Belloc on Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots

Hollywood, just like Schiller and Donizetti, could not resist having Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots confront each other, although they never met. Hilaire Belloc, in his Characters of the Reformation, resists that temptation, but may have fallen into other ones. Anna Mitchell and I will start the New Year tomorrow morning with our continuing series of discussing his portraits of Reformation era figures on the Son Rise Morning Show. Listen live here a little after 6:45 a.m. Central/7:45 a.m. Eastern.

Belloc highlights the changes in Elizabeth I's reputation and presents his own view, which is that she was more ruled than ruling:

The truth about Elizabeth is this. She was the puppet or figurehead of the group of new millionaires established upon the loot of religion begun in her father's time. They had at their head the unique genius of William Cecil, who, in spite of dangerous opposition, accomplished what might have seemed the impossible task of digging up the Catholic Faith by the roots from English soil, stamping out the Mass, and shepherding the younger generation of a reluctant people into a new religious mood. 

Throughout her life Elizabeth was thwarted in each political effort she made; she felt the check of her masters and especially Cecil as a horse feels the bridle. She never had her will in matters of State.

Belloc believes that Elizabeth suffered from great physical weakness and that she could not have become pregnant or delivered a child; therefore she remained unmarried.

He offers support for his view that she was unable to exert her political will:

As examples of the way in which she was "run" by those who were her masters, I will take four leading cases out of a very great number which might be quoted: 

1. She had personally given her Royal assurance to the Spanish Minister that the Spanish treasure ships bearing the pay for Alva's soldiers in the Netherlands, the ships which had taken refuge from pirates in English harbours, should be released and the money taken under safeguards to its proper destination. Cecil simply over-ruled her. He ordered the money to be kept and confiscated in spite of her, and his orders, not hers, were obeyed. 

2. Again, she desired to save Norfolk. Three separate times she interfered to prevent the execution. She was over- ruled. That unfortunate cousin of hers was put to death, but his blood is not upon her head; it is upon Cecil's. 

3. She tried to recall Drake just before the open declaration of war with Spain; no one thought of obeying her orders in the matter. 

4. The supreme example is the case of Mary, Queen of Scots. The murder — for it was a murder' — was accomplished against her will. Our official historians have perpetually repeated that her agony at hearing of Mary's death was feigned: that is, false. It was genuine. The signing of the warrant had indeed been wrung out of her, but that did not mean that the warrant would be put into execution. It was put into execution in spite of her, in order that she should be made responsible, willing or unwilling.

I think that Belloc ignores one of the main achievements that Father Marvin O'Connell noted about Elizabeth, and that was that she balanced her budget and did not have to depend upon Parliament for taxes or other stipends--at least, until she thought it was time to enter into war against Philip II in the Spanish Netherlands. Belloc also forgets that Elizabeth did have her way in at least one political sphere: the Church of England. She controlled the doctrine, the worship, and the vestments and order of the Church; she removed bishops at will; Belloc seems to think she harbored sympathy for Catholic doctrine and that's not likely. Furthermore, Elizabeth I did exert her will in the matter of her not marrying or naming a successor: "her masters" and/or Parliament were never able to change her mind on that matter and she had enough power to prevent them from forcing her.

When Belloc discusses Mary, Queen of Scots, he almost proves Elizabeth's point by highlighting how unfortunate Mary's marriages were:

When Mary landed in Scotland the religious revolution which, as we have seen, had made some little progress in England, though not much, which in Germany had swept everything into violent turmoil, and which in France was soon to bring about prolonged civil war, had in Scotland achieved a very great measure of success. Calvinism had become the enthusiastic creed of a minority, burning with zeal and determined to succeed. The majority were not similarly zealous for the defence of the Church, which in Scotland had become thoroughly corrupt; and the great Scottish nobles who had everything in their hands supported the religious revolution because it gave them the power to loot the Church and the monarchy wholesale. 

Into this anarchy Mary was plunged. For seven years her invincible courage still maintained her as Queen; but her temperament ruined what small chances she had of maintaining her position. We must remember in her favour that she was a woman of especial fascination which in a sense she exercises to this day; and that yet it was her misfortune to be married first to a sickly boy even younger than herself who died before she was eighteen and next by her own judgment and error to her cousin Darnley, a debauched and worthless character. She was accused, falsely, of having taken part in the murder of Darnley. The act was really that of the rebel Scotch nobles, but it was widely believed that she was guilty of it and still more widely believed (it is still a problem) that she was at any rate cognizant of what was in the wind. 

