Catholics From England

"King James the Second; who was a sour, cruel, and tyrannical disposition, and a zealous Papist. He resolved at once to be above the laws, make himself absolute, and establish popery; upon which the nation, very wisely and justly, turned him out, before he had reigned quite four years; and called the Prince of Orange from Holland, who had married King James's eldest daughter, Mary."

"James ascended the throne with all the ease of Richard Cromwell. He took every measure which forethought could enjoin to grasp the royal power, and his earliest declarations carried comfort to an anxious land. He tried to dispel the belief that he was vindictive or inclined to arbitrary rule. "I have often heretofore ventured my life in defence of this nation, and I shall go as far as any man in preserving it in all its just rights and liberties." He declared himself resolved to maintain in both State and Church a system of government established by law. "The laws of England," he said, "are sufficient to make the King a great monarch." He would maintain the rights and prerogative of the Crown, and would not invade any man's property. He is even reported to have said that "as regards his private religious opinions, no one should perceive that he entertained them." Nevertheless, from the moment he felt himself effectively King, on the second Sunday after his accession, he went publicly to Mass in his chapel. The Duke of Norfolk, who carried the sword of state before him, stopped at the door. "My lord," said the King, "your father would have gone farther." "Your Majesty's father would not have gone so far," rejoined the Duke."

"...the most interesting fact about the Tarot pack [is] that it is the subject of the most successful propaganda campaign ever launched: not by a very long way the most important, but the most completely successful. An entire false history, and false interpretations, of the Tarot pack was concocted by the occultists; and it is all but universally believed."

"Such were the lucidity of exposition and his mastery of the topic that it seems possible that, had he ever published it, the political theory of Britain would have been significantly different."

"Philosophy can take us no further than enabling us to command a clear view of the concepts by means of which we think about the world, and, by so doing, to attain a firmer grasp of the way we represent the world in our thought. It is for this reason and in this sense that philosophy is about the world."

"Begot by butchers, but by bishops bred, How high his Highness holds his haughty head!"

"Wolsey turned out to be the most disappointing man who ever held great power in England and used it for so long with skill and high intelligence... His foreign policy, often brilliant and never negligible, had resulted in the isolation of England, the enmity of both Spain and France, and the king's failure to get his divorce; it had been based on a false estimate of English power and directed consistently to ends in which England had little interest. The administration, badly in need of reform, was on the contrary more confused than before; the reserves of treasure were gone, prosperity was declining, trade neglected. The Church, his special charge, Wolsey left in an unprecedented state of weakness... Only in the law he had done things that bore fruit, and much though he liked the work of a judge he would surely have been dissatisfied with a verdict that allowed him but this piece of success. And yet it is hard to see what else one can say. Embodying in himself the link with Rome and the height of the medieval polity, he pulled them down in his fall; his death marks the close of the older order with as much definition as any man's fate ever marks the fate of nations."

"Summitry was now reaching its premodern heyday, for reasons relevant to our larger story.Although by about 1500 several strong national states had emerged in Europe, they remained greatly dependent on their monarchs. This kind of personalized power is at the heart of summitry. One of the most famous encounters took place on the so-called Field of the Cloth of Gold in June 1520, toward the summit bringing together Henry VIII of England and François I of France. The young English monarch, whose titles still included “King of France,” had resumed the old struggle in 1512. But his advisor Cardinal Thomas Wolsey secured a truce and then arranged a summit to consummate an enduring peace. It took place on the edge of Calais, the last English enclave in France, in a shallow dip known as the Val d’Or. Both sides of the valley were carefully reshaped to ensure that neither party enjoyed a height advantage. A special pavilion was constructed for the meeting and festivities, surrounded by thousands of tents and a three-hundred-foot-square timber castle for the rest of those attending. Henry’s entourage alone numbered more than five thousand, while the French crown needed ten years to pay off its share of the cost."

"Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out."

"Master Kingston, I see the matter against me now it is framed; but if I had served God as diligently as I have done the King He would not have given me over in my gray hairs."

