Coronations and Inaugurations

This week has seen the spectacularly uninspiring inauguration of King Willem of the Netherlands, a reminder of just how empty of meaning monarchy has become in Europe. It has also seen the Church of Scotland publish a paper on the possibility of a separate coronation for future Kings and Queens of Scots. The Netherlands are, admittedly, a peculiar case of a historic oligarchical republic that decided to adopt monarchy after the Congress of Vienna – but we see the same oaths to the constitution, display-piece brass crowns and feeble attempts at ceremonial in other European monarchies such as Spain and Belgium. The Netherlands are not unique in their meagre conception of the grandeur of monarchy.

Although I am reluctant to say it, I would be opposed to a separate coronation for a future King or Queen of Scots, primarily for pragmatic reasons. The Church of Scotland is not the established church in Scotland, and it has no more right to crown the monarch than the Catholic Church or the Episcopal Church. Charles II allowed himself to be crowned in a Presbyterian ceremony (the only one of its kind that has ever taken place) because he desperately needed the support of the Scots; Charles II was no Presbyterian and supported his father’s policy of imposing episcopacy on the Scots. The first coronation of a Scottish monarch after the Reformation, that of the infant James VI in 1567, was essentially Catholic and just omitted the mass; Charles I’s coronation at Edinburgh in 1633 was Episcopalian. There was a school of thought in the seventeenth century according to which no-one could be King of Scots without having taken the Scottish Coronation Oath, but James VII, who was accepted as King of Scotland, did not take this oath and never received a Scottish coronation.

I am astonished that the Church of Scotland is suggesting that the Kirk be enshrined as Scotland’s national church in a future written constitution; this is obviously inappropriate in a nation with a large Catholic minority that dominates its most populous city (Glasgow), where sectarian troubles still erupt from time to time. I strongly suspect that, if the idea of a separate coronation takes root, it will end up being a secular ceremony like the inauguration of the King of the Netherlands, because no-one will be able to agree on the role that the churches should play. A secular coronation is a nonsense, so it will end up as an inauguration ceremony much like those on the Continent. Of course, in an ideal world I should like to see the rightful King crowned at Scone by the Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh – but that prospect seems a remote one!

The overall strategy being employed by Unionists is to frighten the people of Scotland by emphasizing the alien and different nature of an independent Scotland; the best reply to this entirely negative tactic is to downplay the significance of independence. One part of this would be to downplay the difference between the monarchy of Scotland and that of England; the Crown of Scotland has already been displayed at the opening of the Scottish Parliament. Better than a separate Scottish coronation, and a better sign of the unity of a truly free family of kingdoms, would be the inclusion of a Scottish coronation oath, or an oath of fealty by Scottish peers, in a future English coronation ceremony. After all, ever since the Kings of England claimed the throne of France the coronation has not been a national event but rather the consecration of the monarch to serve as head of state in more than one nation. The oath could be based on the original Scottish coronation oath, thus acknowledging the slightly different concepts of sovereignty that the English and Scottish oaths embody.

The missing party in English politics

As an English Jacobite whose fundamental political concern is the dissolution of the United Kingdom and the restoration of Scotland and a united Ireland to their rightful positions as nation states, I find myself peculiarly disenfranchised when it comes to the political scene in England. No major political party in England supports the break-up of the United Kingdom. Those minor parties that do (such as the English Democrats) are very much on the right of the political spectrum: they are anti-Europe, anti-immigration and apparently attract former members of the British National Party. Furthermore, they are in favour of the establishment of an English Parliament separate from the Westminster Parliament. I can agree with none of these aims or aspirations, and feel most comfortable with the social democratic, pro-European agenda of the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. Yet I cannot vote for the SNP or Plaid because I live in England.