It was her temperament again that made her fall a victim to Bothwell, one of her own great nobles in Scotland, a masterly man to whom she succumbed. Though she was the representative of Catholicism she married him with Calvinistic rites, and as he was universally regarded as at least one of the murderers of her first husband the scandal was enormous. She was imprisoned, she escaped, she was defeated; and in 1568, her twenty-sixth year, she escaped, unarmed and without resources, over the border into England — trusting to the promised protection of Elizabeth. From that moment of course she was in Cecil's power.

That's why Chesterton highlights Don John of Austria's plan to marry the Queen of Scotland--with him, Chesterton says, she would at last have had a man more her equal in endurance, culture, spirit, and courage: "If ever there was a woman who was manifestly meant, destined, created, and as it were crying aloud to be carried off by Don John of Austria, or some such person, it was Mary Queen of Scots. If ever there was a woman who went to seed for want of meeting any sort of man who was anything like her equal, it was she."

Of both women, Belloc concludes, the legend has been so powerful that we had not--in his time--gotten to the truth. He feared that Elizabeth I would go from exaltation as the greatest queen ever to being deemed insignificant; he believed that Mary, Queen of Scots' life would always remain a mystery: "The whole story of this unfortunate woman remains and will remain full of unsolved problems. Mary Stuart will always be for some a martyr, for others a criminal, so long as the religious passions which centre round her name survive."

If you watched the 1971 movie I alluded to above, you might remember the theme song for Mary composed by John Barry: elegiac, melancholy, and romantic! Tune in tomorrow for more!

Happy New Year! Newman and History

I'm looking forward to receiving my review copy of Edward Short's latest work: Newman and History. In the meantime, here's an essay by Mr. Short in The Catholic World Report, discussing Newman's famous phrase:

The quote that one hears most often trotted out about Newman and history is: “to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.”

Now, even taken out of context, the quote reaffirms a good deal of what we know about Newman’s relation to history. As a student of the early Church Fathers, Newman was converted from Anglican Protestantism to Roman Catholicism largely by consulting the work of the Fathers – especially, the work they did in identifying, verifying and reaffirming the fidei depositum– and by recognizing that the Early Church and the Catholic Church were one and the same. Of course, one of the fundamental claims made by Protestants in Newman’s day was that the Catholic Church is not the same as the Early Church because it is a corruption of that primitive Church. If we look at the work of the Whig historians, from Henry Hallam and Connop Thirlwell to Henry Hart Milman and James Anthony Froude, we can see how persistently they sought to substantiate this claim. However, both the early Fathers and the later Fathers told a different tale. The Catholic Church was an authentic development, not a corruption of the Early Church. Indeed, for the convert in Newman, it was the National Church, cobbled together by Henry VIII and the first Elizabeth in the sixteenth century that was a corruption of the “one holy catholic and apostolic” faith, and not the other way round.

Short continues by introducing Edward Gibbon's historical view of Roman history and Newman's send up of the Anglican view of Christian history:

Gibbon’s animus against Christianity per se may not have been altogether congenial to all English Protestants; the thesis of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, after all – which, incidentally, Gibbon pinched from Voltaire – was that Rome fell because of what Gibbon styled “the triumph of barbarism and religion,” specifically, the Christian religion. Nevertheless, for English Protestants, his history did have the benefit of not contradicting the Anglican view of church history, which Newman memorably encapsulated in one of his best satirical sallies in his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics. In that brilliant book, published in 1851, which I commend to all of my readers for its witty demolition of the entire No Popery house of cards, Newman got at the root of the Protestant Englishman’s fanciful notions about his national identity by locating them squarely in his even more fanciful notions about the progress of the Christian faith. In his marvelous lectures, Newman explains that for English Protestants, “Christianity was very pure in the beginning, was very corrupt in the middle age, and is very pure again in England now, though still corrupt everywhere else.” Moreover, as Newman observes, “in the middle age, a tyrannical institution called the Church arose and swallowed up Christianity.” Fortunately, however, “the Church is alive still, and has not yet disgorged its prey, except, as aforesaid, in our own favoured country.” The reason this should be the case is simple. As Newman describes it, “in the middle age, there was no Christianity anywhere at all, but all was dark and horrible, as bad as paganism, or rather much worse. No one knew anything about God, or whether there was a God or no, nor about Christ or His atonement; for the Blessed Virgin, and Saints, and the Pope, and images, were worshipped instead; and thus, so far from religion benefitting the generations of mankind who lived in that dreary time, it did them infinitely more harm than good.”