"At the appointed hour on June 7, 1520, the Feast of Corpus Christi, the two monarchs with their retinues in full battle array appeared on the opposite sides of the valley. There was a moment of tense silence—each side feared an ambush by the other. Then the two kings spurred their horses forward to the appointed place marked by a spear in the ground and embraced. The ice was broken. They dismounted and went into the pavilion arm in arm to talk. Then began nearly two weeks of jousting, feasting and dancing that culminated in a High Mass in the open air. Choirs from England and France accompanied the mass and there was a sermon on the virtues of peace. n both choreography and cost, the Field of the Cloth of Gold resembles contemporary summits. In a further similarity, style was more important than substance: by 1521 the two countries were at war again. In many ways they were natural rivals, whereas Henry was bound—by marriage and interest—to France’s enemy Charles V, king of Spain. Both before and after the Cloth of Gold Henry met Charles for discussions of much greater diplomatic magnitude. And although Wolsey hoped the meeting of the British and French elites might build bridges, this soon proved an illusion. As the Cloth of Gold demonstrated, egos were everything in these summits, with each side alert to any hint of advantage gained summits by the other. Commines was implacably opposed to such meetings for this very reason. It was, he said, impossible “to hinder the train and equipage of the one from being finer and more magnificent than the other, which produces mockery, and nothing touches any person more sensibly than to be laughed at.”"

"I am come to leave my bones among you."

"The modern theory that you should always treat the religious convictions of other people with profound respect finds no support in the Gospels. Mutual tolerance of religious views is the product not of faith, but of doubt."

"The Royal Navy was Henry's creation, and it saved both himself and his daughter after him when they adopted an island policy and defied the Catholic powers of Europe. Wolsey had no notion of the importance of sea power to England. He was a great medieval churchman, a civil servant of the old school, and a diplomatist of the Renaissance type. But of the future development of England at home and on the sea Wolsey had no vision at all. His master, with that curious instinct of oneness with the English people which was the secret of Tudor greatness, saw deeper. He could use Wolsey's consummate administrative powers during the years of his own apprenticeship in statecraft, and then pass over him along a path of his own which no Cardinal could be expected to tread."

"At this time, the commons had as their counselor a chaplain of evil disposition named Sir John Ball, which Sir John advised them to get rid of all the lords, and of all the archbishops and bishops, and abbots, and priors, and most of the monks and canons … and that their possessions should be distributed among the laity. For which sayings he was esteemed among the commons as a prophet — and a fit reward he later got, when he was hung, drawn, and quartered, and beheaded as a traitor."

"When Adam delved, and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty."

"He was preaching socialism long before Marx, Stalin or Brezhnev. He said things would not go well for England until all property was held in common. He was hanged, they cut his stomach out and he was drawn and quartered, his body cut into four pieces. That was the way they treated the Militant Tendency in 1381."

"Now reigneth pride in prize and covetousness is held wise, and lechery without shame and gluttony without blame. Envy reigneth with treason and sloth is taken in great season. God do boot, for now is time. Amen."

"My good friends, things cannot go on well in England, nor ever will until everything shall be in common, when there shall be neither vassal nor lord, and all distinctions levelled; when the lords shall be no more masters than ourselves. How ill they have used us!… They have wines, spices and fine bread, when we have only rye and the refuse of fine straw; and if we drink, it must be water. They have handsome seats and manors, when we must brave the wind and rain in our labours in the field; but it is from our labour they have the wherewith to support their pomp.… Let us go to the king, who is young, and remonstrate with him on our servitude, telling him we must have it otherwise, or that we shall find a remedy for it ourselves."

"Henry VII's government was more effective than that of Henry VIII before 1530 simply because he employed such "conciliar" methods more consistently, more energetically, and perhaps more ruthlessly. But if they are to be judged they must not be measured against a false standard of morality or constitutionalism. For they were neither immoral nor unconstitutional, resting as they did on the king's just prerogative and the needs of the country. One might condemn them because they caused more unpopularity than they were worth: that seems to have been the opinion of those who advised Henry VIII on his accession. The whole history of Henry VII's reign seems to me to disprove this judgment. Hostile views of these methods have prevailed for so long that Henry VII's reputation looked like being permanently damaged by those very things he thought most conducive to strong and good government in England. Yet by an agreeable stroke of justice he has now recovered a high standing among English sovereigns precisely because he governed well and wisely by methods which those who evaded the law might well resent but which represented no rapacity and required no remorse."

"Perhaps we are now in a position to pronounce with some confidence on the nature of Henry VII's fiscal policy. Down to about 1495 the king and his ministers were mainly engaged in extending the operation of the royal prerogative and erecting a system which would bring in the maximum return from landed revenues and feudal rights... the main work consisted in the extension of the king's legal claims, and this was quite complete by 1495. In the years that followed it appears that Henry turned to the problem of penal statutes, and from 1500 we know that an organization for their enforcement existed. These two activities—which in any case overlapped—do not represent a contrast between justifiable right and unjustifiable extortion. Though two different targets were involved, it is clear that both were targets properly constructed for the king's arrows. The most that one can say is that very possibly some of the exactions which resulted from this consistent and determined policy were oppressive and some unjust. A policy designed to restore half-vanished rights and enforce neglected laws cannot escape being harsh at times. But nothing in the discoverable facts hints at excessive injustice, at a change of attitude, or at some deterioration in the king's character after nearly twenty years of rule."