There is no political party in England (with the exception of Mebyon Kernow, which is obviously confined to Cornwall) that shares the SNP and Plaid’s political agenda, although it is reassuring that some English people who live in Wales are prepared to support Plaid. This can be explained away, I suppose, by a difference of political culture; Scotland has always felt closer to Europe and Wales has a strong socialist tradition. It is pleasing to note that the Scottish Labour Party is fracturing over independence, with a pro-independence faction that could form an opposition to the SNP in an independent Scotland – but why is no-one in the English Labour Party speaking up for Scottish independence as the best future for England? As I have suggested before, the political culture in England seems so brittle and politicians so insecure about British identity that no-one in England is prepared to advocate Scottish independence without the fear of being considered disloyal to the ‘United Kingdom’. Sadly this leaves the political ground open to extremists with no interest in the mutual co-operation of England, Scotland and Wales – after all, the English Democrats support England’s annexation of Monmouthshire!

England desperately needs a pro-European, social democratic party prepared to advocate radical reform of the ‘United Kingdom’ by unreservedly supporting Scottish and Welsh independence. I wish this would be the Labour Party, or at least individual elements within it. Calls for an ‘English Parliament’ are a red herring; by demanding this, so-called ‘English Nationalists’ are insulting the independence movements of Scotland and Wales by assuming that the Westminster Parliament will continue to claim jurisdiction over nations other than England. There is no need for an English Parliament because we already have one; unfortunately it is an English Parliament that, for centuries, has extended its jurisdiction beyond its just limits. I believe there are many people in England who are not so much ‘English Nationalists’ – a phrase that conjures up the worst of little Englandry – as ‘British Dissolutionists’; in other words, they are in favour of a more loosely constituted Britain that is a family of nations rather than a unitary state. To reject the unitary state is very edgy and modern, but it is also a profoundly Jacobite desire – that the monarch should form a centre of unity beyond politics rather than intrusive structures compelling unity.

Farewell to the Anglophile Pope

I suspect that Pope Benedict XVI, who unexpectedly resigned today, will be remembered as an anglophile; indeed, no pope has paid more attention to England since Pope Gregory XIII founded the Venerable English College, Rome in 1579. Benedict visited England, established Personal Ordinariates for the benefit of Anglicans, and beatified John Henry Newman. Not only that, but he showed through small but significant personal gestures that he had a particular interest in England – such as his donation of £2000 to the Catholic Chaplaincy to Cambridge University, Fisher House. Indeed, even Summorum Pontificum, which re-established the right of any priest to celebrate mass according to the Tridentine rite, was arguably motivated partly by the lead that English clergy and laity had taken in upholding the old mass when it was discarded in Europe by almost everyone apart from members of the schismatic Society of St Pius X. The church in England has been blessed to have a Pope so interested in what is, after all, a rather marginal component of the global church. By taking the name of Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger avowed his interest in the church in Europe, but I doubt anyone anticipated that he would take so close an interest in England.

On the other hand, Pope Benedict’s real understanding of the church in England is questionable. Whilst Personal Ordinariates along the lines of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham have been established in the United States and Australia, it was primarily members of the Church of England that Benedict wished to bring into communion with the Holy See by this means. Unfortunately, neither the Pope nor his advisers stopped to consider the impact that Anglicanorum coetibus would have on English Catholics. By mimicking the legal structures of Opus Dei, the Pope ensured that the English bishops were stripped of any authority over the ex-Anglicans, thus undermining the unity of the church. No-one, including the Pope, anticipated the defeat of the motion for women bishops at the General Synod in November, and Benedict’s actions now seem premature; one cannot help thinking that those who have joined the Ordinariate would have gone over to Rome anyway, with or without the special provisions that have been made. As things stand, however, the English bishops are forced to give way to the Ordinariate, even surrendering the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory in Piccadilly for their use. What would the Catholics who devotedly attended the Bavarian embassy chapel through years of persecution now think of the occupation of their church for ‘Catholics’ for whom the pill of conversion was sweetened by special legal and liturgical exemptions?