Please read the rest there. Newman and History is available on Amazon.com and at the Gracewing Publishers website.

Farewell to 2017; It's Still Christmas

Tomorrow is the Octave Day of Christmas, so it's still Christmas, even as we end the calendar year of 2017. The Church is still celebrating the beginning of our liturgical year, which began with the First Sunday of Advent. Like the Blessed Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, we are still pondering this mystery of the Incarnation. This painting, The Nativity at Night, is by the young Flemish master, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, and dates from about 1490. We don't know much about the artist, according to the National Gallery in London:

The name Geertgen tot Sint Jans means 'little Gerard of Saint John', and refers to the Brethren of Saint John at Haarlem, a lay order to which the artist presumably belonged. Not much is known of his life; works are attributed to him mostly on stylistic grounds. Van Mander is the main source of information about Geertgen, and writes that he was born in Leiden and trained by Isaac van Ouwater; he died young, aged about 28.

John Mason Neale included this translation of the medieval hymn (Anonymous; Germany; 12th century), In hoc anni circulo in his 1853 Carols for Christmas-tide:

In the ending of the year
Life and light to man appear;
And the Holy Babe is here,
De Virgine;
And the Holy Babe is here,
De Virgine Mariâ.

What in ancient days was slain
This day calls to life again;
God is coming, God shall reign,
De Virgine;
God is coming, God shall reign,
De Virgine Mariâ.

From the desert grew the corn,
Sprang the lily from the thorn,
When the Infant King was born
De Virgine;
When the Infant King was born
De Virgine Mariâ.

On the straw He lays His head,
Hath a manger for His bed,
Thirsts and hungers and is fed
De Virgine;
Thirsts and hungers and is fed
De Virgine Mariâ.

Angel hosts His praises sing,
Three Wise men their off'rings bring,
Ox and ass adore the King,
Cum Virgine;
Ox and ass adore the King,
Cum Virgine Mariâ.

Wherefore let us all to-day
Banish sorrow far away,
Singing and exulting aye,
Cum Virgine;
Singing and exulting aye,
Cum Virgine Mariâ.

I have been ending this year reading a masterful survey of the Counter-Reformation era in Europe by the late Father Marvin O'Connell. This volume was part of The Rise of Modern Europe series published by Harper & Row in the middle of the 20th century. When Father O'Connell died in 2016, the University of Notre Dame eulogized him in a news release:

“Father Marvin O’Connell stands in the very front rank of the distinguished historians who have taught and written at Notre Dame,” said Rev. Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C., professor of history. “He utilized his striking talents as a historian as an integral part of his fundamental vocation as a priest. He well understood the crucial role of the historian in the life of the Christian people, and he made the history of the Church his special subject. Father O’Connell’s magisterial account of the life and times of Edward Sorin should be required reading for all those who want to understand the history of this university that he loved and served so well."

In addition to his biography of Father Sorin, Father O’Connell published numerous articles and essays in scholarly and popular journals and several books, including “Pilgrims to the Northland: The Archdiocese of St. Paul, 1840-1962,” “John Ireland and the American Catholic Church,” “Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart,” “Thomas Stapleton and the Counter Reformation,” “McElroy,” “The Oxford Conspirators: A History of the Oxford Movement, 1833-1845,” “The Counter Reformation, 1559-1610” and “Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis.”

The subjects Father O’Connell taught and wrote about varied widely, including the characters and controversies of the 16th and 17th centuries in early modern Europe; the ecclesial, theological and cultural arguments of 19th-century Oxford and among Catholics and Anglicans in England; the Catholic Modernists in Europe and Archbishop John Ireland’s interactions with the Americanist movement in this country. He was an inveterate storyteller, and his books, no less than his lectures, were notable for what one reviewer called “a painterly eye and an elegant craftsmanship.” Shortly after his retirement from active teaching, Father O’Connell himself, in an address to the American Catholic Historical Association, said that “history, whatever its scientific trappings, remains an art, and we are artists. Existentially the past is gone beyond recall; whatever reality it possesses depends upon us who think about and write about it.”