"Prerogativa Regis, which if denied the status of a statute clearly had that of a declaration of the common law. Under their intensive scrutiny that document encompassed more than a medieval escheator would have found within it and thus Henry's feudal rights went well beyond those of his predecessors, but such results were achieved by the rigorous use of the law and logic rather than by their neglect. Admittedly the distinction was not one likely to be fully appreciated by landowners who now felt the full force of an expanded prerogative."

"Right trusty, worshipful and honourable good friends, and our allies, I greet you well. Being given to understand your good devoir and entreaty to advance me to the furtherance of my rightful claim, due and lineal inheritance of that crown, and for the just depriving of that homicide and unnatural tyrant which now unjustly bears dominion over you, I give you to understand that no Christian heart can be more full of joy and gladness than the heart of me your poor exiled friend, who will, upon the instant of your sure advertising what power you will make ready and what captains and leaders you get to conduct, be prepared to pass over the sea with such force as my friends here are preparing for me. And if I have such good speed and success as I wish, according to your desire, I shall ever be most forward to remember and wholly requite this your great and moving loving kindness in my just quarrel. Given under our signet. H."

"Medieval English military institutions...had been deliberately demolished by Henry VIII's father in his determination to impose the authority of the crown on the great nobles. He forbade private armies of retainers, except under special royal licence in the case of a few trusted magnates. No new royal military organization had replaced this abolished medieval source of troops. Unlike European monarchs, Henry VII had not needed a royal army to suppress by force his overmighty subjects and reunite his kingdom. For the traditional powers and authority of the English monarchy were much stronger than those handed down by struggling medieval European kingships. Englishmen – even jealous nobles – stood more in awe of the Crown and the law than Europeans, whose great vassals exercised almost independent rule over their own lands."

"His body was slender but well built and strong; his height above the average. His appearance was remarkably attractive and his face was cheerful, especially when speaking; his eyes were small and blue, his teeth few, poor and blackish; his hair was thin and white; his complexion sallow. His spirit was distinguished, wise and prudent; his mind was brave and resolute and never, even at moments of the greatest danger, deserted him. He had a most pertinacious memory. Withal he was not devoid of scholarship. In government he was shrewd and prudent, so that no one dared to get the better of him through deceit or guile. He was gracious and kind and was as attentive to his visitors as he was easy of access. His hospitality was splendidly generous; he was fond of having foreigners at his court and he freely conferred favours on them. But those of his subjects who were indebted to him and who did not pay him due honour or who were generous only with promises, he treated with harsh severity. He well knew how to maintain his royal majesty and all which appertains to kingship at every time and in every place. He was most fortunate in war, although he was constitutionally more inclined to peace than to war. He cherished justice above all things; as a result he vigorously punished violence, manslaughter and every other kind of wickedness whatsoever. Consequently he was greatly regretted on that account by all his subjects, who had been able to conduct their lives peaceably, far removed from the assaults and evil doing of scoundrels. He was the most ardent supporter of our faith, and daily participated with great piety in religious services. To those whom he considered to be worthy priests, he often secretly gave alms so that they should pray for his salvation. He was particularly fond of those Franciscan friars whom they call Observants, for whom he founded many convents, so that with his help their rule should continually flourish in his kingdom. But all these virtues were obscured latterly only by avarice, from which...he suffered. This avarice is surely a bad enough vice in a private individual, whom it forever torments; in a monarch indeed it may be considered the worst vice, since it is harmful to everyone, and distorts those qualities of trustfulness, justice and integrity by which the state must be governed."

"Legend sees him as a miser. Truth acquits him of this vice. Legend fostered the impression that at his death he bequeathed to his son vast sums of gold and silver. Even in his lifetime rumour said that it amounted to some £1,800,000. Truth denies that he left in chests such stores of silver and gold, but it adds that he left very considerable resources, largely in the form of papers. The qualification is important. Those papers were recognisances and obligations. They bore witness to transactions whereby subjects had been bound to the King to perform certain promises, default being followed by the forfeiture of heavy sums of money. Despite what has been said to the contrary, most of these pledges were not the result of extortionate practices on the part of the King or his agents. They were rather symbols of Henry’s devices for good government. They represent the means he adopted to gain a hold over lawless subjects who could not be adequately dealt with even by his re-shaped court of star chamber, which he was using to force the great nobles to keep the peace. They were a means of raking in money; but they were also a guarantee of security and peace."