If Anglicanorum coetibus was (at least in my opinion) a disaster for church unity, Summorum pontificum will be Benedict XVI’s lasting legacy: not just because it allows a few priests to say the old rite and allows the laity a few more masses to choose from, but because it represents a more profound reconciliation of the legacy of Vatican II with those who remain uncomfortable with liturgical reform. Whilst the brief’s original intention – the reconciliation of the SSPX to the Holy See – has not come to fruition in the immediate term, this was no fault of the Pope’s and Summorum pontificum was above all else a statement of confidence. John Paul II seems always to have been afraid that concessions to traditionalists threatened the unity of the church, but in doing so he alienated one of the most enthusiastic (and vocation-rich) Catholic constituencies. Benedict XVI had the courage to believe that the new rite of mass could co-exist peacefully with the old and he was right; Summorum pontificum, combined with the revision of the English translation of the mass, has also had a stabilising effect on the liturgy in many English churches. I suspect that parish priests, conscious that their flock may now choose to attend an old rite mass, are sometimes more inclined to be sensitive to traditionalists. Thus I see crucifixes on altars, tasteful vestments and well-dressed servers where ten years ago such things were rareties confined to churches with ‘eccentrically’ conservative priests.

What the future of the Ordinariates will be I have no idea and, frankly, I do not much care; but overall, Benedict XVI deserves to be remembered for bringing a saner, more stable post-Vatican II church to maturity.

Why the Church of England should have approved women bishops

Yesterday the Church of England’s General Synod decided (by the narrowest of margins in the House of Laity) not to approve the consecration of women as bishops because the two groups most concerned about accepting the authority of a woman (some evangelicals and the Anglo-Catholics of ‘Forward in Faith’) did not feel that they would enjoy sufficient protection under the proposed arrangement. It is curious that the ordinary jurisdiction of a female bishop has become the major bone of contention here, rather than the question of whether a woman can receive episcopal orders, and this is a mark of the fact that the evangelicals are in control of the debate. After all, the apostolic succession and the sacramental character of episcopal orders are of less concern for them. For this reason I believe that ‘Forward in Faith’ should either admit that their real agenda is to oppose the ordination of woman in principle on the grounds of their interpretation of the apostolic succession, or drop their opposition to the idea of a woman acting as ordinary. If they admit the former then they are bound, for the sake of logical consistency and good conscience, to leave the Church of England for the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, who will I am sure be happy to receive them. If, on the other hand, they drop their opposition to the question of a woman exercising ordinary jurisdiction the measure will be able to gain the acceptance of General Synod.

It is ironic that Catholic theology and Canon Law does not restrict the exercise of ordinary jurisdiction to a bishop or even, in theory, to the clergy. The Ordinariate is a case in point, where the Ordinary is a priest with the style and honours of a bishop. Territorial abbots still exercise ordinary jurisdiction over diocese-sized territories, and of course all abbots exercise ordinary jurisdiction within their monasteries. Up to the French Revolution, the abbots in commendam of royal monasteries were rarely clerics and sometimes minors, and these exercised ordinary jurisdiction. Before the Council of Trent it was not uncommon for abbesses of royal and territorial monasteries to exercise such jurisdiction too. Again ironically, it is probably the influence of Vatican II that has led to the idea that ordinary jurisdiction should not be sundered from the order of bishops, but the historical record shows that this has not always been the case. Indeed, the historical case for the idea that women can, in principle, exercise ordinary jurisdiction is stronger than the case for the existence of female bishops in the early church.

Catholic conservatives in the Church of England have failed to justify why a female bishop exercising ordinary jurisdiction is different in kind from a female dean, for instance. If a Church of England diocese were to appoint a female priest as a diocesan administrator during a vacancy in see, would Canon Simon Killwick raise the same objections that he has to the consecration of a woman to a see? Furthermore, if ordinary jurisdiction is the issue, would the members of ‘Forward in Faith’ object to the consecration of a woman as a suffragan bishop? Suffragans have no ordinary jurisdiction and merely carry out the sacramental functions reserved to bishops such as ordination and confirmation. The ordination of female suffragans remains one possible way forward for the Church of England, since guarantees could easily be given that the suffragan would have no contact with parishes opposed to women’s ministry, but it is understandable that the church is not prepared to take this route, since it would definitively imply that women are ‘second class’ bishops.