I have read Critics on Trial, Blaise Pascal, and The Oxford Conspirators, but reading this book has made me appreciate his clarity, concision, and interpretative sureness even more. He narrates the history of the French Civil Wars of Religion so deftly, for example, describing the characters of Catherine de Medici, her unfortunate sons, the Guise family, the Huguenot party leaders, and how they influenced the way the wars were fought and the ever unstable peace was kept (or not). His description of the Counter Reformation era in England obviously owes much to Father Philip Hughes, who was to have written this volume in the series and had made a draft that O'Connell was asked to complete (but decided to begin again). It's clear, however that Hughes' Rome and the Counter Reformation in England was an influence.

One line stood out for me: O'Connell quotes the Calvinist theologian Theodore Beza: "The papacy was never abolished in that country," he said to Bullinger, "but transferred to the sovereign." As O'Connell continues, Elizabeth I, like some other rulers, believed that "religion, both in itself and in its cultural and political ramifications, was too important to be left to the clergy." Then he proceeds to demonstrate how Elizabeth controlled the Church of England probably more completely than any pope has ever controlled the Catholic Church: determining doctrine, worship, and theology; holding fast to her prerogatives; and never reforming the episcopacy or the clergy of the abuses of which the Catholic Church was accused. 

Father O'Connell is equally adept at explaining Philip II's many-faceted efforts to maintain Spain's power throughout Europe, aiding the Church's interests whenever they fit with his. He gives due attention to Don John of Austria and Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma two of Philip's (bastard) lieutenants in the Spanish Netherlands. O'Connell introduced me to the Counter-Reformation history of Poland and Lithuania. His judgments of character are always clear and backed up by evidence of the person's actions and reactions, so that O'Connell shows that events are driven not by some dialectic but by the leaders, monarchs, generals, popes, theologians, etc.

This is a tremendous achievement and if you are interested in this era, or would just like to read excellent historical prose, find a copy!

St. Stephen, the Holy Innocents, and the English Martyrs

Merry Christmas!

As I remind this blog's readers every year: It's Still Christmas!! Liturgically and prayerfully, we are still celebrating the Birth of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary. Throughout the season, which lasts until the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord, we continue to recall this great mystery and what it means in our lives as Pope Benedict XVI said in 2009:

God’s sign is his humility. God’s sign is that he makes himself small; he becomes a child; he lets us touch him and he asks for our love. How we would prefer a different sign, an imposing, irresistible sign of God’s power and greatness! But his sign summons us to faith and love, and thus it gives us hope: this is what God is like. He has power, he is Goodness itself. He invites us to become like him. Yes indeed, we become like God if we allow ourselves to be shaped by this sign; if we ourselves learn humility and hence true greatness; if we renounce violence and use only the weapons of truth and love.

At the same time we recall that mystery, we honor those who proclaimed it by word and deed: martyrs and confessors, evangelists and saints. December 26 is the feast of St. Stephen the Deacon, the protomartyr; and December 28 is the feast of the Holy Innocents, who suffered because of King Herod's fear of Jesus, of a baby born in Bethlehem. There are connections between these feasts and the Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation and they intersect in Rome at the Venerable English College.

The first connection is with St. Stephen, as described in Francis Aidan Cardinal Gasquet's history of the Venerable. He highlights how the students at the Venerabile commemorated the feast of St. Stephen, the proto-martyr of all Christian martyrs:

On St. Stephen's Day was inaugurated a long-continued practice of one of the students preaching before the Pope and Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on that feast. The ceremonial to be observed on these occasions is noted down in the volume of addresses and sermons before referred to. A carriage was sent from the Vatican to bring the preacher from the College: he was to remain in the sacristy vested in his surplice until the Master of Ceremonies came to fetch him after the singing of the Gospel. He was then, on entering the Chapel, to bow profoundly to the Cardinal celebrating the Mass, and then to proceed to the papal throne, where first kneeling on both knees he was to ascend and kiss the Pope's foot, to salute His Holiness with a bow, and returning to the bottom step, was again to genuflect on both knees, and having received the blessing, was to ask permission to publish the usual Indulgences. In his sermon he was not to turn directly to the Pope, but to look rather to the Cardinals; neither was he to raise his voice too loudly, and to beware of being carried away by his eloquence or of making use of too many gestures. After the sermon was finished, he was directed to return to the steps of the throne and remain kneeling whilst the Confiteor was being sung, after which he was to rise and publish the Indulgence, again kneeling whilst the Holy Father pronounced the blessing. At the end he was to follow the Master of Ceremonies to the sacristy. The occasion must have been a trying ordeal for the student even although, as was evidently the case, the Latin discourse had been composed for him. The feast suggested references to the possible martyrdom of the selected orator, when his turn came to go forth from Rome for the English Mission.

Two of these preachers did suffer martyrdom in England: Blessed John Cornelius and St. David Lewis.

(Image: Stoning of Saint Stephen, altarpiece of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, by Jacopo & Domenico Tintoretto)

The second connection, between the feast of the Holy Innocents and the English Martyrs comes through St. Philip Neri, who would greet the seminarians and the ordained men of the Venerable by quoting the first line of an ancient hymn of Prudentius:

Salvete, flores martyrum,
quos lucis ipso in limine
Christi insecutor sustulit
ceu turbo nascentes rosas.

Vos prima Christi victima,
grex immolatorum tener,
aram sub ipsam simplices
palma et coronis luditis.

Iesu, tibi sit gloria,
qui natus es de Virgine,
cum Patre et almo Spiritu,
in sempiterna saecula. Amen.

Father Edward Caswall, Oratorian, translated this hymn for Lauds as

Flowers of martyrdom, all hail! 

Smitten by the tyrant foe 

On life’s threshold – as the gale 

Strews the roses ere they blow.

First to bleed for Christ, sweet lambs! 

What a simple death ye died! 

Sporting with your wreath and palms 

At the very altar-side!

Honor, glory, virtue, merit, 

Be to Thee, O Virgin’s Son, 

With the Father, and the Spirit 

While eternal ages run. – Amen.

As the Catholic Culture website notes, the connection between St. Philip Neri and the Venerable continues:

He had a particular love and concern for the seminarians of the Venerable English College in Rome. He was aware that the majority of these students, once ordained priests, would return to England and ultimately shed their blood as martyrs for Christ and his Church. To this day, the seminarians of the English College sing first vespers on the Solemnity of Saint Philip Neri at the Chiesa Nuova in honor of the Roman priest who blessed their forebears on their way to martyrdom.

(Image: Guido Reni, Massacre of the Innocents)

(Image at top: Botticelli, Nativity of Our Lord)

Margaret More Roper, RIP

Margaret More Roper was around 39 years old when she died at Christmas time in 1544 of an unknown illness. In his great study of Margaret's relationship with her father,  A Daughter's Love: Thomas More and His Dearest Meg, John Guy suggests that the shock of new actions against her family may have led to her death. Her husband, William Roper, was arrested on suspicion of plotting against Thomas Cranmer, Henry's Archbishop of Canterbury--her brother John was also arrested, taken to the Tower, questioned, and was told to take the oath his father had refused to swear--or be charged with Treason. John swore the oath, William paid a fine, and they all came home. Her sister Elizabeth's husband, William Daunce, had also been arrested and imprisoned.

Since Giles Heron, one of her father's wards and her sister Cecily's husband, had already been attainted for treason and hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn in 1540, Margaret faced grave danger: she might lose her brother, her husband, and another brother-in-law. William Roper was held in solitary confinement for four months. As John Guy says, "Margaret, who must have been terrified by the swoop, fell mortally ill before the year was out. . . . Carried the short distance to Chelsea Parish Church in a winding sheet through the freezing snow, her body was interred in the family tomb where her father 'did mind to be buried' [according to Margery Hillary, one of Margaret's friends], his skull resting beside her. A candle-lit requiem followed, but must have been the bleakest of occasions." (p. 270)

The Center for Thomas More Studies cites the day of her death as December 25, 1544. When William Roper died in 1578, he was buried in the vault of the Roper Chapel in St. Dunstan's, Canterbury. Thomas Roper arranged to have his mother's remains--and his grandfather's skull--moved to the Roper Chapel.

