Continued from The Partitioned Land.

HARDLY had the foot of the man in purple touched our shores till the storm began to mutter. But when he bad entered, and thrown the gauntlet down before the Queen and the nation, then indeed did the tempest burst. The thunders of popular wrath awoke, and were heard to roll fearfully, and apparently were concentrating their terrors around the mitered head of him who, in evil hour for himself, as was believed, had so wantonly provoked them. Some there were who even went the length of commiserating the man who, together with his too bold project, stood, as they thought, upon the brink of annihilation.

In that peculiar symbolic style which it pleases Rome to employ, and which is so meaningless to him who understands it not, but so fraught with meaning to the man who can read it, Wiseman told the people of England and of the world, that the Pope, his master, regarded the Queen of Great Britain as but his vassal, and that no deed of hers had force or validity till countersigned in the Vatican. By an unmistakable act, he intimated that the land was his, to do with it as he pleased, — to divide and subdivide it, to put down whom he would, and to set up whom he would, — that, in short, the deity of the Seven Hills had extinguished all the lights of the ecclesiastical firmament of England, and had rolled it together as a scroll, and folded it up as a garment; seeing that, having been woven by heretical hands, it was incurably tainted with Protestant pravity (depravity); and that the same power had spread forth a new ecclesiastical heavens, and created a new ecclesiastical earth; and that it behooved every dweller on that earth, — every baptized man and woman in England, — to account himself henceforward a “good Catholic,” under peril of having to answer to Rome at a future day; and no sooner had this been intimated to us in the symbolic deeds and metaphorical words of Rome, than, after the first pause of astonishment — the first few moments of deep musing and marveling at the insolence of the man and the haughtiness of his language — was over, the blood of the nation rose to repel the insult.

The Prime Minister of the day, Lord John Russell, indited his Durham letter. He spoke with energy and courage; — every sentence, flashing and fiery, went to the mark like an arrow: but be had spoken for the first and last time. In this one effort Lord John had expended his whole stock of Protestant zeal, and henceforward had neither heart nor hand for effectual resistance to the invading foe. The prelates and clergy of the Church of England, whom Rome had so summarily unfrocked, placing them in the same category with the muftis of Islam and the fakirs of Hinduism, rose in defense of the validity of their orders and the Biblical character of their faith. The people of the land, whom Wiseman had taken captive with his “Edict,” and led, as it were, en masse to the baptismal font, loudly protested against being catholicized against their will, and vowed to defend their liberties as citizens of an independent country, and their rights of private judgment as rational beings. The whole nation was in motion.

Even Tractarianism, which for years had been marching with steady but stealthy steps towards the Seven Hills, quickening its speed the nearer it drew to that center of mysterious but potent attraction, suddenly stopped, and, pausing a moment to bethink itself turned its face in the opposite direction. It blew out its candles, took down its crosses, attired itself in vestments a little less fantastic, and learned to do its devotions with some abatement of that exuberance of genuflection and grimace in which it had found so much spiritual edification aforetime. It now beheld a greater than “York,” a greater than “Canterbury,” in the land. Like the old man who had prayed to Death to come to his aid, and, when the grim spectre stood before him, prayed yet more earnestly that he would depart, so was it with the Tractarians, or, as they now began to call themselves, Anglo-Catholics. This body had invoked Rome to come and rescue it from the fetters of Protestantism; and when it saw Rome standing over it, — when it felt the light of its red eye, and heard the tones of its voice, still husky by reason of old anathemas, — it faltered before the terrible presence, and prayed Rome to depart from it — for a season.

Leaving for a while the debates of the senate and the weighty cares of the judgment-seat, learned and eloquent statesmen, donning their armor, hastened to do battle alongside of their fellow-citizens. “Protestant England,” — so spoke the Lord Chancellor at the inaugural banquet of the Lord Mayor in Guildhall, — “Protestant England is informed that she has now come under a Catholic hierarchy. The hymn of triumph for admission to equality in civil liberty has given place to the note of insult, triumph, and domination, announcing that you have come under a Roman Catholic hierarchy. Considering the language of the document to which I refer, and considering the truly Roman construction which some attempt to put upon the oath of supremacy, it would seem as if some were acting in anticipation of the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, which represents a cardinal’s cap as equal to the crown of the Queen of England. If such be anticipated, I answer them in the language of Glo’ster, —

“‘Under our feet we’ll stamp thy cardinal’s hat,
In spite of Pope or dignities of Church.’”

The Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, speaking for all the Judges, refrained from touching on this topic, — the one topic to which he found that large and brilliant audience would listen, — only because he anticipated the appearance of his “Eminence” the Cardinal and his “Holiness” the Pope before his tribunal some of these days, to answer for their misdemeanors; “and Pius IX, with triple crown,” his Lordship said, “should receive the same justice from him as if he were a simple parish priest.” These valorous sentiments were re-echoed by the city magistracy of London, who, to encourage the rulers of the country in their steadfast resolution to maintain the independence of the throne and the ancient liberties of the kingdom, said that, “whether Ministers led or followed, one thing was certain, that Britons never would be slaves either to Puseyism or to Popery.”

Satire, as well as grave argument, was called into requisition on this great national emergency. Reason, speaking through the higher organs of the press, labored to prove that the claims of the Pontifical Court were unfounded and treasonable; and laughter, finding vent in the lighter journals, strove to render them ridiculous. The shafts of irony grazed the Cardinal’s hat. It was announced with great mock formality, that his Eminence Cardinal Pantaleone had arrived at the Golden Cross, Charing Cross, and that he was bearer of a message to the chief of the British Government, demanding the usual acknowledgment on the part of the Sovereign of Great Britain, which has been always, and from all time, a fief of the Holy See. In case of obstinate recusancy (the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services) (which was not apprehended), his Eminence was commissioned to proclaim the Prince of Lucca sovereign of these islands, — the Prince being direct and undoubted descendant of those legitimate monarchs of England who were driven by rebellion, the one to death and the other to banishment, from their palace of Whitehall.

It was also announced that the Holy Father had appointed Monsignor Snooks, with the title of Marquis Saint Bartholomew, Lord Chancellor of England, vice Lord Truro, who had not resigned; that the palace of Bedlam would be occupied by the new primate until the palace of Lambeth should be vacated by the (titular) Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr Sumner, to whom the office of parish beadle had been offered; that the Cathedral of Westminster would immediately be taken possession of by its rightful owners; that the heathen temple erected on the site of the old Basilica of St Paul’s would be given to Madame Tussaud, who was in treaty for it; and that, in fine, the statue of Saint MaryAxe, opposite the Post-Office, had on the previous Wednesday begun to wink with its left eye in so convincing a manner, that thirty-three letter-carriers, and two commercial gentlemen staying at the Bull and Mouth, were instantly converted.

Thus the movement appeared to be truly national. It extended to all parts of the kingdom. It embraced all classes and ranks, from the Prime Minister downwards. It included all bodies, from the hierarchs of England to the Methodists of Wales and the Presbyterians of Scotland, — from the corporation of the metropolis to the town councils of the provinces. Memorials were presented to the Queen, and petitions were sent to Parliament The country presented the appearance of a vast spiritual camp; and the din of spiritual war rung over the whole land. A touch of the melodramatic was thrown into what appeared to be fast becoming a tragedy, by “the Right Reverend Father in God, William, Lord Bishop of Brechin.” This prelate was heard to lift up his voice in the midst of the commotion, and protest against the Papal aggression on the ground of its being an unbrotherly act. It was, he held, an invasion of the rights of one bishop by another bishop. It was — oh, monstrous and unheard-of usurpation! — the Bishop of Rome intruding into the diocese of his brother the Bishop of Brechin.

