christianity's Dangerous Idea, the Glorious Revolution and the Toleration Act "neutralized the power of religion in English public life" (p. 145). He also refers to the act's unintended consequence of not only granting the right to worship in Baptist or Congregationalist chapels but the right not to worship anywhere at all!
Eventually, the Church of England would be further reduced in power and influence by the Hanoverian dynasty’s latitudinarian and Whig religious policies when George I succeeded Queen Anne in 1714.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Cranmer's Choices
On May 23 and 28, 1533, Henry VIII's new Archbishop of Canterbury first declared his master's marriage to Catherine of Aragon null and void and then his master's marriage to Anne Boleyn (which had taken place months ago on January 25) to be valid. These were the decisions Henry had sought from Pope Clement VII and for which he had determined to separate the Church in England from the universal Catholic Church and the authority of the pope.
Henry had asked Clement VII years ago for two decisions: one a reversal of the dispensation Pope Julius II had granted at the request of Henry VII so that Catherine of Aragon could marry his new heir, Henry, after Arthur, the Prince of Wales died. The crucial issue was that Catherine swore the marriage had not been consummated and there was no affinity barring her and Henry's marriage. Sometimes people use a shorthand reference to this issue and mistakenly say that the Church required consummation of the marriage for validity, but the real issue was affinity, sexual relations between in-laws. If Catherine and Arthur consummated their marriage, Catherine and Henry were then sister and brother and their marriage would be incestuous. Henry had developed a tender conscience that something was wrong with his marriage to Catherine since they had no surviving male children, and thus sought the reversal of the earlier papal decision.
Henry also had to petition the pope for a dispenstation FROM affinity because of his sexual relations with Mary Boleyn--otherwise he could not marry Anne Boleyn, her (his) sister!
The Papal curia granted the latter but could not grant the former. The negotiations with the curia were protracted. Henry at one point proposed that he and Catherine separate and retire to monasteries, but that he would need to leave the monastery and continue his work at King of England, which included providing a male heir, which of course required that he marry. Catherine would naturally remain in the cloister.
The death of Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham in August of 1532 gave Henry the opportunity to name Thomas Cranmer to that position. Cranmer was consecrated on March 30, 1533. Cranmer had to hide his wife since Henry was opposed to married clergy and he protested that of the two oaths he took, one to the Pope and the other to the King, he had to obey the second more than the first.
Having made these decisions on Henry's marital status in 1533, Cranmer would have to undo one of them on May 17, 1536. Then he declared Henry and Anne Boleyn's marriage null and void because of the affinity issue with Mary Boleyn! The dispensation Henry had sought and received from the pope before becoming Supreme Head and Governor of the Church in England was invalid, after all. The Catholic pope had no authority in such matters in England, even though the King of England had asked him.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Catholic Truth Society and Ignatius Press Collaborate
Last summer, during my week in the Oxford Experience, studying the Oxford Movement while staying in undergraduate lodgings at Christ Church, our class took a tour of Oxford Movement sites. We stopped in St. Aloysius, the Oxford Oratory after walking by the Martyr's Memorial, Blackfriars, and the Eagle and Child, on our way to Keble College.
The Oratory had a fantastic display of Catholic Truth Society (CTS) booklets and I bought several on a return visit. Here at home, I navigate to their website often to see the new releases and have placed a couple of orders.
Word comes now that Ignatius Press and CTS have launched a program to make some of those booklets more readily available in the USA, with Ignatius Press distributing a selection of them for parishes and retailers.
That's good news, even though it appears they may not offer some of the English heritage focused biographies and studies I'm most interested in.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Last Abbot of Westminster
In 1560, John Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster, was sent to the Tower of London on May 20th by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury. Since the reign of Elizabeth I had begun, he had been “railing against the changes that have been made.” Feckenham had been in the Tower before because of his defense of Catholicism. Cranmer sent him there during Edward VI’s reign, although he was freed briefly to debate John Jewel and John Hooper. During the reign of Henry VIII, he had been at Evesham, a Benedictine house suppressed in 1540; he served a chaplain to bishops Bell and Bonner of Worcester and London, respectively until his imprisonment.
When Mary I succeeded her brother in 1553, he was released from the Tower. During her reign, Feckenham preached in London, served as Dean of St. Paul’s, assisted with the establishment of St. John’s and Trinity colleges in Oxford, and was the Queen’s confessor. He counseled Lady Jane Grey before her execution, hoping to convert her and he interceded for Elizabeth after the Wyatt Rebellion, preventing her execution and gaining her freedom. Feckenham engaged Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer in debate, but would not participate in their trial and execution.
He received a D.D. at Oxford in 1556 and was appointed Abbot at Westminster, one of the few monasteries re-established during Mary’s reign, restoring the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor.
When Elizabeth I came to the throne, she offered Feckenham security in his office if he took the Oath of Supremacy and conformed to the new Church of England (the Book of Common Prayer and Thirty-Nine Articles). Since he would not he was expelled from the abbey and for 14 years either held in the Tower or under house arrest as the “guest” of a Church of England bishop who would try to convert him without success. Feckenham prepared John Story (see the upcoming post on June 1) for his execution in 1571 in the Tower and was released on bail in July, 1574.