Her daughter Mary inherited some her skill in translation and worked with Margaret Giggs, another of St. Thomas More's wards, and William Rastell to collect and publish More's works--including that poignant and loving last letter More wrote to Margaret--thus fulfilling her great project in April, 1557.

So on this Christmas Day in 2017, I hope and pray that on Christmas Day in 1544 Thomas More and his dearest Meg met merrily in Heaven. And may we all do so some day.

Merry Christmas!

John Dunstaple: Secret Knowledge of the Stars

John Dunstaple or Dunstable died on December 24, 1453. As this website notes, he is sometimes considered the greatest English composer before William Byrd:

We know so little about him that almost the only sure historical fact is that he died on Christmas Eve 1453. Beyond that, the inscription of his epitaph describes his different professions, and in a book on astronomy in St John's College, Cambridge, he states in his own hand that he was a musician in the service of the Duke of Bedford.

The fact that much of his music survives in Continental sources suggests that his fame was widespread. Fifty-five works that are normally considered as by Dunstable survive, including two complete Masses (one isorhythmic) and several paired and single Mass sections, a large number of motets, and possibly two secular songs.

Thus all that we have of his music is in the form of liturgical or votive church music; what may be counted as secular music amounts to so little that even the most celebrated 'O rosa bella' is not his for certain. What is certain is that Dunstable was the greatest English composer before William Byrd. He was the man whose 'contenance anglaise' influenced music for a century. it did so abecause of his residence in France for a number of years as musician to John, Duke of Bedford—Henry V's brother and Regent of France from 1422 to 1435. It seems likely that the composer visited Italy also, judging from the number of his works that exist in Italian manuscripts.

Of course he wrote many works in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, including this one:

Nesciens mater virgo virum peperit sine dolore salvatorem saeculorum. Ipsum regem angelorum sola virgo lactabat, ubere de celo plena. 

Knowing no man, the Virgin mother bore, without pain, the Saviour of the world. Him, the king of angels, only the Virgin suckled, breasts filled by heaven.

The cover of the Orlando Consort recording pictured above cites his epitaph. He was buried in St. Stephen Walbrook and a plaque with his epitaph was recreated after the church was bombed in the Second World War:

He is closed within this tomb who closed the heavens in his breast, John Dunstable. He, privy to the stars, with Urania his mentor, knew how to reveal the secrets of the sky. This man was your glory, O Music, your light, a prince for you; throughout the world he has spread your five sweet modes. Join to the year one thousand four hundred and fifty and three, on the day before the birth of Christ, his star was translated to the constellations; let the inhabitants of the sky receive to themselves a fitting fellow-citizen.

We are fortunate that John Dunstable's works were published on the Continent, because only 20 survive in English choir books. As the website at St. Stephen Walbrook notes, Dunstable had connections to one of the greatest Benedictine abbeys of Medieval England, St. Albans:

Dunstaple’s connections with St Albans Abbey are at least twofold:

The abbot John Whethamstede is associated with the Duke of Gloucester (who was buried at St Albans following his death in 1447), and Dunstaple’s isorhythmic motet Albanus roseo rutilat, possibly with some of the Latin words adapted by Whethamstede from an older poem, was clearly written for St Albans, possibly for a visit to the abbey by the Duke of Bedford in 1426.

Whethamstede’s plan for a magnificent library for the abbey in 1452-3 included a set of twelve stained glass windows devoted to the various branches of learning. Dunstaple is clearly, if indirectly, referred to in some of the verses the abbot composed for each window, not only music but also astronomy, medicine, and astrology.

This website has quite a bit of information about St. Albans Abbey at the time of its dissolution in December of 1539. The abbey church was saved for the community and there were hopes of re-establishing the monastery when Queen Mary I reigned. Now the church is an Anglican cathedral.The cathedral's website has news that the grave of Dunstable's abbot, John Whethamstede has been discovered!

Merry Christmas!

Blessed Thomas Holland, SJ: Acts of Faith, Hope and Love

From The Jesuit Curia in Rome:

Thomas Holland (1600-1642) suffered from poor health during the whole of the seven years he spent in active ministry in his native England. Despite his suffering he fearlessly moved around London to bring the sacraments to Catholics during a period of oppression.