"Before the end of his reign he had overhauled the whole of the machinery of financial administration, and he left it completely modernised, so much so that we may say that the main outline of our present-day system of finance was blocked out by him. He enjoyed the work, had a flair for it that was the nearest approach to genius Henry ever revealed. By close application he so equipped himself for this task that before the end of his reign he was virtually his own chief financial officer. Day by day he went carefully through his official accounts, annotating them, scrawling his big initial H in bold strokes across the pages, mastering their contents, and using that knowledge to institute reforms in financial administration. That is why experts see in his scientific reorganisation of the exchequer and the departments of the household and the chamber, the work which must stand out as the really constructive contribution Henry made to the transition from mediaeval to modern England."

"He who travels in the Barque of Peter had better not look too closely into the engine room."

"If you have a sloppy religion you get a sloppy atheism."

"A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

"It doesn't do to say that heresy produces the development of doctrine, because that annoys the theologians. But it is true to say that as a matter of history the development of doctrine has been largely a reaction on the Church's part to the attacks of heresy."

"All these riches, then, of her theology the Church has acquired, one might almost say, like the British Empire, in a fit of absence of mind. She was so busy scrapping with the heretics that she wasn't conscious of saying anything she hadn't always said; and yet, when she had time to sit down and look about her, she found it took ten minutes to sing the Credo instead of three."

"Sir Max Beerbohm and Mgr Ronald Knox; each stands at the summit of his own art. They differ in scope. Where they attempt the same tasks, in parody, they are equal and supreme over all competitors. Sir Max has confined himself to the arts; Mgr Knox goes higher, to the loftiest regions of the human spirit. His Enthusiasm should be recognized as the greatest work of literary art of the century."

"The prevailing attitude of the speakers was one of heavy disagreement with a number of things which the reader had not said."

"It is so stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in the devil, when he is the only explanation of it."

"Only those of us, I think, who were born under Queen Victoria know what it feels like to assume, without questioning, that England is permanently top nation, that foreigners do not matter, and that if the worst comes to the worst, Lord Salisbury will send a gunboat."

"There once was a man who said: "God Must think it exceedingly odd If he finds that this tree Continues to be When there's no one about in the Quad.""

"When suave politeness, temp'ring bigot zeal Corrected I believe to One does feel."

"Only man has dignity; only man, therefore, can be funny."

"Words are living things, full of shades of meaning, full of associations; and, what is more, they are apt to change their significance from one generation to the next. The translator who understands his job feels, constantly, like Alice in Wonderland trying to play croquet with flamingoes for mallets and hedgehogs for balls; words are for ever eluding his grasp."

"I suppose there has been no subtler attack upon the Christian faith devised by its enemies in these last hundred years than the attack made in the name of "comparative religion". If you pick up a book on "Atonement", and plough your way through ideas of atonement among primitive tribes, pagan ideas of atonement, Jewish ideas of atonement, Christian ideas of atonement, you will find by the end of it that atonement, for the author's mind, has ceased to have any meaning. And he has been successful, in so far as he has managed to infect your mind with the wooliness which is the leading characteristic of his own. Comparative religion is an admirable recipe for making people comparatively religious."

"Necessity knows no law, and the starving man has a natural right to a share of his neighbor's bread."

"All human conflict is ultimately theological."

"In an address before the "Academia," which had been organized to combat "science falsely so called," Cardinal Manning declared his abhorrence of the new view of Nature, and described it as "a brutal philosophy—to wit, there is no God, and the ape is our Adam." …These attacks from such eminent sources set the clerical fashion for several years."

"The softness, and the glare, and the temptations, and the licence, and the lax examples about us, are more seducing and dangerous than the winter of penal laws. They hardened the manhood of Catholic parents. The summer sun relaxes many."

"Twenty errors in practice are as nothing compared with one error in principle. Twenty errors in practice may be corrected, and the twenty-first may never be committed; but one erroneous principle is like a damaged wheel in a machine. It can never work correctly afterwards. One speculative error will produce an infinite series of practical errors. The series is inexhaustible, until the machine itself is either amended or destroyed."

"A necessity of my reason constrains me to believe the existence of God, because I can in no other way account for my own existence.… I know that I am. I am either uncaused, or self-caused, or caused by a cause."

"Now it is certain, by the voice of all mankind, that God speaks to us through His works—that He whispers to us through our natural conscience—that He attracts us to Him by instincts, and desires, and aspirations after a happiness higher than sense, and more enduring, more changeless, than this mortal life. God speaks to us articulately in the stirring life of nature, and in the silence of our own being."

"Our character is our will; for what we will we are."

"What is dogma but the intellectual conception and verbal expression of a divine truth?"