He was known to be gentle, courteous, and charitable, but proved himself, in the eyes of his bishop-jailers to be an absolutely obstinate papist (Catholic). In 1577, Feckenham was returned to the custody of the Bishop of Ely and was imprisoned in Wisbech Castle in 1580. He finally died there after 24 years of imprisonment on October 16, 1585.
Feckenham’s life certainly demonstrates his loyalty to the Catholic Church, his endurance and his efforts to minister to the people of England. As the last mitered Abbot to sit in the House of Lords, he argued against the religious settlement Parliament crafted at the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign, and yet he was always known for his kindly temperament. Although he and Lady Jane Grey could not agree on religious matters, she was thankful for his support even at her execution and Elizabeth probably thought she was being as generous and tolerant as possible when offering him a sinecure at the cost of his conscience.
When Mary I succeeded her brother in 1553, he was released from the Tower. During her reign, Feckenham preached in London, served as Dean of St. Paul’s, assisted with the establishment of St. John’s and Trinity colleges in Oxford, and was the Queen’s confessor. He counseled Lady Jane Grey before her execution, hoping to convert her and he interceded for Elizabeth after the Wyatt Rebellion, preventing her execution and gaining her freedom. Feckenham engaged Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer in debate, but would not participate in their trial and execution.
He received a D.D. at Oxford in 1556 and was appointed Abbot at Westminster, one of the few monasteries re-established during Mary’s reign, restoring the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor.
When Elizabeth I came to the throne, she offered Feckenham security in his office if he took the Oath of Supremacy and conformed to the new Church of England (the Book of Common Prayer and Thirty-Nine Articles). Since he would not he was expelled from the abbey and for 14 years either held in the Tower or under house arrest as the “guest” of a Church of England bishop who would try to convert him without success. Feckenham prepared John Story (see the upcoming post on June 1) for his execution in 1571 in the Tower and was released on bail in July, 1574.
He was known to be gentle, courteous, and charitable, but proved himself, in the eyes of his bishop-jailers to be an absolutely obstinate papist (Catholic). In 1577, Feckenham was returned to the custody of the Bishop of Ely and was imprisoned in Wisbech Castle in 1580. He finally died there after 24 years of imprisonment on October 16, 1585.
Feckenham’s life certainly demonstrates his loyalty to the Catholic Church, his endurance and his efforts to minister to the people of England. As the last mitered Abbot to sit in the House of Lords, he argued against the religious settlement Parliament crafted at the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign, and yet he was always known for his kindly temperament. Although he and Lady Jane Grey could not agree on religious matters, she was thankful for his support even at her execution and Elizabeth probably thought she was being as generous and tolerant as possible when offering him a sinecure at the cost of his conscience.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
New view of Anne Boleyn
England's The Catholic Herald has published a review of a new book about Anne Boleyn by GW Bernard, Professor of Early Modern History at Southhampton University, titled Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions, from Yale University Press. The Herald's reviewer accepts some of Bernard's arguments--that Anne may indeed have been guilty of adultery; that Mark Smeaton was not tortured; that Anne was neither so politically important or supportive of Lutheranism. From the review it sounds like Bernard analyzes her library and concludes it indicates she was thoroughly, conventionally Catholic--which certainly contradicts the thesis of Paul Zahl in Five Women of the English Reformation (a book of slender intellectual pretension). In a way, Bernard's interpretation of Anne sounds more like that of Karen Lindsey in Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Re-Interpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII, in which Anne is the victim of Henry's sexual harrassment. As Alexander Lucie-Smith concludes in his review of Bernard's study: "In his portrait Anne is a frailer and in a strange way rather more likeable figure."
Don't forget that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show tomorrow morning at 7:45 am Eastern;6:45 am Central--the Son Rise Morning Show is broadcast from Cincinnati, Ohio on the EWTN radio network.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
St. Simon Stock and Aylesford
May 16th is the memorial of St. Simon Stock, Carmelite, who died in Bordeaux, France in 1265. Before he became Secretary-General of the Carmelites he was at Aylesford in Kent, England. His relics are at Aylesford today after having been preserved in Bordeaux.
Of course, Aylesford was suppressed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and passed through many hands until the Carmelites bought it back in 1949. It has been renovated as a pilgrimage site and conference center including a gift shop and tea room, and offers many special events.
Friday, May 14, 2010
The Son Rise Morning Show
Since April of 2009, I've talked to Brian Patrick on the air about an English martyr or a significant event in the history of the English Reformation every month. Once I discussed a martyr of Scotland with producer Matt Swaim. Next week I am going to talk to Annie Mitchell of the Son Rise Morning Show on May 19th about Anne Boleyn and her impact/influence on the English Reformation at 6:45 a.m. Central/7:45 a.m. Eastern. May 19 is the anniversary of her execution, and it is appropriate to discuss her role in Henry VIII's claim of supremacy over the Church in England and subsequent events. Broadcast and Podcast links are on my website.
In the meantime, don't forget to revew the fascinating narrative of Anne Boleyn's arrest, imprisonment, trial, and execution at Gareth Russell's blog.
In the meantime, don't forget to revew the fascinating narrative of Anne Boleyn's arrest, imprisonment, trial, and execution at Gareth Russell's blog.
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