He was born in Lancashire and attended the English College at Saint-Omer in Flanders for six years. He moved to Valladolid, Spain, in August 1621, to attend the English College there and then returned to Flanders in 1624 so that he could enter the Jesuits. He did his novitiate and theological study in Flanders and was ordained there before being assigned to be the spiritual director of the scholastics at Saint-Omer. In 1635 he was assigned to the English mission in the hope that his native air would meliorate the poor health he had begun to suffer.

The conditions in which he had to live in England made his health worse, not better. He had to stay indoors all day and travel only at night because of the danger of arrest by priest-hunters. The hardships he endured caused a loss of appetite, which only worsened his condition. Ill health, however, did not keep from ministry; and he continued until his arrest on Oct. 4, 1642 on suspicion of being a priest. He was detained at New Prison in London for two weeks and then taken to Newgate at the time of his trial. No evidence could be put forth proving that he was a priest, and he had been very careful in prison not to be caught praying, but when the court asked him to swear that he was not a priest, he refused; the jury found him guilty and condemned him to die. The French ambassador offered to intervene to try to win his freedom, but Holland said he preferred martyrdom. Some Capuchin friends smuggled Mass supplies into prison so he could celebrate the Eucharist one last time. On the morning of Dec. 12 he was dragged to Tyburn to be executed. He prayed for those who had condemned him and for King Charles I, the royal family, parliament and the nation. He gave the hangman the little money he had, forgave him for what he was about to do and then was hanged until he was dead. His body was then beheaded and quartered and exposed on London bridge.

This Jesuit site provides more details about his execution and his beatification:

Fr Holland was dragged to Tyburn at mid-morning of the 12th and seeing a crowd had gathered in silence, he spoke: “I have been brought here to die a traitor, a priest and a Jesuit; but in truth none of these things has been proved.” Then mounting the cart, he placed the noose about his neck and told the people that he was truly a priest and a Jesuit and that he pardoned the judge and jury that had condemned him.. He recited his acts of faith, hope, charity and contrition and then prayed for King Charles I and the nation “for whose prosperity and conversion to the Catholic faith, if I had as many lives as there are hairs on my head, drops of water in the ocean, or stars in the firmament, I would most willingly sacrifice them all.” These words brought cheers from the crowd. He then forgave his executioner for what he is about to do and gave him the few coins he still had in his pocket.

With eyes closed in prayer, Fr Holland looked at a priest in the crowd and received absolution. [So he had opened his eyes!] After he was hanged, his body was beheaded and quartered and exposed on London Bridge. Fr Holland was only forty-two years of age and a Jesuit for eighteen years. Pope Pius XI beatified him on December 15, 1929.

Blessed Thomas Holland, pray for us!

How the Tractarians Changed Christmas

Charles Dickens' revival of Christmas concentrated on celebrations at home and in the city. The Oxford Movement, also called the Tractarian movement, influenced the liturgical celebration of the Christmas in the Church of England, according to this 1993 article in History Today by the then Anglican chaplain at Keble College, later Bishop Geoffrey Rowell:

Although Christmas was a time of festivity its church celebration in the nineteenth century owed much to the Oxford Movement. A significant feature of the concerns of the Tractarians was the revival and enrichment of the Prayer Book forms of service, and a proper observance of the seasons and festivals of the church calendar. It was no accident that John Keble's influential book of poems of 1827 entitled The Christian Year, providing verses and meditations on the Prayer Book services and on the Sundays and holy days observed by the Church of England. At St Saviour's, the church built by Dr Pusey in the slums of Leeds, a midnight Eucharist was celebrated on Christmas Eve in contrast to Leeds Parish Church where W.F. Hook had begun a midnight Eucharist on New Year's Eve, as an Anglican response to Methodist watch-night services. . . .

What began as part of the Catholic revival in the Church of England spread to other sections of Anglicanism, and indeed to other churches. In 1887 John Hunter, a notable Church of England minister in Glasgow pioneered the keeping of Christmas Day in the kirk. In 1875 a clerical journalist, the Reverend C.M. Davies, whose collected articles on the London religious scene are invaluable vignettes of church life, noted that Christmas decorations in churches and special Christmas observances were no longer a party badge of High Churchmanship.

This influence of the Oxford Movement extended to music, mostly through the work of John Mason Neale, who published Carols for Christmastide in 1853, while the popularity of the Nine Lessons and Carols grew through the latter part of the century, into the 20th and still today--as evidenced by the broadcast around the world of the service at King's College Cambridge.