Whether or not the church has ever consecrated women as bishops, my principal objection to ‘Forward in Faith’s view (and indeed that of the Vatican) is that the Church has incontestably consecrated women to exercise territorial authority over the Church higher than that of bishops – notably, Empresses and Queens. The Empress Irene ruled as Empress of the Romans and Equal of the Apostles in the late eighth century, restoring Orthodoxy and saving the Church from the Iconoclastic heresy at the Second Council of Nicea in 787 as well as reuniting the Greek and Roman churches. Whilst it is true that the succession of female rulers was always considered ‘second best’ to the succession of male descendants, this does not mean that the power of ‘female kings’ in mediaeval and early modern Europe was any less than their male counterparts. Indeed, the very fact that queens regnant were treated as if they were male demonstrates that the office of kingship is separable from the identity of the person who holds it. Whilst the Church made strenuous efforts, for political reasons, to deny that the consecration of kings and queens represented a form of ordination, the liturgies employed belie this later reinterpretation. It seems puzzling that a woman cannot be ordained bishop in the Church of England in the twenty-first century when a woman could be the Equal of the Apostles and the saviour of Christendom in the eighth.

Vatican II at 50

Fifty years ago this week, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council in St Peter’s Basilica, inaugurating a period of reform and turmoil in the Catholic Church worldwide. Historically, the implementation of General Councils takes a very long time. Jean-Marie Vianney was still implementing the Council of Trent in his rural French parish in the 1840s. If that is anything to go by, then the fiftieth anniversary of Vatican II is not the best time to evaluate its legacy – best to wait another half century, perhaps. Nevertheless, it is clear that some of the dust raised by the Council has now settled. Most notably, the liturgical issue that dominated the years after Vatican II seems to have been put to rest by Pope Benedict XVI. Summorum Pontificum (2007) made the Tridentine mass freely available to traditionalists, whilst the general trajectory (in England at least) is towards more conservative celebrations of the mass. A large Catholic church near me now has tall candlesticks and a small crucifix on the altar, when ten years ago such practices were an affectation of conservative clergy. In part this may be owing to the new English translation of the mass – an inelegant but certainly more accurate rendering of the original.

The reform of the liturgy was not, of course, the main purpose of Vatican II and it has served as a distraction ever since. As the priests of Brompton Oratory prove on a daily basis, the mass of Pope Paul VI, celebrated in Latin at an east-facing altar, is distinguishable only by experts from the mass of Pope Pius V. The Council permitted but did not enjoin the celebration of mass in the vernacular, a point almost completely missed by most bishops’ conferences throughout the world (with a few exceptions such as the Archdiocese of Riga). The supreme irony of the early years after Vatican II was the hierarchically-led nature of reform, when the Council called for greater participation of the laity. The nocturnal removal by the cathedral authorities of A. W. Pugin’s rood screen from St Chad’s, Birmingham, took place after strenuous opposition from the laity. Unfortunately the generation of priests who still believe they know best how much reform the laity need is still with us, but rapidly ageing and declining in significance.

As the liturgical issue fades into the background, I should like to think that the theological legacy of Vatican II might come to the fore. There is a great danger of reading Vatican II through the spectacles of the late ’60s and early ’70s, when the Council was seen as a liberalizing movement to compromise with worldly values. However, the Council is best seen in the context of the late ’50s, when there was a tentative revival of Biblical criticism after the stifling effect of the anti-Modernist backlash under Pius X and Pius XI. The Council’s call for a return to the Biblical and Patristic sources of Catholic teaching was not a new one, and it arguably took up a post-Tridentine theme that was neglected at the First Vatican Council. The work of (particularly French) Catholic theologians in the eighteenth century laid the foundations for a Catholicism more focussed on the Patristic inheritance, yet the French Revolution and the reactionary nature of nineteenth-century Catholicism largely frustrated the development of a true return to Patristic sources (with a few notable exceptions such as John Henry Newman).