The only practical measure which resulted from all this amount of protestation was the Ecclesiastical Titles Act. As, a measure of resistance to the Papal aggression, that act was miserably inadequate. As originally drafted, it contained some clauses which might have helped to defeat one main object the Church of Rome had in view in the aggression, namely, the more easy accumulation of property from deathbeds. The original draft, after prohibiting, under a penalty of one hundred pounds, the assumption of ecclesiastical titles taken from any place in the united kingdom, except in the case of the dignitaries of the Established Church, went on to declare null and void all deeds executed by persons bearing the prohibited titles; and it provided, moreover, that all legacies and gifts bequeathed to persons with such titles, or for their purposes, should be confiscated to the Crown. Even had the bill passed with these provisions, so necessary for the protection of the subject, and especially of the dying Papist, means would easily have been found to evade it. Simply by omitting the quasi title in a deed of gift, or by substituting one particle for another, — an at for an of, for instance, — the bill would have been rendered inoperative, and the death-bed of the Papist thrown open to the invasion of the priest But before the bill had passed, — indeed, before it had been brought in, — these clauses were struck out.¹

All that now remained of the bill was its opening clause, forbidding anyone to assume an ecclesiastical title taken from any city, town, or county of the united kingdom, and visiting the offense with the formidable penalty of one hundred pounds. This was all the fruit of the great agitation which had prevailed in the country for a full half-year before the passing of the bill. The act was utterly powerless to prevent the erection of the hierarchy, or to hinder the synodical action that was meant to follow. The Government believed, at least they maintained, that synodical action would be impossible under the bill; but obviously and undeniably there was nothing to prevent Dr Wiseman changing of into at, and assembling his suffragans in synod the very next day.

The bill did not deal with the cardinalate, — the first, the most offensive, and the most easily disposed of part of the affair. A prince of another State, he was permitted to reside and to exercise dominion, in the name of a foreign potentate, in the Queen’s dominions. The Papal machinery imported with the Cardinal, or to be imported in years to come, into the country, could be worked without check or challenge. What, then, had the country gained by the bill of the Government? It had gained this, and only this, — that as soon as the measure should have become law, Dr Wiseman would be obliged to subscribe himself Archbishop at Westminster, instead of Archbishop of Westminster. Practically the country has not gained even this small advantage; for, slight as was the change required to satisfy the law, Dr Wiseman did not put himself to the trouble of making it He has gone on from that day to this subscribing himself Archbishop of Westminster; and his suffragans have followed his worthy example, just as if no Ecclesiastical Titles Act were in existence. We do not recollect a single attempt on the part of Government to put in force their own act It was passed, put upon the statute-book, and there the matter ended.

Had the Papal aggression taken place in the times of the Commonwealth, — an occurrence which it is not easy to conceive of as happening while the Lord Oliver was at Whitehall, — Cromwell would not have so dallied with it. The Cardinal would never have been permitted to see his brave see of Westminster. His red hat, if not hung up at his point of debarkation, as a terror to all similar invaders of the nation’s independence in time to come, would, ere two hours had elapsed, have been hurried across the Channel. Admiral Blake would have been under weigh for Civita Vecchia; a battalion of Ironsides would have demanded explanations in the Vatican, and, if they found them unsatisfactory, they would to a certainty have brought the Pontiff, not as Lord Campbell, in a figure, but in actual fact, to answer in his own proper person before Cromwell’s Lord Chief Justice; and they might have brought away, at the same time, Peter’s chair, deeming it likely that there was no farther use for it at Rome, and that its more appropriate place was the British Museum, alongside the great bull of Nineveh and other kindred curiosities.

We live in a different age. Still, betwixt what would certainly have been the decisive and summary proceeding of the statesmen of Queen Elizabeth or of Cromwell, and the abortive expedient of the British Government in our day, there was room, surely, for a measure which, without trenching on conscience, would have vindicated the independence of the nation, and shielded the Queen from the traffickings of the Pope and the Cardinal. Meanwhile Wiseman stood firm. The realm of England appeared to rock to and fro beneath him: still he moved not Nay, when the storm was at its loudest, he found courage to speak a few quiet but very daring words. He knew well how unflinching the spirit, and how immovable the purpose, of Her who stood behind him. He had also taken the measure, with tolerable accuracy, of the sincerity and strength of those who brandished their weapons in front He waited, therefore, until the storm should subside, that he might go on with his work.

Thus did the trumpet summon the nation to a battle which, alas! never has been fought. The noise we made but deceived ourselves: it did not deceive Rome.

Continued in The Empire Within The Empire.

All sections of Rome and Civil Liberty – by James Aitkin Wylie

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