As Rowell concludes:

In the course of the century, under the influence of the Oxford Movement’s concern for the better observance of Christian festivals, Christmas became more and more prominent. By the later part of the century cathedrals provided special services and musical events, and might have revived ancient special charities for the poor . . .

So it wasn't just Dickens!

Follow the StAR in January!

On my birthday, I'm pleased to announce that I'll have two pieces published in the January/February 2018 issues of the Saint Austin Review!

There's an article on the movie Green Dolphin Street, offering a Chestertonian interpretation of the vocations of marriage and religious life: “The Pattern of the Cross”. Lana Turner and Donna Reed are two sisters who learn about God's plans for their happiness. I wrote it a few years ago, so I'm eager to see it in print!

This is one of those cases--as a hint for writers or anyone who submits material for publication--of being able to make real, live contact with the publishers or editors who've judged and accepted your material. Joseph Pearce visited Wichita twice this fall: once in October and once in November. I was able to discuss articles that Mr. Pearce had previously accepted and where they'd fit into the themes of his publication.

Voila! There it is--or there it will be! (looking forward to my comp copy).

The second piece is a book review of Philip Campbell's Heroes & Heretics of the Reformation, which I just submitted in November.

More about the issue here and how to subscribe (including on-line access) here!

Catherine Palmer, Abbess of Syon Abbey, RIP

Catherine Palmer, the last abbess of Syon Abbey, died in exile on December 19, 1576. She had confronted a Calvinist mob in Mechelin (today in Belgium) the month before. Since St. Richard Reynolds was martyred in 1535 and the house suppressed in 1539, Palmer had been one of the leaders of the surviving Bridgettine nuns from one of the richest and most scholarly religious houses in England, founded by King Henry V and destroyed by King Henry VIII. It was restored briefly during the reign of Queen Mary I but dissolved again and BHO recounts:

The community did not disperse after the Dissolution but, apparently in the hope that the schism was only a temporary matter, remained in groups until they could return to Syon. Abbess Jordan rented a farmhouse near Denham (Bucks.), and with her went nine of the community. (fn. 185) Another group, led by Catherine Palmer, went abroad, staying first at Antwerp and later at Termonde in Flanders until the restoration. (fn. 186) The accession of Queen Mary brought the fulfilment of their hopes. Naturally it took some time to gather together the scattered community, but some were enclosed by Cardinal Pole at Sheen in November 1556. (fn. 187) The official re-establishment of Syon was confirmed by the cardinal on 1 March 1557, (fn. 188) and in April letters patent were issued granting the site and more than 200 acres of land at Isleworth. (fn. 189) The community then consisted of 21 sisters and 3 brothers, with Catherine Palmer as abbess and John Green confessor-general. (fn. 190) A further grant of lands at Isleworth was made in January 1558. (fn. 191)

Meantime the work of refitting the buildings for monastic life had been going on, the cost being borne by Sir Francis Englefield who, through his wife, formerly Catherine Fettyplace, was related to two of the sisters. (fn. 192) The re-establishment was completed by the solemn enclosure of all who had rejoined by the Bishop of London, assisted by the Abbot of Westminster. (fn. 193) Both the queen and Cardinal Pole were rewarded for their favours by obits at the abbey. (fn. 194)

The community was not to remain long in enjoyment of its peaceful round. In May 1559 Parliament decreed the dissolution of the re-established monasteries, pensions being granted only to those religious willing to take the Oath of Supremacy. (fn. 195) Once again the community at Syon decided to continue its monastic life and it was arranged that the retiring Spanish ambassador, Feria, should take them and other religious abroad with him. (fn. 196) The community moved to Flanders, where it began a long exile in the Bridgettine house at Termonde. (fn. 197) Despite many difficulties and hazards it continued to exist in Flanders, France, and Portugal until its return to England in two groups, one in 1809 and the other in 1861, and it has been settled since 1925 at Marley, South Brent, Devon. (fn. 198)

Note that the house in Devon was finally closed in 2011. There were only three elderly nuns left and they could not maintain the convent. Before they had to close, the nuns published The Syon Breviary, an English translation of the Bridgettine Daily Office of Our Lady, which they continued to pray!