The authentic spirit of Vatican II is a notoriously mercurial and controversial issue, but on a personal level I should like to believe that the Council’s true legacy will not be its liturgical reforms but rather the recollection of the Patristic and Biblical foundations of the Catholic faith; a faith rooted in ancient traditions rather than recent ones, free from the taint of doctrinal ‘fads’ such as the hysterical Mariology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Last of the Cupolas

The Cupola seen from Whiting Street before its destruction

In some of the oldest engravings of Bury St. Edmunds that portray the town’s whole skyline viewed from the east (probably from St. Edmund’s Hill, now Moreton Hall), the most prominent architectural features are not towers or spires (as they are today), but cupolas. In particular, the cupola on top of the belfry of St. James’s church (now known as the Norman Tower), the cupola on top of Moyse’s Hall and the lantern tower of the old market cross stand out; there was even a rather ugly cupola at one time on top of the Abbey Gateway. So popular were cupolas that, in 1693, the apothecary Thomas Macro built himself a large house in the Cornmarket with a high roof and a cupola that became the envy of the town and a local landmark. The Cupola House, known to natives simply as ‘The Cupola’, was a jewel of English baroque domestic architecture until it burnt down on the night of 16th June 2012. It was the last of Bury’s cupolas, the structures on top of the Norman Tower, Abbey Gateway and Moyse’s Hall having long disappeared. The back on the house collapsed into Skinner Street and with it, the Cupola itself crashed down into the smouldering roof.

Detail of the English baroque decorations on the Cupola

When Celia Fiennes visited Bury St. Edmunds in about 1703, the cupolas of the town, and one Cupola in particular, seem to have impressed her more than anything else she saw in the town:

The market Cross has a dyal and Lanthorn on the top, and there being another house pretty Close to it high built with such a tower and lanthorn also, with the two Churches towers and some other buildings pretty good, made it appear nobly at a distance. This high house is an apothecarys – at least 60 stepps up from the ground and gives a pleaseing prospect of the whole town. Severall streetes but no good buildings Except this, the rest are great old houses of timber and mostly of the old forme of the Country which are long peaked roofes of tileing. This house is the new mode of building; 4 roomes of a floore pretty sizeable and high, well furnish’d, a drawing roome and Chamber full of China and a damaske bed Embroyder’d: 2 other Roomes, Camlet and Mohaire beds; a pretty deale of plaite in his wives Chambers and parlours below, and a large shop. He is esteem’d a very Rich man. He shewed me a Curiosity of an Herball all written out with Every sort of tree and herb dryed and Cut out and pasted on the Leaves; it was a doctor of Physicks work that left it him a Legacy at his Death, it was a fine thing and would have delighted me severall dayes but I was passant.

Thomas Macro was, in fact, a gentleman farmer as well as an apothecary. He leased land at Barrow from the Catholic and Jacobite Rookwood family for nothing, in return for helping them avoid the rigour of the penal laws. On one occasion, Macro signed a petition to Queen Anne in 1703 asking for Thomas Rookwood to be allowed to return from his exile in Bruges. Furthermore, the Macro family’s interest in old books was not limited to a single curious herbal. Thomas Macro’s grandson, Cox Macro (d. 1767), was a collector of books and manuscripts of national renown who is now best remembered for collecting the mediaeval English mystery plays. The Cupola was the eccentric creation of a family determined to make their mark on Suffolk.

My earliest memories of the Cupola are of the dark, oak-panelled room at the back of the building, with its Delft tiles in the fireplace. The house retained many of its original fittings, including strange carved heads on the staircase. I tried hard to imagine it as an apothecary’s shop, full of the weird paraphernalia of the late 17th century pharmacopaea. The Cupola was then a tearoom of some sort; it then became a pub but fell into disrepair, so much so that it was put on the ‘Buildings at Risk’ register. Its penultimate incarnation was as a ‘Thai-fusion’ restaurant, and finally Strada acquired the building and renovated it, albeit in a somewhat anodyne fashion that scarcely made the best of its old world charm. I always regretted that Harriet’s tearooms, which established itself in the old fire station opposite, did not acquire the Cupola.

The Cupola’s uniqueness is worth remembering. Once, on returning from a visit to Vilnius, I glanced up at the Cupola and was instantly reminded of the Polish-Lithuanian baroque style of architecture that I had seen so much of. I have never seen a building like the Cupola, dating from the same era, in any other East Anglian town, nor indeed in any other town in England. A plaque on the outside of the building commemorated Daniel Defoe, who is supposed to have lived in the building between August and October 1704.

Plaque commemorating Daniel Defoe on the Cupola

Will the Cupola be re-built? I certainly hope so, although somehow I doubt it in the current economic climate.

The Trouble with Jacobites

Ash Wednesday is a day for self-reflection and self-criticism, and Jacobites and Jacobitism are as deserving as any in this regard. The abiding vice of Jacobites from the inception of the Jacobite movement has been their tendency to slip into fantasy. Love of a lost cause is not, I believe, a bad thing, but political and constitutional fantasising certainly is. The nineteenth century revival of Jacobitism was particularly guilty of this, and it is worth reflecting that the roots of neo-Jacobitism were rather different from those of eighteenth century Jacobitism. In the eighteenth century, Jacobitism was an expression of dissatisfaction with the ‘polite and commercial’ regime and constitutional status quo of Hanoverian England; a regime that proclaimed the Enlightenment and the brotherhood of man but was based on more or less open corruption and a complete disregard for the rights and liberties of ordinary English people. The Hanoverian regime put the aristocracy in charge, and created a monarchy that was dependent on and indeed part of the aristocracy, thus severing the direct link that had existed under the Stuarts between the monarch and the people. The Stuarts, who ruled by Divine Right, did not rule by the permission of Britain’s elites. Eighteenth century Jacobitism was a rag-bag of opposition to the Hanoverians – notably Irish and Scottish nationalism, marginalised religious groups like the Scottish Episcopalians, and advocates of reform and Enlightenment, many of them Freemasons. The Jacobite movement was catholic, liberal and syncretistic.

The neo-Jacobite movement, by contrast, was inspired by the French and Spanish Legitimist movements of the nineteenth century. Whilst the term ‘legitimist’ can be accurately (albeit retrospectively) applied to Jacobitism, the idea of restoring a legitimate monarchy was never the sole preoccupation of Jacobites; the destruction of the Act of Union and religious toleration were just as important as the restoration of the Stuart heir. For French Legitimists, by contrast, the restoration of the heir of Charles X took on esoteric religious significance as a consequence of the extreme ultramontane clericalism of the last Bourbon regime. Likewise, Carlism in Spain became a rallying point for conservative Catholics. In the great wave of enthusiasm for ultramontane Catholicism that enveloped the Catholic community in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century, it must have seemed obvious that Jacobitism was cognate with French Legitimism and Spanish Carlism, and indeed some of the early neo-Jacobites went so far as to run guns to the Carlists. However, although James II lost his throne because he was a Catholic, Jacobitism was never a Catholic movement as such. Anglicans, Episcopalians and dissenters were also involved, and the most vocal English Jacobites were members of the Church of England. Pope Innocent XI supported William of Orange and betrayed James II, and many Jacobites were anti-Papal in the extreme. Yet these facts are almost universally ignored by contemporary Jacobites, who assume that one should be a Jacobite because one is a Catholic, and that loyalty to the Pope and loyalty to the legitimate monarch are somehow linked. This is the influence of Continental Legitimist movements and it does not, I think, reflect the true, liberal-minded and somewhat rebellious character of Jacobitism. Jacobitism was the parent of Irish nationalism, which still has more in common with the original spirit of Jacobitism than Bourbon monarchism.

If they are to be taken seriously, contemporary Jacobites cannot be fixated on a Stuart restoration that is unlikely to happen within the foreseeable future. The original Jacobites displayed a great deal of flexibility, retaining their ideals whilst being prepared to accept the political status quo for the purpose of advancing a political agenda not limited to the substitution of monarchs. Profound constitutional issues face the Three Kingdoms today that can only be understood properly if the constitutional conflicts of the past, including the Jacobite question, are appreciated. Jacobitism offers a fresh perspective on the British constitution radically different from the platitudes of ‘Whig history’ still trotted out by the present government. It offers a vision of an alternative Britain liberated from post-Colonial fantasies and held together not by legal bonds but by mutual affection, and a re-invigorated monarchy that can provide a genuine check on the power and privilege of the political establishment.